Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao

313 Pages·2009·1.948 MB·English

by  Paul French

Hong Kong University Press thanks Xu Bing for writing the Press’s name in his Square
Word Calligraphy for the covers of its books. For further information, see p. iv.
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For Declan
May your life be full of wonderful adventures.
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Paul French
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Hong Kong University Press
14/F Hing Wai Centre
7 Tin Wan Praya Road
Aberdeen
Hong Kong
© Paul French 2009
ISBN 978-962-209-982-1
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Secure On-line Ordering
http://www.hkupress.org
Printed and bound by Kings Time Printing Press Ltd., Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong University Press is honoured that Xu Bing, whose art
explores the complex themes of language across cultures, has written
the Press’s name in his Square Word Calligraphy. This signals our
commitment to cross-cultural thinking and the distinctive nature of
our English-language books published in China.
“At first glance, Square Word Calligraphy appears to be nothing more
unusual than Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering
English words in the format of a square so they resemble Chinese
characters. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read Square Word
Calligraphy but cannot. Western viewers, however are surprised to find
they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly revealed.”
— Britta Erickson, The Art of Xu Bing
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Contents
Acknowledgments...........................................................................................vii
Names and Spelling.........................................................................................ix
Introduction — Through the Looking Glass....................................................1
11 God, Mammon and Flag.......................................................................... 15
12 Civil and Other Wars — Rebels, Mercenaries and More Dope............. 39
13 Boxers and Treaty Porters — Headlines Change History...................... 63
14 The Vultures Descend.............................................................................. 87
15 Writing in a Republic — Printing What They Damn Well Liked .........99
16 The Roaring Twenties — Substituting Action for Talk ........................ 119
17 The Decadent Thirties — Celebrities, Gangsters and the Ladies
of the Press............................................................................................. 143
18 The Dirty Thirties — Left Wing, Right Wing, Imperialists
and Spies................................................................................................ 165
19 Too Hot — China Fights for Its Life....................................................195
10 In Air Raid Shelters and Caves — Covering the War.......................... 227
11 Interregnum — End of a War, Start of a Revolution........................... 249
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vi CONTENTS
Notes.............................................................................................................. 269
Bibliography.................................................................................................. 277
Appendix .......................................................................................................283
Index.............................................................................................................. 285
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Acknowledgments
To attempt a complete directory of every member of the foreign press corps in
China from the 1820s to the 1950s would be both probably impossible and very
likely dreary. Therefore, the characters included in this book represent a selection
of the major figures and those who piqued my interest for one reason or another.
Hopefully dreariness has been avoided. Along the way, plenty of people weighed
in with their own personal favourite members of the old China press corps and
often lobbied hard for their inclusion. Needless to say, any errors of fact, omission
or interpretation in this book are the author’s own shortcomings.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most helpful contributors to this project were
those journalists who have been part of the foreign press corps of China for the
last 30 years and have found themselves naturally interested in their predecessors
while producing not a few books of analysis and memoir between them. Those
that offered suggestions for inclusion and encouragement included Jasper Becker,
Gary Bowerman, Sam Chambers, Thomas Crampton, Steven Crane, Laura
Daverio, Geoff Dyer, Graham Earnshaw, Robert Elegant, Simon Elegant,
Jonathan Fenby, Rob Gifford, John Gittings, Peter Goff, Duncan Hewitt, Isabel
Hilton, Gary Jones, Arthur Kroeber, James Kynge, Ed Lanfranco, Louisa Lim,
Melinda Liu, Simon Long, Richard McGregor, Calum McLeod, Tom Miller,
Mark O’Neill, Hugo Restall, Rosemary Righter, Catherine Sampson, Bill
Savadove, Richard Spencer, Joe Studwell, Graham Thompson, Jonathan Watts,
Adam Williams and Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
Many people with an interest in the period also offered their thoughts and
suggestions including Julia Boyd, Kerry Brown, Matthew Crabbe, Patrick
Cranley, Dennis Crow, Nenad Djordjevic, Peter Hibbard, Jim Hoare, Tess
Johnston, Bobo Lo, JFK Miller and Lynn Pan.
Thanks also to the staff of various libraries that were always helpful,
including the Shanghai Municipal Archives, the University of Hong Kong Library
and the British Library newspaper archive in London. Once again, thanks to
Hong Kong University Press, including Colin Day, Dennis Cheung and Winnie
Chau for taking up this project so enthusiastically.
Lisa stoically grinned and bore another book. I always forget to tell her how
much her support means to me, so now it’s officially “on the record”. She agreed
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viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
to live with one troublesome foreigner in China and unwittingly found herself
surrounded by books written by hundreds of them. It can’t have been pleasant
but she was never less than totally supportive.
Illustration Credits
The numbers below refer to the numbers in the plates section after p. 118.
1, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28. Author’s collection
2. Courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales
3, 4, 5. Courtesy of the collection of Peter Hibbard
7. Courtesy of the John Emett Woodall (Tienstin Grammar School) Collection
and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
9. Courtesy of the John Benjamin Powell Papers, 1910–1952, Western Historical
Manuscript Collection – Columbia, MO.
10. Courtesy of the Western Historical Manuscript Collection — Columbia,
Missouri
14. Courtesy of Indiana University and the Lilly Library
15. With the kind permission of the Estate of Peter Fleming and special thanks
to Kate Grimond
16, 22, 26, 27. Courtesy of the Malcom Rosholt Collection and Mei-fei Elrick
24, 29, 31, 32. With permission from Corbis
25. Courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
30. Courtesy of The Lois Snow and the Edgar Parks Snow (1905–1972) Papers,
University of Missouri-Kansas City
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Names and Spelling
The problem of uniform spelling of Chinese names and words is quite simply
insurmountable. Therefore, all Chinese names and words in the text have been
rendered into modern pinyin (e.g. Chongqing rather than Chungking), except
where they are included in the original titles of books or within contemporary
quotes (e.g. the city of Hankou was home in the 1930s to the “Hankow Last
Ditchers”). Given the many spelling variations in numerous sources over a period
of 200 years, a list of China’s provinces and major cities and their various pre-
1949 and post-1949 names is included at the end of this book as an appendix.
Chinese names are used with the family name indicated first followed by
their patronymic, as is standard in China. While most are in modern pinyin, some
exceptions include those that are spelled in various ways but are well known to
readers in a particular form, such as Sun Yat-sen (rather than Sun Zhongshan).
Where they were commonly used, the English names adopted by Chinese people
are included.
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