China and the West

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky ist Bischof von Shanghai.

Nach Urlaub in Amerika leitet Lottie Moon eine Schule in Dengzhou = Penglai (Shandong)

Yan Fu studiert Navigation zuerst in Portsmouth dann am Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Gu Hongming erhält den M.A. in Literatur der University of Edinburgh.

Li Hongzhang gründet die Kaiping Mining Company.

Niedermayer, Georg. Staberl in China oder, Der Sohn des Himmels [ID D15997].
Ingrid Schuster : Staberl reist nach Beijing und wird in eine Verschwörung gegen den Kaiser Tschin-Tschin verwickelt, wird arretiert, gibt sich als Lord aus und verrät die Verschwörung. Schliesslich erkennt er im Kaiser einen Landsmann, den Prater-Seppel. Während sich die Chinesen niedermetzeln, machen sich Staberl und Seppel auf den Weg zurück nach Wien.

Hugo, Victor. Le pot cassé. In : Hugo, Victor. L'art d'être grand-père. (Paris : J. Hetzel, 1877).
Hugo beschreibt in seinem Gedicht eine chinesische Vase.
Ô ciel ! toute la Chine est par terre en morceaux !
Ce vase pâle et doux comme un reflet des eaux,
Couvert d'oiseaux, de fleurs, de fruits, et des mensonges
De ce vague idéal qui sort du bleu des songes,
Ce vase unique, étrange, impossible, engourdi,
Gardant sur lui le clair de lune en plein midi,
Qui paraissait vivant, où luisait une flamme,
Qui semblait presque un monstre et semblait presque une âme,
Mariette, en faisant la chambre, l'a poussé
Du coude par mégarde, et le voilà brisé !
Beau vase ! Sa rondeur était de rêves pleine,
Des boeufs d'or y broutaient des prés de porcelaine.
Je l'aimais, je l'avais acheté sur les quais,
Et parfois aux marmots pensifs je l'expliquais.
Voici l'yak ; voici le singe quadrumane ;
Ceci c'est un docteur peut-être, ou bien un âne ;
Il dit la messe, à moins qu'il ne dise hi-han ;
Ça, c'est un mandarin qu'on nomme aussi kohan ;
Il faut qu'il soit savant, puisqu'il a ce gros ventre.
Attention, ceci, c'est le tigre en son antre,
Le hibou dans son trou, le roi dans son palais,
Le diable en son enfer ; voyez comme ils sont laids !
Les monstres, c'est charmant, et les enfants le sentent.
Des merveilles qui sont des bêtes les enchantent.
Donc, je tenais beaucoup à ce vase. Il est mort.
J'arrivai furieux, terrible, et tout d'abord :
- Qui donc a fait cela ? criai-je. Sombre entrée !
Jeanne alors, remarquant Mariette effarée,
Et voyant ma colère et voyant son effroi,
M'a regardé d'un air d'ange, et m'a dit : - C'est moi.

John Gardiner Austin ist Gouverneur von Hong Kong.

Chaloner Alabaster ist Generalkonsul des britischen Konsulats in Tianjin.

Louis-Charles-Arthur Lanen ist Generalkonsul in Hong Kong und Macao.

Henri Havret ist als Missionar in der Yangzi Region tätig.

Carlo Puini ist Professor für Storia e geografia dell'Asia orientale des Istituto di studi superiori, Florenz. Er unterrichtet über Literatur, Philosophie, Religion und Kunst von China, Japan, Tibet und der Mongolei.

Aus der Società italiana per gli studi orientali in Florenz wird die Academia orientale gegründet. Präsident ist Antelmo Severini, Berater Carlo Puini [et al.].

Guo Songtao wird zu einer Ausstellung von englischen Druckmaschinen eingeladen.
Er schreibt im Tagebuch : "Among all the books on display, Shakespeare's was the most well known. He was an outstanding English playwright about two hundred years ago, enjoying equal popularity with the Greek writer Homer."

Brief von Oscar Wilde an William Ward.
Wilde saying "how can you, and aesthetic youth, dress yourself as a Chinaman and so exhibit yourself to some girl you are fond of ?" Wilde distinguished Ward and himself from the Chinese people who he thought had an inferior taste in beauty.

Twain, Mark ; Harte, Bret. Ah Sin [ID D29331].
New York World ; Aug. 1 (1877).= San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin ; 9 Aug. 1877.
Mark Twain and Bret Harte's new play at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York : Mark Twain's funny speech.
http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/onstage/playscripts/ahsinart03.html.
Mr. Daly began his ninth season at the Fifth Avenue Theatre last night with a house as full as a manager could desire, and with a play that has in it the elements of the success most admired by managers. The play is called Ah Sin, and it is the joint composition of Mark Twain and Bret Harte. It was originally produced at Washington in May last, but it ran only for a short time, for the reason that it was not then a playable play. Since then its authors (Mark Twain chiefly, we believe) have pruned and pared it, and rewritten a great portion of the dialogue, so that in its present shape the characters have to speak the language of real life for the most part, instead of, as before, the pedantic, stilted talk of dead books. Ah Sin was written expressly for C. T. Parsloe, who plays the title-role, a Heathen Chinee, whose ways are certainly peculiar. Ah Sin is an American play, the scene being laid in the mining districts of California, the characters being those one might have met there a quarter of a century ago. The language used is distinctively American, as apart from English, about two-thirds of it being the embryo language we call slang--words and phrases that often become crystallized, and when brought into common use give character to the language of a people; and the incidents--the heathen Chinee himself included--are American every one. Yet it is all to dwellers on this eastern coast--scene, characters, language and incidents--as strange and unreal as if the scene was laid in Herzegovina or Timbuctoo.
At the end of the third act there were loud calls for Mark Twain and Bret Harte. The latter being in Washington could not appear, but the former came forward amid immense cheering, and spoke as follows:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In view of this admirable success, it is meet that I try to express to you our hearty thanks for the large share which your encouraging applause has had in producing this success. This office I take upon me with great pleasure. This is a very remarkable play. You may not have noticed it, but I assure you it is so. The construction of this play was a work of great labor and research; also of genius and invention, and plagiarism. When the authors of this play began their work they were resolved that it should not lack blood-curdling disasters, accidents, calamities, for these things always help out a play. But we wanted them to be new ones, brilliant, unhackneyed. In a lucky moment we hit upon the breaking down of a stage coach as being something perfectly fresh and appalling. It seemed a stroke of genius, an inspiration. We were charmed with it. So we naturally overdid it a little. Consequently, when the play was first completed, we found we had had that stage break down seven times in the first act. We saw that that wouldn't do--the piece was going to be too stagey (I didn't notice that--that is very good). Yes, the critics and everybody would say this sort of thing argued poverty of invention. And (confidentially) it did resemble that. So, of course, we set to work and put some limitations upon that accident, and we threw a little variety into the general style of it, too. Originally the stage-coach always came in about every seven minutes, and broke down at the footlights and spilt the passengers down among the musicians. You can see how monotonous that was--to the musicians. But we fixed all that. At present the stage-coach breaks down only once; a private carriage breaks down once, and the horses of another carriage run away once. We could have left out one or two of these, but then we had the horses and vehicles on our hands, and we couldn't afford to throw them away on a mere quibble. I am making this explanation in the hope that it will reconcile you to the repetition of that accident.
This play is more didactic than otherwise. For the instruction of the young we have introduced a game of poker in the first act. The game of poker is all too little understood in the higher circles of this country. Here and there you find an Ambassador that has some idea of the game, but you take the general average of the nation and our ignorance ought to make us blush. Why, I have even known a clergyman--a liberal, cultivated, pure-hearted man, and most excellent husband and father--who didn't value an ace full above two pair and a jack. Such ignorance as this is brutalizing. Whoever sees Mr. Parsloe in this piece sees as good and natural and consistent a Chinaman as he could see in San Francisco. I think his portrayal of the character reaches perfection. The whole purpose of the piece is to afford an opportunity for the illustration of this character. The Chinaman is going to become a very frequent spectacle all over America by and by, and a difficult political problem, too. Therefore, it seems well enough to let the public study him a little on the stage beforehand. The actors, the management and the authors have done their best to begin this course of public instruction effectually this evening. I will say only one word more about this remarkable play. It is this: When this play was originally completed it was so long, and so wide and so deep--in places--and so comprehensive that it would have taken two weeks to play it. And I thought this was a good feature. I supposed we could have a sign on the curtain, "To be continued," and it would be all right; but the manager said no, that wouldn't do; to play two weeks was sure to get us into trouble with the Government, because the Constitution of the United States says you sha'n't inflict cruel and unusual punishments. So he set to work to cut it down, and cart the refuse to the paper-mill. Now that was a good thing. I never saw a play improve as this one did. The more he cut out of it the better it got right along. He cut out, and cut out, and cut out; and I do believe this would be one of the best plays in the world to-day if his strength had held out, and he could have gone on and cut out the rest of it. With this brief but necessary explanation of the plot and purpose and moral of this excellent work, I make my bow, repeat my thanks, and remark that the scissors have been repaired and the work of improvement will still go on.

Twain, Mark ; Harte, Bret. Ah Sin [ID D29331].
The New York Times ; Aug. 1, 1877.
http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/onstage/playscripts/ahsinrev03.html.
Amusements : Fifth-Avenue Theatre.
The representation of the play called "Ah Sin" at the Fifth Avenue Theatre yesterday evening afforded frequent gratification to a very large audience. The fact that a good many spectators grew perceptibly weary as the performance approached an end, and the still more significant fact that the audience left the house without making the slightest demonstration of pleasure when the curtain fell upon the last scene, may imply that the piece, as a whole, is scarcely likely to secure a really strong hold upon the favor of the public. But it is certain that there was much laughter and applause heard as "Ah Sin" progressed, and the causes of the merriment and plaudits appeared sufficiently numerous to give some vitality to the composition of which they are the principal element. It need hardly be said that Messrs. Bret Harte and Mark Twain's play is by no means a very dramatic or symmetrical work. Humorists, romance writers, and poets are never born and seldom become dramatists, and both authors of "Ah Sin" are now truing their 'prentice hand in seeking fame and fortune through the medium of the stage. "Ah Sin," however, is not so bad a piece as might have been anticipated. It has a plot, well-worn and transparent though it is at once discovered to be, and hence there is a reason for almost everything said or done during the disentanglement of the narrative. Its weakness lies in a paucity of striking events, in an almost invariable disregard of the absolute necessity of providing a strong tableau at the close of each act, and in a superabundance of dialogue, mainly coarse, and often inexcusably so, because it has not the excuse of being characteristic. Its merit is to be sought, firstly, in the somewhat novel personage who bestows his name upon the drama; secondly, as mentioned above, in its rather unexpected coherence, and, lastly, in the strange atmosphere into which it transports the listener. Most of the characters do not indeed differ in any essential traits from the everyday heroes and heroines of melodrama, but their language, their attire, and their surroundings breathe an air of freshness over the picture. M. Dennery might turn them into Frenchmen, Mr. Boucicault into Irishmen, and Mr. Daly into Massachusetts saints and sinners, but the charm of local color is of great weight in dealing with Messrs. Harte and Twain's joint production. And the character of Ah Sin has unquestionably originality and newness. The typical Chinaman, who acts, too, as a sort of deus ex machina, presents a variety of phases of Chinese humor, cleverness, and amusing rascality. His comical naiveté, his propensity to beg and steal, his far-seeing policy, thanks to which a happy denouement of this particular story is brought about, are happily illustrated. Naturally enough Ah Sin finally becomes a little monotonous; there is, however, so much idle gabble in he drama that his appearance is usually welcome. Of the serious business intrusted to the other personages there is, as we have said, more than a sufficiency. We shall, therefore, not waste much space upon the story of "Ah Sin." It turns upon the rascality of one Broderick, who all but murders Bill Plunkett--"the champion liar of Calaveras"--and then accuses York, a "gentleman miner," of the crime. Just as a committee of lynchers are about to act upon a verdict of guilty, Ah Sin fastens the guilt of the deed upon Broderick by the exhibition of the murderer's coat, which Broderick thought he had long since done away with, and Plunkett being subsequently brought into court safe and sound, the piece terminates happily. If Messrs. Harte and Twain had handled all their material as deftly as in the first act, "Ah Sin" would have been a very praiseworthy effort. Although the longest of the four divisions of the play, the first awakens interest and closes with an ingenious surprise. The second act, concluding with an attempt to arrest Ah Sin on a charge of murder, and with the flight of the "vigilantes," who are routed by Ah Sin expectorating water upon them as though he were dampening linen in the Chinese fashion, is tedious, and the third drags sadly. The vicissitudes of a trial before a "border jury" enliven the fourth act, which would round off the piece very neatly if something besides a scene of extravagant joy worthy a burlesque prefaced the fall of the curtain. "Ah Sin" was capitally acted, last night, and admirably placed upon the stage. Mr. Parsloe's Chinaman could scarcely be excelled in truthfulness to nature and freedom from caricature. Mr. P. A. Anderson pictured with marked force and freedom from conventionality Bill Plunkett. Mr. Davidge, as the "chief of the Vigilantes," distinguished himself especially in the trial scene, and the remaining male roles found suitable interpreters in Messrs. Crisp, Collier, Weaver, Varrey, and Vining Bowers. Among the softer sex Mrs. Gilbert bore off the honors, in a new rival of Mrs. Malaprop--Mrs. Plunkett by name. Much of the language put into Mrs. Plunkett's mouth is far from refined, but some of it is funny, though the character and her peculiarities are become well-nigh threadbare. A still more offensive type of femininity--Caroline Anastasia Plunkett--was represented by Miss Edith Blande with becoming masculinity. Miss Dora Goldthwaite endowed Shirley Tempest with appropriate personal charms, and finally, Miss Mary Wells did all that could be done with Mrs. Tempest. After the third act, Mr. Clemens stepped before the footlights, and delivered an address in his familiar vein, but with less than his wonted felicity of style and more than his wonted drawl. "Ah Sin" is to be repeated at the Fifth Avenue Theatre every evening until further notice.

Sekundärliteratur
1989
James S. Moy : In keeping with tendencies in portrayals of other ethnic groups, the emergence of a play with a Chinese character in the title role, especially by the likes of Mark Twain and Bret Hart, would seem to suggest the assimilation of Chinese into the mainstream of American life. It becomes obvious that this is not the case. While it is not entirely clear why the appearance of such a Chinese character on the American stage does not follow the pattern of other ethnic immigrant populations, it is hoped that an examination of the tensions which define the space of the Chinese character in the American west will result in a deeper understanding of the position occupied by the Chinese on America's Western frontier.
Since 1863 the Chinese had been forbidden the right to testify against whites in courts of law. This and other similar laws effectively legislated the Chinese out of existence as legal entities, giving rise to the saying that to have a 'Chinaman's chance' was to have no chance at all. Given the legal status of the Chinese, Ah Sin's participation in the play serves as a subversion of the existence, in the legal sense, of the Chinese character, but not one which promises a positive future.
While Ah Sin cannot provide action in the play, it becomes clear that monetary exchange is the play's driving force. Ah Sin overcomes his scruples regarding complicity in illegal actions, when offered sufficient monetary return.
As constituted within the American legal system of the nineteenth century, a good Chinaman came to be defined as one who made no impact whatsoever, or as Ah Sin announced : 'Me not done nothing, me good Chinaman'.
2010
Ou Hsin-yun : The play, a collaboration between Twain and Harte, was intended to exploit the success of the Chinese role in Harte's celebrated poem and his play 'Two men of Sandy bar', thought it was also based on Twain's 'Roughing it'. Twain's curtain speech for the New York production predicted the fate of the Chinese as the scapegoat for social problems, and emphasized : 'I wish to say also that this play is didactic rather than anything else. It is intended rather for instruction than amusement'. The play intervened in the national imaginary by revising the Chinese stereotypes on the American stage, and by challenging the contemporary ideology of racial minorities' inferiority. Ah Sin offers a favorable view of the Chinese on the Western frontier, in which Ah Sin's seemingly clumsy and idiotic imitative manners are presented in contrast to his final scheming victory.
Ah Sin was short-lived, neither a success in the New York season nor on the road. Twain and Harte considered the Chinaman entitled to justice, the failure of Ah Sin might suggest, apart from its weak stagecraft, that the theatre audience on the East Coast, who was assured of white superiority, was not comfortable with the Chinese character's ability to manipulate the destiny of so many white characters. The play's presentation of a smart Chinese man during the peak of the anti-Chinese movement in the 1870s very likely contributed to its failure, because the audience could only enjoy a miserably clownish Chinamen, instead of a triumphantly dominant one.
Twain argued against the injustices the Chinese suffered, anti-immigrationists adopted his seemingly negative portrayals of the Chinese to support their cause.

William Ament kommt als Missionar in Beijing an.

William Ament ist Missionar der North China Mission in Baoding.

Leonora Howard King kommt in Beijing an und arbeitet als Ärztin der American Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society in Nord-Zhili.