Unknown Beijing Building - Any Ideas?

Spent the weekend strolling Beijing and noticed this old building on Chaoyangmanwai Dajie - no exact number but the apartment building next door is no. 79. It appears to be gutted inside with windows missing which must mean the Beijing weather is getting at the structure's innards but on the outside looked structurally sound. Surrounded by fences, locked up and no signs of construction (or, perhaps more importantly as this is Beijing, destruction) taking place. But I have no idea what the building was in a previous life? Any ideas anyone...please. Hopefully it will be refurbished - though in Beijing the odds are it'll be gone next time I walk that way.

1941 - When China Declared War

This week in 1941 (December 9th to be precise) China declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy. I’ve always wondered how you actually declare war – send a letter, a telegram, put up a sign? Well in this case it was a proclamation issued by Lin Sen, the President of the Chinese Republic (pictured). Of course China had been fighting Japan since 1937 and the bombing of Shanghai, Rape of Nanking and the removal of the capital to Chungking had all already occurred – still to join the allies they had to make things formal.

The formal declaration is pretty well worded – Japan’s ‘insatiable ambitions’, Japan as ‘incorrigible’. Good stuff – here’s the full text.

China's Declaration of War Against Japan, Germany and Italy (December 9, 1941)

Japan's national policy has always aimed at the domination of Asia and mastery of the Pacific. For more than four years China has resolutely resisted Japan's aggression, regardless of suffering and sacrifice, in order not only to maintain her national independence and freedom but also to uphold international law and justice and to promote world peace and human happiness.

China is a peace-loving nation. In taking up arms in self-defense, China entertained the hope that Japan might yet realise the futility of her plans of conquest. Throughout the struggle all the other powers have shown the utmost forbearance likewise in the hope that Japan might one day repent and mend her ways in the interest of peace in the entire Pacific region.

Unfortunately Japan's aggressive capacities prove to be incorrigible. After her long and fruitless attempt to conquer China, Japan, far from showing any signs of penitence, has treacherously launched an attack on China's friends, the United States and Great Britain, thus extending the theater of her aggressive activities and making herself the arch-enemy of justice and world peace.

This latest act of aggression on the part of Japan lays bare her insatiable ambitions and has created a situation that no nation which believes in international good faith and human decency can tolerate.

The Chinese Government hereby formally declares war on Japan. The Chinese Government further declares that all treaties, conventions, agreements and contracts regarding relations between China and Japan are and remain null and void.

(The Chinese Government's Declaration of War on Germany and Italy.)

Since the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact of September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan have unmistakably banded themselves into a block of aggressor states working closely together to carry out their common program of world conquest and domination. To demonstrate their solidarity Germany and Italy successively accorded recognition to Japan's puppet regimes in northeastern China and at Nanking. As a consequence, China severed her diplomatic relations with Germany and Italy last July. Now the Axis powers have extended the theater of their aggressive activities and thrown the whole Pacific region into turmoil, making themselves the enemies of international justice and world civilization.

This state of affairs can no longer be tolerated by the Chinese Government and people. The Chinese Government hereby declares that as from midnight, December 9, 1941, a state of war exists between China and Germany and between China and Italy. The Chinese Government further declares that all treaties, conventions, agreements, and contracts regarding relations between China and Germany and between China and Italy are and remain null and void.

Bland is Back

Excellent news that Shanghai-based Earnshaw Books have reissued JOP Blands Houseboat Days from 1909. I've long been a Bland fan, largely as he has been overshadowed by that pompus git Morrison who was little more than a malicious gossip and never much of a journalist. In reality Bland and also Edmund Backhouse (the Hermit of Peking) did most of the work for him for little or no fame. If you read the memoirs of many of the more intelligent China Hands of the time they pretty much all agree that Morrison was a fraud and Bland a good solid reporter. Houseboat Days is his whimsical book on the old tradition of houseboating around Eastern China and is well worth a read.

John Otway Percy “JOP” Bland was one of several high profile Ulstermen who had made a career in China in the late nineteenth century and whose number included notably Sir Robert Hart the famous Inspector General of the China Imperial Maritime Customs Service. Hart had offered Bland a job in China in 1883 as his secretary and, in 1896, Bland also became the Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Council. After 13 years service in various roles to the Chinese government including helping negotiate some railway loans, Bland was awarded the Order of the Double Dragon by the Chinese Government. Then Morrison had met him and hired him as an occasional correspondent for the Times in Shanghai.

Edwin Haward, an India Hand who served for many years as one of the more enlightened editors of the North-China Daily News in the 1930s commented in the Kipling Journal, 'We in China have often longed for someone to do for us what Kipling did for India. Mr J.O.P. Bland’s charming pen has gone nearest to fulfilling these aspirations, and quaintly enough its wielder would shake hands with Kipling in the refusal to abandon old political deities.’

Bland was moved from Shanghai to Beijing in 1907 to cover for Morrison. While Morrison roamed far and wide, usually hunting, Bland and his friend Backhouse kept the paper supplied with despatches. Bland disliked what he considered to be Morrison’s dogmatic approach to political questions and staunch unquestioning support for British imperialism. Bland, a supporter of peaceful trade with China, also considered Morrison superficial and vain in his claims to be the ultimate interpreter of China and the Chinese without being able to speak the language or having any real sympathy with the culture.

But the situation couldn’t last and the relationship started to unravel and Morrison turned nasty. In 1909 an article perceived to be by Morrison but actually by Bland was praised. Morrison was furious, Bland left feeling cheated of his due respect. Things reached a head when Morrison returned to London and tried to discredit Bland. However, Valentine Chirol at the Times foreign desk was no fool and knew that despite his popularity with the public Morrison was not as great as the readers, or the man himself, thought and stood by Bland. Bland stayed and, in public at least Morrison’s reputation with the public as the great “Morrison of Peking” remained intact and remained so until his death in 1920 despite several serious errors of judgement on Morrison’s part later such as becoming an adviser to China’s would-be dictator Yuan Shih-kai.

With the republication of Houseboat Days hopefully we can win back some of Bland's lost reputation and stop the unqualified and uniformed appreciation of Morrison that has gone on for at least 90 years to long.

St John's University

The old St John's University still stands at the back of the old Jessfield Park (now Zhongshan Park) . I took a stroll round there at the weekend and was pleased to see that the gardens of the university seem to have had some work done on them.

They're also also dredging the Suzhou Creek along that and improving the Creek front access around that area which might make it a nicer walk than it's been for a few years while the light rail bridge and the awful Cloud Nine Shopping Centre were churning everything up.

On a crisp day like last Sunday the Creek has in truth never looked so clean. Shame about the crappy apartment blocks

The Voyage East I - Gallions Reach - Where the Journey East Began

I spent some time recently wading through shipping records to track some people back and forth between England and China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The shipping, as well as immigration, records out of and into England are pretty good and easy to use. What interested me was that when ships bound for Hong Kong, Shanghai and all points east sailed from the Port of London they invariably sailed from the Gallions Reach basin (above photographed this year). A lot of people always comment in their memoirs and diaries that the night before they sailed from London they stayed at the Gallions hotel. In the nineteenth century Gallions Reach was a fairly long journey from central London.

So with an afternoon free in London earlier this year I decided to see what was left of Gallions Reach and the old hotel (left, as it was in 1883). Now you can get out there on the DLR light rail to, obviously, Gallions Reach station - almost the end of the line way out in East London near the old Beckton gasworks. The dock itself fell into disuse a long time ago - it was the set for the film Full Metal Jacket before being redeveloped. It is now yuppified in that horrible late 80s LDDC style that was popular back then. It's a stone throw from London City Airport so you can see the planes come in. And there's the inevitable 'retail park'. All remnants of any buildings from that time seem gone except...

I was delighted to find that the Gallions Hotel seems to have somehow survived the redevelopment madness of the old docklands. Not just survived but being restored it seems - probably to be a 'fun pub' for East London's binge drinking community, but still, give thanks for small mercies. In fact it's quite an impressive building though was originally attached to the Gallions Road train station - both that station and line (originally opened in 1880 by the London and St Katherines Dock Company) are long gone leaving the hotel looking a little isolated - the front door used to open straight onto the platform! There was one train a day and so departing passengers trained it to Gallions Road, stepped straight into the Gallions Hotel and then boarded their ship when the tide was right. Seemless - six weeks later you're in Shanghai!

I hope to get back soon and find it open for business - it last operated as a pub way back in 1972 though, as you can see, externally the place looks in good shape with the original moulds, chimneys etc.

The Voyage East II - Port Said

The Voyage East III - Alexandria

The Voyage IV - Through the Canal

The Voyage East V - Suakim, Port Sudan

The Voyage East VI - Resupply at Aden
The Voyage East VII - Gibraltar
The Voyage East VIII - Suez- You Rather Hoped Not

Chinese Labour Corps 1

I've long been fascinated by the Chinese Labour Corps (the picture from a contemporary newspaper during the War shows some CLC men eating dinner near the Front) having read a few references to them and then, years ago, driving through France and coming across their war graves. As this is of course the 90th anniversary of the Armistice I think I'll try and do a few posts on the CLC before the end of the year.

Sadly the CLC, known back then as a 'Coolie Corps', are largely forgotten. Both the French and the British had Chinese manned Labour Corps, the French first followed by the Brits who followed the French lead and signed an agreement with the Chinese for a supply of men. By the end of 1917 there were 50,000 Chinese workers in France, rising to 96,000 by August 1918 employed by the Brits with another 30,000 working for the French.

They were all mostly northern Chinese recruited mainly out Weihaiwei. They worked on the battlefields keeping the logistics going and cleaning and clearing up the battlefields. But they were also based in England - a number died loading cannon shells onto a boat in a factory in Portsmouth. Plenty of them died in France too - disease, unexploded ordinance, shells etc.

They ended up staying longer than the soldiers too - they were still clearing the former battlefields and trenches in 1919.

Anyway, not much is out there about them except a very hard to get book - China on the Western Front by Michael Summerskill from about 1982 I think. If you ever see a copy get it, there aren't many around and it's long overdue a reprint.

I'll try and put up some more photos and stories of the CLC before year's end. They deserve remembering.

The Nazis Distrust of Sinology

For obscure reasons I've been reading quite a few of the old French Sinologists of the inter-war period lately. And one thing puzzled me a bit - why did the Nazis so seemingly hate and distrust the Sinology community in those countries it conquered? For instance, the fate of two of France's best Sinologists:

Two excellent graduates of both the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes and the École Française d’Extrême-Orient Paul Pelliot (1878-1945 - on the right) and Henri Maspero (1882-1945) - on the left) both fell foul of the Nazis during World War Two in Paris: both were arrested by the Gestapo who distrusted the Sinology community and forced the Société Asiatique to meet clandestinely. Pelliot, who had refused Nazi demands to officially register the Société, died shortly after the liberation of Paris (of cancer) while Maspero was accused of working with the French Resistance and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Despite a plea from Erich Haenisch (1880-1966), the German Mongolist and Sinologist, author of the three volume linguistic study Lehrgang der Chinesischen Schriftsprache (1933) and former Professor of Mongol and Manchu at Berlin University as well as being Chair of Sinology at Leipzig University, to release him, Maspero died inside Buchenwald.

So I've long pondered why the Nazis so distrusted and seemingly despised Sinologists and Sinology? Of course the Nazis hated a lot of people - Jews, gypsies, slavs, leftists of all descriptions, gays etc so Sinologists are just another group to dislike. But why so apparently vehemently and more so than near east Orientalists for instance? Well, I've thought about and here's my theory for what it's worth:

The Nazis of course distrusted cosmopolitan Europe and harked back to various romantic rural Aryan idylls. They saw those parts of Europe that were agricultural and populated by people of good Saxon stock as 'authentic'. This was in contrast to the western seaboard of Europe with its cities, dominated by merchants, looking towards Britain and other, in the minds of the Nazis, ‘anti-European powers’. These ‘deracinated’ places and people had, in the Nazi mindset, turned against their European roots and were ‘infecting’ the rest of Europe with their ‘materialistic, bourgeois capitalist mentality’. Within this Europe the Nazis disliked were the major homes of European Sinology, looking to another non-European civilisation for ideas and answers and out of plain curiosity.

From the Baltic States, via northern Germany (the trading Hanseatic Hamburg was a city distrusted by many Nazis) and Denmark, down to Lisbon and, of course, England – a strip of cities, populated by bourgeois capitalists who liked to trade freely with others regardless of race and creed (though obviously employing gunboats etc when the mood took them). It was from this section of Europe that expeditions went out to discover the world, build empires and trade with countries such as China (Portugal to Macau, Dutch to the Spice Island, England to everywhere etc). The Nazis distrusted anyone who looked beyond Europe and anyone who seemed to be advocating free international trade and exchange. Sinologists then, both studying an ‘alien’ culture and one where European free traders had congregated, were then naturally to be distrusted. As usual with those the Nazis distrusted they were to be persecuted as the French Sinologists Pelliot and Maspero were and eventually annihilated as indeed Maspero was at Buchenwald.

Just thinking - I'd be fascinated to known any other theories or indeed any serious Sinologists who managed to find an accomodation with the Nazis. I was always told that there was no such thing as a good Nazi (or fascist) novel, play, work of art etc - was there any Nazi Sinology?