Obsessions with Flies Back in China after 75 Years

Much merriment is being had at the expense of Beijing’s Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment announcement that public toilet hygiene must be improved and that no more than two flies will be tolerated in any one public bog. Any more than two flies discovered in a toilet and someone’s in trouble. All a bit daft and of course unenforceable and typical sort of oddity from Chinese officials. Here’s the BBC report on it all. I point to the BBC for no particular reason except that the article includes an unintentionally hilarious “At the Scene” piece from BBC hack Michael Bristow – now I know that some overpaid honcho at the Beeb will have decreed that all internet stories must be accompanied by an “At the Scene” piece and it probably works from the trenches of Basra or Afghanistan, but “At the Scene” of a Beijing lavvy!! What intrepid journalism!!

Anyway, the point of this post is of course to put the “two flies” campaign into some sort of historical context. Now many will know of the silly Four Pests Campaign during the Great Leap Forward which targeted flies as well as rats, mosquitoes and sparrows. Many of you will also know that it was daft as killing all the sparrows meant worms proliferated as a far greater pest. The food chain not being one of Mao’s strong skills. A massive disaster – kids shooting down pest eating sparrows above in this poster.

But hatred of flies goes back even further. Here from my Carl Crow biography based on his observations of the Madame Chiang Kai-shek inspired New Life Movement of the 1930s:

“The New Life Movement had its slightly comical side, which Madame Chiang acknowledged to Crow when she explained the policy to him. The rampant spread of signs urging people not to commit suicide or not to visit brothels were some manifestations of exuberance as were the fly extermination contests in local schools where prizes were awarded to school children bringing the most dead flies to class for the teacher’s inspection and counting by official tellers. Crow noted that exterminating China’s fly population was probably an impossibility but did record with encouragement on a trip to Suzhou at the time that the vendors of ripe red slices of watermelon were now covering their wares with mosquito nets. To Crow the small changes, such as the local signs and wire nets over food stalls, were further indication that in China change always ultimately comes from below be it school children collecting flies, the anti-gambling patrols that wandered the back streets of Chongqing listening for the telltale click of Mahjong tiles late at night or the train boys Crow noted on the Lung-hai railway who voted to forgo their tips for the sake of the Movement. This soon proved problematic as tips were an important part of their salary so they revised their decision and decided to only forgo accepting tips from foreigners.”

CKS and Madame on a tour checking out how well their New Life Movement was doing in 1934

A Few More US Reviews of Midnight in Peking

A few more reviews that are also, in some instances, broader features on Beijing and so may be of interest…

Jonathan Kaiman came for a stroll through the hutongs, Legation Quarter and the Badlands back in March and makes some apposite points about the book, 1937 and modern day Beijing and Chinese politics in the Los Angeles Times here and re-ran in the Chicago Tribune here.

The Christian Science Monitor did a question and answer session here – Can’t believe they actually printed my term “bum-numbingly boring” – someone will complain about British smut getting in the papers!! Carry On Up the Fox Tower!!

A longer and more in-depth interview with Peter Boyle on 630 K-HOW in Denver – here

A mixed review from USA Today where the reviewer even got my name wrong and didn’t like the book much at all! here. However, they changed the mistake and then, very kindly, made me a Book of the Weekend pick.

And the mighty Oprah‘s Spring Reading list – here

The San Francisco Bay Guardian did a Q&A on Midnight in Peking here

PopMatters were kind too!

And the New Yorker book blog likes Midnight in Peking too

Remembering Pierre Loti, Spurred by the Recession in London Sadly

I shouldn’t have to explain to the sort of educated folk that browse China Rhyming who Pierre Loti was – but I will. French naval officer and novelist who spent time and wrote about Tahiti and the South Seas and took the pseudonym “Loti” (red Flower) while in Polynesia. He also served and wrote about French Indo-China, Tonkin in work that was not always pro-French and got him into hot water. His Japanese-inspired novel Madame Chrysantheme (1877) is seen as a precursor to both Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. Of course in England he became notorious for his book L’inde sans les Anglais (India, Without the English – indeed!!!). Still, from the point of view of this blog it was Loti’s participation with the French forces in Peking in 1900 at the relief of the Boxer siege that is most interesting and his subsequent book Les Derniers Jours de Pekin (Last Days of Peking – 1902). Later, in 1912, he also wrote a stage version of the Sinologist Judith Gautier’s The Daughter of Heaven for Sarah Bernhardt in New York – chinois theatre! His house in Rochefort was apparently an Orientalists wet dream. I’ve also included this lovely portrait of him done by Henri Rousseau in 1891.

All of which was prompted to the front of my mind today while walking down Rathbone Place, just off Oxford Street in Fitzrovia where, sadly, a restaurant called Pierre Loti has just shut….perhaps the English are still not ready to the forgive Pierre Red Flower for that book about India!

James Hudson Taylor Gets a Chinese Blue Plaque From the Good Folk of Barnsley

The tradition of erecting English Heritage Blue Plaques on buildings in the UK where famous folk resided is well established. I’ve mentioned a few London plaques on this blog before that have China connections – for instance, the poet and lecturer William Empsom who spent a long time in Peking recently had a plaque unveiled to him on Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury. There are several other China-related Blue Plaques around London – for instance in 2003 a Blue Plaque was unveiled in honour of Lao She at 31 St James’s Gardens in London, where Lao She lived between 1925 and 1928. It is the only blue plaque in London to feature Chinese characters and, significantly, it is the only one to commemorate a Chinese writer.

But now there is a blue plaque with Chinese writing on display up north…in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. the Gospel Herald (some sort of Christian newspaper – it popped up on Google, obviously I’m not a believer or anything daft like that) reports that a plaque has been unveiled on Barnsley’s Cheapside to James Hudson Taylor.  It was unveiled by the Mayor of Barnsley, Cllr. Dorothy Higginbottom (honestly, you couldn’t make up a better Yorkshire name!!) and the Rev. Dr. Lai Pong from the Chinese Christian Community in Leeds. Well done to the local Barnsley Civic Trust and some local businesses who funded it as it is interesting and he is best known for founding the China Inland Mission.

Now who, you may well ask, was James Hudson Taylor (apart form the founder of the CIM)? Well, he was a rather important figure in the history of Christian missionaries to China(not a group who feature often on the pages of China Rhyming admittedly). A brief official bio as follows – “James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was an English missionary to China. At the age of 21, Taylor left his homeland to China and started his works near Shanghai, where he then established a church. He founded the China Inland Mission, one of the largest and Christian movements in the world. Taylor spent 51 years in China. The society that he began was responsible for bringing over 800 missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all eighteen provinces.” Wikipedia has more on him here.

It seems Hudson Taylor had some adventures including nearly being killed in Shanghai and Yangzhou though ultimately whether he was more or less of an annoying and interfering God Botherer than any other missionary I don’t really know. I’m afraid my experience of missionaries is that they are all a pious and sanctimonious pain in the arse wandering around with their Big Book of Fairy Stories praying on weaker minds with their nonsensical superstition – but, hey, if it’s your thing! Anyway, below is a drawing of him almost being killed in Shanghai.

Midnight in Peking Comes to Asia House – London 25/5/12 – Lunch and Literature

I’ll be speaking at a lunch at the lovely Asia House in the heart of London’s Marylebone on the 25th May about Midnight in Peking and with an old mate Misha Glenny doing the chairman honours. It should be a good event and a fine meal and all part of Asia House’s May Festival of Asian Literature.

More details here

Roy Lichtenstein’s Chinese Landscapes

Damned annoyed to have missed the exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein’s (he of pop art fame) Landscapes in the Chinese Style which ran at the Gagosian in New York until April. You can still see the works here though. I was not personally aware of these Chinese inspired works previously I must admit but rather like them. Hopefully the exhibition will move, perhaps to the Gagosian in London which would be handy for me at the moment!

A Little Early Plug – Thailand’s Hidden Workforce

A little plug nice and early for the third book in the series that I edit for Zed Books called Asian Arguments. More details to follow but it is a little known area of study – the Burmese women who migrate to northern Thailand’s manufacturing towns for work – in an area now attracting much renewed interest as Burma finally shifts. More to follow soon, but it’s available for pre-order now on Amazon:

Thailand’s Hidden Workforce

Burmese Migrant Burmese Migrant Women Factory Workers

Ruth Pearson and Kyoko Kusakabe

Millions of Burmese women migrate into Thailand each year to form the basis of the Thai agricultural and manufacturing workforce. Un-documented and unregulated, this army of migrant workers constitutes the ultimate ‘disposable’ labour force, enduring grueling working conditions and much aggression from the Thai police and immigration authorities. This insightful book ventures into a part of the global economy rarely witnessed by Western observers. Based on unique empirical research, it provides the reader with a gendered account of the role of women migrant workers in Thailand’s factories and interrogates the ways in which they manage their families and their futures.

China’s Car History – Remember and Salute the Hongqi!

I accidentally came across this web site on the history of cars in China which is rather memory jerking for some of us at the wrong end of the age scale and also quite amusing. It’s part of carnewschina.com and you can see posts here under the China Car History heading.

Some highlights (for me) include those old ‘made in China’ Citroens as well as Yunbao‘s. Personally I always loved the Hongqi (Red Flag) and remember the joy in Shanghai and Beijing when you got one of the rare Hongqi taxis! The bulletproof Hongqi is also cool – you can see one at Soong-ching Ling’s place up on Huaihai Road.

Do check out this site – loads of great old cars…

The bulletproof Hongqi heads out to someone’s dacha!