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“A passage from China : an archival study of the correspondence and friendship between E.M. Forster and Hsiao Ch'ien. ” (Publication, 2002)

Year

2002

Text

Lien, Wen-shan. A passage from China : an archival study of the correspondence and friendship between E.M. Forster and Hsiao Ch'ien. In : EurAmerica ; vol. 32, no 1 (2002). [Xiao Qian].
http://www.ea.sinica.edu.tw/eu_file/12014837842.pdf. (Fors13)

Type

Publication

Mentioned People (2)

Forster, Edward Morgan  (London 1879-1970 Coventry) : Schriftsteller

Xiao, Qian  (Beijing 1910-1999) : Schriftsteller, Übersetzer, Journalist

Subjects

Literature : China / Literature : Occident : Great Britain / Periods : China : People's Republic (1949-) / Periods : China : Republic (1912-1949) / References / Sources / Translator

Chronology Entries (11)

# Year Text Linked Data
1 1933-1936 Xiao Qian studies at the Faculty of English and the Faculty of Journalism at Yanjing University under Edgar Snow.
2 1939-1944 Xiao Qian is Instructor in modern Chinese language at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 1939 SOAS moved to Cambridge during the Second World War. College. He was invited to give talks on China. The topics included Chinese culture, literature, and the relationship between spiritual China with the industrial West.
1942-1944 Xiao Qian took a graduate degree in English literature at King's College, Cambridge, and started the Chinese news agency Da gong bao in London to report war news from England. He came into contact with the China Campaign Committee, Victor Gollancz (publisher and head of the Left Book Club), Kingsley Martin (editor of the New statesman and nation), Margery Fry (feminist and social activist), Harold Laski (Labour Party theorist) and Arthur Clegg (reporter on foreign affairs for the British Communist Party's organ Daily worker). Xiao became a principal speaker for the Committee.
Xiao Qian war invited twice to stay at E.M. Forster's family home West Hackhurst in Dorking, Surrey.
In his autobiography Xiao Qian notes : "Forster very generously provided materials and support while I was studying his novels at King's College from 1942-1944. He also gave me some of his essays and little booklets that had been published in Egypt and India, but never in Britain."
"A passage to India had been behind my mind ever since we met. To Mr. Forster, China may be a land with a great deal of personal relationship left ; to China, Mr. Forster would be an altogether different westerner, neither pompous like the admirals, nor complascent like the diplomats, nor nagging as the missionaries, nor patrionising like the connoiseurs, but a sensitive, humane, understanding co-man."
After attending a poetry reading by T.S. Eliot, Xiao Qian stated that he did not expect him "to be so affable and unassuming". He described him as being "of medium height and energetic, at first sight he seemed to have just reached middle age. But when he raised his very shortsighted eyes, his wrinkled forehead made him appear an old man. T.S. Eliot's voice is not very resonant, nor did he raise and lower it or pause like an experiences lecturer. Yet in a subtle way his recital brought out meaning in the verse. When each poem ended you felt you had been listing to a fountain flowing under ice".
3 1941 Xiao Qian notes in his autobiography, that he met E.M. Forster for the first time on 9 May 1941 at the Tagore Memorial Meeting organized by the English PEN Club. He was invited to give a talk and was sitting alongside Forster. Kingsley Martin introduced him to Forster. He was also introduced to H.G. Wells, Stephen Spender and John Lehmann.
Letter from E.M. Forster to Jack Sprott ; 20 Sept. 1941.
"I made two contacts in the PEN [PEN Club's 17th International Congress] – sense Xiao Qian of whom I shall see more."
4 1941-1949 Friendship and correspondence between E.M. Forster and Xiao Qian.
Lien Wen-shan : According to Xiao, some 80 letters, postcards and telegrams were dispatched from Forster to himself. In response, he wrote long replies back to Forster. A large number of Forster's letters do not survive and almost all of Xiao's letters were destroyed in 1945 and 1946. Forster's letters were destroyed at the beginning of the Cultural revolution in 1966. Only two letters from Xiao to Forster survived.
Their friendship ended abruptly and was scarred by a misunderstanding that was never cleared up. The intervention of the Second World War and the political upheavals in post-war China proved to be too great a disruptive force and made the renewal of their friendship impossible.
5 1942 Letter from Alice Forster, mother of E.M. Forster, to Xiao Qian ; 11 January 1942.
"I am so glad you were happy with us. I hope you will come again soon. We all indeed enjoyed your visit. Most kind of you to send me the very interesting 'Dragon Book' and the lotus seeds. We have not opened the box yet but shall do so when Morgan comes back from London."
6 1942 Letter from E.M. Forster to Xiao Qian ; June, 1942.
Forster arrange a Meeting for Xiao to meet his friends, including Bob Buckingham and Joe Ackerley : "Dinner next Sunday, 14th. Mr. Buckingham has been in since I began this letter. He is coming on Sunday to the flat and we very much wish you could join us in it for an informal meal. I am asking Mr. Ackerl[e]y also. The flat is 9, Arlington Park Mansions, Chiswick, W.4 (Tel : CHI 2407) – close to the Chiswick Empire on Tumham Green. The hour of the meal would be 7.0. Do come if you can – send me a line to West Hackhurst as soon as you can conveniently."
Letter from Xiao Qian to E.M. Forster ; June 12, 1942.
Xiao notes about the dinner : "held at Arlington Mansion, with Bob Buckingham, John Hampson, Joe Ackerl[e]y present. My first night in that enchanting flat, with a rickey table lamp which either refused to be on or insisted on remaining. Mr. Forster cooked a glorious breakfast. .. Before entering the flat, I was taken over the Bridge of Heaven, had my first bird-eye-view of south-western London".
7 1943 Xiao Qian and Maurice by E.M. Forster.
Lien Wen-shan : The most intriguing feature of the correspondence between E.M. Forster and Xiao Qian is their repeated discussions of Forster's novel Maurice. Some of their discussions touch upon issues that Forster had never discussed before with his other British friends and critics. Xiao recalls his reading of Maurice : "He let me read his novel about homosexuality, Maurice, which was locked in a safe and not to be published until a hundred years later". Forster said : "As for my unpublished novel, you are welcome to read it whenever you like. It is almost publishable, but not quite. There is a MS down here if you would car for it at any time." Letter from E.M. Forster to Xiao Qian ; 17 April 1943 : "Shall be interested when we meet what you think of Maurice. It seems to me in retrospect very English, and there is no harm in that, but for the Moment I am tired of what is very English."
Xiao Qian to Forster : "There is no law in China forbidding this more severely than seduction. In Shanghai & Tientsin, there are even such Brothels, who are know as 'rabbitts'. One of the Emperors of ours was known to be fond of 'plucking the flowers in the back garden'. In the Imperial court, there used to be dramatic repertories. The boys playing feminine parts used to be seduced either by their own co-actors or by men in the Forbidden City". "I told him [Forster] the blackmail scene in Maurice should serve as a lesson to all homosexuals, hence, the novel is beautiful. I seem to have told him that the novel (especially the blackmail scene) discourages homosexuality. Hence, I regarded it as healthy, I was shocked by the blackmail scene".
Forster to Xiao Qian : "As you say, one characteristic of Maurice is his maturity. And another is his liking for happiness and his dislike for self-pity. If I had had to end the book sadly or tragically for him, I should not have thought it worth writing. We have in England (as in France) good studies of immaturity, some tiresome self-pitying, some tiresome proclamations of the Cause, and some pornography which, like most pornography, fail to be graphic."
8 1943 Letter from E.M. Forster to Xiao Qian ; 1 May, 1943.
"It made me sad for I felt that I was too old to 'take on' China, and that, better than Italy (my first love), India, or France, could it have been taken on by me".
9 1943 Letter from E.M. Forster to Xiao Qian ; 7 July, 1943.
"I have been considering what you said about poverty and your misery and 'crime' in China. Why am I ashamed to hear of such things ? Not because I am shocked by them, as you suggest, nor because I feel I cannot imagine them, because they emphasise a defect in my mental equipment. For an instant, they become real, then they fall back again into words… It is an extra barrier too to realize that European poverty is nothing to Oriental. I am very glad that you mentioned this subject to me and I hope you will do so again."
10 1946 Xiao Qian left London for Shanghai.
11 1984 Xiao Qian while attending the annual meeting of British Sinologists, was searching his letters to E.M. Forster at the Cambridge College Archive. He noted in his autobiography : "Not a single letter from me was found among the papers that he [Forster] left. 1941-1949."