China and the West

John Shaw Burdon hält sich in England auf.

John Shaw Burdon wird beauftragt mit fünf chinesischen Gelehrten das Neue Testament in Mandarin zu übersetzen.

George Smith kehrt nach England zurück.

Harry Smith Parkes ist Konsul der britischen Gesandtschaft in Shanghai.

Robert Swinhoe reist in Formosa und entlang der Küste von Gaoxiong und Hengchun.

Thomas Sutherland gründet die Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Shanghai. Lancelot Dent wird Mitbegründer.

Thomas Sutherland ist Direktor und Vorsitzender der Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Shanghai.

Gründung einer Fremdsprachenschule in Guangzhou (Guangdong) durch Vorschlag von Li Hongzhang.

Young J. Allen gibt Englisch-Unterricht an der Tongwenguan in Shanghai.

Gründung der Tongwenguan in Guangzhou (Guangdong).

Die Chinese Maritime Customs (Zhongguo hai guan) werden dem Zongli Yamen unterstellt.

John Dudgeon arbeitet als Arzt der London Missionary Society im Spital von Beijing und ist ärztlicher Betreuer der britischen und amerikanischen Konsulats in Beijing.

Antoine Brenier de Montmorand ist Konsul des französischen Konsulats in Shanghai.

Ernest Godeaux ist Generalkonsul des französischen Konsulats in Shanghai.

Judith Gautier schreibt in einem Artikel im Moniteur universel, April 1864 über eine Ausstellung chinesischer Kunst : "Peu de gens avaient eu l'occasion d'admirer une telle profusion de merveilles : porcelaines, jades et pierres précieuses. On en sort ébloui comme si on avait regardé le soleil en face".

Gründung und Bestehen des französischen Konsulats in Fuzhou (Fujian).
1882-1935 französisches Vize-Konsulat in Fuzhou
1918-1926 Zusammenschluss mit Xiamen.
1936-1945 französisches Konsulat in Fuzhou

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill. Purple and rose : the lange leizen of the six marks.[Gemälde].
http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/101800.html?mulR=2688
Central to Wistler's concept of design were Asian objects from his personal collection, such as the ceramics and the woman's embroidered Chinese robe. Whistler's way of emphasizing that his works are primarily abstract compositions of colors, the title Purple and rose refers to the seventeenth-century Chinese porcelain jar that the young woman holds.

Twain, Mark. Chinese slaves [ID D29353].
Captain Douglass and Watchman Hager boarded the ship Clara Morse, on Sunday morning, the moment she arrived, and captured nineteen Chinese girls, who had been stolen and brought from Hongkong to San Francisco to be sold. They were a choice lot, and estimated to be worth from one hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars apiece in this market. They are shut up for safe-keeping for the present, and we went and took a look at them yesterday; some of them are almost good-looking, and none of them are pitted with small pox - a circumstance which we have observed is very rare among China women. There were even small children among them - one or two not two years old, perhaps, but the ages of the majority ranged from four teen to twenty. We would suggest, just here that the room where these unfortunates are confined is rather too close for good health - and besides, the more fresh air that blows on a Chinaman, the better he smells. The heads of the various Chinese Companies here have entered into a combination to break up this importation of Chinese prostitutes, and they are countenanced and supported in their work by Chief Burke and Judge Shepheard. Now-a-days, before a ship gets her cables out, the Police board her, seize the girls and shut them up, under guard, and they are sent back to China as soon as opportunity offers, at the expense of the Chinese Companies, who also send an agent along to hunt up the families from whom the poor creatures have been stolen, and restore to them their lost darlings again. Our Chinese fellow citizens seem to be acquiring a few good Christian instincts, at any rate.

Twain, Mark. Opium smugglers [ID D29360].
The ingenuity of the Chinese is beyond calculation. It is asserted that they have no words or expressions signifying abstract right or wrong. They appreciate "good" and "bad," but it is only in reference to business, to finance, to trade, etc. Whatever is successful is good; whatever fails is bad. So they are not conscience-bound in planning and perfecting ingenious contrivances for avoiding the tariff on opium, which is pretty heavy. The attempted swindles appear to have been mostly, or altogether, attempted by the Coolie passengers - the Chinese merchants, either from honorable motives or from policy, having dealt honestly with the Government. But the passengers have reached the brains of rascality itself, to find means for importing their delicious drug without paying the duties. To do this has called into action the inventive genius of brains equal in this respect to any that ever lodged on the top end of humanity. They have, doubtless, for years smuggled opium into this port continuously. The officers of Customs at length got on their track, and the traffic has become unprofitable to the Coolies, however well it has been paying the officials through the seizures made. The opium has been found concealed in double jars and brass eggs, as heretofore described, brought ashore in bands around the body, and by various other modes.

Twain, Mark. The new Chinese temple [ID D29361].
Being duly provided with passes, through the courtesy of our cultivated barbaric friend, Ah Wae, out side business-agent of the Ning Yong Company, we visited the new Chinese Temple again yesterday, in company with several friends. After suffocating in the smoke of burning punk and josh lights, and the infernal odors of opium and all kinds of edibles cooked in an unchristian manner, until we were becoming imbued with Buddhism and beginning to lose our nationality, and imbibe, unasked, Chinese instincts, we finally found Ah Wae, who roused us from our lethargy and saved us to our religion and our country by merely breathing the old, touching words, so simple and yet so impressive, and withal so familiar to those whose blessed privilege it has been to be reared in the midst of a lofty and humanizing civilization: "How do, gentlemen - take a drink ?" By the magic of that one phrase, our noble American instincts were spirited back to us again, in all their pristine beauty and glory. The polished cabinet of wines and liquors stood on a table in one of the gorgeous halls of the temple, and behold, an American, with those same noble instincts of his race, had been worshipping there before us - Mr. Stiggers, of the Alta. His photograph lay there, the countenance subdued by accustomed wine, and reposing upon it appeared that same old smile of serene and ineffable imbecility which has so endeared it to all whose happiness it has been to look upon it. That apparition filled us with forebodings. They proved to be well founded. A sad Chinaman - the sanctified bar-keeper of the temple - threw open the cabinet with a sigh, exposed the array of empty decanters, sighed again, murmured "Bymbye, Stiggins been here," and burst into tears. No one with any feeling would have tortured the poor pagan for further explanations when manifestly none were needed, and we turned away in silence, and dropped a sympathetic tear in a fragrant rat-pie which had just been brought in to be set before the great god Josh. The temple is thoroughly fitted up now, and is resplendent with tinsel and all descriptions of finery. The house and its embellishments cost about eighty thousand dollars. About the 5th of September it will be thrown open for public inspection, and will be well worth visiting. There is a band of tapestry extending around a council-room in the second story, which is beautifully embroidered in a variety of intricate designs wrought in bird's feathers, and gold and silver thread and silk fibres of all colors. It cost a hundred and fifty dollars a yard, and was made by hand. The temple was dedicated last Friday night, and since then priests and musicians have kept up the ceremonies with noisy and unflagging zeal. The priests march backward and forward, reciting prayers or something in a droning, sing-song way, varied by discordant screeches somewhat like the cawing of crows, and they kneel down, and get up and spin around, and march again, and still the infernal racket of gongs, drums and fiddles, goes on with its hideous accompaniment, and still the spectator grows more and more smothered and dizzy in the close atmosphere of punk-smoke and opium-fumes. On a divan in one hall, two priests, clad in royal robes of figured blue silk, and crimson skull caps, lay smoking opium, and had kept it up until they looked as drunk and spongy as the photograph of the mild and beneficent Stiggers. One of them was a high aristocrat and a distinguished man among the Chinamen, being no less a personage than the chief priest of the temple, and "Sing-Song" or President of the great Ning-Yong Company. His finger-nails are actually longer than the fingers they adorn, and one of them is twisted in spirals like a cork screw. There was one room half full of priests, all fine, dignified, intelligent looking men like Ah Wae, and all dressed in long blue silk robes, and blue and red topped skull caps, with broad brims turned up all round like wash-basins. The new temple is ablaze with gilded ornamentation, and those who are fond of that sort of thing would do well to stand ready to accept the forthcoming public invitation.