China and the West

Wolfe, Thomas. Works.
1929
Wolfe, Thomas. Look homeward, angel : a story of the buried life. (New York, N.Y. : C. Scribner, 1929).
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300721.txt.
Meanwhile, what was going on in Japan? I will tell you: the first
parliament met in 1891, there was a war with China in 1894-95,
Formosa was ceded in 1895…
What have I done to deserve this slavery? Suppose--suppose I were in China, or in Africa, or at the South Pole. I should always be afraid of his dying while I was away.(He twisted his neck as he thought of it.) And how they would rub it in to me if I were not there! Enjoying yourself in China (they would say) while your father was dying…
He spent three days trying to seduce a waitress in an ice-cream and candy-store: he lured her finally to a curtained booth in a chop-suey restaurant,
only to have his efforts fail when the elaborate meal he had arranged for with the Chinaman aroused her distaste because it had onions in it…
Eugene was thinking of California, Peru, Asia, Alaska, Europe, Africa, China…

1935
Wolfe, Thomas. Of time and the river : a legend of man's hunger in his youth. (New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1935).
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301021.txt.
Similarly, if it were a question of laundries he would scornfully declare that he would not send "HIS shirts and collars to let some dirty old Chinaman spit and HOCK upon them--YES!" he would gleefully howl, as some new abomination of nastiness suggested itself to his teeming brain--"YES! and iron it IN, too, so you can walk around done up in old Chinaman's spit!"…
All of them were very old, older than his uncle; the faces of the old men and women were fragile and delicate like old yellowed china, their faces were frail and sexless, they had begun to look alike…
He besought her greedily to taunt him with it, he fed upon his pain-- and now they were all old and meagre and had the look of yellowed china…
The only person near him in the house, and the only person there the boy saw with any regularity was a Chinese student named Wang: he had the room next to him--in fact, he had the two next rooms, for he was immensely rich, the son of a man in the mandarin class who governed one of the Chinese provinces…
he was inordinately fond, week-end trips to New York, stupendous banquets at an expensive Chinese restaurant in Boston…
He had two cronies, young Chinese who seemed as idle, wealthy, and pleasure - loving as himself…
The boy had grown to know the Chinese very well; Mr. Wang had come to him to seek help on his English composition themes--he was not only stupid but thoroughly idle, and would not work at anything-- and the boy had written several for him. And Mr. Wang, in grateful recompense, had taken him several times to magnificent dinners of strange delicious foods in the Chinese restaurant, and was for ever urging on him chocolates and expensive cigarettes. And no matter where the Chinaman saw him now, whether in his room, or on the street, or in the Harvard Yard, he would always greet him with one joke--a joke he repeated over and over with the unwearied delight
of a child or an idiot. And the joke was this: Mr. Wang would come up slyly, his fat yellow face already beginning to work, his fat throat beginning to tremble with hysterical laughter. Then, wagging his finger at the young American, the Chinaman would say: "Lest night I see you with big flat girl. . . . Yis, yis, yis," he would scream with laughter as the young man started to protest, shaping voluptuous curves meanwhile with his fat yellow hands--"Big flat girl--like this--yis, yis, yis!" he would scream again, and bend double, choking, stamping at the ground, "nice flat girl—like this--yis, yis, yis, yis, yis."…
Accordingly, he appealed to the person he knew best in the house, and who would be, he thought, most likely to help him. This was Mr. Wang, the Chinese student…
As Mr. Wang listened, his sparkling eyes grew dull as balls of tar, his round yellow moon of face grew curiously impassive. When the boy had finished, the Chinese thrust his hands into the wide flowered sleeves of his dressing gown, and then with a curious formal stiffness said: "Will you come in? Please."…
He had just finished when there was a tapping on the door and the Chinese appeared again…
"Do you expect me to spend the night alone in there with that damned Chinaman and his dragon?...
She talked the way she looked and dressed and acted, the way she was: a speech fragile, empty, nervous, brittle, artificial and incisive as one of the precious bits of china, the costly, rare, enamelled little trinkets that filled up her house, her life, her interest…
"Yes, darling," she said in her warm, sweet tone that always had something maternal and tolerantly amused in its humour, "--and in Copenhagen and Stockholm and Bucharest and Madrid--even in Pogo Pogo or in China or Peru--wherever they choose to send us…
The mongrel compost of a hundred races--the Jews, the Irish, the Italians, and the niggers, the Swedes, the Germans, the Lithuanians and the Poles, the Russians, Czechs, and Greeks, the Syrians, Turks and Armenians, the nameless hodge-podge of the Balkans, as well as Chinese, Japs, and dapper
little Filipinos…
The great cupboards were crowded with huge stacks of gleaming china ware and crockery, enough to serve the needs of a hotel…
There were boxes of glacéd crystalline fruits from California, and little wickered jars of sharp-spiced ginger fruit from China: there were expensive jellies green as emerald, red as rubies, smoother than whipped cream; there were fine oils and vinegars in bottles, and jars of pungent relishes of every sort and boxes of assorted spices…
In short, in Miss Telfair's lovely, exquisite and toy-becluttered house, one felt very much like a delicate, sensitive, intelligent and highly organized bull in a horribly expensive china-shop…
She gave each of the young men a quick cool clasp of her small, frail, nail-bevarnished hand, a few crisp words of greeting, and a quick light smile, as brittle, frail, and painted as a bit of china…
and put in mint and lemon, doing all things deftly, beautifully, with her small, swift, china-lovely hands…
Miss Telfair bent back her head--her cheeks had the delicate colour of rose-tinted china…
"Yes, it's really very good that way"--and crisply, yet encouragingly,
with her fire-bright china-smile…
And now, good-bye," she said, turning to the other young man, and giving him a bright china smile, a swift cool pressure of her little china hand…
When you got ten or fifteen feet away from them their language could not have been more indecipherable if they had spoken in Chinese…
Maya, or one of the great Earth-Mothers of the ancients, or the goddess of Compassionate Mercy of the Chinese, to whom he often likened her…

1936
Wolfe, Thomas. The story of a novel. (New York, N.Y. : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936).
http://archive.org/stream/thomaswolfereade00wolf/thomaswolfereade00wolf_djvu.txt.
In my own experience, my wedding guests were the great ledgers in which I wrote, and the tale which I told to them would have seemed, I am afraid, completely incoherent, as meaningless as Chinese characters, had any reader seen them…

1939
Wolfe, Thomas. The web and the rock. (New York, N.Y. : Harper & Bros., 1939).
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_web_and_the_rock.html?id=dRZHAAAAYAAJ.
He met other ones as well – Mr. Chung, a Chinese merchant on Pell Street…
And all the rest of her – rich upholstery, murals, the golden chapel where Holy Mass was celebrated the Chinese Room where one drank drinks…
There was a piece of old green Chinese silk upon the mantel…

1940
Wolfe, Thomas. You can't go home again. (New York, N.Y. : Harper & Bros., 1940).
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700231.txt.
"Maddest man I ever seen!" Nebraska cried delightedly. "I thought he was
goin' to dig a hole plumb through to China…
Upon the mantel, a creamy slab of marble, itself a little stained and worn, was spread a green and faded strip of Chinese silk, and on top of it was a lovely little figure in green jade, its carved fingers lifted in a Chinese attitude of compassionating mercy…
Elsewhere, two lovely Colonial cupboards stood like Graces with their splendid wares of china and of porcelain, of cut-glass and of silver, of grand old plates and cups and saucers, tureens and bowls, jars and pitchers…
Eyes pale blue, full of a strange misty light, a kind of far weather of the sea in them, eyes of a New England sailor long months outbound for China on a clipper ship, with something drowned, sea-sunken in them…
The Chinese hate the Japanese, the Japanese the Russians, the Russians also hate the Japanese, and the hordes of India the English…
In this year of Our Gentle Lord 1934, "expert" observers say, Japan is preparing to go to war again with China within two years, Russia will join in with China, Japan will ally herself with Germany, Germany will make a deal with Italy, and then make war on France and England, America will try to stick her head into the sand, and so keep out of it, but will find it cannot be done and will be drawn in…
And in the dining-room, right beside the beautiful old revolutionary china chest, which they had persuaded the people to sell with the house, had been an atrocious gramophone with one of those old-fashioned horns…

1986
Wolfe, Thomas. The hound of darkness. ([Akron, Ohio?] : Thomas Wolfe Society, 1986).
http://books.google.ch/books?hl=de&id=xaA5AAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=china.
I never been to China of Japan but I’ve seen the best of them and I know that China and Japan ain’t go anything that can touch it.

1995
Wolfe, Thomas. The party at Jack's. (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
http://books.google.ch/books?hl=de&id=erbrmFZUqdAC&q=china#v=snippet&q=china&f=false.
Broad and red face and breathing stertorously, she entered, bearing a tray with a silver pot, and enormous cup and saucer of fine thin china…
Upon the creamy slab of marble mantle which was itself a little stained and worn, there was spread out, as always, a green, old, faded strip of Chinese silk…
Two tall delicately lovely cupboards of the Colonial period stood like graces with their splendid wares of china and of porcelain…

2000
Wolfe, Thomas. O lost : a story of the buried life. (Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 2000).
http://books.google.ch/books?hl=de&id=J4DVFmMLjOIC&q=china#v=snippet&q=china&f=false.
Meanwhile, what was going on in Japan ? I will tell you : the first parliament met in 1891, there was a war with China in 1894-95, Formosa was ceded in 1895…
Or he would get for himself some book of travels, thickly illustrated, something of Thibet, or China, or rich India…

1933-1983
Wolfe, Thomas. The complete short stories of Thomas Wolfe.
http://books.google.ch/books?id=7oEXLS4LfosC&pg=PR22&lpg=PR22&dq=thomas+wolfe+The+Lost+Boy+%281937%29&source=bl&ots=O5N5ctX-LF&sig=eGB-dMOiL2g2UVKMYWjKxcoLnws&hl=de&sa=X&ei=ZXaqU_-qFZKe0wW0yYHgDQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=china&f=false
1933
Death the proud brother. In : Scribner's magazine ; June (1933).
Thomas De Quincey remarked that if he were forced to life in China for the remainder of his days, he would go mad…
1940
Nebraska crane. In : Harper's magazine ; Aug. (1940)
'Maddest man I ever seen !' Nebraska cried delightedly. 'I thought he was goin’ to dig a hole plumb through to China'…
1940
The hollyhock sowers. In : The American mercury, August (1940).
And in the dining room, right beside this beautiful old Revolutionar china chest…
1941
The lion at morning. In : Harper's Bazaar, October (1941).
all the damned plush chairs, and gilt French clocks ; all of the vases, statuettes and figurines ; all of the painted china…
1983
No more rivers : a story. In : Beyond love and loyalty. (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1983).
Ledig was a man of George's age – in the late thirties – with the common, square, and friendly-brutal face of the Germanic stock, and eyes of china-blue.