Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Our family expected to spend a year or two in Xiamen and we're still here 21 years later, but Xiamen has been the "Hotel California of China" since at least the 1860s. You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave--and probably won't want to!
Enjoy Amoy!
Dr. Bill
Why Seven Becomes Fourteen!
From Boehm, Lise, “China Coast Tales,” Kelly and Walsh Limited, Shanghai, 1897. “In the Sixties,” Part 1, page 1-3 pp. 7,8
As everyone in China knows, at the end of his first seven years of service a Customs Assistant may apply for two years' leave on half-pay, which period he may spend anywhere usually "at home," viz. Europe his return passage to China being paid for him. But of those Assistants who may take their leave, under such favourable conditions, there are a great many who do not find themselves in a position to do so, and this in spite of having received regular and excellent pay during their period of service. At the end of his first seven years in China a man has often saved nothing, his brain having been turned by the mere possession of money, seemingly inexhaustible to one who has perhaps been brought up in narrow circumstances. Or, he has been bitten rabidly by what is known as "Sinology," and lives, speaks, thinks, and dreams of nothing but the Chinese language and literature. Or, he has been drawn into the ring of speculators, and has risked, even if he has not lost, all his savings in strange and wonderful mines and companies. Or, he is drinking himself into an untimely grave. And as it is far easier to live on nothing at all, and to die leaving your family to your friends, or to be a Chinese student, or to be a speculator, or to be a hard drinker, in the East than in the West, the man of seven years generally stays out fourteen.
note from Bill...
There you have it, folks! Even 150 years ago, Xiamen was the Hotel California of China! But what a delightful place to be stuck.
Enjoy Amoy!
www.amoymagic.com
Friday, March 20, 2009
Spring Cleaning in Xiamen, 1860s
Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
While working on my "Old Xiamen in Foreigners' Eyes" book, I came across Lise Boehm's delightful account of Spring Cleaning in Amoy in the 1860s....
Enjoy Amoy!
Boehm, Lise, “China Coast Tales,” Kelly and Walsh Limited, Shanghai, 1897. “In the Sixties,” Part 1, page 1-3
…a grand cleaning, scrubbing and dusting had been going on for a fortnight in the house of the Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs, Amoy, South China.
Now the Commissioner was a man who usually left his servants to do just as much, or as little, as they chose to do. His was precisely the establishment a Chinaman delights in, where there is no troublesome "missisy" to demand monthly, weekly, or even daily accounts, to compare expenses with some experienced friend, and to generally make herself obnoxious. Provided his meals were served punctually, Mr. Watkins was fairly indifferent as to what he was made to swallow. Provided his own particular armchair held together, he did not care if the rest of his furniture was allowed to crumble away through neglect or white ants.
Such was the normal state of Mr. Watkins and of Mr. Watkins' household for eleven months in every year.
But when the twelfth month, marked in the calendar as May, came round, the aspect of the great dreary house on the top of the hill changed. Every available coolie, both in Mr. Watkins' house and in his office, every Customs boatman, every watchman, every odd man, was pressed into the work of cleaning.
The odour of carbolic fluids, of patent soaps and insect-destroying powders pervaded the whole compound, and made the house smell like the disinfecting ward of a hospital. Scrubbing cloths and dusting brushes, sufficient to last an ordinary Chinese household for a generation, were recklessly given out. Mosquito-nets were repaired, centipedes and lizards were terrified from their resting places, boxes of stores arrived from Hongkong, the official servants received fresh uniforms, and Mr. Watkins himself spent a whole day picking out white trousers, and coats which were neither frayed at the cuffs, nor shaky about the buttonholes, nor badly ironmoulded. For Mrs. Ratcliff was expected for her yearly visit.
Everybody in China knew Mrs. Ratcliff, or at any rate knew all about her…. (read the book to find out just what everyone knew about her, and why her annual pilgrimage to Mr. Watkin's home in Amoy so titillated the foreign community...
And, again, Enjoy Amoy!
www.amoymagic.com
While working on my "Old Xiamen in Foreigners' Eyes" book, I came across Lise Boehm's delightful account of Spring Cleaning in Amoy in the 1860s....
Enjoy Amoy!
Boehm, Lise, “China Coast Tales,” Kelly and Walsh Limited, Shanghai, 1897. “In the Sixties,” Part 1, page 1-3
…a grand cleaning, scrubbing and dusting had been going on for a fortnight in the house of the Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs, Amoy, South China.
Now the Commissioner was a man who usually left his servants to do just as much, or as little, as they chose to do. His was precisely the establishment a Chinaman delights in, where there is no troublesome "missisy" to demand monthly, weekly, or even daily accounts, to compare expenses with some experienced friend, and to generally make herself obnoxious. Provided his meals were served punctually, Mr. Watkins was fairly indifferent as to what he was made to swallow. Provided his own particular armchair held together, he did not care if the rest of his furniture was allowed to crumble away through neglect or white ants.
Such was the normal state of Mr. Watkins and of Mr. Watkins' household for eleven months in every year.
But when the twelfth month, marked in the calendar as May, came round, the aspect of the great dreary house on the top of the hill changed. Every available coolie, both in Mr. Watkins' house and in his office, every Customs boatman, every watchman, every odd man, was pressed into the work of cleaning.
The odour of carbolic fluids, of patent soaps and insect-destroying powders pervaded the whole compound, and made the house smell like the disinfecting ward of a hospital. Scrubbing cloths and dusting brushes, sufficient to last an ordinary Chinese household for a generation, were recklessly given out. Mosquito-nets were repaired, centipedes and lizards were terrified from their resting places, boxes of stores arrived from Hongkong, the official servants received fresh uniforms, and Mr. Watkins himself spent a whole day picking out white trousers, and coats which were neither frayed at the cuffs, nor shaky about the buttonholes, nor badly ironmoulded. For Mrs. Ratcliff was expected for her yearly visit.
Everybody in China knew Mrs. Ratcliff, or at any rate knew all about her…. (read the book to find out just what everyone knew about her, and why her annual pilgrimage to Mr. Watkin's home in Amoy so titillated the foreign community...
And, again, Enjoy Amoy!
www.amoymagic.com
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Xiamen 4th of July, 1891
Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
With the U.S.'s increased presence in Xiamen (former Amoy), and 4th of July only a few months away, I was startled this afternoon, while working on my book about Xiamen history, to come across this article about a 4th of July celebration in Xiamen in 1891. What is really amazing are the Fujian governor's prescient remarks about the role of the U.S. and China in the coming 20th century. With a little revision, they still hold true--as do the hopes for our two countries peaceful cooperation. Bill
Amoy 4th of July, 1891--a Toast to America & China
[Chinese Recorder, Vol. 23, January, 1892 p. 18]
"China's Power.—At the celebration of the Fourth of July at Amoy, China, by the Americans, the governor of the province was invited to the banquet, and made a remarkable speech, which shows his intelligence, and suggests some things worthy of consideration.
"Tsin Chin-chung was called upon to respond to the toast, 'The Emperor of China.' In part he said: 'China, having followed its own principles of advancement during more than 5000 years, is now compelled to change and move along European channels. It has begun to own steamships and railways. Its telegraph now covers every province. It has mills, forges and foundries like those of Essen, of Sheffield and of Pittsburgh. China is to-day learning that lesson in education which Europe has obliged her to learn,—the art of killing, the science of armies and navies. Woe, then, to the world if the scholar, profiting by her lesson, should apply it in turn. With its freedom from debt, its inexhaustible resources and its teeming millions, this empire might be the menace, if not the destroyer, of Christendom. No matter what happens, it needs no prophetic gift to know that the 20th century will see at the forefront of the nations of the world,—China in the East and America in the West. Well may we pray that, for the welfare of humanity, their purposes will be as peaceful and upright as to-day.'"
www.amoymagic.com
With the U.S.'s increased presence in Xiamen (former Amoy), and 4th of July only a few months away, I was startled this afternoon, while working on my book about Xiamen history, to come across this article about a 4th of July celebration in Xiamen in 1891. What is really amazing are the Fujian governor's prescient remarks about the role of the U.S. and China in the coming 20th century. With a little revision, they still hold true--as do the hopes for our two countries peaceful cooperation. Bill
Amoy 4th of July, 1891--a Toast to America & China
[Chinese Recorder, Vol. 23, January, 1892 p. 18]
"China's Power.—At the celebration of the Fourth of July at Amoy, China, by the Americans, the governor of the province was invited to the banquet, and made a remarkable speech, which shows his intelligence, and suggests some things worthy of consideration.
"Tsin Chin-chung was called upon to respond to the toast, 'The Emperor of China.' In part he said: 'China, having followed its own principles of advancement during more than 5000 years, is now compelled to change and move along European channels. It has begun to own steamships and railways. Its telegraph now covers every province. It has mills, forges and foundries like those of Essen, of Sheffield and of Pittsburgh. China is to-day learning that lesson in education which Europe has obliged her to learn,—the art of killing, the science of armies and navies. Woe, then, to the world if the scholar, profiting by her lesson, should apply it in turn. With its freedom from debt, its inexhaustible resources and its teeming millions, this empire might be the menace, if not the destroyer, of Christendom. No matter what happens, it needs no prophetic gift to know that the 20th century will see at the forefront of the nations of the world,—China in the East and America in the West. Well may we pray that, for the welfare of humanity, their purposes will be as peaceful and upright as to-day.'"
www.amoymagic.com
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