China and the West

Shen, Lindsay. Knowledge is pleasure : Florence Ayscough in Shanghai [ID D32322].
Florence Ayscough—poet, translator, Sinologist, Shanghailander, avid collector, pioneering photographer and early feminist champion of women's rights in China. Ayscough's modernist translations of the classical poets still command respect, her ethnographic studies of the lives of Chinese women still engender feminist critiques over three quarters of a century later and her collections of Chinese ceramics and objets now form an important part of several American museum's Asian art collections. Raised in Shanghai in an archetypal Shanghailander family in the late nineteenth century, Ayscough was to become anything but a typical foreigner in China. Encouraged by the New England poet Amy Lowell, she was to become a much sought after translator in the early years of the new century, not least for her radical interpretations of the Tang-dynasty poet Tu Fu. She later moved on to record China and particularly Chinese women using the new technology of photography, turn the Royal Asiatic Society's Shanghai library into the best on the China Coast and build several impressive collections featuring textiles, Ming and Qing ceramics. By the time of her death Florence Ayscough has left a legacy of collection and scholarship unrivalled by any other foreign woman in China before or since. In this biography, Lindsay Shen recovers Ayscough for posterity and returns her to us as a woman of amazing intellectual vibrancy and strength.

John Edwards ist Botschaftsrat der britischen Botschaft in Shanghai.

Gary Snyder in Hong Kong.
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Centre for East Asian Studies.
International poets in Hong Kong : Poetry workshop. Gary Snyder arrives in November.
In preparation for Snyder’s Hong Kong visit, a 3-day Gary Snyder Poetry Workshop will be open for public participation. This is an occasion for literature lovers to learn more about Snyder’s work, as well as contemporary American culture and literature.
http://www5.cuhk.edu.hk/cea/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309:international-poets-in-
hong-kong-gary-snyder-poetry-workshop&catid=37.

Gründung des deutschen Generalkonsulats in Shenyang.

Kenneth Dean ist Visiting Chaired Professor der School of Humanities der Xiamen University und hält eine Vorlesung and der Summer Historical Anthropology Research School in Jinmen, Taiwan.

Song, Chunfang. Jin shi ming xi bai zhong. [One hundred well-known modern plays]. [ID D27913].
Erwähnung von L'intruse, Les aveugles, Monna Vanna, L'oiseau bleu von Maurice Maeterlinck.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online : Asia and the West : Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange
Publisher: Gale, part of Cengage Learning
Contact details:
www.gale.cengage.co.uk/ncco
email: emea.marketing@cengage.com
Address:
Cengage Learning
Cheriton House
North Way Andover Hampshire
SP10 5BE UK
Tel: +44 (0)1264 332 424 Fax: +44 (0) 800 066 4750

Mario Sabattini ist Emeritus Professor des Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea.

Carsten Boyer Thogersen ist Direktor des Copenhagen Business Confucius Institute.

Lisa Rofel ist Editorial Board Member des The China quarterly.

Charles Lang Freer macht zwei Kunst-Reisen nach China und Japan, 1909, 1910-1911. Die Sammlung enthält 200 Bilder chinesischer Malerei.

Harte, Bret. Wan Lee, the Pagan [ID D29332].
As I opened Hop Sing's letter, there fluttered to the ground a square strip of yellow paper covered with hieroglyphics, which, at first glance, I innocently took to be the label from a pack of Chinese fire-crackers. But the same envelope also contained a smaller strip of rice-paper, with two Chinese characters traced in India ink, that I at once knew to be Hop Sing's visiting-card. The whole, as afterwards literally translated, ran as follows:--
"To the stranger the gates of my house are not closed: the rice-jar is on the left, and the sweetmeats on the right, as you enter.
Two sayings of the Master:--
Hospitality is the virtue of the son and the wisdom of the ancestor.
The Superior man is light hearted after the crop-gathering: he makes a festival.
When the stranger is in your melon-patch, observe him not too closely: inattention is often the highest form of civility.
Happiness, Peace, and Prosperity.
HOP SING."
Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and proverbial wisdom, and although this last axiom was very characteristic of my friend Hop Sing, who was that most sombre of all humorists, a Chinese philosopher, I must confess, that, even after a very free translation, I was at a loss to make any immediate application of the message. Luckily I discovered a third enclosure in the shape of a little note in English, and Hop Sing's own commercial hand. It ran thus:--
"The pleasure of your company is requested at No. -- Sacramento Street, on Friday evening at eight o'clock. A cup of tea at nine,--sharp.
"HOP SING."
This explained all. It meant a visit to Hop Sing's warehouse, the opening and exhibition of some rare Chinese novelties and curios, a chat in the back office, a cup of tea of a perfection unknown beyond these sacred precincts, cigars, and a visit to the Chinese theatre or temple. This was, in fact, the favorite programme of Hop Sing when he exercised his functions of hospitality as the chief factor or superintendent of the Ning Foo Company.
At eight o'clock on Friday evening, I entered the warehouse of Hop Sing. There was that deliciously commingled mysterious foreign odor that I had so often noticed; there was the old array of uncouth-looking objects, the long procession of jars and crockery, the same singular blending of the grotesque and the mathematically neat and exact, the same endless suggestions of frivolity and fragility, the same want of harmony in colors, that were each, in themselves, beautiful and rare. Kites in the shape of enormous dragons and gigantic butterflies; kites so ingeniously arranged as to utter at intervals, when facing the wind, the cry of a hawk; kites so large as to be beyond any boy's power of restraint,--so large that you understood why kite-flying in China was an amusement for adults; gods of china and bronze so gratuitously ugly as to be beyond any human interest or sympathy from their very impossibility; jars of sweetmeats covered all over with moral sentiments from Confucius; hats that looked like baskets, and baskets that looked like hats; silks so light that I hesitate to record the incredible number of square yards that you might pass through the ring on your little finger,--these, and a great many other indescribable objects, were all familiar to me. I pushed my way through the dimly-lighted warehouse, until I reached the back office, or parlor, where I found Hop Sing waiting to receive me.
Before I describe him, I want the average reader to discharge from his mind any idea of a Chinaman that he may have gathered from the pantomime. He did not wear beautifully scalloped drawers fringed with little bells (I never met a Chinaman who did); he did not habitually carry his forefinger extended before him at right angles with his body; nor did I ever hear him utter the mysterious sentence, "Ching a ring a ring chaw;" nor dance under any provocation. He was, on the whole, a rather grave, decorous, handsome gentleman. His complexion, which extended all over his head, except where his long pig-tail grew, was like a very nice piece of glazed brown paper-muslin. His eyes were black and bright, and his eyelids set at an angle of fifteen degrees; his nose straight, and delicately formed; his mouth small; and his teeth white and clean. He wore a dark blue silk blouse; and in the streets, on cold days, a short jacket of astrachan fur. He wore, also, a pair of drawers of blue brocade gathered tightly over his calves and ankles, offering a general sort of suggestion, that he had forgotten his trousers that morning, but that, so gentlemanly were his manners, his friends had forborne to mention the fact to him. His manner was urbane, although quite serious. He spoke French and English fluently. In brief, I doubt if you could have found the equal of this Pagan shopkeeper among the Christian traders of San Francisco.
There were a few others present,--a judge of the Federal Court, an editor, a high government official, and a prominent merchant. After we had drunk our tea, and tasted a few sweetmeats from a mysterious jar, that looked as if it might contain a preserved mouse among its other nondescript treasures, Hop Sing arose, and, gravely beckoning us to follow him, began to descend to the basement. When we got there, we were amazed at finding it brilliantly lighted, and that a number of chairs were arranged in a half-circle on the asphalt pavement. When he had courteously seated us, he said,--
"I have invited you to witness a performance which I can at least promise you no other foreigners but yourselves have ever seen. Wang, the court-juggler, arrived here yesterday morning. He has never given a performance outside of the palace before. I have asked him to entertain my friends this evening. He requires no theatre, stage accessories, or any confederate,--nothing more than you see here. Will you be pleased to examine the ground yourselves, gentlemen."
Of course we examined the premises. It was the ordinary basement or cellar of the San Francisco storehouse, cemented to keep out the damp. We poked our sticks into the pavement, and rapped on the walls, to satisfy our polite host--but for no other purpose. We were quite content to be the victims of any clever deception. For myself, I knew I was ready to be deluded to any extent, and, if I had been offered an explanation of what followed, I should have probably declined it.
Although I am satisfied that Wang's general performance was the first of that kind ever given on American soil, it has, probably, since become so familiar to many of my readers, that I shall not bore them with it here. He began by setting to flight, with the aid of his fan, the usual number of butterflies, made before our eyes of little bits of tissue-paper, and kept them in the air during the remainder of the performance. I have a vivid recollection of the judge trying to catch one that had lit on his knee, and of its evading him with the pertinacity of a living insect. And, even at this time, Wang, still plying his fan, was taking chickens out of hats, making oranges disappear, pulling endless yards of silk from his sleeve, apparently filling the whole area of the basement with goods that appeared mysteriously from the ground, from his own sleeves, from nowhere! He swallowed knives to the ruin of his digestion for years to come; he dislocated every limb of his body; he reclined in the air, apparently upon nothing. But his crowning performance, which I have never yet seen repeated, was the most weird, mysterious, and astounding. It is my apology for this long introduction, my sole excuse for writing this article, and the genesis of this veracious history.
He cleared the ground of its encumbering articles for a space of about fifteen feet square, and then invited us all to walk forward, and again examine it. We did so gravely. There was nothing but the cemented pavement below to be seen or felt. He then asked for the loan of a handkerchief; and, as I chanced to be nearest him, I offered mine. He took it, and spread it open upon the floor. Over this he spread a large square of silk, and over this, again, a large shawl nearly covering the space he had cleared. He then took a position at one of the points of this rectangle, and began a monotonous chant, rocking his body to and fro in time with the somewhat lugubrious air.
We sat still and waited. Above the chant we could hear the striking of the city clocks, and the occasional rattle of a cart in the street overhead. The absolute watchfulness and expectation, the dim, mysterious half-light of the cellar falling in a grewsome way upon the misshapen bulk of a Chinese deity in the back ground, a faint smell of opium-smoke mingling with spice, and the dreadful uncertainty of what we were really waiting for, sent an uncomfortable thrill down our backs, and made us look at each other with a forced and unnatural smile. This feeling was heightened when Hop Sing slowly rose, and, without a word, pointed with his finger to the centre of the shawl.
There was something beneath the shawl. Surely--and something that was not there before; at first a mere suggestion in relief, a faint outline, but growing more and more distinct and visible every moment. The chant still continued; the perspiration began to roll from the singer's face; gradually the hidden object took upon itself a shape and bulk that raised the shawl in its centre some five or six inches. It was now unmistakably the outline of a small but perfect human figure, with extended arms and legs. One or two of us turned pale. There was a feeling of general uneasiness, until the editor broke the silence by a gibe, that, poor as it was, was received with spontaneous enthusiasm. Then the chant suddenly ceased. Wang arose, and with a quick, dexterous movement, stripped both shawl and silk away, and discovered, sleeping peacefully upon my handkerchief, a tiny Chinese baby.
The applause and uproar which followed this revelation ought to have satisfied Wang, even if his audience was a small one: it was loud enough to awaken the baby,--a pretty little boy about a year old, looking like a Cupid cut out of sandal-wood. He was whisked away almost as mysteriously as he appeared. When Hop Sing returned my handkerchief to me with a bow, I asked if the juggler was the father of the baby. "No sabe!" said the imperturbable Hop Sing, taking refuge in that Spanish form of non-committalism so common in California.
"But does he have a new baby for every performance?" I asked. "Perhaps: who knows?"--"But what will become of this one?"--"Whatever you choose, gentlemen," replied Hop Sing with a courteous inclination. "It was born here: you are its godfathers."
There were two characteristic peculiarities of any Californian assemblage in 1856,--it was quick to take a hint, and generous to the point of prodigality in its response to any charitable appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious the individual, he could not resist the infection of sympathy. I doubled the points of my handkerchief into a bag, dropped a coin into it, and, without a word, passed it to the judge. He quietly added a twenty-dollar gold-piece, and passed it to the next. When it was returned to me, it contained over a hundred dollars. I knotted the money in the handkerchief, and gave it to Hop Sing.
"For the baby, from its godfathers."
"But what name?" said the judge. There was a running fire of "Erebus," "Nox," "Plutus," "Terra Cotta," "Antaeus," &c. Finally the question was referred to our host.
"Why not keep his own name?" he said quietly,--"Wan Lee." And he did.
And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of Friday, the 5th of March, 1856, born into this veracious chronicle.
The last form of "The Northern Star" for the 19th of July, 1865,--the only daily paper published in Klamath County,--had just gone to press; and at three, A.M., I was putting aside my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to going home, when I discovered a letter lying under some sheets of paper, which I must have overlooked. The envelope was considerably soiled: it had no post-mark; but I had no difficulty in recognizing the hand of my friend Hop Sing. I opened it hurriedly, and read as follows:--
"MY DEAR SIR,--I do not know whether the bearer will suit you; but, unless the office of 'devil' in your newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and intelligent; understands English better than he speaks it; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and imitation. You have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already. You are one of his godfathers; for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of Wang the conjurer, to whose performances I had the honor to introduce you? But perhaps you have forgotten it.
"I shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton, thence by express to your town. If you can use him there, you will do me a favor, and probably save his life, which is at present in great peril from the hands of the younger members of your Christian and highly-civilized race who attend the enlightened schools in San Francisco.
"He has acquired some singular habits and customs from his experience of Wang's profession, which he followed for some years,--until he became too large to go in a hat, or be produced from his father's sleeve. The money you left with me has been expended on his education. He has gone through the Tri-literal Classics, but, I think, without much benefit. He knows but little of Confucius, and absolutely nothing of Mencius. Owing to the negligence of his father, he associated, perhaps, too much with American children.
"I should have answered your letter before, by post; but I thought that Wan Lee himself would be a better messenger for this.
"Yours respectfully,
"HOP SING."
And this was the long-delayed answer to my letter to Hop Sing. But where was "the bearer"? How was the letter delivered? I summoned hastily the foreman, printers, and office-boy, but without eliciting any thing. No one had seen the letter delivered, nor knew any thing of the bearer. A few days later, I had a visit from my laundry-man, Ah Ri.
"You wantee debbil? All lightee: me catchee him."
He returned in a few moments with a bright-looking Chinese boy, about ten years old, with whose appearance and general intelligence I was so greatly impressed, that I engaged him on the spot. When the business was concluded, I asked his name.
"Wan Lee," said the boy.
"What! Are you the boy sent out by Hop Sing? What the devil do you mean by not coming here before? and how did you deliver that letter?"
Wan Lee looked at me, and laughed. "Me pitchee in top side window."
I did not understand. He looked for a moment perplexed, and then, snatching the letter out of my hand, ran down the stairs. After a moment's pause, to my great astonishment, the letter came flying in the window, circled twice around the room, and then dropped gently, like a bird upon my table. Before I had got over my surprise, Wan Lee re-appeared, smiled, looked at the letter and then at me, said, "So, John," and then remained gravely silent. I said nothing further; but it was understood that this was his first official act.
His next performance, I grieve to say, was not attended with equal success. One of our regular paper-carriers fell sick, and, at a pinch, Wan Lee was ordered to fill his place. To prevent mistakes, he was shown over the route the previous evening, and supplied at about daylight with the usual number of subscribers' copies. He returned, after an hour, in good spirits, and without the papers. He had delivered them all, he said.
Unfortunately for Wan Lee, at about eight o'clock, indignant subscribers began to arrive at the office. They had received their copies; but how? In the form of hard-pressed cannon-balls, delivered by a single shot, and a mere tour de force, through the glass of bedroom-windows. They had received them full in the face, like a base ball, if they happened to be up and stirring; they had received them in quarter-sheets, tucked in at separate windows; they had found them in the chimney, pinned against the door, shot through attic-windows, delivered in long slips through convenient keyholes, stuffed into ventilators, and occupying the same can with the morning's milk. One subscriber, who waited for some time at the office-door to have a personal interview with Wan Lee (then comfortably locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears of rage in his eyes, that he had been awakened at five o'clock by a most hideous yelling below his windows; that, on rising in great agitation, he was startled by the sudden appearance of "The Northern Star," rolled hard, and bent into the form of a boomerang, or East-Indian club, that sailed into the window, described a number of fiendish circles in the room, knocked over the light, slapped the baby's face, "took" him (the subscriber) "in the jaw," and then returned out of the window, and dropped helplessly in the area. During the rest of the day, wads and strips of soiled paper, purporting to be copies of "The Northern Star" of that morning's issue, were brought indignantly to the office. An admirable editorial on "The Resources of Humboldt County," which I had constructed the evening before, and which, I had reason to believe, might have changed the whole balance of trade during the ensuing year, and left San Francisco bankrupt at her wharves, was in this way lost to the public.
It was deemed advisable for the next three weeks to keep Wan Lee closely confined to the printing-office, and the purely mechanical part of the business. Here he developed a surprising quickness and adaptability, winning even the favor and good will of the printers and foreman, who at first looked upon his introduction into the secrets of their trade as fraught with the gravest political significance. He learned to set type readily and neatly, his wonderful skill in manipulation aiding him in the mere mechanical act, and his ignorance of the language confining him simply to the mechanical effort, confirming the printer's axiom, that the printer who considers or follows the ideas of his copy makes a poor compositor. He would set up deliberately long diatribes against himself, composed by his fellow-printers, and hung on his hook as copy, and even such short sentences as "Wan Lee is the devil's own imp," "Wan Lee is a Mongolian rascal," and bring the proof to me with happiness beaming from every tooth, and satisfaction shining in his huckleberry eyes.
It was not long, however, before he learned to retaliate on his mischievous persecutors. I remember one instance in which his reprisal came very near involving me in a serious misunderstanding. Our foreman's name was Webster; and Wan Lee presently learned to know and recognize the individual and combined letters of his name. It was during a political campaign; and the eloquent and fiery Col. Starbottle of Siskyou had delivered an effective speech, which was reported especially for "The Northern Star." In a very sublime peroration, Col. Starbottle had said, "In the language of the godlike Webster, I repeat"--and here followed the quotation, which I have forgotten. Now, it chanced that Wan Lee, looking over the galley after it had been revised, saw the name of his chief persecutor, and, of course, imagined the quotation his. After the form was locked up, Wan Lee took advantage of Webster's absence to remove the quotation, and substitute a thin piece of lead, of the same size as the type, engraved with Chinese characters, making a sentence, which, I had reason to believe, was an utter and abject confession of the incapacity and offensiveness of the Webster family generally, and exceedingly eulogistic of Wan Lee himself personally.
The next morning's paper contained Col. Starbottle's speech in full, in which it appeared that the "godlike" Webster had, on one occasion, uttered his thoughts in excellent but perfectly enigmatical Chinese. The rage of Col. Starbottle knew no bounds. I have a vivid recollection of that admirable man walking into my office, and demanding a retraction of the statement.
"But my dear sir," I asked, "are you willing to deny, over your own signature, that Webster ever uttered such a sentence? Dare you deny, that, with Mr. Webster's well-known attainments, a knowledge of Chinese might not have been among the number? Are you willing to submit a translation suitable to the capacity of our readers, and deny, upon your honor as a gentleman, that the late Mr. Webster ever uttered such a sentiment? If you are, sir, I am willing to publish your denial."
The colonel was not, and left, highly indignant.
Webster, the foreman, took it more coolly. Happily, he was unaware, that, for two days after, Chinamen from the laundries, from the gulches, from the kitchens, looked in the front office-door, with faces beaming with sardonic delight; that three hundred extra copies of the "Star" were ordered for the wash-houses on the river. He only knew, that, during the day, Wan Lee occasionally went off into convulsive spasms, and that he was obliged to kick him into consciousness again. A week after the occurrence, I called Wan Lee into my office.
"Wan," I said gravely, "I should like you to give me, for my own personal satisfaction, a translation of that Chinese sentence which my gifted countryman, the late godlike Webster, uttered upon a public occasion." Wan Lee looked at me intently, and then the slightest possible twinkle crept into his black eyes. Then he replied with equal gravity,--
"Mishtel Webstel, he say, 'China boy makee me belly much foolee. China boy makee me heap sick.'" Which I have reason to think was true.
But I fear I am giving but one side, and not the best, of Wan Lee's character. As he imparted it to me, his had been a hard life. He had known scarcely any childhood: he had no recollection of a father or mother. The conjurer Wang had brought him up. He had spent the first seven years of his life in appearing from baskets, in dropping out of hats, in climbing ladders, in putting his little limbs out of joint in posturing. He had lived in an atmosphere of trickery and deception. He had learned to look upon mankind as dupes of their senses: in fine, if he had thought at all, he would have been a sceptic; if he had been a little older, he would have been a cynic; if he had been older still, he would have been a philosopher. As it was, he was a little imp. A good-natured imp it was, too,--an imp whose moral nature had never been awakened,--an imp up for a holiday, and willing to try virtue as a diversion. I don't know that he had any spiritual nature. He was very superstitious. He carried about with him a hideous little porcelain god, which he was in the habit of alternately reviling and propitiating. He was too intelligent for the commoner Chinese vices of stealing or gratuitous lying. Whatever discipline he practised was taught by his intellect.
I am inclined to think that his feelings were not altogether unimpressible, although it was almost impossible to extract an expression from him; and I conscientiously believe he became attached to those that were good to him. What he might have become under more favorable conditions than the bondsman of an overworked, under-paid literary man, I don't know: I only know that the scant, irregular, impulsive kindnesses that I showed him were gratefully received. He was very loyal and patient, two qualities rare in the average American servant. He was like Malvolio, "sad and civil" with me. Only once, and then under great provocation, do I remember of his exhibiting any impatience. It was my habit, after leaving the office at night, to take him with me to my rooms, as the bearer of any supplemental or happy after-thought, in the editorial way, that might occur to me before the paper went to press. One night I had been scribbling away past the usual hour of dismissing Wan Lee, and had become quite oblivious of his presence in a chair near my door, when suddenly I became aware of a voice saying in plaintive accents, something that sounded like "Chy Lee."
I faced around sternly.
"What did you say?"
"Me say, 'Chy Lee.'"
"Well?" I said impatiently.
"You sabe, 'How do, John?'"
"Yes."
"You sabe, 'So long, John'?"
"Yes."
"Well, 'Chy Lee' allee same!"
I understood him quite plainly. It appeared that "Chy Lee" was a form of "good-night," and that Wan Lee was anxious to go home. But an instinct of mischief, which, I fear, I possessed in common with him, impelled me to act as if oblivious of the hint. I muttered something about not understanding him, and again bent over my work. In a few minutes I heard his wooden shoes pattering pathetically over the floor. I looked up. He was standing near the door.
"You no sabe, 'Chy Lee'?"
"No," I said sternly.
"You sabe muchee big foolee! allee same!"
And, with this audacity upon his lips, he fled. The next morning, however, he was as meek and patient as before, and I did not recall his offence. As a probable peace-offering, he blacked all my boots,--a duty never required of him,--including a pair of buff deer-skin slippers and an immense pair of horseman's jack-boots, on which he indulged his remorse for two hours.
I have spoken of his honesty as being a quality of his intellect rather than his principle, but I recall about this time two exceptions to the rule. I was anxious to get some fresh eggs as a change to the heavy diet of a mining-town; and, knowing that Wan Lee's countrymen were great poultry-raisers, I applied to him. He furnished me with them regularly every morning, but refused to take any pay, saying that the man did not sell them,--a remarkable instance of self-abnegation, as eggs were then worth half a dollar apiece. One morning my neighbor Forster dropped in upon me at breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his own ill fortune, as his hens had lately stopped laying, or wandered off in the bush. Wan Lee, who was present during our colloquy, preserved his characteristic sad taciturnity. When my neighbor had gone, he turned to me with a slight chuckle: "Flostel's hens--Wan Lee's hens allee same!" His other offence was more serious and ambitious. It was a season of great irregularities in the mails, and Wan Lee had heard me deplore the delay in the delivery of my letters and newspapers. On arriving at my office one day, I was amazed to find my table covered with letters, evidently just from the post-office, but, unfortunately, not one addressed to me. I turned to Wan Lee, who was surveying them with a calm satisfaction, and demanded an explanation. To my horror he pointed to an empty mail-bag in the corner, and said, "Postman he say, 'No lettee, John; no lettee, John.' Postman plentee lie! Postman no good. Me catchee lettee last night allee same!" Luckily it was still early: the mails had not been distributed. I had a hurried interview with the postmaster; and Wan Lee's bold attempt at robbing the United States mail was finally condoned by the purchase of a new mail-bag, and the whole affair thus kept a secret.
If my liking for my little Pagan page had not been sufficient, my duty to Hop Sing was enough, to cause me to take Wan Lee with me when I returned to San Francisco after my two years' experience with "The Northern Star." I do not think he contemplated the change with pleasure. I attributed his feelings to a nervous dread of crowded public streets (when he had to go across town for me on an errand, he always made a circuit of the outskirts), to his dislike for the discipline of the Chinese and English school to which I proposed to send him, to his fondness for the free, vagrant life of the mines, to sheer wilfulness. That it might have been a superstitious premonition did not occur to me until long after.
Nevertheless it really seemed as if the opportunity I had long looked for and confidently expected had come,--the opportunity of placing Wan Lee under gently restraining influences, of subjecting him to a life and experience that would draw out of him what good my superficial care and ill-regulated kindness could not reach. Wan Lee was placed at the school of a Chinese missionary,--an intelligent and kind-hearted clergyman, who had shown great interest in the boy, and who, better than all, had a wonderful faith in him. A home was found for him in the family of a widow, who had a bright and interesting daughter about two years younger than Wan Lee. It was this bright, cheery, innocent, and artless child that touched and reached a depth in the boy's nature that hitherto had been unsuspected; that awakened a moral susceptibility which had lain for years insensible alike to the teachings of society, or the ethics of the theologian.
These few brief months--bright with a promise that we never saw fulfilled--must have been happy ones to Wan Lee. He worshipped his little friend with something of the same superstition, but without any of the caprice, that he bestowed upon his porcelain Pagan god. It was his delight to walk behind her to school, carrying her books--a service always fraught with danger to him from the little hands of his Caucasian Christian brothers. He made her the most marvellous toys; he would cut out of carrots and turnips the most astonishing roses and tulips; he made life-like chickens out of melon-seeds; he constructed fans and kites, and was singularly proficient in the making of dolls' paper dresses. On the other hand, she played and sang to him, taught him a thousand little prettinesses and refinements only known to girls, gave him a yellow ribbon for his pig-tail, as best suiting his complexion, read to him, showed him wherein he was original and valuable, took him to Sunday school with her, against the precedents of the school, and, small-woman-like, triumphed. I wish I could add here, that she effected his conversion, and made him give up his porcelain idol. But I am telling a true story; and this little girl was quite content to fill him with her own Christian goodness, without letting him know that he was changed. So they got along very well together,--this little Christian girl with her shining cross hanging around her plump, white little neck; and this dark little Pagan, with his hideous porcelain god hidden away in his blouse.
There were two days of that eventful year which will long be remembered in San Francisco,--two days when a mob of her citizens set upon and killed unarmed, defenceless foreigners because they were foreigners, and of another race, religion, and color, and worked for what wages they could get. There were some public men so timid, that, seeing this, they thought that the end of the world had come. There were some eminent statesmen, whose names I am ashamed to write here, who began to think that the passage in the Constitution which guarantees civil and religious liberty to every citizen or foreigner was a mistake. But there were, also, some men who were not so easily frightened; and in twenty-four hours we had things so arranged, that the timid men could wring their hands in safety, and the eminent statesmen utter their doubts without hurting any body or any thing. And in the midst of this I got a note from Hop Sing, asking me to come to him immediately.
I found his warehouse closed, and strongly guarded by the police against any possible attack of the rioters. Hop Sing admitted me through a barred grating with his usual imperturbable calm, but, as it seemed to me, with more than his usual seriousness. Without a word, he took my hand, and led me to the rear of the room, and thence down stairs into the basement. It was dimly lighted; but there was something lying on the floor covered by a shawl. As I approached he drew the shawl away with a sudden gesture, and revealed Wan Lee, the Pagan, lying there dead.
Dead, my reverend friends, dead,--stoned to death in the streets of San Francisco, in the year of grace 1869, by a mob of half-grown boys and Christian school-children!
As I put my hand reverently upon his breast, I felt something crumbling beneath his blouse. I looked inquiringly at Hop Sing. He put his hand between the folds of silk, and drew out something with the first bitter smile I had ever seen on the face of that Pagan gentleman.
It was Wan Lee's porcelain god, crushed by a stone from the hands of those Christian iconoclasts!

Zhang, Menglin. [On the 100th anniversary of Mark Twain's birth]. [ID D29539].
Zhang made Twain out to be a writer with a double character : although his works contain quite respectable satire, he himself was a despicable sort of man : "His fiery satire was born of postbellum American society as well as his personal character and spirit. On the one hand he so skillfully and caustically lampooned society, in his personal life he was as timid as a mouse, henpecked and scrupulously observant of the rules of propriety. If Twain has been born in China, his behavior would certain.ly have been looked down upon, and this scorn would have sounded the death-knell for is works."

Not so mysterious display - it's Agatha Christie!
Source: Shanghai Daily | May 23, 2014.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/metro/entertainment-and-culture/Not-so-mysterious-display-its-Agatha-Christie/shdaily.shtml.
Wang Rongjiang : An art exhibition called "Queen of the Crime," featuring Agatha Christie crime novels and movies, kicked off yesterday in the Xintiandi Style shopping mall, inside Shanghai's landmark Xintiandi compound. Exhibits, including the author's manuscripts, are on display for the first time in the Chinese mainland. The exhibition will run until June 22. Visitors can participate in interactive activities involving detective skills.

Wolfgang Behr ist Gastprofessor der Chinese University in Hong Kong.

2014 (Nov. 22-24)
Emily Dickinson dwells in China : possibilities of translation and transcultural perspectives : International Symposium hosted by Literary Translation Research Center of Fudan University
co-organized in cooperation with The Emily Dickinson International Society in Shanghai.

Wolfgang Röhr ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter des Deutschlandforshungszentrum der Tongji-Universität in Shanghai.

Lisa Rofel ist Mitglied des China and Inner Asia Council der Association for Asian Studies.

Tietjens, Eunice. Profiles from China [ID D32290].
CONTENTS

PROEM
The Hand

FROM THE INTERIOR
Cormorants
A Scholar
The Story Teller
The Well
The Abandoned God
The Bridge
The Shop
My Servant
The Feast
The Beggar
Interlude
The City Wall
Woman
Our Chinese Acquaintance
The Spirit Wall
The Most-Sacred Mountain
The Dandy
New China: The Iron Works
Spring
Meditation
Chinese New Year

ECHOES
Crepuscule
Festival of the Dragon Boats
Kang Yi
Poetics
A Lament of Scarlet Cloud
The Son of Heaven
The Dream
Fêng-Shui

CHINA OF THE TOURISTS
Reflections in a Ricksha
The Camels
The Connoisseur: An American
Sunday in the British Empire: Hong Kong
On the Canton River Boat
The Altar of Heaven
The Chair Ride
The Sikh Policeman: a British Subject
The Lady of Easy Virtue: an American
In the Mixed Court: Shanghai

Proem

Profiles from China

The Hand

As you sit so, in the firelight, your hand is the color of
new bronze.
I cannot take my eyes from your hand;
In it, as in a microcosm, the vast and shadowy Orient
is made visible.
Who shall read me your hand?

You are a large man, yet it is small and narrow, like the
hand of a woman and the paw of a chimpanzee.
It is supple and boneless as the hands wrought in pigment
by a fashionable portrait painter. The tapering
fingers bend backward.
Between them burns a scented cigarette. You poise it
with infinite daintiness, like a woman under the
eyes of her lover. The long line of your curved
nail is fastidiousness made flesh.

Very skilful is your hand.
With a tiny brush it can feather lines of ineffable suggestion,
glints of hidden beauty. With a little
tool it can carve strange dreams in ivory and
milky jade.

And cruel is your hand.
With the same cold daintiness and skill it can devise
exquisite tortures, eternities of incredible pain,
that Torquemada never glimpsed.
And voluptuous is your hand, nice in its sense of touch.
Delicately it can caress a quivering skin, softly it can
glide over golden thighs…. Bilitis had not
such long nails.

Who can read me your hand? In the firelight the smoke curls up fantastically from the cigarette between your fingers which are the color of new bronze. The room is full of strange shadows. I am afraid of your hand….

From the Interior

Cormorants

The boats of your masters are black;
They are filthy with the slimy filth of ages; like the
canals on which they float they give forth an evil
smell.
On soiled perches you sit, swung out on either side over
the scummy water—you who should be savage
and untamed, who should ride on the clean breath
of the sea and beat your pinions in the strong
storms of the sea.
Yet you are not held.
Tamely you sit and willingly, ten wretches to a boat,
lurching and half asleep.

Around each throat is a ring of straw, a small ring, so
that you may swallow only small things, such as
your masters desire.
Presently, when you reach the lake, you will dive.
At the word of your masters the parted waters will
close over you and in your ears will be the gurgling
of yellow streams.
Hungrily you will search in the darkened void, swiftly
you will pounce on the silver shadow….
Then you will rise again, bearing in your beak the
struggling prey,
And your lousy lords, whose rings are upon your
throats, will take from you the catch, giving in its
place a puny wriggler which can pass the gates of
straw.
Such is your servitude.

Yet willingly you sit, lurching and half asleep.
The boatmen shout one to another in nasal discords.
Lazily you preen your great wings, eagle wings,
built for the sky;
And you yawn….

Faugh! The sight of you sickens me, divers in inland
filth!
You grow lousy like your lords,
For you have forgotten the sea.

Wusih

A Scholar

You sit, chanting the maxims of Confucius. On your head is a domed cap of black satin and your supple hands with their long nails are piously folded. You rock to and fro rhythmically. Your voice, rising and falling in clear nasal monosyllables, flows on steadily, monotonously, like the flowing of water and the flowering of thought. You are chanting, it seems, of the pious conduct of man in all ages, And I know you for a scoundrel.

None the less the maxims of Confucius are venerable, and your voice pleasant. I listen attentively….

Wusih

The Story Teller

In a corner of the market-place he sits, his face the target
for many eyes.
The sombre crowd about him is motionless. Behind
their faces no lamp burns; only their eyes glow
faintly with a reflected light.
For their eyes are on his face.
It alone is alive, is vibrant, moving bronze under a sun
of bronze.
The taut skin, like polished metal, shines along his
cheek and jaw. His eyes cut upward from a slender
nose, and his quick mouth moves sharply out
and in.

Artful are the gestures of his mouth, elaborate and
full of guile. When he draws back the bow of
his lips his face is like a mask of lacquer, set with
teeth of pearl, fantastic, terrible….
What strange tale lives in the gestures of his mouth?
Does a fox-maiden, bewitching, tiny-footed, lure a
scholar to his doom? Is an unfilial son tortured
of devils? Or does a decadent queen sport with
her eunuchs?

I cannot tell.
The faces of the people are wooden; only their eyes
burn dully with a reflected light.
I shall never know.
I am alien … alien.

Nanking

The Well

The Second Well under Heaven lies at the foot of the
Sacred Mountain.
Perhaps the well is sacred because it is clean; or perhaps
it is clean because it is sacred.
I cannot tell.

At the bottom of the well are coppers and coins with
square holes in them, thrown thither by devout
hands. They gleam enticingly through the shallow
water.
The people crowd about the well, leaning brown covetous
faces above the coping as my copper falls
slantwise to rest.

Perhaps it will bring me luck, who knows?
It is a very sacred well.
Or perhaps, when it is quite dark, someone who is
hungry….
Then the luck will be his!

The Village of the Mud Idols

The Abandoned God

In the cold darkness of eternity he sits, this god who
has grown old.
His rounded eyes are open on the whir of time, but
man who made him has forgotten him.

Blue is his graven face, and silver-blue his hands. His
eyebrows and his silken beard are scarlet as the
hope that built him.
The yellow dragon on his rotting robes still rears itself
majestically, but thread by thread time eats its
scales away,
And man who made him has forgotten him.

For incense now he breathes the homely smell of rice and tea, stored in his anteroom; For priests the busy spiders hang festoons between his fingers, and nest them in his yellow nails. And darkness broods upon him. The veil that hid the awful face of godhead from the too impetuous gaze of worshippers serves in decay to hide from deity the living face of man, So god no longer sees his maker.

Let us drop the curtain and be gone!
I am old too, here in eternity.

Pa-tze-kiao

The Bridge

The Bridge of the Eight Scholars spans the canal narrowly.
On the gray stone of its arch are carvings in low relief,
and the curve of its span is pleasing to the eye.
No one knows how old is the Bridge of the Eight
Scholars.

In our house-boat we pass under it. The boatman
with the rat-like face twists the long broken-backed
oar, churning the yellow water, and we creep forward
steadily.
On the bridge the village is assembled. Foreign devils
are a rarity.
The gold-brown faces are not unfriendly, merely curious.
They peer in rows over the rail with grunts
of nasal interest.
Tentatively, experimentally, as we pass they spit down
upon us. Not that they wish us ill, but it can be
done, and the temptation is too great.

We retire into the house-boat.
The roof scrapes as we pass under the span of the
Bridge of the Eight Scholars.

Pa-tze-kiao

The Shop

(The articles sold here are to be burned at funerals for the use of the dead in the spirit world.)

The master of the shop is a pious man, in good odor with the priests. He is old and honorable and his white moustache droops below his chin. Mencius, I think, looked so.

The shop behind him is a mimic world, a world
of pieties and shams—the valley of remembrance—the
dwelling place of the unquiet dead.
Here on his shelves are ranged the splendor and the
panoply of life, silk in smooth gleaming rolls, silver
in ingots, carving and embroidery and jade, a
scarlet bearer-chair, a pipe for opium….
Whatever life has need of, it is here,
And it is for the dead.

Whatever life has need of, it is here. Yet it is here in sham, in effigy, in tortured compromise. The dead have need of silk. Yet silk is dear, and there are living backs to clothe. The rolls are paper…. Do not look too close.

The dead I think will understand. The carvings, too, the bearer-chair, the jade—yes, they are paper; and the shining ingots, they are tinsel. Yet they are made with skill and loving care! And if the priest knows—surely he must know!— when they are burned they'll serve the dead as well as verities. So living mouths can feed.

The master of the shop is a pious man. He has attained much honor and his white moustache droops below his chin. "Such an one" he says "I burned for my own father. And such an one my son will burn for me. For I am old, and half my life already dwells among the dead."

And, as he speaks, behind him in the shop I feel the presence of a hovering host, the myriads of the immortal dead, the rulers of the spirit in this land….

For in this kingdom of the dead they who are living cling with fevered hands to the torn fringes of the mighty past. And if they fail a little, compromise….

The dead I think will understand.

Soochow

My Servant

The feet of my servant thump on the floor. Thump,
they go, and thump—dully, deformedly.
My servant has shown me her feet.
The instep has been broken upward into a bony cushion.
The big toe is pointed as an awl. The small
toes are folded under the cushioned instep. Only
the heel is untouched.
The thing is white and bloodless with the pallor of
dead flesh.

But my servant is quite contented. She smiles toothlessly and shows me how small are her feet, her "golden lilies."

Thump, they go, and thump!

Wusih

The Feast

So this is the wedding feast!
The room is not large, but it is heavily crowded, filled
with small tables, filled with many human bodies.
About the walls are paintings and banners in sharp
colors; above our heads hang innumerable gaudy
lanterns of wood and paper. We sit in furs,
shivering with the cold.
The food passes endlessly, droll combinations in brown
gravies—roses, sugar, and lard—duck and
bamboo—lotus, chestnuts, and fish-eggs—an
"eight-precious pudding."
They tempt curiosity; my chop-sticks are busy. The
warm rice-wine trickles sparingly.

The groom is invisible somewhere, but the bride
martyrs among us. She is clad in scarlet satin,
heavily embroidered with gold. On her head is
an edifice of scarlet and pearls.
For weeks, I know, she has wept in protest.
The feast-mother leads her in to us with sacrificial
rites. Her eyes are closed, hidden behind her
curtain of strung beads; for three days she will
not open them. She has never seen the bridegroom.

At the feast she sits like her own effigy. She neither
eats nor speaks.
Opposite her, across the narrow table, is a wall of
curious faces, lookers-on—children and half-grown
boys, beggars and what-not—the gleanings
of the streets.
They are quiet but they watch hungrily.
To-night, when the bridegroom draws the scarlet curtains
of the bed, they will still be watching
hungrily….

Strange, formless memories out of books struggle upward
in my consciousness. This is the marriage
at Cana…. I am feasting with the Caliph
at Bagdad…. I am the wedding guest who
beat his breast….
My heart is troubled.
What shall be said of blood-brotherhood between man
and man?

Wusih

The Beggar

Christ! What is that—that—Thing? Only a beggar, professionally maimed, I think.

Across the narrow street it lies, the street where little
children are.
It is rocking its body back and forth, back and forth,
ingratiatingly, in the noisome filth.
Beside the body are stretched two naked stumps of
flesh, on one the remnant of a foot. The wounds
are not new wounds, but they are open and they
fester. There are flies on them.
The Thing is whining, shrilly, hideously.

Professionally maimed, I think. Christ!

Hwai Yuen

Interlude

It is going to be hot here.
Already the sun is treacherous and a dull mugginess is
in the air. I note that winter clothes are shedding
one by one.

In the market-place sits a coolie, expanding in the warmth. He has opened his ragged upper garments and his bronze body is naked to the belt. He is examining it minutely, occasionally picking at something with the dainty hand of the Orient. If he had ever seen a zoological garden I should say he was imitating the monkeys there. As he has not, I dare say the taste is ingrained.

At all events it is going to be hot here.

The Village of the Mud Idols

The City Wall

About the city where I dwell, guarding it close, runs
an embattled wall.
It was not new I think when Arthur was a king, and
plumèd knights before a British wall made brave
clangor of trumpets, that Launcelot came forth.
It was not new I think, and now not it but chivalry is
old.

Without, the wall is brick, with slots for firing, and it
drops straightway into the evil moat, where offal
floats and nameless things are thrown.
Within, the wall is earth; it slants more gently down,
covered with grass and stubbly with cut weeds.
Below it in straw lairs the beggars herd, patiently
whining, stretching out their sores.
And on the top a path runs.

As I walk, lifted above the squalor and the dirt, the timeless miracle of sunset mantles in the west, The blue dusk gathers close And beauty moves immortal through the land. And I walk quickly, praying in my heart that beauty will defend me, will heal up the too great wounds of China.

I will not look—to-night I will not look—where at
my feet the little coffins are,
The boxes where the beggar children lie, unburied
and unwatched.
I will not look again, for once I saw how one was
broken, torn by the sharp teeth of dogs. A little
tattered dress was there, and some crunched
bones….
I need not look. What can it help to look?

Ah, I am past! And still the sunset glows. The tall pagoda, like a velvet flower, blossoms against the sky; the Sacred Mountain fades, and in the town a child laughs suddenly. I will hold fast to beauty! Who am I, that I should die for these?

I will go down. I am too sorely hurt, here on the city wall.

Wusih

Woman

Strangely the sight of you moves me.
I have no standard by which to appraise you; the outer
shell of you is all I know.
Yet irresistibly you draw me.

Your small plump body is closely clad in blue brocaded
satin. The fit is scrupulous, yet no woman's figure
is revealed. You are decorously shapeless.
Your satin trousers even are lined with fur.
Your hair is stiff and lustrous as polished ebony, bound
at the neck in an adamantine knot, in which dull
pearls are encrusted.

Your face is young and round and inscrutably alien. Your complexion is exquisite, matte gold over-lying blush pink, textured like ripe fruit. Your nose is flat, the perfect nose of China. Your eyes—your eyes are witchery! The blank curtain of your upper lid droops sharply on the iris, and when you smile the corners twinkle upward. It is your eyes, I think, that move me. They are so bright, so black! They are alert and full of curiosity as the eyes of a squirrel, and like the eyes of a squirrel they have no depth behind them. They are windows opening on a world as small as your bound feet, a world of ignorances, and vacuities, and kitchen-gods.

And yet your eyes are witchery. When you smile you
are the woman-spirit, adorable.

I cannot appraise you, yet strangely the sight of you
moves me.
I believe that I shall dream of you.

Pa-tze-kiao

Our Chinese Acquaintance

We met him in the runway called a street, between the
warrens known as houses.
He looked still the same, but his French-cut tweeds,
his continental hat, and small round glasses were
alien here.
About him we felt a troubled uncertainty.

He greeted us gladly. "It is good," he said in his
soft French, "to see my foreign friends again.
You find our city dirty I am sure. On every stone
dirt grows in China.
How the people crowd! The street is choked. No
jee ba! Go away, curious ones! The ladies
cannot breathe….
No, my people are not clean. They do not understand,
I think. In Belgium where I studied—
… Yes, I was studying in Bruges, studying
Christianity, when the great war came.
We, you know, love peace. I could not see….

"So I came home.

"But China is very dirty…. Our priests are rascals,
and the people … I do not know.

"Is there, perhaps, a true religion somewhere? The
Greeks died too—and they were clean."
Behind his glasses his slant eyes were troubled.
"I do not know," he said.

Wusih

The Spirit Wall

It stands before my neighbor's door, between him and
the vegetable garden and the open toilet pots and
the dirty canal.
Not that he wishes to hide these things.
On the contrary, he misses the view.
But China, you must understand, is full of evil spirits,
demons of the earth and air, foxes and shui-mang
devils, and only the priest knows what beside.
A man may at any moment be bewitched, so that his
silk-worms die and his children go blind and he
gets the devil-sickness.
So living is difficult.
But Heaven has providentially decreed that these evil
spirits can travel only in a straight line. Around
a corner their power evaporates.
So my neighbor has built a wall that runs before his
door. Windows of course he has none.
He cannot see his vegetable garden, and his toilet pots,
and the dirty canal.
But he is quite safe!

Wusih

The Most-Sacred Mountain

Space, and the twelve clean winds of heaven,
And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow
six thousand steps of climbing!
This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy.

Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks
of green; and lower down the flat brown plain, the
floor of earth, stretches away to blue infinity.
Beside me in this airy space the temple roofs cut their
slow curves against the sky,
And one black bird circles above the void.

Space, and the twelve clean winds are here; And with them broods eternity—a swift, white peace, a presence manifest. The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end.

Here when Confucius came, a half a thousand years
before the Nazarene, he stepped, with me, thus
into timelessness.
The stone beside us waxes old, the carven stone that
says: On this spot once Confucius stood and
felt the smallness of the world below.

The stone grows old.
Eternity
Is not for stones.

But I shall go down from this airy space, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation; And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm of the daily round. Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time ravel thin about me; For once I stood In the white windy presence of eternity.

Tai Shan

The Dandy

He swaggers in green silk and his two coats are lined with fur. Above his velvet shoes his trim, bound ankles twinkle pleasantly. His nails are of the longest. Quite the glass of fashion is Mr. Chu! In one slim hand—the ultimate punctilio—dangles a bamboo cage, wherein a small brown bird sits with a face of perpetual surprise. Mr. Chu smiles the benevolent smile of one who satisfies both fashion and a tender heart. Does not a bird need an airing?

Wusih

New China: The Iron Works

The furnaces, the great steel furnaces, tremble and
glow; gigantic machinery clanks, and in living
iridescent streams the white-hot slag pours out.
This is to-morrow set in yesterday, the west imbedded
in the east, a graft but not a growth.

And you who walk beside me, picking your familiar way
between the dynamos, the cars, the piles of rails—
you too are of to-morrow, grafted with an alien
energy.
You wear the costume of the west, you speak my
tongue as one who knows; you talk casually of
Sheffield, Pittsburgh, Essen….
You touch on Socialism, walk-outs, and the industrial
population of the British Isles.
Almost you might be one of us.

And then I ask: "How much do those poor coolies earn a day, who take the place of carts?" You shrug and smile. "Eighteen coppers. Something less than eight cents in your money. They are not badly paid. They do not die."

Again I ask: "And is it true that you've a Yâmen, a police judge, all your own?" Another shrug and smile. "Yes, he attends to all small cases of disorder. For larger crimes we pass the offender over to the city courts."

* * * * *

"Conditions" you explain as we sit later with a cup
of tea, "conditions here are difficult."
Your figure has grown lax, your voice a little weary.
You are fighting, I can see, upheld by that strange
graft of western energy.
Yet odds are heavy, and the Orient is in your blood.
Your voice is weary.
"There are no skilled laborers" you say, "Among
the owners no coöperation.
It is like—like working in a nightmare, here in China.
It drags at me, it drags"….
You bow me out with great civility.
The furnaces, the great steel furnaces, tremble and
glow, gigantic machinery clanks and in living
iridescent streams the white-hot slag pours out.

Beyond the gate the filth begins again.
A beggar rots and grovels, clutching at my skirt with
leprous hands. A woman sits sorting hog-bristles;
she coughs and sobs.

The stench is sickening.

To-morrow! did they say?

Hanyang

Spring

The toilet pots are very loud today.
It is spring and the warmth is highly favorable to fermentation.
Some odors are unbelievable.

At the corner of my street is an especially fragrant
reservoir. It is three feet in diameter, set flush
with the earth, and well filled.
Above it squats a venerable Chinaman with a face such
as Confucius must have worn.
His silk skirt is gathered daintily about his waist, and
his rounded rear is suspended in mid-air over the
broken pottery rim.
He gazes at me contemplatively as I pass with eyes in
which the philosophy of the ages has its dwelling.

I wonder whether he too feels the spring.

Wusih

Meditation

In all the city where I dwell two spaces only are wide
and clean.
One is the compound about the great church of the
mission within the wall; the other is the courtyard
of the great factory beyond the wall.
In these two, one can breathe.

And two sounds there are, above the multitudinous crying
of the city, two sounds that recur as time recurs—the
great bell of the mission and the
whistle of the factory.
Every hour of the day the mission bell strikes, clear,
deep-toned—telling perhaps of peace.
And in the morning and in the evening the factory
whistle blows, shrill, provocative—telling surely
of toil.
Now, when the mulberry trees are bare and the wintry
wind lifts the rags of the beggars, the day shift
at the factory is ten hours, and the night shift
is fourteen.
They are divided one from the other by the whistle,
shrill, provocative.
The mission and the factory are the West. What
they are I know.

And between them lies the Orient—struggling and
suffering, spawning and dying—but what it is
I shall never know.

Yet there are two clean spaces in the city where I dwell,
the compound of the church within the wall, and
the courtyard of the factory beyond the wall.
It is something that in these two one can breathe.

Wusih

Chinese New Year

Mrs. Sung has a new kitchen-god. The old one—he who has presided over the household this twelvemonth—has returned to the Celestial Regions to make his report. Before she burned him Mrs. Sung smeared his mouth with sugar; so that doubtless the report will be favorable. Now she has a new god. As she paid ten coppers for him he is handsomely painted and should be highly efficacious. So there is rejoicing in the house of Mrs. Sung.

Peking

Echoes

Crepuscule

Like the patter of rain on the crisp leaves of autumn are the tiny footfalls of the fox-maidens.

Festival of the Dragon Boats

On the fifth day of the fifth month the statesman Küh
Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo.
Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the
mountains wear away.
Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month,
the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs,
search diligently in the streams of the Empire
for the body of Küh Yuen.

Kang Yi

When Kang Yi had been long dead the Empress decreed upon him posthumous decapitation, so that he walks for ever disgraced among the shades.

Poetics

While two ladies of the Imperial harem held before him a screen of pink silk, and a P'in Concubine knelt with his ink-slab, Li Po, who was very drunk, wrote an impassioned poem to the moon.

A Lament of Scarlet Cloud

O golden night, lit by the flame of seven stars, the years have drunk you too.

The Son of Heaven

Like this frail and melancholy rain is the memory of
the Emperor Kuang-Hsü, and of his sufferings at
the hand of Yehonala.
Yet under heaven was there found no one to avenge
him.
Now he has mounted the Dragon and has visited the
Nine Springs. His betrayer sits upon the Dragon
Throne.

Yet among the shades may he not take comfort from
the presence of his Pearl Concubine?

The Dream

When he had tasted in a dream of the Ten Courts of Purgatory, Doctor Tsêng was humbled in spirit, and passed his life in piety among the foot-hills.

Fêng-Shui

At the Hour of the Horse avoid raising a roof-tree,
for by the trampling of his hoofs it may
be beaten down;
And at the Hour of the cunning Rat go not near a
soothsayer, for by his cunning he may mislead
the oracle, and the hopes of the enquirer come
to naught.

China of the Tourists

Reflections in a Ricksha

This ricksha is more comfortable than some.
The springs are not broken, and the seat is covered
with a white cloth.
Also the runner is young and sturdy, and his legs flash
pleasantly.
I am not ill at ease.

The runner interests me.
Between the shafts he trots easily and familiarly, lifting
his knees prettily and holding his shoulders
steady.
His hips are lean and narrow as a filly's; his calves
might have posed for Praxiteles.
He is a modern, I perceive, for he wears no queue.
Above a rounded neck rises a shock of hair the shade
of dusty coal. Each hair is stiff and erect as a
brush bristle. There are lice in them no doubt—
but then perhaps we of the West are too squeamish
in details of this minor sort.
What interests me chiefly is the back of his ears. Not
that they are extraordinary as ears; it is their
very normality that touches me. I find them
smaller than those of a horse, but undoubtedly
near of kin.

There is no denying the truth of evolution;
Yet as a beast of burden man is distinctly inferior.

It is odd.
At home I am a democrat. A republic, a true republic,
seems not improbable, a fighting dream.
Yet beholding the back of the ears of a trotting man
I perceive it to be impossible—the millennium
another million years away.
I grow insufferably superior and Anglo-Saxon.
I am sorry, but what would you?
One is what one is.

Hankow

The Camels

Whence do you come, and whither make return, you
silent padding beasts?
Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to
Kalgan—and beyond, whither?…

Here in the city you are alien, even as I am alien.
Your sidling jaw, your pendulous neck—incredible—and
that slow smile about your eyes and lip,
these are not of this land.
About you some far sense of mystery, some tawny
charm, hangs ever.
Silently, with the dignity of the desert, your caravans
move among the hurrying hordes, remote and
slowly smiling.

But whence are you, and whither do you make return?
Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to
Kalgan—and beyond, whither?…

Peking

The Connoisseur: An American

He is not an old man, but he is lonely.
He who was born in the clash of a western city dwells
here, in this silent courtyard, alone.
Seven servants he has, seven men-servants. They
move about quietly and their slippered feet make
no sound. Behind their almond eyes move green,
sidelong shadows, and their limber hands are
never still.
In his house the riches of the Orient are gathered.
Ivory he has, carved in a thousand quaint, enticing
shapes—pleasant to the hand, smooth with the
caressing of many fingers.
And jade is there, dark green and milky white, with
amber from Korea and strange gems—beryl,
chrysoprase, jasper, sardonyx….
His lacquered shelves hold priceless pottery—peachblow
and cinnabar and silver grey—pottery
glazed like the new moon, fired how long ago
for a moon-pale princess of the East, whose very
name is dust!

In his vaults are incredible textures and colors that
vibrate like struck jade.

Stiff with gold brocade they are, or soft as the coat of
a fawn—these sacred robes of a long dead priest,
silks of a gold-skinned courtesan, embroideries of
a lost throne.
When he unfolds them the shimmering heaps are like
living opals, burning and moving darkly with the
warm breath of beauty.

And other priceless things the collector has, so that in many days he could not look upon them all. Every morning his seven men-servants dress him, and every evening they undress him. Behind their almond eyes move green sidelong shadows. In this silent courtyard the collector lives. He is not an old man but he is lonely.

Peking

Sunday in the British Empire: Hong Kong

In the aisle of the cathedral it lies, an army rifle of
the latest type.
It is laid on the black and white mosaic, between the
carved oaken pews and the strip of brown carpet
in the aisle.
A crimson light from the stained-glass window yonder
glints on the blue steel of its barrel, and the
khaki of its shoulder-strap blends with the brown
of the carpet.

The stiff backs of its owner and a hundred like him are very still. The vested choir chants prettily. Then the bishop speaks: "O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord,… defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies." "Amen!" say the owners of the khaki backs.

The light has shifted a little. On the blue steel barrel
of the rifle the glint is turquoise now.
That will be from the robe of the shepherd in the window
yonder, He of the quiet eyes….

Hong Kong

On the Canton River Boat

Up and down, up and down, paces the sentry. He is dressed in a uniform of khaki and his socks are green. Over his shoulder is slung a rifle, and from his belt hang a pistol and cartridge pouch. He is, I think, Malay and Chinese mixed.

Behind him the rocky islands, hazed in blue, the yellow sun-drenched water, the tropic shore, pass as a background in a dream. He only is sweltering reality. Yet he is here to guard against a nightmare, an anachronism, something that I cannot grasp. He is guarding me from pirates.

Piracy! The very name is fantastic in my ears, colored
like a toucan in the zoo.
And yet the ordinance is clear: "Four armed guards,
strong metal grills behind the bridge, the engine-room
enclosed—in case of piracy."

The socks of the sentry are green.
Up and down, up and down he paces, between the
bridge and the first of the life-boats.
In my deck chair I grow restless.

Am I then so far removed from life, so wrapped in
cotton wool, so deep-sunk in the soft lap of civilization,
that I cannot feel the cold splash of truth?
It is a disquieting thought—for certainly piracy seems
as fantastic as ever.

The socks of the sentry annoy me. They are too
green for so hot a day.
And his shoes squeak.
I should feel much cooler if he wouldn't pace so.
Piracy!

Somewhere on the River

The Altar of Heaven

Beneath the leaning, rain-washed sky this great white
circle—beautiful!

In three white terraces the circle lies, piled one on
one toward Heaven. And on each terrace the
white balustrade climbs in aspiring marble, etched
in cloud.
And Heaven is very near.
For this is worship native as the air, wide as the
wind, and poignant as the rain,
Pure aspiration, the eternal dream.

Beneath the leaning sky this great white circle!

Peking

The Chair Ride

The coolies lift and strain;
My chair creaks rhythmically.
It is not yet morning and the live darkness pushes
about us, a greedy darkness that has swallowed
even the stars.
In all the world there is left only my chair, with the
tiny horn lantern before it.
There are also, it is true, the undersides of trees in
the lantern-light and the stony path that flows
past ceaselessly.
But these things flit and change.
Only I and the chair and the darkness are permanent.
We have been moving so since time was in the
womb.

The seat of my chair is of wicker.
It is not unlike an invalid chair, and I, in it, am swaddled
like an invalid, wrapped in layer on layer
of coddling wool.
But there are no wheels to my chair. I ride on the
steady feet of four queued coolies.
The tramp of their lifted shoes is the rhythm of being,
throbbing in me as my own heart throbs.

Save for their feet the bearers are silent. They move softly through the live darkness. But now and again I am shifted skilfully from one shoulder to the other.

The breath of the coolies is short.
They strain, and in spite of the cold I know they are
sweating.
It is wicked of course!
My five dollars ought not to buy life.
But it is all they understand;
And even I am not precisely comfortable.

The darkness is thinning a little.
On either side loom featureless black hills, their summits
sharp and ragged.
The Great Wall is somewhere hereabouts.

My chair creaks rhythmically.
In another year it will be day.

Ching-lung-chiao

The Sikh Policeman: A British Subject

Of what, I wonder, are you thinking?
It is something beyond my world I know, something
that I cannot guess.
Yet I wonder.

Of nothing Chinese can you be thinking, for you hate
them with an automatic hatred—the hatred of
the well-fed for the starved, of the warlike for
the weak.
When they cross you, you kick them, viciously, with
the drawing back of your silken beard, your
black, black beard, from your white teeth.
With a snarl you kick them, sputtering curses in short
gutturals.
You do not even speak their tongue, so it cannot be
of them you are thinking.

Yet neither do you speak the tongue of the master whom you serve. No more do you know of us the "Masters" than you know of them the "dogs." We are above you, they below. And between us you stand, guarding the street, erect and splendid, lithe and male. Your scarlet turban frames your neat black head, And you are thinking.

Or are you?
Perhaps we only are stung with thought.
I wonder.

Shanghai

The Lady of Easy Virtue: An American

Lotus, So they called your name. Yet the green swelling pod, the fruit-like seeds and heavy flower, are nothing like to you. Rather, like a pitcher plant you are, for hope and all young wings are drowned in you.

Your slim body, here in the café, moves brightly in
and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine
and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings—these
are Lotus.
And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the lips a
vulgar jest;
Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to
the wrists and to the hair of men. These too
are Lotus.
And what more—God knows!

You too perhaps were stranded here, like these poor homesick boys, in this great catch-all where the white race ends, this grim Shanghai that like a sieve hangs over filth and loneliness. You were caught here like these, and who could live, young and so slender—in Shanghai? Green satin, and a gleaming throat, and painted eyes of steel, Hunter or hunted, Peace be with you, Lotus!

Shanghai

In the Mixed Court: Shanghai

Two men sit in judgment on their fellows.
Side by side they sit, raised on the pedestal of the law,
at grips with squalor and ignorance.
They are civilization—and they are very grave.

One of them is of my own people, a small man, definite,
hard-featured, an accurate weapon of small
calibre.
Of the other I cannot judge.
He is heavily built, and when he is still the dignity of
the Orient is about him like his robe. His head
is large and beautifully domed, his hands tapering
and aristocratic.
When he speaks it is of subtleties.
But when he speaks his dignity drops from him. His
eyes shift quickly from one end of their little slit
to the other, his mouth, his full brown mouth,
moves over-fast, his hands flicker back and forth.

The courtroom is crowded with ominous yellow poverty.
The cases are of many sorts.
A woman, she of the little tortured feet and sullen face,
has kidnapped a small boy to sell. A man was
caught smuggling opium. A tea-merchant, in
dark green silk, complains that he was decoyed
and held prisoner in a lodging-house for ransom.
A gambling den has been raided and the ivory
dominoes are shown in court.
The prisoners are stoically sullen. The odor of them
fills the room.

Above them sit the two men, raised on the pedestal of the law, judging their fellows. I turn to the man beside me, waiting his case. "Tell me" I ask "of these men, which is the better judge?" He answers carefully. "The Chinaman is cleverer by half. He sees where the other is blind. But Chinese magistrates are bought, and this one sells himself too cheap." "And the other?" I ask again. "A good man, and quite honest. You see he doesn't care."

The judges put their heads together. They are civilization and they are very grave. What, I wonder, is civilization?

Shanghai

Barbara J. Woodward ist Botschafterin der britischen Botschaft in Beijing.