China and the West

Loti, Pierre. Les derniers jours de Pékin [ID D2674]. (9)
Sekundärliteratur
1902
H.L. Paris lettres : Pierre Loti's Les derniers jours de Pékin. In : Academy and Literature ; 62 (1902). [Rezension].
"M. Pierre Loti's new book ist not, perhaps, a very valuable addition to the pile of literature raised round the recent conflict between Europe and China ; but, if not documentary, it is interesting as a piece of serious impressionism. Its essential note is pity for an ancient race at war with modern progress, and though the writer is a French naval officer, proud of his profession and his country, he can see that there is something to be said for China too, against her coalesced enemies. The descriptive part of the book ist, of course, charming. Pierre Loti may be relied on in the midst of all that is old, odd, quaint and melancholy to give it a form of delicate enchantment, writing with a sigh at the end of his witching pen. For his is the witchery of form, the witchery of reverie, the witchery of colouring and incongruous contrasts. He seizes the essential sadness of things, the mortuary charm of the past, the lived, the evanescence of each mood and moment, as no other writer has ever done."

1988
Funaoka Suetoshi : Dans Les derniers jours de Pékin, il y a quelques erreurs dans les explications historiques et géographiques, des exagérations, et même des inventions pour faire plaisir aux lecteurs. Il s'agit, d'abord, d'une 'chambre abandonnée' dans la Ville interdite où, d'après Loti, avait été enfermé l'empereur. Là, il nous semble avoir inventé une historie ; d'ailleurs, Loti ne mentionne rien sur cette chambre dans son journal intime. De plus, la description de l'empereur nous semble exagérée dans l'intention d'exciter la curiosité des lecteurs. Il est très curieux aussi que Loti représente l'Impératrice de soixante-cinq ans comme une femme affable, rêveuse et amoureuse, alors qu'elle a laissé, en réalité, la mauvaise réputation d'un despote dans l'histoire de Chine. Deuxièmement, les tombeau des empereurs qu'il visita ne sont autres, d'après la description, que le Mausolée de l'Ouest ; mais le Tombeau de l'Impératrice n'y est pas : il se trouve en fait dans le Mausolée de l'Est. Il y a d'autres petites incorrections et exagérations ; mais dans l'ensemble, ce livre est un reportage très intéressant qui nous montre la vie en Chine sous ses divers aspects : la ville et la campagne ; toutes sortes d'habitants : princes, mandarins, commerçants et paysans ; les moeurs et les habitudes particulières ; le climat, la nature et les sites, sans parler des villes et de villages détruits par la guerre.


1996
Yvonne Y. Hsieh : Pierre Loti not only did visit the private quarters of the Emperor and Empress Dowager in the Forbidden City, he himself stayed in a palace inside the Imperial City. He came first, Oct.-Nov. 1900, to carry despatches to carry despatches to the French Legation in Beijing, later, May 1901, to represent Pottier at the funeral of a German officer who had perished in an accidental fire. His literary reputation served him well in a country where men of letters were greatly respected, entitling him to lavish receptions among Chinese dignitaries, and even securing him an interview with Li Hongzhang. As an officer, he was free to move in and out of the city, to visit palaces, temples, and imperial mausoleums.
The book seems to fluctuate perpetually between two opposing tendencies which have characterized Europe's view of China over several centuries, ranging from the sinophilic to the sinophobic. Passages which humanize the Chinese and present them as victims of both the fanatic Boxers and the foreign invaders are counterbalanced not only by vivid descriptions of Boxer atrocities but also by statements alleging the innate cruelty of the entire Chinese race. Passages praising the magnificence of Chinese art and architecture, much of which no European had been allowed to see before, are often juxtaposed with scenes evoking the horror and 'monstrosity' of decorative motifs produced by the perverted Chinese imagination.
Throughout the book, he consistently refers to the sculpted animals as 'monsters', be they stone lions, dragons and phoenixes sculpted on walls, beams and ceilings of palaces ; or mythic beasts perched atop tiled roofs and triumphal archers. The dragon is the symbol of the Emperor, the phoenix, that of the Empress. Loti is fully convinced of the 'nightmarish' nature of the Chinese mind. He repeatedly refers to the presence of 'barbarian' soldiers in such sacred precincts as the Imperial City, the Temple of Heaven, or the imperial mausoleums as an act of 'profanation'. And nowhere in Les dernier jours de Pékin, does Loti imply that the Western presence in China is beneficial to the Chinese. He does not identify with the colonialist ideology of the French government or believe in the white man's civilizing mission. He opposes the imposition of Occidental values and systems on non-European countries, and believes firmly in preserving indigenous cultures and traditions.
Loti's admiration for the Chinese is almost exclusively based on his appreciation of their art. Notwithstanding his frequent outbursts over the strangeness of its forms, it is clear that the most satisfactory part of his experience in China was his exposure to Chinese art, much of which had never been seen by Europeans before. He admires the exquisite workmanship of the art objects, many of which have unfortunately been plundered or destroyed by the invading soldiers : artificial bouquets carved in agate, jade, coral, lapis lazuli ; blue pagodas and landscapes made from kingfisher feathers or carved in icory with thousands of little figures. He recognizes that Chinese painting is in no way inferior to its Western counterpart, although it must be judged by entirely different criteria. During a visit to the Palace of Ancestors, the temple for deceased emperors, he discovers collections of ancient paintings stowed away in huge cupboards.
Pierre Loti described the man in the street, the eunuchs in the palace, looters, peasants, provinical mandarins who offered him hospitality, and acrobats who provided the entertainment, but obviously was never on initmate terms with any of them.
He describes the Chinese crew hired to tow his junk as 'ragged, dirty, with stupid and ferocious faces'. The Chinese proletarians who according to Loti played a larger role in the destruction of Beijing than the foreign soldiers, have 'small, bad, squinting eyes'. Loti characterize the Chinese as inscrutable, sadistic and ferocious, as well as good-natured, child-like and trusting.
There is no contradiction between Loti's absolute loyalty to the French Navy, and his opposition to the French government's imperialistic ambitions and colonial policies. For him, the Navy can do no wrong. Any absurd and atrocious events which result from French colonial ventures arte to be blamed on the studpid and irresponsible politicians who send young men to their deaths.

2001
Qian Linsen : Lorsque Loti regarde ce pays d'un oeil de 'conquérant', c'est-à-dire avec froideur et dédain, l'image qu'il nous en offre est celle d'un empire en agonie, piétiné et décecé par les puissances occidentales. Mais lorsqu'il observe ce pays en sa qualité d'écrivain entiché d'exotisme, donc avec un humanisme apitoyé, la peinture qu'il nous en fait est celle d'une civilisation antique orientale, penchant vers son déclin. Cette double image porte des traces d'une époque historique, ce qui confère à ce livre une valeur de document historique, et à son auteur une place particulière dans l'histoire des relations culturelles sino-françaises.
Pour nous, lecteurs chinois, ce qu'il y a de plus méritoire dans ce livre, c'est la véridicité et l'objectivité avec lesquelles est décrit le sort tragique d'un pays semi-féodal et semi-colonial, foulé aux pieds par des puissances occidentales. Loti est témoin de cette époque la plus ténébreuse et la plus humiliant que la Chine ait vécue. Au fil de la lecture, nous semblons revoir les agresseurs européens piétiner de leur bottes brutales la belle terre chinoise recelant des trésors culturels et des vestiges historiques, mettre à sac et à feu la Cité Interdite est ses palais resplenissants de dorures et de décorations, nous semblons réentendre les pleurs et les sanglots des habitants sans défense, femmes, enfants et vieillards surtout, qui, expulsés par la guerre, abandonnent leurs foyers, sous les éclats de rire des soldats étrangers. Pékin, noyé dans le sang, était alors transformé en un grand abattoir et un cimetière immense. Mais au milieu des humiliations, des massacres et des pillages auxquelsse lancent les envahisseurs étrangers, retentissent les grondements de la révolte des Boxers.
Loti décrivait à ses lecteurs le Temple du Ciel où les empereurs chinois offraient le sacrifice à leurs ancêtres, les galeries aux poutres peintes et sculptées, les robes bordées des concubines impériales, les longs rouleaux de peinture pendus dans les salles spacieuses, les palais somptueux avec leurs cours profondes, leurs pavillons élancés, leurs meubles raffinés en bois précieux. Et ces descriptions ont excité la curiosité et l'émerveillement de beaucoup d'Occidentaux. Que Loti recherches les charmes exotiques dans les ruines de l'Empire chinois reflète son goût esthétique, sa passion pour une vieille civilisation déclinante. Ce goût esthétique se manifeste dans l'intérêt qu'il avait pour tout ce qui renferme quelque élément d'une culture exotique ou tout ce qui la symbolise. Loti ne se laisse pas de décrire avec minutie chacun des objets qui ornaient les palais de la Cité Interdite, chacun des vestiges trouvés dans les tombeaux impériaux mis à jour. Officier expéditionnaire et écrivain orientaliste en même temps, au milieu des pillages et des massacres auxquels il assistait et parfois même participait, il n'oubliait pas d'admirer les beaux trésors qui traînaient partout.
Ce qui est positif dans ce livre, c'est qu'en décrivant les conflits politiques et culturels entre la Chine et l'Occident, l'auteur appelle la réconciliation ; au milieu de la violence et de l'hostilité, il recherche les bons rapports et l’amitié entre les peuples. C'est là l'aspiration de l'exotisme, c'est là le reflet de la conscience un peu idéaliste, il est vrai, d'un écrivain épris de raison et d'humanisme. Mais cela prouve la sympathie et l'affinité qu'il avait pour la civilisation d'autres nations, par delà la contradiction et l'antagonisme qui pourraient exister entre elles.

2001
Guillemette Tison : Loti, chargé de missions officielles, a conscience de la singularité de la situation et note que cette expédition représente un choc de cultures, celle de 'l'Europe armée contre la vieille Chine ténébreuse'. Cette découverte de la Chine, si elle n'a duré que quelques semaines, a pour Loti un retentissement durable, qui va s'exprimer à travers des formes littéraires variées : le journal intime, le reportage, puis le théâtre, et même dans son activité de décorateur. Si sa première impression est plutôt negative, celle d'un pays de grisaille marqué par l'omniprésence de la mort, le recul va lui permettre de décrouvrir cette culture en esthète, puis de réfléchir sur la confrontation des civilisation. Sa réflexion sur la Chine l'éloigne de plus en plus du réel, pour le conduire à la construction imaginaire d'un pays rêvé.
A première vue le livre est très morbide, reprenant une obsession fondamentale de l’oeuvre de Loti, celle de la mort, des cadavres, de la décomposition. La capitale présente en effet un étrange aspect : les corps des victimes n'ont pas été inhumés après les combats, et dans les rues, dans les maisons, on trouve d'affreux restes humains. Même dans les passages descriptifs où la beauté domine, la mort est toujours présente. Ainsi Loti, visitant la Ville Impériale où il va loger, découvre 'Le lac des lotus' et 'Le pont de marbre'. De même, en voyage vers les tombeaux des Empereurs, il fait étape à Laishu et s'épouvante, reçu en grande pompe à l'entrée de la ville, de voir les remparts ornés de têtes coupées and des cages. La mort ne se fait jamais oublier, elle se rappelle au voyageur à chaque détour de son chemin. L'obsession de la mort ne vient pas seulement des traces encore visibles des combats tout récents. Plus encore, Loti a l'impression d'assister à la mort lente de toute une civilisation. Ainsi, découvrant la Grand Muraille, Loti note le contraste entre le caractère grandiose de l’ouvrage dans l'espace, 'une chose colossale qui ne doit nulle part finir' et la finitude de son rôle dans l'histoire. La mort est présente aussi par la destruction de toute une culture. Le comportement des soldats européens n'est pas toujours irréprochable, et Loti ressent ce que peut avoir de sacrilège la profanation de la 'Cité interdite' et des temples du Palais des ancêtres.
A plusieurs reprises, Loti emploie pour désigner la Chine l'expression de 'colosse jaune', qui n'est pas dénuée d'ambiguïté. Si le pays l'effraie quelque peu, il en reconnaît la grandeur et va porter sur les lieux où il séjourne un regard d'esthète : Loti est en effet depuis longtemps un grand amateur d'art, d'abord par tendance personnelle, puis sous l'influence de Judith Gautier en ce qui concerne la Chine. Il trouve dans l'art chinois un mélange unique d'imitation et de transfiguration de la nature, que ce soit dans l'art des jardins ou la décoration intérieure. La complexité de ses sentiments, 'admiration, respect, effroi'.
Son jugement sur le peuple chinois n'est pas exempt des stéréotypes véhiculés à cette époque par une propagande volontiers raciste. Il lui semble difficile de comprendre les Chinois, qu'un cliché répandu dit impénétrables. Il évoque aussi la crauté latente des Chinois. L'humour de Loti affleure parfois dans certains portrait de vieux mandarins, comme venus d’un 'autre monde'. Dans le domaine esthétique, Loti se montre plus nuancé, comprenant qu'on ne peut établir de hiérarchie en ce domaine. La révélation de l'art chinois, pendant son séjour dans la cité impériale, lui fait juger cet art au moins égal au nôtre, mais profondément dissemblable, et il est fasciné par cette décoration somptueuse.
Loti qui n'aime pas son époque, qui rejette le progrès technique, ne peut qu'être sensible à la culture millénaire chinoise si soucieuse de préserver le passé.

Lodovico Nocentini ist Delegierter des Landwirtschafts Ministerium am Orientalistenkongress in Hanoi.

Giovanni Gallina ist bevollmächtigter Gesandter der italienischen Gesandtschaft in Beijing.

Einführung der science-fiction in China durch Jules Verne.

Giovanni Vacca gibt Unterricht in Mathematik und Logik an der Università di Genova und arbeitet für die Partito di lavoratori italiano.

Liang, Qichao. Yin bing shi shi hua. In : Xin min cong bao ; no 5 (1902). [On poetry].
饮冰室诗话
Liang Qichao entscheidet sich für Shashibiya als chinesischer Name für William Shakespeare.
Er schreibt : "Homer, the Greek poet, was the greatest poet in ancient times ; as for later poets, such as Shakespeare, Milton and Tennyson, their poems usually contain several thousand lines. How wonderful ! Just the sublime style is brilliant enough to overwhelm you, so you no longer need to comment on the language of their poems."

William Shakespeare und chinesisches Theater = Shakespeare and Chinese theatre.
Zhang Xiao Yang : The differences and affinities between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese drama are especially obvious in their tragedies and comedies. Shakespearean political tragedies are linked by the theme of a struggle for power in a royal family or among the leading figures in the political arena, while most traditional Chinese political tragedies recount the conflict between virtuous ministers and treacherous minister. The themes of traditional Chinese love-political tragedies are more complex than those in Shakespeare's tragedies. These plays deal with not only the incompatibility of the desire for love and the desire for power, but also with the way the pleasures of love are destroyed by the great turbulence of Chinese history. Thus in the plays the lovers encounter desperate situations caused by domestic troubles and foreign invasions.
A striking contrast between Shakespearean and traditional Chinese tragedy lies in the treatment of the protagonists. In Shakespearean tragedies the chief characters are mainly great heroes of high degree such as kings, princes, or the leaders of states. They need not obey anyone nor follow any conventional moral doctrine. Since they are their own masters and can exercise great freedom of choice, they are unlikely to become victims of other people's wills. By contrast, Traditional Chinese tragedy is concerned with people in relatively lower social position. These are people who cannot decide their own actions, who are not the rulers but the ruled. They have to submit to the authority of a monarch or comply with the moral doctrine of Confucianism. Another phenomenon in the tratment of the protagonists is that Shakespeare's tragedies revolve around men and traditional Chinese tragedies encompass women. The tragic effects of Shakespeare's tragedies come from the death of the male protagonists, but the tgragic mood in the Chinese plays is created by the suffering and destruction of the women, which appeals strongly to the audience's sympathy and pity.
Shakespearean tragedy represents a general trend of the Renaissance in which people began to criticize conventional ideas and establish new ideological and value systems. To some extent, Shakespearean and Chinese tragedies demonstrate one of the main differences between modern Western and traditional Chinese cultures. Since the European Renaissance Western culture has become a dynamic 'culture of regeneration' with the ability to constantly produce new ideas. On the other hand, Chinese tragedy clearly shows that although unique and rich, Chinese culture had become a static and closed system, since Buddhism was mingled with Confucianism and Taoism during the Song and Ming dynasties.
Most Shakespeare critics classify Shakespearean comedies into three categories : romantic, problem and tragicomedy. Traditional Chinese comedies are usually classified according to two general types : they either attack vice, folly, or foolish behavior, or they describe the achievement of happiness or praise virtuous action. Most critics agree, that the major themes of Shekespearean comedy are love and friendship. Similarly almost all the Chinese laudatory comedies are concerned with love and marriage and some of them with friendship.
There is a striking similarity between Shakespearean and traditional Chinese drama in dramatic techniques. That is, both have a very free deployment of time and space. There is no fixed time limit in Shakespeare’s plays because his plays cover a time period much longer than twenty-four hours. Sometimes the events in his plays last for many years, particularly in his romances. Like Shakespeare, Chinese playwrights always felt free to determine the time length of their plots. In traditional Chinese drama, very few plays take place within twenty-four hours. Most plots proceed for several days, weeks, or months, and sometimes even for many years. The deployment of place in traditional Chinese drama is absolutly free.
Unlike Shakespeare, Chinese dramatists did not concentrate on human nature as a whole. Rather, they paid special attention to the moral and social sides of their characters. In traditional Chinese drama, the two sides of humans are presented separately. The positive characters are always perfect and the negative characters are totally vicious. Neigher resemble people in real life. While Shakespeare's characters are not immoral, representing moral principles was not his main purpose. In traditional Chinese drama, the moral virtues of the characters are emphasized and heightened. Most of the characters tend to be moral types such as loyal subjects, patriotic generals, dutiful sons, chaste wives, and faithful friends. In Shakespeare's plays we often find admiration for the nobility of humanity. Classical Chinese playwrights followed the general rule of dramatic creation, trying to mix beauty with goodness.
The colorfulness and complexity of his characters provide one of the major artistic distinctions of Shakespeare's plays. By contrast, the characters of traditional Chinese drama are relatively monochromatic and simple, having protagonists that represent certain social classes in ancient Chinese society. Shakespeare's characters are complex and the Chinese characters are comparatively simple. The main reason for this is, that Shakespeare tried to explore the depth and range of humanity's inner world, while classical Chinese playwrights were generally content to describe only the outer actions and certain emotions of human beings.
The comparison between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese drama suggests that the type of characterization found in traditional Chinese drama may not satisfy Western audiences since they are used to Western dramatists, including Shakespeare, who emphasize complex psychological depth in character portrayal in the belief that the many-sided attributes of the subject help to round out their characters and make them seem real. Yet characterization in traditional Chinese drama has its own distinctive dramatic and aesthetic merit, considering that traditional Chinese drama and Shakepseare's plays belong to different modes of dramatic art.
In any comparison between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese drama one aspect constantly commands scholarly interest : both are examples of poetic drama and both show great richness in poetic presentation and the use of imagery. Like Shakespeare's plays, the text of traditional Chinese drama consists of two parts, verse (qu) and prose (bai). Verse generally expresses emotion or depicts scenery while prose recounts stories or develops dialogue. Most classical Chinese playwrights concentrated on using verse, so that prose is frequently interspersed with short poems.
The animal images used in traditional Chinese drama and Shakespeare's plays are a good way to illustrate such a difference. Traditional Chinese plays have far fewer of these images than do Shakespeare's works. Usually only animals having conventional symbolic meaning could be used as poetic images in traditional Chinese plays. By contrast, Shakespeare used many more kinds of animals as poetic images than did classical Chinese dramatists. He seemed to be familiar with their habits and characteristics. Hence he can accommodate them properly into his metaphorical visions. When Shakespeare chooses poetic images, he shows a special interest in domestic animals such as sheep, horses, dogs, and pigs, which are rarely used by classical Chinese plawrights as poetical images. The tendency of classical Chinese playwrights to choose beautiful and graceful poetic images was so strong that they could fill their descriptions with such images even when they wrote of intimate subjects such as sexual intercourse.
Traditional Chinese writers used a very beautiful and explicit image of clouds and rain as a symbol of lovemaking. Shakespeare's bias in favor of strong and vigorous images is evident even in his description of love affairs. His plays have many symbolic images that vividly illustrate abstract concepts.
Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese drama stem from different geographical circumstances and cultural backgrounds. England is a country noted for its navigation tradition, so it is easy to understand why the sea, ships, and sailing became traditional poetic images and affected Shakespeare's use of imagery. By contrast, China is mainly a large landlocked and mountainous country. Chinese civilization originated drom the Yellow River Basin, thus mountains and rivers were closely associated with the cultural thinking of the ancient Chinese.
In both Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese drama, two opposing images are very obvious, the sun and the moon. This is not merely because the image of the sun is frequently used in Shakespeare's plays while that of the moon is employed in traditional Chinese drama ; it is mainly because these two images are profoundly associated with Western and traditional Chinese cultures.
An examination of Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese drama shows that the former tends toward romanticism and the latter toward classicism.

Byron, George Gordon : Allgemein
Chu Chih-yu : The first period of the Chinese reception of Byron starts from the beginning of the 20th century to around 1919, when the May fourth movement broke out. As the publications during this period bear a strong influence of Japanese scholarship, we may call it 'the Japanese period'. May fourth to 1949 may be called 'the European period. 1949-1959, when the Chinese swallowed wholesale the Russian-Soviet interpretation of Byron and his work, was the 'Soviet period'. Chinese academics always studies Byron in the context of the struggle between two opposing political forces. Byron was no longer a lone fighter, but a representative of a new political power, the rising radical democratism. Nor was his work merely the expression of his thought and the venting of his personal feelings. It was also the resentment and protest of the broad labouring masses against reactionary reality. Byron's contemporaries' adverse criticism and contemnation of him were looked upon as the manifestation of the reactionary classes' fear and hatred for the progressive forces.
From 1960 to the beginning of the Cultural revolution, the Sino-Soviet split brouth great ideological changes. As a result, the study of Byron took an ultra-Leftist path, we can call this 'the Maoist period'. After the Cultural revolution, the study of Byron in China fell into a state of confusion, but gradually began moving towards the West again.

1902-1914 : The early translators introduced The Isles of Greece to China, to a great extent, out of political considerations. They intended to borrow this new image of Byron to awaken the Chinese people's love for freedom and justice, to encourage the oppressed to overthrow their feudal rulers. Liang Qichao found in Byron the political reformer he needed to promote his political principles and ideas. Lu Xun saw him as a revolutionary rebel-poet who could breathe some new air into Chinese literature. Su Manshu viewed him as an example in everything he did and vented his own longings and despair in translations. Liu Bannong added filial devotion, a quality the Chinese have held a virtue since ancient times.
The Isles of Greece expresses a kind of patriotic spirit and rebellion that the passive resistance of the traditional Chinese poet could never reach. Above all, Byron had a special appeal for the Chinese translators primarily because of his sacrifice for the Greek independent cause. Byron's image and spirit, deep down, coincided with that of the traditional patriotic scholar. His rebellion and heroism provided a handy model, one which could serve as a 'catalyst' of political and social reform, of democracy and the cause of national independence.

1976-1985 : Since the essay by Anna Elistratova, the comments on the Turkish tales had usually been negative in China. But in the eighties we find a general confusion. From the perspective of class analysis, one scholar pointed out that Byronic heroes are 'in nature out-and-out egoists split off from the bourgeois aristocracy' (Zhang Yaozhi). This mainly referred to Conrad in The corsair and Lara : 'Restricted by his bourgeois world outlook, Byron fails to expose Conrad's nature of the bourgeois aristocracy who make their fortunes by piracy. Instead, he concentrates his efforts on presenting Conrad as having a bourgeois humanitstic virtue'. (Zhu Weizhi and Zhao Feng). Most of the critics rejected the individualism Byron advocated through his heroes. As for the source of Byron's individualism, it was determined by the limitations of the times - 'the rise of the English proletariat was still in its early rising stage – or it was 'determined by the bourgeois ideas of Byron's world outlook'.
Manfred was looked upon in China as the summit of the development of Byron's individualism and pessimism. The image of Manfred was generally described as 'a free, independent but pessimistic rebel who defies any danger and temptation and never forsakes his dignity'.
The profilic output of Byron's Italian period was customarily attributed by Chinese critics to his participation in the Italien revolutionary movement. Cain, written in Italy, was highly thought for its realistic meaning, as the play 'expresses Byron's concern for the fate of the European peoples in the recationary political conditions under the rule of the Holy Alliance. The year 1812, when Cain was created, was the year of the feudal restoration in European countries. Whether it was the poet's real intention or not, the Chinese critics believed that Byron, to counter the renewed power and authority of the Church, re-interpreted the bibliocal story from a revolutionary point of view. In the Chinese view, Cain and Lucifer are both positive heroes. Cain is a reaction against an 'anti-social, anti-human' religion and a protest against 'a religious mythology which imposes upon the people an attitude of submission the the 'status quo' and to their fate.
Don Juan was the best received of Byron's works in China, because it exhibits the creative mode which the Chinese hold in the highest esteem, the combination of 'revolutionary realism with revolutionary romanticism'. The first and foremost content the Chinese critics pointed throughout the satire to Byron's strong antipathy towards and denunciation of the reactionary forces headed by the Holy Alliance, and his eulogy of freedom. In general, Don Juan was hailed as a progressive epic satire which punctured the arrogance of the reactionaries and enhanced the morale of the bourgeois democratic forces. In sum, Chinese studies of Don Juan lack more comprehensive reseach, they fail to treat the poem as a poetic entity.

Byron's popularity in China has lain primarily in his participation in the Italian independence movement and his last heroic actions in Greece. The rebllion against social conventions revealed in his works greatly enhanced his reputation, but without his final sacrifice for the Greek independence cause, the poetry alone of a poet as morally flawed as Byron could not have had such a great impact. His poetry was introduced to China as the moral poetry of a moral poet. As a poet, Byron attracted the Chinese literati because he expressed openly the kind of rebellion that the passive resistance of the traditional Chinese poet could never reach. The Chinese introduction of Byron as a person has been highly selective, again to serve particular purposes. The fundamental reason for this selectivity, I believe, is that a complete picture of Byron, complete with all the controversies he stirred up in England, would not conform to the Chinese standards of a hero. If 'the complete Byron' is a combination of man, poet, rebel-fighter and thinker, the Chinese paid more attention to him as rebel-fighter and thinker. His poetic works were discusses only if they shed light on his heroic deeds and his thought.

Guo Ting : From 1890 to 1930 Byron enjoyed his greates popularity in China for almost half a century. Especially in 1924, Byron's centenary year, several articles and whole issues of journals, written or compiled, were devoted to him. Moreover, in China, the interpretation of Byron's achievement and aristocratic background was slightly different from what was perceived in Japan. In China, Byron's early fame in English society was less talked about ; instead, the poverty that Byron experienced in his childhood and his being excluded by the English upper classes were associated with his determined resistance to tyrannical rules and oppression. Thus, despite his title of Baron, Byron became the spokesman of the poor and the oppressed in the eyes of the Chinese public.
Byron became an alleged hero, who also wrote poetry, rather than a poet by profession and reputation. China's confucian culture and feudalistic ideology formed in the past centuries also contributed to a filtering of Byron's image as well as to a selective translation of his works. This explain why certain poems of Byron were repeatedly translated in a fairly short period, but other more romantic and rebellious works were overlooked for a long time, and why, in China, Byron could for so long enjoy the image of an idealist and passionate nationalist. As a Western romantic poet, Byron was presented as a nationalist and well-educated writer, aware of the Chinese poetic tradition, through archaic translation.
During the period from 1944 to 1966, the romantic side of Byron was more emphasized, and his works such as The corsair, Dun Juan and Childe Harold's pilgrimage were translated. During the Cultural revolution, translation of Byron's works was completely halted. Byron's romantic poems were excluded because of his Western capitalist background.
The situation changed in 1949, the classical poetics that had been used in the translation of Byron's works were supplanted by those of modern Chinese poetry, which allow a freer form and places less emphasis on rhyme and meter. This change came with the “New culture movement”, in which classical Chinese language was gradually abandoned, and was replaced by 'baihua'.
Influence from both individual critics and literary organizations on the translation of Byron in China are particularly important, given the limited translations of Byron's work and the reputation that he developed in a fairly brief span of time. For many Chinese literati, the focus was not to review translations, but to support and reinforce Byron's established heroic image by adding or emphsizing certain information on the writer and his works. A few Chinese literary organizations, such as the Chu ang zao she (Creative Society) and Wen xue yan jiu hui (Literature Study Society), had given Byron and his works a pssionate welcome in the early 20th century.
Nowadays, in a majority of the textbooks compiled for students studying English literature, Byron is listed as an important poet in the romantic period (along with other writers, such as William Blake, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelles and John Keats). Like these other poets, Byron is often given a brief introduction outlining his background, accompanied by excerpts from his poems. But almost all these introductions and excerpts tend to represent and emphasize Byron as a progressive poet standing for the proletariat and human liberty.

Gregory B. Lee : The reason for Byron's enthusiastic reception in a China faced with the high tide of British imperialist ambition, is perhaps yet more complex than a straighforward approval of Byron's alliance with Greeks independantists, of his defence of the marginalized, colonized subject. Two 19th century events connected by the role of one British ruling family, yet separated in space and time by six decades and a whole continent, arte both well-known to millions of Chinese readers ; yet only one of these is embedded in Green national consciousness.
For the Chinese reader of the early 20th century, and in objective historical terms, the words penned by Byron had become even heavier with meaning. British imperialism had entered a new expansionist and territorialist phase and its ideological disdain for the Other, especially the Other of colour, knew few bounds.

Liang, Qichao. Xin Zhongguo wei lai ji. [ID D21903].
Darin enthalten sind kurze Auszüge aus : The giaour : a fragment of a Turkish tale and The Isles of Greece von George Gordon Byron.
Chu Chih-yu : Liang Qichao did his translation with the help of his student Luo Chang, who interpreted for him orally. The translation of The Isles of Greece, short and incomplete as it is, had a great influence on the younger generation of the time. All the contemporary translators of the poem read and admired Liang's translation and were influenced by it to a greater or lesser extent. Lu Xun was strongly affected 'intellectually and emotionally' by reading it ; Su Manshu ranked it above Ma Junwu's version ; Hu Shi was so impressed by the beauty of diction that he almost gave up his own effort half way.
Liang Qichao found in Byron the political reformer he needed to promote his political principles and ideas. He adopted the pattern of the lyrical songs of Yuan drama.

Conrad, Joseph. Typhoon and other stories [ID D27531].
Kapitän MacWhirr und seine Crew befahren auf dem Dampfer Nan-Shan, im Auftrag einer englischen Reederei, jedoch unter der Flagge von Siam, das Chinesische Meer. Auf einer Reise gerät das Schiff in einen Taifun, und die Seeleute kämpfen ums Überleben. Die Situation wird dadurch erschwert, dass die Nan-Shan eine Gruppe chinesischer Kulis an Bord hat, die im finsteren und sturmbewegten Zwischendeck um ihre ersparten Silberdollars kämpfen, die aus den zerbrechenden Seekisten fallen. Es gelingt MacWhirr und seinen Leuten, die Ordnung wiederherzustellen und die Nan-Shan, wenn auch schwer gezeichnet, in den Hafen zu bringen.
Chap. 1
The Nan-Shan was on her way from the southward to the treaty port of Fu-chau, with some cargo in her lower holds, and two hundred Chinese coolies returning to their village homes in the province of Fo-kien, after a few years of work in various tropical colonies. The morning was fine, the oily sea heaved without a sparkle, and there was a queer white misty patch in the sky like a halo of the sun. The fore-deck, packed with Chinamen, was full of sombre clothing, yellow faces, and pigtails, sprinkled over with a good many naked shoulders, for there was no wind, and the heat was close. The coolies lounged, talked, smoked, or stared over the rail; some, drawing water over the side, sluiced each other; a few slept on hatches, while several small parties of six sat on their heels surrounding iron trays with plates of rice and tiny teacups; and every single Celestial of them was carrying with him all he had in the world -- a wooden chest with a ringing lock and brass on the corners, containing the savings of his labours: some clothes of ceremony, sticks of incense, a little opium maybe, bits of nameless rubbish of conventional value, and a small hoard of silver dollars, toiled for in coal lighters, won in gambling-houses or in petty trading, grubbed out of earth, sweated out in mines, on railway lines, in deadly jungle, under heavy burdens -- amassed patiently, guarded with care, cherished fiercely.
Chap. 6
The beggars stared about at the sky, at the sea, at the ship, as though they had expected the whole thing to have been blown to pieces. And no wonder! They had had a doing that would have shaken the soul out of a white man. But then they say a Chinaman has no soul. He has, though, something about him that is deuced tough.
Heliéna M. Krenn : The wisdom and patience of the Chinese are implied and simultaneously questioned by the repeated and strongly ironic references to them as 'Celestials'. 'Chinamen' are thus not entitled to the treatment white people expect for themselves.
The coolies on the 'Nan-Shan' are accommodated in the 'tween-deck', normally a hold for cargo.

Letter from G. Lowes Dickinson to Mrs Moor. 9 Febr. 1902.
"My little J[ohn] C[hinaman] book is approved by many people whose approval I value, and that gives satisfaction. I am just beginning to realize that I have a certain faculty of appealing to what I call the 'life of the spirit', and that I have no other faculty. So I may as well do what I can in that line for the future, and let others, more competent, run the affairs of the nation."

William Ament ist Pastor der South Chapel of the Congregational Church in Beijing, Treuhändler der Methodist Episcopal Church's Beijing University [Yanjing University].

Twain, Mark. The dervish and the offensive stranger [ID D29370].
The Offensive Stranger: Take yet one more instance. With the best intentions the missionary has been laboring in China for eighty years.
The Dervish: The evil result is
The Offensive Stranger: That nearly a hundred thousand Chinamen have acquired our Civilization.
The Dervish: And the good result is
The Offensive Stranger: That by the compassion
of God four hundred millions have escaped it.

Xin xiao shuo ; no 1 (1902).
Photos of world-famous writers were printed at the beginning of each issue.

Yeats, W.B. Letters.
Letter from W.B. Yeats to William Sharp ; 12 June (1902).
The book I got my colours from was a book I read in the National Library in Dublin, but I forget its name. It gave the colours of the winds, not only in Ireland but in various parts of Asia. One of the most curious things about it was that all the colour schemes were different. One Asiatic tribe made the north wind yellow for instance, while another if I recollect rightly made the west wind yellows.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Robert Bridges ; June 23 [1915].
Dear Mr. Bridges :I send you Ezra Pound's Cathay, his book of Chinese translations.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to J.B. Yeats ; March 14 [1916 ?].
I think Keats perhaps greater than Shelley and beyond words greater than Swinburne because he makes pictures one cannot forget and sees them as full of rhythm as a Chinese painting.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Edmund Dulac ; Dec. 1st [1922].
My dear Dulac, When you send the Chinese pictures you will have, I think, to make a declaration as to content of parcel – but the post office or parcel post office will explain – and you had better register and insutre and send in the bill for the amount of this.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Edmund Dulac ; Oct. 14 [1923].
The Chinese pictures hang now in my study and are the great ornaments of the room.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Edmund Dulac ; Jan. 28, 1924.
If anything brings you to a sale of Chinese pictures do not forget me. There is a space of 46 inches wide between two bookcases, and I want a Chinese picture for that space. I don't imagine any Chinese picture is as wide as that. The two pictures you sent me are about 36 inches, margin and all, and that will do excellently.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Olivia Shakespear ; July 31or Aug. 31 (1929).
I have just had an offer of a professorship in Japan for a year… If my health is good enough it would be new life. 3 months, while Formosa (where the University is) is too hot for a European, wandering about Japanese temples among the hills – all the best Chinese art is in Japan…

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Lady Gregory ; April 7, 1930.
Ezra Pound arrived the other day, his first visit since I got ill – fear of infection – and being warned by his wife tried to be very peaceable but couldn't help being very litigious about Confucius who I consider should have worn an Eighteenth Century wig and preached in St. Paul's, and he thinks the perfect man.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Olivia Shakespear ; Febr. 9, [1931].
Apart from these young men – who will only glance at A vision – I shall have a few very devoted readers like a certain doctor in the North of England who sits every night for and half hour in front of a Buddha lit with many candles – his sole escape from a life of toil.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Olivia Shakespear ; November. Last Sunday [Nov. 23, 1931].
Would you write the name of the Chinese book – golden flowers or whatever it is – on the enclosed postcard and post it. [Possibly The secret of the golden flower by Richard Wilhelm].

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Olivia Shakespeare ; Dec 15 [1931].
That Chinese book has given me something I have long wanted, a study of meditation that has not come out of the jungle. I distrust the jungle.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Olivia Shakespear ; Aug. 17 [1933].
If you see the Swami tell him that I have now finished my study of various authorities and am about to start my essay upon his master's journey in Tibet. [Hamsi, Bhagwân Shri. The holy mountain].

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Olivia Shakespear ; Oct. 24 [1933].
I think that George and I will be in London for a few days in about three weeks, George to see her mother and I to go through my essay on the Tibetan travels of his Master with the Swami. This essay – seven or eight thousand words – has taken me two months at least, has grown to have great importance in my scheme of things.

1935
Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Riversdale, June 14, 1935.
To-day I have read – not for the first time – your lovely enigmatic poem 'The Old Mill'. One word puzzles me. Your three cats scale sacks and rafters to 'the rafters blind'. Why 'blind' ? The poem makes me remember that in China and Indo-China the houses – or so a certain traveller tells me – have no parks but rise out of the wild rocks and trees because 'Nature must be as little disturbed as possible'.

1935
Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Riversdale, July 6 [19]35.
I notice that you have much lapis lazuli ; someone has sent me a present of a great piece carved by some Chinese sculptor into the semblance of a mountain with temple, trees, paths and an ascetic and pupil about to climb the mountain.

1936
Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Savile Club, June 25 [1936].
I think much of the most beautiful of Chinese lanthorns, your face.

1936
Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Riversdale, June 30 [1936].
Last Sunday at 4.30 I was about to start from the Savile to see the Chinese Collection at South Kensington when the porter told me that the museum closed at 5 on Sunday.

1937
Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Riversdale Wednesday [Received Jan. 1, 1937].
PS. My son has returned with your gift. I thank you for those charming things which I have placed beside my blue mountain, where the Chinese musicians climb to the little guest house or temple.

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Febr. 18 [1937].
Hilda Matheson has asked me about Edith Sitwell's name which is in the Broadside advertisement. Do you remember our going through her works, looking in vain for a poem about a Queen of China's daughter, which you remembered ? You wanted something of hers. I found that poem in Faber & Faber's anthology – she had left it out of her Collected poems. It is very simple and very charming.

1937
Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Riversdale, July 26th, 1937.
A MARRIAGE ODE
On thrones from China to Peru
All sorts of kings have sat
That men and women of all sorts
Proclaimed both good and great ;
And what's the odds if such as these
For reasons of the State
Have kept their lovers waiting,
Kept their lovers waiting…

Letter from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley ; Jan. 22nd, 1938.
Yesterday I reminded myself that an Eastern sage had promised me a quiet death, and hoped that it would come before I had to face On the boiler No. 2.

Bennett, Arnold. Works.
1902
Bennett, Arnold. Anna of the five towns : a novel. (London : Chatto & Windus, 1902).
Chap. 5.
Then the parents died in middle age: one daughter married in the North, another in the South; a third went to China as a missionary and died of fever; the eldest son died; the second had vanished into Canada and was reported a scapegrace; the third was a sea-captain...
Chap. 8.
The large whitewashed place was occupied by ungainly machines and receptacles through which the four sorts of clay used in the common 'body'--ball clay, China clay, flint clay and stone clay—were compelled to pass before they became a white putty-like mixture meet for shaping by human hands…
Chap. 12.
At one end of the table, which glittered with silver, glass, and Longshaw china, was a fowl which had been boiled for four hours; at the other, a hot pork-pie, islanded in liquor, which might have satisfied a regiment...

1904
Bennett, Arnold. A great man, a frolic. (London : Chatto & Windus, 1904).
Chap. 15
There was to be an important tea-meeting at the Munster Park Chapel on the next Saturday afternoon but one, and tea was to be on the tables at six o'clock. The gathering had some connection with an attempt on the part of the Wesleyan Connexion to destroy the vogue of Confucius in China…
Chap. 25
I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo!' If he had succeeded to the imperial throne of China, he would have felt much the same as he felt then…

1905
Bennett, Arnold. Tales of the five towns. (London : Chatto and Windus, 1905).
Mary with the high hand.
Mark was at present the manager of a small china manufactory at Longshaw, the farthest of the Five Towns in Staffordshire, and five miles from Bursley…
A letter home.
Well, five of these gay little dolls wanted to go to Hong Kong, and they arranged with the Chinese sailors to stow away; I believe their friends paid those cold-blooded fiends something to pass them down food on the voyage, and give them an airing at nights… The
Chinese had never troubled their heads about them at all, although they must have known it meant death…

1906
Bennett, Arnold. Hugo : a fantasia on modern themes. (London : Chatto & Windus, 1906).
Chap. 4.
Camilla.
He seized the weapon, and impetuously aimed at a heavy Chinese gong across the room, and pulled the trigger several times. The revolver spoke noisily, and the gong sounded and swung…

1907
Bennett, Arnold. The ghost : a modern fantasy. (London : Chatto & Windus, 1907).
Occasionally a smooth-gliding carriage, or a bicyclist flitting by with a Chinese lantern at the head of his machine--that was all…

1907
Bennett, Arnold. The grim smile of the five towns. (London : Chapman and Hall, 1907).
The murder of the mandarin
I
'Listen here,' proceeded Woodruff, who read variously and enjoyed philosophical speculation. 'Supposing that by just taking thought, by just wishing it, an Englishman could kill a mandarin in China and make himself rich for life, without anybody knowing anything about it! How many mandarins do you suppose there would be left in China at the end of a week!'… 'But an Englishman COULDN'T kill a mandarin in China by just wishing it,' said Vera, looking up…
II
And she returned to mandarins. She got herself into a very morbid and two-o'clock-in-the-morning state of mind. Suppose it was a dodge that DID work. (Of course, she was extremely superstitious; we all are.) She began to reflect seriously upon China. She remembered having heard that Chinese mandarins were very corrupt; that they ground the faces of the poor, and put innocent victims to the torture; in short, that they were sinful and horrid persons, scoundrels unfit for mercy. Then she pondered upon the remotest parts of China, regions where Europeans never could penetrate. No doubt there was some unimportant mandarin, somewhere in these regions, to whose district his death would be a decided blessing, to kill whom would indeed be an act of humanity. Probably a mandarin without wife or family; a bachelor mandarin whom no relative would regret; or, in the alternative, a mandarin with many wives, whose disgusting polygamy merited severe punishment! An old mandarin already pretty nearly dead; or, in the alternative, a young one just commencing a career of infamy!... She purchased the Signal with well-feigned calm, opened it and read: 'Stop-press news. Pekin. Li Hung Chang, the celebrated Chinese statesman, died at two o'clock this morning.--Reuter.'…
III
The death of Li Hung Chang was heavy on her soul… To receive a paltry sovereign for murdering the greatest statesman of the Eastern hemisphere was simply grotesque. Moreover, she had most distinctly not wanted to deprive China of a distinguished man. She had expressly stipulated for an inferior and insignificant mandarin, one that could be spared and that was unknown to Reuter. She supposed she ought to have looked up China at the Wedgwood Institution and selected a definite mandarin with a definite place of residence. But could she be expected to go about a murder deliberately like that?...

1908
Bennett, Arnold. Buried alive : a tale of thesedays. (London : Chapman and Hall, 1908).
Chap. 5.
There were theatre, music-hall, assembly-rooms,concert hall, market, brewery, library, and an afternoon tea shop exactly like Regent Street (not that Mrs. Challice cared for their alleged China tea); also churches and chapels; and Barnes Common if you walked one way, and Wimbledon Common if you walked another… Thus justified of the clock, in they went, and sat down in the same seats which they had occupied at the commencement of the adventure in the main lounge. Priam discovered a bell-push, and commanded China tea and muffins… And in the pause, while he was preparing to be gay, attractive, and in fact his true self, she, calmly stirring China tea, shot a bolt which made him see stars… She sipped China tea, holding each finger wide apart from the others…
Chap. 8.
Silver ornamented the spread, and Alice's two tea-pots (for she would never allow even Chinese tea to remain on the leaves for more than five minutes) and Alice's water-jug with the patent balanced lid, occupied a tray off the cloth… Alice went to the sideboard where she kept her best china, and took out three extra cups and saucers…

1908
Bennett, Arnold. The old wives' tale : a novel. (London : Chapman & Hall, 1908).
Chap. 1.
It was of a piece with the deep green "flock" wall paper, and the tea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their antimacassars, and the harmonium in rosewood with a Chinese paper-mache tea-caddy on the top of it; even with the carpet, certainly the most curious parlour carpet that ever was, being made of lengths of the stair-carpet sewn together side by side…
Chap. 6.
Ah, the monstrous Chinese cruelty of youth!... He thought of women as the Occidental thinks of the Chinese, as a race apart, mysterious but capable of being infallibly comprehended by the application of a few leading principles of psychology…

1910
Bennett, Arnold. Clayhanger. (London : Methuen, 1910).
Chap. 4.
With its exact perpendiculars and horizontals, its geometric regularities, and its Chinese preciseness of fitting, a house had always seemed to him--again in the vagueness of his mind—as something superhuman… He crossed the damp grass, and felt the breeze and the sun. The sky was a moving medley of Chinese white and Prussian blue, that harmonised admirably with the Indian red architecture which framed it on all sides…
Chap. 5.
Mr Enoch Peake was as mysterious to Edwin as, say, a Chinese mandarin!...

1910
Bennett, Arnold. Helen with the high hand. (London : Chapman & Hall, 1910).
Chap. 7.
The new cook.
He had an extravagant taste in tea. He fancied China tea; and he fancied China tea that cost five shillings a pound. He was the last person to leave China tea at five shillings a pound to the economic prudence of a Mrs. Butt. Every day Mrs. Butt brought to him the teapot (warmed) and a teaspoon, and he unlocked the tea-caddy, dispensed the right quantity of tea, and relocked the tea-caddy…
Chap. 8.
Omelette.
"What!" she cried again. "You think yourself a great authority on China tea, and yet you don't know that milk ought to be poured in first! Why, it makes quite a different taste!"… How in the name of Confucius did she know that he thought himself a great authority on China tea?... There could be no doubt; it was his special China tea. It had a peculiar flavour (owing, perhaps, to the precedence given to milk), but it was incontestably his guarded and locked tea. How had she got it? "Where didst find this tea, lass?" he asked. "In the little corner cupboard in the scullery," she said. "I'd no idea that people drank such good China tea in Bursley." "Ah!" he observed, concealing his concern under a mask of irony, "China tea was drunk i' Bursley afore your time."… And he explained to Helen all his elaborate precautions for the preservation of his China tea… She was cold, prim, cut off like China from human intercourse by a wall… In the midst of the lawn was Mrs. Prockter's famous weeping willow, on whose branches Chinese lanterns had been hung by a reluctant gardener, who held to the proper gardener's axiom that lawns are made to be seen and not hurt. The moon aided these lanterns to the best of her power…

1910
Bennett, Arnold. How to live on 24 hours a day. (New York, N.Y. : George H. Doran, 1910).
Chap. 4.
And this inner day, a Chinese box in a larger Chinese box, must begin at 6 p.m. and end at 10 a.m. …

1911
Bennett, Arnold. The card : a story of adventure in the five towns. (London : Methuen, 1911).
Chap. 2.
She [Countess of Chell] was young and pretty. She had travelled in China and written a book about China…
Chap. 5.
In September, when the moon was red and full, and the sea glassy, he announced a series of nocturnal "Rocket Fetes." The lifeboat, hung with Chinese lanterns, put out in the evening (charge five shillings) and, followed by half the harbour's fleet of rowing-boats and cutters, proceeded to the neighbourhood of the strip of beach, where a rocket apparatus had been installed by the help of the Lifeboat Secretary… The Countess had a passion for tea."They have splendid China tea," said Denry… And she just said: "I like this balustrade knob being of black china."…
Chap. 6.
When Denry entered the dining-room of the Beau-Site, which had been cleared for the ball, his costume drew attention not so much by its splendour or ingenuity as by its peculiarity. He wore a short Chinese-shaped jacket, which his wife had made out of blue linen, and a flat Chinese hat to match, which they had constructed together on a basis of cardboard. But his thighs were enclosed in a pair of absurdly ample riding-breeches of an impressive check and cut to a comic exaggeration of the English pattern. He had bought the cloth for these at the tailor's in Montreux. Below them were very tight leggings, also English. In reply to a question as to what or whom he supposed himself to represent, he replied:"A Captain of Chinese cavalry, of course." Nevertheless, the dance was a remarkable success, and little by little even the sternest adherents of the absent Captain Deverax deigned to be amused by Denry's Chinese gestures…

1912
Bennett, Arnold. The matador oft he five towns and other stories. (London : Methuen, 1912).
Mimi
Vaillac, a widower with two young children, Mimi and Jean, was a Frenchman, and a great authority on the decoration of egg-shell china, who had settled in the Five Towns as expert partner in one of the classic china firms at Longshaw…
The glimpse.
It may be imagined that I resented death at so early an age, and being cut off in my career, and prevented from getting the full benefit of the new china-firing oven that I had patented… Externally I am the successful earthenware manufacturer, happily married, getting rich on a china-firing oven, employing a couple of hundred workmen, etcetera, who was once given up for dead. But I am more than that. I have seen God…
Under the clock.
And then the public balls, with those delicious tables in corners, lighted by Chinese lanterns, where you sat down and drew strange liquids up straws… The widow of the balcony. It stopped the reckless waltzing of the piano in the drawing-room; it stopped the cackle incident to cork-pool in the billiard-room; it even stopped a good deal of the whispering under the Chinese lanterns beneath the stairs and in the alcove at the top of the stairs…
The tight hand.
Moreover, she was forced to employ a charwoman--a charwoman who had made a fine art of breaking china, of losing silver teaspoons down sinks, and of going home of a night with vast pockets full of things that belonged to her by only nine-tenths of the law…
Hot potatoes.
Men who had never heard of Wagner, men who could not have told the difference between a sonata and a sonnet to save their souls, men who spent all their lives in manufacturing tea-cups or china door-knobs, were invited to guarantee five pounds a-piece against possible loss on the festival; and they bravely and blindly did so…
The blue suit.
We installed ourselves in one of the alcoves, with supplies of China tea and multitudinous cakes, and grew piquantly intimate, and then she explained her visit to my tailor's…

1912
Bennett, Arnold. The matador oft he five towns and other stories. (London : Methuen, 1912).
Vaillac, a widower with two young children, Mimi and Jean, was a Frenchman, and a great authority on the decoration of egg-shell china, who had settled in the Five Towns as expert partner in one of the classic china firms at Longshaw…

1912
Bennett, Arnold. Your United States : impressions of a first vist. (New York, N.Y. ; London : Harper & Bros., 1912).
II Streets
Much of what I have said of the streets of New York applies, in my superficial opinion, for instance, to the streets of Chicago. It is well known that to the Chinaman all Westerners look alike. No tourist on his first visit to a country so astonishing as the United States is very different from a Chinaman; the tourist should reconcile himself to that deep truth. It is desolating to think that a second visit will reveal to me the blindness, the distortions, and the wrong-headedness of my first. But even as a Chinaman I did notice subtle differences between New York and Chicago…
IV Some organizations.
I saw a packer deal with a collected order, and in this order were a number of tiny cookery utensils, a four-cent curling-iron, a brush, and two incredibly ugly pink china mugs, inscribed in cheap gilt respectively with the words "Father" and "Mother."…
VII Edication and art.
I do believe that I even liked the singular sight of a Chinaman tabulating from the world's press, in the modern-history laboratory, a history of the world day by day…
VIII Citizens.
We even saw Chinatown, and the wagonettes of tourists stationary in its streets. I had suspected that Chinatown was largely a show for tourists. When I asked how it existed, I was told that the two thousand Chinese of Chinatown lived on the ten thousand Chinese who came into it from all quarters on Sundays, and I understood. As a show it lacked convincingness—except the delicatessen-shop, whose sights and odors silenced criticism. It had the further disadvantage, by reason of its tawdry appeals of color and light, of making one feel like a tourist. Above a certain level of culture, no man who is a tourist has the intellectual honesty to admit to himself that he is a tourist. Such honesty is found only on the lower levels. The detective saved our pride from time to time by introducing us to sights which the despicable ordinary tourists cannot see. It was a proud moment for us when we assisted at a conspiratorial interview between our detective and the "captain of the precincts." And it was a proud moment when in an inconceivable retreat we were permitted to talk with an aged Chinese actor and view his collection of flowery hats. It was a still prouder (and also a subtly humiliating) moment when we were led through courtyards and beheld in their cloistral aloofness the American legitimate wives of wealthy China-men, sitting gorgeous, with the quiescence of odalisques, in gorgeous uncurtained interiors. I was glad when one of the ladies defied the detective by abruptly swishing down her blind…

1913
Bennett, Arnold. The great adventure : a play of fancy in 4 acts. (London : Methuen, 1913). [Erstaufführung Kingsway Theatre, London 1913].
HONORIA. There's one question I should so like to ask you, Mr. Shawn. In watercolours did Mr. Carve use Chinese white freely or did he stick to transparent colour, like the old English school? I wonder if you understand me?
CARVE. (Interested.) He used Chinese white like anything.
HONORIA. Oh! I'm so glad. You remember that charming water-colour of the Venetian gondolier in the Luxembourg. We had a great argument after we got home last Easter as to whether the oar was put in with Chinese white--or just 'left out,' you know!
CARVE. Chinese white, of course. My notion is that it doesn't matter a fig how you get effects so long as you do get them.
HONORIA. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I knew I was right about Chinese white. Oh, Anselm, do let him be buried in the Abbey! Do let me suggest to uncle----
LOOE. My dear girl, ask your conscience. Enthusiasm for art I can comprehend; I can even sympathize with it. But if this grave national
question is to be decided by considerations of Chinese white----…

1913
Bennett, Arnold. The plain man and his wife. (London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1913).
II
The taste for pleasure.
Can it not be got by simply sitting down in a chair and yielding to a mood? And yet this knowledge is just about as difficult to acquire as a knowledge of Chinese…

1913
Bennett, Arnold. The regent : a five towns story of adventure in London. (London : Methuen, 1913).
Chap. 5.
He had not been so flattered since the Countess of Chell had permitted him to offer her China tea, meringues, and Berlin pancakes at the Sub Rosa tea-rooms in Hanbridge--and that was a very long time ago…
Chap. 6.
It's worse than carrying about a china vase all the time on a slippery floor!...
Chap. 7.
Sir John, with the assistance of a young Chinaman and a fox-terrier, who flitted around him, was indeed eating
and drinking… The Chinaman's eyes were closed while his face still grinned. Snip was asleep on the parquet…

1914
Bennett, Arnold. The price of love. (London : Methuen, 1914).
Chap. 1.
He sat down in a chair by the table, drew off his loose black gloves, and after letting them hover irresolutely over the encumbered table deposited them for safety in the china slop-basin...

1916
Bennett, Arnold. The lion's share. (London : Cassell, 1916).
Chap. 1.
They heard a servant moving about at the foot of the stairs, and a capped head could be seen through the interstices of the white Chinese balustrade… "Yes, I know," said Audrey. "He ought to keep me in the china cupboard."…
Chap. 10
Chinese lanterns, electrically illuminated, were strung across the studio at a convenient height so that athletic dancers could prodigiously leap up and make them swing…
Chap. 31.
The deck awning had been rolled up to the centre, and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns…
Chap. 33.
Then she noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the furniture, that the carpet had been laid, that a table had been set for tea, that there were flowers and china and a teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a spirit-lamp on the table… She had caught him at last. There were two cups and saucers--the best ancient blue-and-white china, out of the glass-fronted china cupboard in that very room!...
Chap. 34.
"Have my tea, and do sit down, Winnie, and remember you're an Essex woman!" Audrey adjured her, going to the china cupboard to get more cups… Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers on the table, and put it back, all unwashed, into the china cupboard…
Chap. 39.
He paid lavishly and willingly, convinced by hard experience that the best is inestimable, but he felt too that the best was really quite cheap, for he knew that there were imperfectly educated people in the world who thought nothing of paying the price of a good meal for a mere engraving or a bit of china…
Chap. 40.
The house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with china knobs on the principal banisters of the rail, and crimson-tasselled bell cords at all the doors of the flats…

1918
Bennett, Arnold. The roll-call. (London : Hutchinson, 1918).
Chap. 9.
The increasing success of the campaign against Protection, and certain signs that the introduction of Chinese labour into South Africa could be effectively resisted, had excited the middle-aged provincial--now an Alderman--and he had managed to communicate fire to George…

1918
Bennett, Arnold. A pretty lady : a novel. (London : Cassell, 1918).
Chap. 7.
As for Mrs. Braiding managing, she would manage in a kind of way, but the risks to Regency furniture and china would be grave. She did not understand Regency furniture and china as Braiding did; no woman could… He was laughing at himself. Regency furniture and china!...
Chap. 8.
The shops and offices seemed to show that the wants of customers were few and simple. Grouse moors, fisheries, yachts, valuations, hosiery, neckties, motor-cars, insurance, assurance, antique china, antique pictures, boots, riding-whips, and, above all, Eastern cigarettes!...
Chap. 15.
"It is possible that it is simple when one is English. But English--that is as if to say Chinese. Everything contrary. Here is a pen."…
Chap. 19.
On a Chinese tray on a lacquered table by the bed was a spirit-lamp and kettle, and a box of matches in an embroidered case with one match sticking out ready to be seized and struck…

1922
Bennett, Arnold. Mr. Prohack. (London : Methuen, 1922).
Chap. 1.
Her black hair was elaborately done for the day, but she wore a roomy peignoir instead of a frock; it was Chinese, in the Imperial yellow, inconceivably embroidered with flora, fauna, and grotesques… Mrs. Prohack slipped off the arm of the chair. Her body seemed to vibrate within the Chinese gown, and she effervesced into an ascending and descending series of sustained laughs… And at the door, discreetly hiding her Chinese raiment behind the door, Eve said, as if she had only just thought of it, though she had been thinking of it for quite a quarter of an hour…
Chap. 4.
An attitude familiar to Mr. Prohack and one that he liked! She was wearing the Chinese garment of the morning, but he perceived that she had done something to it… He had been touched by her manoeuvre, half economy and half coquetry, with the Chinese dress…
Chap. 7.
"Arthur," said Mrs. Prohack, who was in her Chinese robe, "do you know that girl hasn't been home all night. Her bed hasn't been slept in!"…
Chap. 8.
Odd as the spectacle was, Mr. Prohack enjoyed it. He enjoyed the youth and the prettiness and the litheness of the brightly-dressed girls and the stern masculinity of the men, and he enjoyed the thought that both girls and men had had the wit to escape from the ordinary world into this fantastic environment created out of four walls, a few Chinese lanterns, some rouge, some stuffs, some spangles, friction between two pieces of metal, and the profoundest instinct of nature…
Chap. 11.
Am I to give him orders as to what he must do and what he mustn't? This isn't China and it isn't the eighteenth century…
Chap. 20.
She had hastily cast about her plumpness the transformed Chinese gown, which had the curious appearance of a survival from some former incarnation…

1925
Bennett, Arnold. The human machine. (London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1925).
Chap. 7.
No one can get in there and rage about like a bull in a china shop…
Chap. 10.
We are cursed by too much of the missionary spirit. We must needs voyage into the China of our brother's brain, and explain there that things are seriously wrong in that heathen land, and make ourselves unpleasant in the hope of getting them put right…

London, Jack. The cruise of the Dazzler. (New York, N.Y. : Century Co., 1902).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11051/11051.txt
"None of yer business," the newcomer retorted tartly. "But, if it 'll do you any good, I 'm a fireman on the China steamers, and, as I said, I 'm goin' to see fair play. That 's my business…
"Quarantine station. Lots of smallpox coming in now on the China steamers, and they make them go there till the doctors say they 're safe to land. I tell you, they 're strict about it, too…

Norris, Frank. The pit : a story of Chicago. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4382/4382.txt.
And then the little accessories that meant so much--the smell of violets, of good tobacco, of fragrant coffee; the gleaming damasks, china and silver of the breakfast table…
I heard of him in New York. And Page, our little, solemn Minerva of Dresden china?"
A long "Madeira" chair stood at the window which overlooked the park and lake, and near
to it a great round table of San Domingo mahogany, with tea things and almost diaphanous china…
In the "front library," where Laura entered first, were steel engravings of the style of the seventies, "whatnots" crowded with shells, Chinese coins, lacquer boxes, and the inevitable sawfish bill…

Vasilij Mikhailovic Alexeev graduiert an der Oriental Faculty der Universität St. Petersburg.

Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov forscht in China.