China and the West

Shaw, George Bernard. Works. [Eintragungen über China].
http://www.online-literature.com/george_bernard_shaw/.

1882
Shaw, George Bernard. Cashel Byron's profession. (New York, N.Y. : E.P. Dutton, 1882). (Wayfarer's library.) = (London : The Modern Press, 1886). = [First rev. ed. 1889]. (London : W. Scott ; New York, N.Y. : Brentano's, 1889).
Prologue
"When he at last began to assist his master in giving lessons the accounts had fallen into arrear, and Mrs. Skene had to resume her former care of them; a circumstance which gratified her husband, who regarded it as a fresh triumph of her superior intelligence. Then a Chinaman was engaged to do the more menial work of the establishment."
Chap. II
"Near the fireplace was a great bronze bell of Chinese shape, mounted like a mortar on a black wooden carriage for use as a coal-scuttle."

1884
Shaw, George Bernard. An unsocial socialist. In : To-day : Monthly magazine of scientific socialism. (1884).
Chap. 2
"Oriental taste was displayed in the colors of her costume, which consisted of a white dress, close-fitting, and printed with an elaborate china blue pattern; a yellow straw hat covered with artificial hawthorn and scarlet berries; and tan-colored gloves reaching beyond the elbow, and decorated with a profusion of gold bangles."

1897
Shaw, George Bernard. The devil's disciple. (London : A. Constable, 1897). (The dramatic works of Bernard Shaw ; 8). [Geschrieben 1897 ; Erstaufführung Harmanus Bleecker Hall, Albany, N.Y., 1897].
"The American Unionist is often a Separatist as to Ireland; the English Unionist often sympathizes with the Polish Home Ruler; and both English and American Unionists are apt to be Disruptionists as regards that Imperial Ancient of Days, the Empire of China."
Act I
RICHARD [holding up the stuffed birds]
Here you are, Christy.
CHRISTY [disappointed]
I'd rather have the China peacocks.
RICHARD
You shall have both. [Christy is greatly pleased.] Go on.

1898
Shaw, George Bernard. Mrs. Warren's profession : a play. In : Shaw, George Bernard. Plays : Pleasant and unpleasant. Vol. 1-2. (London : Grant Richards, 1898). (Library of English literature ; LEL 20506). [Geschrieben 1893 ; Erstaufführung London's New Lyric Club, 1902].
The Author's apology
"None of our plays rouse the sympathy of the audience by an exhibition of the pains of maternity, as Chinese plays constantly do."

1898
Shaw, George Bernard. The perfect Wagnerite : a commentary on the Ring oft he Niblungs. (London : G. Richards, 1898).
Siegfried as protestant.
"Anarchism is an inevitable condition of progressive evolution. A nation without Freethinkers - that is, without intellectual Anarchists – will share the fate of China."

1898
Shaw, George Bernard. You never can tell. In : Shaw, George Bernard. Plays : Pleasant and unpleasant. Vol. 1-2. (London : Grant Richards, 1898). (Library of English literature ; LEL 20506). [Erstaufführung Royality Theatre, London 1899]
Act II
WAITER. Oh, yes, sir. Given by the regatta committee for the benefit of the Life-boat, sir. (To Mrs. Clandon.) We often have them, ma'am : Chinese lanterns in the garden, ma'am : very bright and pleasant, very gay and innocent indeed.

1903
Shaw, George Bernard. Maxims for revolutionists. In : Shaw, George Bernard. Man and superman : a comedy and a philosophy. (London : A. Constable, 1903).
"The Chinese tame fowls by clipping their wings, and women by deforming their feet. A petticoat round the ankles serves equally well."

1903
Shaw, George Bernard. The revolutionist's handbook and pocket companion. In : Shaw, George Bernard. Man and superman : a comedy and a philosophy. (London : A. Constable, 1903).
"We have demanded the decapitation of the Chinese Boxer princes as any Tartar would have done ; and our military and naval expeditions to kill, burn, and destroy tribes and villages for knocking an Englishman on the head are so common a part of our Imperial routine that the last dozen of them has not called forth as much pity as can be counted on by any lady criminal."

1904
Shaw, George Bernard. John Bull's other island. In : Shaw, George Bernard. John Bull's other island and Major Barbara ; also How he lied to her husband. (London : A. Constable, 1907). [Erstaufführung Royal Court Theatre, London 1904].
Act IV
LARRY. Yes, mine if you like. Well, our syndicate has no conscience : it has no more regard for your Haffigans and Doolans and Dorans than it has for a gang of Chinese coolies.

1905
Shaw, George Bernard. The irrational knot : being the second novel of his nonage. (London : Constable ; New York, N.Y. : Brentano's, 1905). [Geschrieben 1880].
Chap. II
"She was unable to make her resentment felt, for she no longer cared to break glass and china."

1906
Shaw, George Bernard. The doctor's dilemma. (London : Constable, 1908). [Erstaufführung Royal Court Theatre, London 1906].
Author's preface
"The Chinaman who burnt down his house to roast his pig was no doubt honestly unable to conceive any less disastrous way of cooking his dinner; and the roast must have been spoiled after all (a perfect type of the average vivisectionist experiment); but this did not prove that the Chinaman was right: it only proved that the Chinaman was an incapable cook and, fundamentally, a fool."

1907
Shaw, George Bernard. Major Barbara. In : Shaw, George Bernard. John Bull's other island and Major Barbara ; also How he lied to her husband. (London : A. Constable, 1907.) [Erstaufführung Royal Court Theatre, London, Nov. 28, 1905].
Act III
"I felt like her when I saw this place - felt that I must have it - that never, never, never could I let it go ; only she thought it was the houses and the kitchen ranges and the linen and china, when it was really all the human souls to be saved…"

1909
Shaw, George Bernard. The shewing-up of Blanco Posnet. (London : Constable, 1909). [Erstaufführung Abbey Theatre, Dublin Castle, 1909].
Author's preface
"But there is this simple and tremendous difference between the cases: that whereas no evil can conceivably result from the total suppression of murder and theft, and all communities prosper in direct proportion to such suppression, the total suppression of immorality, especially in matters of religion and sex, would stop enlightenment, and produce what used to be called a Chinese civilization until the Chinese lately took to immoral courses by permitting railway contractors to desecrate the graves of their ancestors, and their soldiers to wear clothes which indecently revealed the fact that they had legs and waists and even posteriors."

1910
Shaw, George Bernard. Misalliance. In : In : Misalliance, The dark lady of the sonnets, and Fanny's first play. (London : Constable, 1910). [Printed for private use in the heatre only. Confidential. Not to be circulated.] [Erstaufführung Charles Frohman's Duke of York's Repertory Theatre, 1910].
Act I
"I know only one person alive who could drive me to the point of having either to break china or commit murder ; and that person is my son Bentley."

1910
Shaw, George Bernard. Fanny's first play : an easy play for a little theatre. In : Misalliance, The dark lady of the sonnets, and Fanny's first play. (London : Constable, 1910). [Printed for private se in the theatre only. Confidential. Not to be circulated]. [Erstaufführung Adelphi Theatre, London 1911].
Act III
MRS KNOX. This is a strange time. I was never one to talk about the
end of the world; but look at the things that have happened!
KNOX. Earthquakes!
GILBEY. San Francisco!
MRS GILBEY. Jamaica!
KNOX. Martinique!
GILBEY. Messina!
MRS GILBEY. The plague in China!

1910
Shaw, George Bernard. Treatise on parents and children. In : Misalliance, The dark lady of the sonnets, and Fanny's first play. (London : Constable, 1910). [Printed for private se in the theatre only. Confidential. Not to be circulated].
The Manufacture of Monsters
"This industry is by no means peculiar to China. The Chinese (they say) make physical monsters. We revile them for it and proceed to make moral monsters of our own children."

1911
Shaw, George Bernard. Getting married. (London : A. Constable, 1911). [Erstaufführung Royal Haymarket Theatre, London 1908].
Author's preface
"Unless they are prepared to add that the statement that those who take the sacrament with their lips but not with their hearts eat and drink their own damnation is also a mistranslation from the Aramaic, they are most solemnly bound to shield marriage from profanation, not merely by permitting divorce, but by making it compulsory in certain cases as the Chinese do."
Act I
"Who are you, anyhow, that you should know better than Mahomet or Confucius or any of the other Johnnies who have been on this job since the world existed ?"

1912
Shaw, George Bernard. Androcles and the lion. (London : Constable, 1912).
Author's preface and prologue
"Many of its advocates have been militant atheists. But for some reason the imagination of white mankind has picked out Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, and attributed all the Christian doctrines to him; and as it is the doctrine and not the man that matters, and, as, besides, one symbol is as good as another provided everyone attaches the same meaning to it, I raise, for the moment, no question as to how far the gospels are original, and how far they consist of Greek and Chinese interpolations. The record that Jesus said certain things is not invalidated by a demonstration that Confucius said them before him."
"When you heard the gospel stories read in church, or learnt them from painters and poets, you came out with an impression of their contents that would have astonished a Chinaman who had read the story without prepossession."
"All this shows a great power of seeing through vulgar illusions, and a capacity for a higher morality than has yet been established in any civilized community; but it does not place Jesus above Confucius or Plato, not to mention more modern philosophers and moralists."
"Without going further than this, you can become a follower of Jesus just as you can become a follower of Confucius or Lao Tse, and may therefore call yourself a Jesuist, or even a Christian, if you hold, as the strictest Secularist quite legitimately may, that all prophets are inspired, and all men with a mission, Christs."
"No English king or French president can possibly govern on the assumption that the theology of Peter and Paul, Luther and Calvin, has any objective validity, or that the Christ is more than the Buddha, or Jehovah more than Krishna, or Jesus more or less human than Mahomet or Zoroaster or Confucius."

1912
Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion : a play in five acts. (London : Constable, 1912). [Uraufführung Hofburg Wien, 1913].
"He, being a humorist, explained to them the method of the celebrated Dickensian essay on Chinese Metaphysics by the gentleman who read an article on China and an article on Metaphysics and combined the information."

1917
Shaw, George Bernard. Heartbreak House : a dramatic fantasia. (London : Constable, 1917). [Erstaufführung Garrick Theatre, New York 1920].
Act I
"THE CAPTAIN. Dunn! I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn. He was originally a pirate in China. He set up as a ship's chandler with stores which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he became rich."
"The captain emerges from the pantry with a tray of Chinese lacquer and a very fine tea-set on it."

1921
Shaw, George Bernard. Back to Methuselah : a metabiological pentateuch. (London : Constable, 1921). [Erstaufführung Garrick Theatre, New York 1922].
Three blind mice
"How was it that he did not see that he was not experimenting with habits or characteristics at all ? How had he overlooked the glaring fact that his experiment had been tried for many generations in China on the feet of Chinese women without producing the smallest tendency on their part to be born with abnormally small feet ? He must have known about the bound feet even if he knew nothing of the mutilations, the clipped ears and docked tails, practised by dog fanciers and horse breeders on many generations of the unfortunate animals they deal in."

Shaw, George Bernard. The intelligent woman's guide to socialism, capitalism, sovietism and fascism. (London : Constable, 1928).
http://books.google.ch/books?hl=de&id=ys13gZliXFAC&q=meanwhile#v=snippet&q=china&f=false / Shaw63
"If America were as weak militarily as China was in 1840 they would drive us into a war to force whiskey on America."
"When their income outruns their extravagance so far that they must use it as capital or throw it away, there is nothing to prevent them investing it in South America, in South Africa, in Russia, or in China, though we cannot get our own slums cleaned up for want of capital kept in an applied to our own country."
"In China, when an eclipse of the sun occurs, all the intelligent and energetic women rush out of doors with pokers and shovels, trays and saucepan lids, and bang them together to frighten away the demon who is devouring the sun ; and the perfect success of this proceeding, which has never been known to fail, proves to them that it is the right thing to do. But you, who know all about eclipses, sit calmly looking at them through bits of smoked glass, because your belief about them is a scientific belief and not a metaphysical one. You probable think that the women who are banging the saucepans in China are fools ; but they are not : you would do the same yourself if you lived in a country where astronomy was still in the metaphysical stage."

1933
Shaw, George Bernard. On the rocks. (London : Privately printed by the author, 1933). http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300561.txt.
"I went round the world lately preaching that if Russia were thrust back from Communism into competitive Capitalism, and China developed into a predatory Capitalist State, either independently or as part of a Japanese Asiatic hegemony, all the western States would have to quintuple their armies and lie awake at nights in continual dread of hostile aeroplanes, the obvious moral being that whether we choose Communism for ourselves or not, it is our clear interest, even from the point of view of our crudest and oldest militarist diplomacy, to do everything in our power to sustain Communism in Russia and extend it in China, where at present provinces containing at the least of many conflicting estimates eighteen millions of people, have adopted it."

1938
Shaw, George Bernard. Geneva : a fancied page of history in three acts. (London : Priv. print., 1938). [Erstaufführung Malvern Theatre, London 1938].
http://www.scribd.com/doc/222024/Geneva-by-George-Bernard-Shaw.
"In China the Manchus have given up binding the women’s feet and making them cripples for life, but we still go on binding our heads and making fools of ourselves for life."
"Because the Chinaman is so industrious, so frugal, so trustworthy, that nobody will employ a white British workman or caretaker if there is a yellow one within reach."

1946-1947
Shaw, George Bernard. Buoyant billions : a comedy of no manners. (Edinburgh : Priv. print by R. & R. Clark, 1947). [Private edition. For use in the theatre only ; geschrieben 1936-1937, 1945-1947 ; Erstaufführung Schauspielhaus Zürich, 1948].
http://wikilivres.info/wiki/Buoyant_Billions/Act_III
Act III-IV
A drawingroom in Belgrave Square, London, converted into a Chinese temple on a domestic scale, with white walls just enough rose tinted to take the glare off, and a tabernacle in vermilion and gold, on a dais of two broad shallow steps. Divan seats, softly upholstered against the walls, and very comfortable easy chairs of wickerwork, luxuriously cushioned, are also available. There is a sort of bishop's chair at one corner of the tabernacle. The effect is lovely and soothing, as only Chinese art could make it. A most incongruous figure enters: a middle-aged twentieth century London solicitor, carrying a case of papers. He is accompanied and ushered by a robed Chinese priest, who fits perfectly into the surroundings.
« The priest. It is Mr Buoyant's wish that you should meet his children in this holy place. Did he not mention it in your instructions?
Sir Ferdinand. No. This place is not holy. We are in Belgrave Square, not in Hong Kong.”

Shaw, George Bernard. Aesthetic science. In : Design ; 46 (1946).
Er schreibt : "When I was in Hong Kong, I was entertained very agreeably indeed by Sir Robert Ho Tung. We were both of the age at which one likes a rest after lunch. He took me upstairs into what in England would have been a drawing room. It was a radiant miniature temple with an altar of Chinese vermilion and gold, and cushioned divan seats round the walls for the worshippers. Everything was in such perfect Chinese taste that to sit there and look was a quiet delight. A robed priest and his acolyte stole in and went through a service. When it was over I told Sir Robert that I had found it extraordinarily soothing and happy though I had not understood a word of it. 'Neither have I', he said, 'but it soothes me too'. It was part of the art of life for Chinaman and Irishman alike, and was purely esthetic. But it was also hygienic : there was an unexplored region of biologic science at the back of it."

Brief von George Bernard Shaw an Sir Robert Ho Tung. 13 Nov. (1947).
"I have finished a play in which I have introduced a private temple like the one in which I spent with you an hour which I have never forgotten and never shall forget. The scene painter wants to know what your temple is like. Have you by any chance a photograph of it ? Or of the priest in his vestments ?"

Kay Li : The setting had originated in Hong Kong 13 Febr. (1933) at the residence Idlewild of Sir Robert Ho Tung. [s. Shaw's visit to China].
According to the stage direction, "The effect is lovely and soothing, as only Chinese art could make it".
A ready explanation is that since Shaw was putting forward his religion of Creative Evolution, he had to find a corresponding temple to preach his gospel, and the temple had to be exotic enough to impress upon his audience that it was witnessing a new religion. Thus, the temples from both the East and the West are 'holy places'.