Everyone knows that Google and Facebook don't work in China. It's a pain, but there we are. Spending time in China is a good indicator of how your time goes when you're elsewhere... What we didn't know until this time was that Kobo doesn't work either. And having run through my three available electronic books and my two available real ones, I needed other sources.

What a great time, therefore, to discover Gutenberg. It's free, it's downloadable in China, and it contains some fascinating stuff.

Searching on "Beijing", I came across this intriguing little collection of books, all focusing on the Boxer Rebellion. This started off as a peasant movement, resisting what was seen as the foreign imposition of railways and the Christian religion, violently targeting foreigners, and trusting in the efficacy of supernatural protection in its righteous war. It then gained official support (for self-serving reasons) from at least some segments of the government. The climax came with the siege of the Legation Quarter (where we had so recently walked, and where Paul French's account is set, a couple of decades or so after the siege).

We're all familiar with China's "century of humiliation", but many of these details seem to have faded from current Western memory somewhat, and would bear a renewed airing.

1.

Robert Coltman -- Beleaguered in Peking: The Boxer's war against the foreigner, 1901

This is an eye-witness account of the siege, narrated by an American doctor. He displays some ability to see things from the Chinese side (recognizing, for example, that the preaching of Christianity should not have become a treaty right), but otherwise holds a fairly gung-ho view of how to deal with the situation: "Why they [the foreign powers] don't land a large force, come to Peking, and seize the old reprobates that they all know are the real bosses of the Boxer movement in Peking, and hold them responsible for any further movement, nobody knows."

He fears that the lesson of the Boer War -- "that a very little country can defy a big government if only the hearts of the people are in the struggle"-- has also been heeded by the rebels.

The story of the siege includes some fascinating detail (like the reluctance of some of the beleaguered to eat horsemeat, until lack of food forced them to; the suspense over when or even whether a relief force would reach them; instances of cooperative improvization such as the "international gun" and the sandbag-filling mission; and praise for the "courteous bearing" and linguistic abilities of the Russians).

Coltman is very critical not only of the Empress's advisors and policy but also of the foreign powers' decision-makers: "Posterity... will read of this siege with amazement, and wonder how so many blind and deaf men came to be appointed to the same post at one time. Truly a remarkable coincidence."

He is also very clear about his desire for revenge: "If there exists in America to-day one individual who counsels the return of the troops until the atoning blood of all the leaders and instigators of this awful crime has been poured out, may he be cursed forever."

2.

G. A. Henty -- With the allies to Pekin: A story of the relief of the legations, 1903 (apparently a posthumous publication, as Henty died in 1902)

This is a Boy's Own-type story with a historical background (Henty reportedly did plenty of research to support his stories, but I'm guessing he wasn't too concerned about issues of historiography...). The hero, Rex, is a plucky, modest, no-nonsense type of lad, constantly getting himself into and out of altruistically motivated and carefully calculated scrapes. He is almost invariably accompanied by his trusty manservant, Ah Lo.

Henty's story exhibits the classic colonial view that the Chinese are "very like children", with superstition substituting for "real religion". It accepts unquestioningly that the British are essentially traders, not imperialists.

But like Coltman, Henty is critical of the freedom to proselytize that has been wrung from the Chinese, and especially of the way the French have operationalized that freedom. It seems some fellows just go too far... Rex's merchant father particularly expresses sympathy for the plight of the Chinese, who have been invaded by "a vast crowd of missionaries", some of whom set up civil authorities under their jurisdiction. He is shocked by the "game of grab" being played out by the colonial powers.

There is also a recognition that the colonials have been lucky in their struggle against the Boxers. Disunity in the Chinese ranks means that opportunities are not always pressed home. If they had been, the outcome of the story might have been very different.

All the allies come in for criticism except the Americans and the Japanese. (The latter are extensively, if patronizingly, praised: "In the Japanese quarter all was order and regularity... It was a humiliating sight for an Englishman that these swarthy little soldiers, whom the Europeans regarded almost as barbarians, should be so infinitely in advance of the Western troops in discipline, order, and good conduct.") The Germans, on the other hand, are greedy (demanding a treaty port to atone for the deaths of two missionaries), while the Russians (pace Coltman) are duplicitous, and treat the populace shockingly.

The issue of looting (carried out extensively by the avenging powers who relieved the legation) is handled somewhat disingenuously. It's the nasty Russians who initially make off with the loot, we are told -- but the noble Rex is more than happy to buy it from them, and ship his purchases back to Tientsin.

Rex is very disappointed with the imperial palace ("really a rotten old place... grimy, dusty, and dark", its shabbiness preventing him -- in classic British style -- from seeing its artistic and cultural merits).



While the terms of peace are still being discussed at the end of the story, opinion was "unanimous" that demands for extensive reparations would be justified.

(Henty, interestingly, has become a great favourite among Christian homeschoolers, who praise his exciting, historically focused, uplifting stories, without apparently worrying too much about their imperial or even racist overtones.)





3.

Pierre Loti -- The last days of Pekin, 1902

Loti is good at description. He offers some terrible detail of the death and destruction visible immediately after the Boxer uprising, and (seeing things rather differently from young Rex) some exquisite accounts of the glories of the imperial Palaces.

An orientalist quality clouds these descriptions, however, like an algal bloom on a limpid lake. Loti projects three main themes: decay; dissimilarity; and destruction.

For him, China is a thing of the past, almost fated to pass away. "Gloomy old China", "old China, grimacing and hostile", where "all is old and worn in spite of the gilding which still remains bright" -- it all adds up to "a thing which has had its day". (Yet, in one prophetic glimmer, he does concede that "the Colossus is still capable... of arming itself for a revenge of which one dares not think...")

Despite an acknowledgment of "marvellous" Chinese art, Loti sees a vast gulf -- "an abyss of dissimilarity" -- between this culture and the West. It will be "forever incomprehensible". This is a depressing refrain, but it at least makes him sceptical about the acceptability of Western visions for China.

Most grating, perhaps, is the description of the crass destruction visited on China by the foreign troops. Employing a double standard similar to Rex's, Loti decries the wanton vandalism of other nationalities, but speaks unrepentantly of "scratching the fine white scales of the dragon with our coarse shoes". In a horrifying passage, he writes: "Works of Chinese patience which have cost years of toil are now broken in bits by the stroke of a bayonet...Imperial robes of heavy silk brocaded with gold dragons lie on the ground... We walk over them, we walk over carved ivories, over pearls and embroideries galore."

It's all a game for Loti and his companions. They do not hesitate to tread wherever their power will take them. Nothing is sacrosanct.

With monumental insensitivity, he writes: "We congratulate ourselves upon having come to live in the Yellow City at so unique a period in the history of China, at a moment when everything is free, and we are left almost alone to gratify our whims and curiosity."



Postscript

Writing a little later, R. F. Johnston (From Peking to Mandalay, 1908) notes that while the people of China may now have embraced railways, they love the Europeans no better than they did during the time of the siege. He adds: "I am not aware that we have done anything to win their affections."

He continues, in a vein that sounds uncannily contemporary: "Chinese patriotism, for the first time since the history of European relations with China began, is becoming a force to be reckoned with. Crude manifestations of this patriotism have recently given rise to unfortunate incidents and to acts which Europe and America cannot be expected to sympathise with or to admire; indeed, in some cases the West is undoubtedly right in insisting that China should show a proper respect for her treaty obligations. But surely this is not the time to show selfish hostility to the new hopes and ideals of a great people who are struggling in the throes of regeneration. The next fifteen years will probably be decisive in determining the whole course of China's future history. If wise statesmanship brings her successfully through her present struggle she need have no fear for the remoter future. She will then be on the way to become of one of the greatest nations -- perhaps the greatest -- in the world, and I know of little in her past history to discourage the hope that she will use her great powers for the good of mankind and the preservation of the world's peace."