“... tea and rhubarb are necessaries of life to every foreigner...”
Chinese Imperial Edict, 1838
From mandarin to merchant, shopkeeper to coolie, the Chinese simply could not comprehend the western world which seemed to be ever at their gates demanding trade.
Equally, western minds failed to come to grips with the Chinese puzzle. An English writer in the 1840s seriously proclaimed that most Chinese women were bald by the age of thirty-five; another condemned China as a land “where roses have no fragrance, the women no petticoats, and the magistrates no honour”.
It was at Canton – the Great Mart of the East – that these two worlds came face to face in mutual incomprehension, and over succeeding years conflict and commerce were inseparable. Gradually Hong Kong grew up to rival Canton, while Macao continued its stately decline. In the fœtid lanes of these southern cities it was not easy for visitors to recognise the graceful land they had glimpsed on their willow-pattern plates.
This book contains the personal reminiscences and adventures of travellers on the South China Coast between the years 1816 and 1942. Whether they came to trade, to convert, to fight, or just to see, China was an experience they were not likely to forget.
M.W.
London, 1985