鴻雪因緣圖記 – A Wild Swan’s Trail, Part 4: The Western Hills – Pi Mo Yen

“I have rented a temple in the Western Hills, to go there for week-ends, and perhaps for an occasional fortnight in the autumn or spring. It is about eighteen miles from Peking, and one can reach the place easily enough on horseback. Also one can go most of the way by motor, along the new road that branches off to the Summer Palace.

The train that goes to Men-to-kou, on the other side of the mountains, stops at a little station two miles distant from the village of Pa-ta-chu. The name means ‘The Hill of the Eight Sanctuaries’. My temple is one of the eight that mount up the hill-side among the oaks, the maples, and the stunted pines. Both temples and trees nestle in the hollows, where they are protected from the north wind, which keeps the hill-tops shorn of vegetation.

The word ‘temple’ comes from the Greek τέμνειν, which means ‘to cut out, to separate, to isolate’, alluding to the exclusive character of that which is sacred to the gods. But Chinese gods, though sometimes fierce and terrifying, are not exclusive. They like company and are not particular what company they keep.” (Varè, ‘The Gate of Happy Sparrows’)

“As on my former mission in China, I rented a temple in the Western Hills. It was an isolated temple close to Pa-ta-chu, but in a little valley of its own. It was called the Pi-mo-yen. So many translations were given to me of this expression that I never really knew what it meant. ‘The Precipice where the Spirit is Refreshed’ was one; another was ‘The Precipice where the Devil is Exorcised.’

The Pi-mo-yen was a live temple, that is to say it had an abbot and a priest living in it, and many pilgrims came to burn incense in front of the effigy of a Buddha in a little grotto inside the temple grounds, under a huge overhanging rock. The pilgrims used to pass through my quarters but without causing me inconvenience. The Abbot and I became friends, though we could not understand each other very well. Sometimes I used to go over my Chinese characters with him. But his pronunciation of the tones was different from that which I was used to in Peking.

The Pi-mo-yen was endowed with property of its own, and the farm produce used to be brought in and stored, so I had the impression of living in a Chinese country-house with all the interest that a country-house gives to its occupants. The place was very old and had once been a centre of religious instruction. It is mentioned as such is some Chinese books. A cousin of the Emperor Ch’ien Lung once lived there and wrote a book in which he described his travels in Turkestan and elsewhere. The title was Footsteps in the Snow of a Solitary Goose.” (Varè,‘Laughing Diplomat’)

It was in a Buddhist temple in the Western Hills that I wrote the first chapters of this book. The temple is named Pi Mo Yen. In the eighteenth century a Manchu general, cousin to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, stayed up there, like myself, and wrote a book. (His was a book of travel, with the quaint title “Footsteps in the Snow of a Solitary Goose.”) Close by were the Hunting Park and the tower whence the emperor used to watch his army manoeuvring on the plain. All around were signs of a past magnificence. (Varè, ‘The Last Empress’ ix, 1936)

This temple, one of the smallest and highest of those in the Western Hills, was known to the foreign community in Peking at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century as Pi Mo Yen [碧默巖]. Chinese sources, however, indicate its name to be Mi Mo Ya [秘魔崖]. Forthcoming installments will further illustrate the Western Hills, using pictures from Lin-qing’s book accompanied by excerpts from contemporary European sources.

麟慶：鴻雪因緣圖記 hóngxuě yīnyuán tújì volume 4 of 6

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About the Author:

Daniele Varè (1880-1956) was an Italian diplomat who served chiefly in China, from 1908 until 1920. After he retired from the diplomatic service he devoted himself to writing, translating his own books into English, and writing some of them directly in that language. He wrote works of popular history, such as ‘The Last Empress’ (also published as ‘The Last of the Empresses’), and his novels, ‘The Maker of Heavenly Trousers’; ‘The Gate of Laughing Sparrows’; and ‘The Temple of Costly Experience’; thinly-veiled romans-a-clef, portray expatriate life in China during the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republican period. His autobiography, ‘Laughing Diplomat’, was published in 1938. Sir Edmund Backhouse, in his memoirs, describes Varè as his ‘enemy’, doubtlessly because Varè paid him a back-handed compliment by comparing his work and himself with James Macpherson and his ‘Ossian’. – Se non è vero, è ben trovato, we may say.

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鴻雪因緣圖記 – A Wild Swan’s Trail, Part 3: The Shaolin Monastery

Lin Qing was a Chinese government official who visited Shaolin Monastery in 1828. He subsequently published an illustrated book describing his travels. According to Lin Qing, the head monk was uncomfortable showing him martial arts because of government decrees against such practices. Lin Qing described the demonstration using a phrase from Zhuangzi, namely, “xiong jing niao shen”, which describes movements of bears and birds. This in turn refers to physical exercises done during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., when the Zhuangzi was recorded.

(‘Martial arts in the modern world’, T.A. Green & J.R. Svinth, 2003, p 5.)

… in 1828 prominent Manchu official named Lin Qing (1791-1846) visited the Shaolin Temple. By then, bare-handed techniques had completely eclipsed the monastery’s ancient staff methods, and instead of an armed display, the distinguished guest was entertained by a sparring demonstration:

In the evening we returned to the Shaolin Monastery, and paid our respects at the Jinnaluo (Vajrapani) Hall. The deity’s image is most awesome. He wears thin garments, and wields a stove poker (huo gun). Tradition has it that once he displayed his divinity and warded off bandits. Today he is the monastery’s guardian spirit (qielan). Praying to him is invariably efficacious.

I proceeded to ask the monks about their hand combat method (quan fa), but they refused to utter a word about it. I made it clear that I had heard about the Shaolin Fist long ago, and I knew it had been relied upon solely for guarding monastic regulations and protecting the famous temple. Therefore they need not make pretence.

The abbot laughed and assented. He selected several sturdy monks to perform in front of the hall. Their “bear-hangings and bird stretchings” were indeed artful. After the performance the monks retreated. I sat facing Mt. Shaoshi’s three peaks, which resembled a sapphire tripod. Watching the shaded forests, misty mountains, and emerald green thickets, my body and spirit were equally at peace. I resolved to stay overnight.

Published in 1849, Lin Qing’s account of his visit was accompanied by a woodblock illustration of Shaolin monks practicing hand combat. The martial artists were shown under the gigantic shadow of their tutelary deity, Vajrapani (Kimnara), who still wielded his staff of old. The Manchu official, in ceremonial cap and robes and surrounded by his entourage, appeared in the picture as well. Apparently he was fascinated by the performance. Whereas the elderly abbot remained sitting under the hall’s eaves, Lin Qing rose from his seat to watch the martial artists up close.”

(M. Shahar, ‘The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts’, 2008, pp 126-128.)

According to Shahar, some scholars believe the renowned murals in Shaolin were painted to commemorate this visit:

Lin Qing’s woodblock illustration leads us to another, more elaborate, artwork, which depicts a similar scene: Shaolin’s White-Attired Mahâsattva Hall (Baiyi dashi dian) is decorated with an early nineteenth-century mural of fighting monks, who are demonstrating their bare-handed skills to visiting dignitaries, probably government officials. The guests, identified by their queues, are entertained by the abbot in a central pavilion, which is surrounded by the performing artists. The gorgeous fresco was executed with such attention to detail that some modern practitioners are able to identify in it the bare-handed postures they practice today. (ibid.)

The Shaolin Monastery charts, for the first time in any language, the history of the Shaolin Temple and the evolution of its world-renowned martial arts. In this meticulously researched and eminently readable study, Meir Shahar considers the economic, political, and religious factors that led Shaolin monks to disregard the Buddhist prohibition against violence and instead create fighting techniques that by the twenty-first century have spread throughout the world. He examines the monks’ relations with successive Chinese regimes, beginning with the assistance they lent to the seventh-century Emperor Li Shimin and culminating more than a millennium later with their complex relations with Qing rulers, who suspected them of rebellion. He reveals the intimate connection between monastic violence and the veneration of the violent divinities of Buddhism and analyzes the Shaolin association of martial discipline and the search for spiritual enlightenment. (from the publishers)

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鴻雪因緣圖記 – A Wild Swan’s Trail, Part 2: The Loom Rock

Continuing from the previous instalment, H.A. Giles proceeds to describe an episode from Lin-qing’s book:

One chapter is devoted to the description of a curious rock called the Loom Rock. It is situated in the Luhsi district of the Chang-chou prefecture in Hunan, and is perfectly inaccessible to man, as it well might be, to judge from the drawing of it by a native artist. From a little distance, however, caves are discernible hollowed out in the cliff, and in these the eye can detect various articles used in housekeeping, such as a teapot, &c.; and amongst others a loom. On a ledge of smooth rock a boat may be seen, as it were hauled up out of the water. How these got there, and what is the secret of the place, nobody appears to know, but our author declares that he saw them with his own eyes. We have given the above particulars as to the whereabouts of the rock, in the hope that any European meditating a trip into Hunan may take the trouble to make some inquiries about this wonderful sight. The late Mr Margary must have passed close to it in his boat, probably without being aware of its existence – if indeed it does exist at all. (Herbert A. Giles, ‘Chinese Sketches,’ 1876, pp 162-163)

 

Note: The ‘Margary Affair’

The Margary Affair is the name of a crisis in Sino-British relations, which followed the murder of British official Augustus Raymond Margary in 1875. As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes between British India and China province, junior British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary was sent from Shanghai through southwest China to Bhamo in Upper Burma, where he was supposed to met Colonel Horace Browne. It took Margary six months to make the 1800 miles long journey through the provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan and he met Brown in Bhamo in late 1874. On the journey back to Shanghai, Margary heard rumors that the return route was not safe and changed the route to Tengyue, where he and his personal staff were murdered on February 21, 1875.

According to Jonathan Spence in ‘The Search for Modern China’, Margary was part of a survey team exploring routes from Burma into Yunnan. Susan Orlean, author of ‘the Orchid Thief’, gives a different account: “The linguist and plant collector Augustus Margary survived toothache, rheumatism, pleurisy, and dysentery while sailing the Yangtze only to be murdered when he completed his mission and sailed beyond Bhamo” – in pursuit of orchids.

The incident created a diplomatic crisis and gave British authorities an excuse to put pressure on the Qing government. The crisis was only resolved in 1876 when Thomas Wade and Li Hongzhang signed the Chefoo Convention, which covered a number of items that had no direct relation to the killing of Margary the year earlier. (adapted from Wikipedia)

麟慶：鴻雪因緣圖記 hóngxuě yīnyuán tújì volume 2 of 6

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The journey of Augustus Raymond Margary, from Shanghae to Bahamo, and back to Manwyne (1876)

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鴻雪因緣圖記 – A Wild Swan’s Trail, Part 1: Introduction

We have lately come across a book of travels, in six thin quarto volumes, written by no less a personage than the father of Ch’ung-hou. It is a very handsome work, being well printed and on good paper, besides being provided with numerous woodcuts of the scenes and scenery described in the text. The author, whose name was Lin-ch’ing was employed in various important posts; and while rising from the position of Prefect to that of Acting Governor-General of the two Kiang, travelled about a good deal, and was somewhat justified in committing his experiences to paper. We doubt, however, if his literary efforts are likely to secure him a fraction of the notoriety which the Tientsin Massacre has conferred upon his son. He never saw the moon shining upon the water, but away he went and wrote an ode to the celestial luminary, always introducing a few pathetic lines on the hardships of travel and the miseries of exile.

Herbert A. Giles, ‘Chinese Sketches,’ 1876, pp 162-163

This intriguing entry by the renowned sinologist, Herbert Giles, does not give the title of the wonderful work in question. The title of the unnamed book – 鴻雪因緣圖記 [hongxue yinyuan tuji] – has been variously rendered into English as: A Wild Swan’s Trail; Tracks in the Snow; Footsteps in the Snow of a Solitary Goose; Record of a Goose Life’s Traces in the Snow; Wild swan on the snow; among many others, by an author whose name – 麟慶 – is given as Lin Ch’ing, Lin-ching, Lin Qing or Lin K’ing.

This series of posts aims to present such parts of this book as have already been translated into English, along with the beautiful accompanying illustrations. (Click to enlarge.) Additional historical and bibliographical information will also be provided for interested readers, along with links to further related materials and downloads.

 

About the Book:

A curious work entitled Hung hsüeh yin yüan t’u chi, by Lin Chin, a Manchu official, is a record of the events of his life and picturesque scenes observed by him in the course of his travels. The original edition of this work, printed in 1849, is in three parts, bound in six volumes, and contains several hundred double-page folding woodcuts very clearly printed and doubtless of some historical and geographic interest, in addition to their value as samples of Chinese book illustrations of the period. That the work is popular in China is shown by the fact that a cheaper small-sized reprint was published in Shanghai in 1884.

Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1917, pp 91-92

 

 Hung-hsüeh yin-yüan t’u-chi 鴻雪因緣圖記 (Illustrated notes on my life; literally: on the passing or elusive events of my fate). Lin-ch’ing describes in 240 plates the main events of his career. (…) The work is in three volumes, each with two parts. Vol. I, Lin-ch’ing’s life until his fortieth year; Vol. II, from 40 to 50; Vol. III, from 50 to his death. The first two volumes were printed between 1839 and 1841 and were first without engravings. The third volume was ready in 1846, the year of Lin-ch’ing’s death. His eldest son Ch’ung-shih put the finishing touches to the work and had it printed in Yangchow with the 240 engravings between 1847 and 1850. The first edition comprising 1,000 copies (size 24.6×16 cm) was brought to Peking, but the wooden blocks were left in Yangchow and were burned by the Taiping army in 1860. A photo-lithographed edition was published in Shanghai in 1880 with a colophon; the size was reduced to 20×13 cm. A third reprint was made between 1884 and 1896.

The Half-Acre Garden, Pan-Mou Yüan, J.L. Van Hecken & W.A. Grootaers, Monumenta Serica, Vol. 18 (1959), pp. 360-387

 

Portrait of Lin-qing

Chinese Books:

Chinese books are in general made of quite fragile paper, with the leaves doubled so that the folded edge is turned outward; and the paper is of course printed on only one side. The binding of each fascicule, often colored, is also not very durable. Numbers of such comparatively thin volumes, however, are finally housed within a well-made cloth case called a t’ao, which is the true outer cover; and for this one may use even the finest brocade or silk tapestry. Little clasps of jade or ivory, or else more humbly of carved bone, keep it secured, and these are often carved to harmonize with the binding.

George N. Kates: ‘The Years That Were Fat’, p 47.

Further Reading

The two main sources of information on Lin-qing and his books remain the entry in Hummel’s ‘Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, 1644-1912’, US Government Printing Office, 1943, pp 506-507, by Fang Chao-ying, and the monograph The Half-Acre Garden, Pan-Mou Yüan, by J.L. Van Hecken & W.A. Grootaers, Monumenta Serica, Vol. 18 (1959), pp. 360-387. [JSTOR Link]

In addition to the recent Chinese reprints of 鴻雪因緣圖記, there have been some partial translations into European languages, but these, like the original Chinese editions, are rare and sought-after items:

• Selections from the Hung-Sueh sketches. Shanghai, Tien-Shih-Chai Photo-lithographic Works, 1879.

• J.R. Baylin: Visite aux temples de Pékin; traduit des carnets de voyage de Lin K’ing, Pékin, 78 pp. with 30 figs. Collection ‘Politique de Pékin’, 1921.

• F.M. Trautz: “Eine erhebende Musikaufführung am ‘fünffachen Stupa’”, Asia Major, II, Leipzig, 1925, pp 581-90.

• Extraits des Carnets de Lin K’ing. Sites de Pékin et des environs vus par un lettré chinois. 120pp. with 26 figs, Peiping, Albert Nachbaur ,1929. (Reprint of Baylin, 1921)

• A Wild Swan’s Trail: The Travels of a Mandarin, edited and translated by T.C. Lai, Hong Kong Book Centre, Hong Kong 1978.

 

Further Reading Online:

Scholars Yang Tsung-han and John Minford have also translated and annotated the work, parts of which may be found online:

• Exploring the Beauty of the Sui Garden (Renditions, No. 51, Spring 1999)

• Singing with the Spring (China Heritage Quarterly, No. 13, March 2008)

• Observing the Rites at the Ancient Abode of Confucius (China Heritage Quarterly, No. 17, March 2009)

• Mengxiang Discoursing on the I Ching (China Heritage Quarterly, No. 21, March 2010)

• Paying my Compliments to West Lake (China Heritage Quarterly, No. 28, December 2011)

麟慶：鴻雪因緣圖記 hóngxuě yīnyuán tújì volume 1 of 6

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“Abolishing the Yellow Streak” – Ku Hung-Ming

While Ku Hung-ming had nothing but strong words and contempt for modern Western civilisation; industrialisation, individualism, materialism, and democracy – or as he puts it: democrazy – he reserved some of his harshest criticism for those of his fellow compatriots who wished to introduce such concepts into China, without carefully weighing the consequences, and without regard for the millennial traditions and institutions of Imperial China.

The present queueless Republican Chinaman is a vampire, a ‘Frankenstein,’ whom foreigners themselves have created, and this Frankenstein, this awful vampire, is the Yellow Peril of the German Kaiser. And this vampire, the queueless Republican Chinaman, when he joins with the Russian Bolsheviki, will destroy not only the civilization of China, but the civilization of the whole world. Therefore, in the words of the German Kaiser I want to say here: “Look to it, ye peoples of Europe, arise and save your most sacred possessions.”

The following article, “Abolishing the Yellow Streak,” was first published in the ‘North China Standard’ of Peking, and was subsequently republished in the ‘Living Age’ in 1924. In this polemical article, Ku roundly criticizes the early Republican government and Sun Yat-sen, ‘the returned-student mob-literati,’ for wanting to turn the Chinese into ‘imitation Western men’, and, instead of reducing the discrimination of the Western Powers, merely inviting their scorn. He also blamed some of the leading figures of the reform movement; the ‘snob-literati,’ such as Kang You-wei, for having stifled true reforms with their effete attempts at ‘an imitation paper civilization,’ rather than integrating Western learning into a Chinese framework, as was proposed by Ku’s former superior, the viceroy Chang Chih-tung (Zhang Zhidong), in his famous book ‘Learn’ (published in English as ‘China’s Only Hope’).

The terribly tragic aspect of the situation in China is, while the Chinese nation are called upon to throw away their own civilization and adopt the civilization of modern Europe, there is not one single educated man in the whole Empire who has the most remote idea of what the modern European civilization really is…

In this prescient article, Ku Hung-ming shows how the end result of the ‘White Man’s Burden’ is the actualization of the ‘Yellow Peril’. His near-contemporary, the Japanese writer Okakura Kakuzō, equally talented as regards writing in the English language, also noted this in his work ‘The Awakening of Japan’, from which the relevant excerpt is forthcoming.

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Some European writers also noted this transition, contrary to the attitudes then prevailing, though voiced their concern somewhat less harshly than Ku. The following excerpt gives an idea of this view:

It is only to-day that the Chinese mind is troubled, wavering, beginning to wonder whether the old tree whose roots plunge into so immeasurable a past, whose branches have given shelter and nourishment to such countless generations, should not be cut down to make room for the plants and weeds imported from abroad. And some of the weeds are of a particularly rank species, like the conceit of the Americanized students who seriously mistake their little wick of foreign-taught knowledge for a great light by which the destinies of a whole empire should be regulated. When one hears of a specimen of Republican Young China in creaky yellow boots, ill-fitting tweeds, and an intolerable cap impudently whistling and cracking a dirty riding-crop in the Temple of K’ung-fu-tsze, the very hall where Emperors used to worship Wisdom in the purity of early dawn, one begins to fear that the death-knell has rung even to Chinese vitality.

Irreverence towards what is left of the past is stupid enough – contempt of its real greatness criminal folly. Yet this idea of completely breaking with the past, of pulling down all it has built, even of irreplaceable beauty, of paramount holiness, has often tempted political hotheads. Never without grave injury to a nation that allowed itself to be seduced by their vapid arguments. The clean slate of their theories gives scope to the drawing up of plans of such faultless symmetry, such dazzling magnificence, straightway they are taken for reality, and the millennium they grandiloquently promise is reckoned on as an absolute certainty. But there never is a clean slate – either one on which the ancient writing is still legible in much of its mellowed wisdom, or one from which it has been rubbed out in a hideous blur of dust and tears. On this begrimed slate what would a China that has mutilated and slain her splendid past write, or rather scrawl? – for no one can write but his own language. Windy tags of republican liberty, divorced from reality even in the country of their origin; undigested and indigestible scraps of European ethics in which the theory of the missionary makes a shrill discord with the practice of the commercial and diplomatic carpet-bagger; the insidious poison of an ignorant press; all the ugliness and unhappiness of a machine-driven civilization.

(‘Pencil Speakings from Peking’, A.E. Grantham, 1918, pp 21-23.)

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‘The Hermit of Peking’ – ‘La Chine Hermétique’

En Chine, la vie est libre, heureuse, totale, sans conventions, sans préjugés, sans lois… pour nous, du moins… Pas d’autres limites à la liberté que soi-même… à l’amour que la variété triomphante de son désir.”

Octave Mirbeau – Le Jardin des supplices (The Torture Garden)

The recent publication of Sir Edmund ‘Bacchus’ Backhouse’s China memoirs, ‘Décadence Mandchoue’, (Earnshaw Books, 2011) has revived an old controversy, namely the veracity of Sir Edmund’s claims, the reliability of his work as a whole, and more topically, the value of his writings, regardless of whether they are founded in fact or not. Until the publication in 1976 of Hugh Trevor-Roper’s ‘Hermit of Peking’, Backhouse was best known, if he was remembered at all, as the co-author, along with the journalist J. O. P. Bland, of the popular works of history ‘China Under the Empress Dowager’ (1910) and ‘Annals & Memoirs of the Court of Peking’ (1914).

Trevor-Roper recounts how he was asked to authenticate Backhouse’s memoirs prior to publication, but found them so scandalous and untrustworthy that he decided to investigate the author further, and discovered that not only were the memoirs romanced, but also that Backhouse’s published works were largely based on forgery. This had long been suspected, but seemingly Sir Edmund had managed to gain the benefit of the doubt. ‘The Hermit of Peking’, a piece of literary detective work in the manner of A. J. A. Symon’s ‘The Quest for Corvo’, not only debunks most of Backhouse’s outrageous claims, but also uncovers the series of fraudulent endeavours, literary or otherwise, that Sir Edmund embarked upon throughout his variegated career. (See here for more details.)

Trevor-Roper’s study seemed to thoroughly rubbish Backhouse’s memoirs and cast his scholarship into discredit. However it would appear that matters may have been more complex than Trevor-Roper was willing to admit. [Completing this triptych is Bernard Wasserstein’s ‘The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln’, which, again draws uncanny parallels between the careers of mystification of Trebitsch Lincoln and Backhouse – who were both in China at the same time – but without speculating further. – “Birds of that feather do not flock together!”]

Questions of literary merit or historical accuracy aside, it may not be without interest to mention one possible source of Backhouse’s memoirs – or rather, another work that may very well stem from the same ‘source’ – namely, the gossip surrounding the imperial court at the time. A previous installment provided some information on as well as illustrations from this curious French work from the turn of the twentieth century.

In 1899, a French military physician, Dr J.-J. Matignon, attaché to the French Legation in Peking, published a series of articles and lectures under the title ‘Superstitions, Crime et Misère’, essentially comprising studies of what the author terms ‘social biology’, on such varied topics as feng-shui, footbinding, eunuchs, homosexuality, and Chinese medicine, accompanied by numerous woodblock prints, photographs and illustrations… After going through a number of reprints, this work was later revised and augmented, in 1936, as ‘La Chine Hermétique’.

What will retain our attention here are the chapters on eunuchs and pederasty respectively. Considering that some of the more novel aspects of Sir Edmund’s memoirs are his salacious account of his alleged affair with the Empress Dowager, his claims of intimacy within circles of power and his depiction of homosexuality in late Imperial China, we find a number of striking parallels in Matignon’s work. These concern the secret influence of eunuchs, trysts between the Empress and Europeans, and pederasty in Chinese society.

After giving an outline of the functions, social history and medical conditions of the eunuchs, Matignon relates the following anecdote:

Les eunuques peuvent parfois être chargés de missions de confiance. Il y a quelque vingt ans, un attaché de notre Légation s’était lié avec l’eunuque favori de l’Impératrice-mère. Celle-ci, très désireuse de voir un Européen, dans son costume le plus primitif, fit faire, par cet eunuque à notre compatriote, des avances qui, malgré l’attrait de leur originale nouveauté, ne purent faire succomber sa vertu.

Of course, this remains mere hearsay, but it is possible to note a number of intriguing implications: that some foreign diplomats did, in fact, enjoy close relations with eunuchs in positions of power; and that such rumours concerning the Empress Dowager were already in circulation as early as the 1870s.

Grand Eunuch Li Lien-ying

Similarly, another intriguing literary parallel with ‘Décadence Mandchoue’, noted by Dr Hoeppli and Trevor-Roper, is ‘René Leys’, the novel by Victor Segalen, written in 1912 but published posthumously in 1922. ‘René Leys’ is, in our view, a much more profitable read, a work of fiction based as it is on a compelling combination of fact, hearsay and Segalen’s masterful storytelling. Incidentally we should remark that the empress referred to in ‘René Leys’ is Longyu, Empress Dowager Xiaoding, widow of Guangxu and niece of Cixi – not Cixi herself. (Read this blog for a detailed review and analysis of ‘René Leys’, including a comparison with Backhouse. Read ‘René Leys’ in French here.)

Empress Dowager Cixi

***

The second aspect that bears some relation to Backhouse’s memoirs is that of homosexuality. According to the overly optimistic view that the memoirs are based – or partly based – on reality, then it is admitted by some scholars that they provide an insight into homosexuality in the Qing Dynasty, a field in which there would be, we are told, a paucity of information. As will be evidenced from the following excerpts from Matignon’s work, we shall see that this is not quite the case:

Un de mes vieux amis, qui connaît bien les Chinois, grâce à une longue pratique des habitants de la Terre Fleurie, établissait, un soir après-dîner, comme un axiome que «tout Chinois qui se respecte pratique, a pratiqué ou pratiquera la pédérastie». Bien que fort paradoxale, au premier abord, cette boutade, il faut le reconnaître, renferme un grand fond de vérité, et le nombre des Chinois «qui se respectent» est considérable. La pédérastie est, en effet, extrêmement répandue dans l’Empire du Milieu. Toutes les classes de la société s’y livrent, et tous les âges, les jeunes comme les vieux, en sont friands…

…Il existe, partout en Chine, des maisons de prostitution où les pédérastes trouvent des petits garçons ; quelquefois les établissements sont mixtes… Ces établissements sont de notoriété publique et les Étrangers peuvent, sans aucune difficulté, y pénétrer.

La curiosité, purement sociologique, m’a conduit deux fois dans les maisons de prostitution où se trouvent des petits garçons ; de jour, d’abord, de nuit, ensuite, pensant que je serais moins dégoûté, et après chaque séance, je suis sorti profondément écœuré de ce que j’avais vu, comme avilissement et perversion. Ces établissements se trouvent à Tien-Tsin et les Européens y sont admis sans difficulté, car beaucoup, m’a-t-on affirmé, – chose que j’ai hésité à croire ! – sont des clients assidus de ces bouges, cent fois plus ignobles que les maisons les plus infectes de nos ports de mer. Pékin est également bien pourvu de ces «tang-ming-eul» (maisons publiques), mais il est difficile aux Européens d’y pénétrer.

A ‘Sian-Gon’; a transvestite male prostitute (photo: Matignon)

A second view, much more ‘relativistic’ than the first, holds that, irrespective of their veracity, the memoirs somehow have a literary value, being a prime example of exotic erotica and ‘gay writing’; however, further considerations lie beyond the scope of this brief piece.

***

The revised edition of ‘La Chine Hermétique’ contains a number of references to ‘China Under the Empress Dowager,’ qualified as a ‘beau livre’. Furthermore, Matignon spent ten years or so in China (1891-1901), and was in Peking at the time of the siege of the Legation quarter during the Boxer Rebellion – as was Backhouse. There is no way, of course, of finding out whether they knew each of other, but it quite likely that Backhouse would have known of Matignon’s books – and the anecdotes and rumours they reported.

To conclude, we find that Backhouse’s claims were neither new nor original, yet, on the other hand, not completely impossible. Matignon’s work shows that Westerners did frequent brothels, including homosexual ones, and did have dealings with influential eunuchs, and that there was at least one who was rumoured to have been the object of the Empress Dowager’s attentions. Whether this lends any credence to Backhouse’s assertions is another matter; one for the informed reader to judge. As to the value of the book itself, if Sir Edmund’s claims cannot be shown to reflect reality, then, are we, according to Hugh Trevor-Roper, left with a “pornographic novelette” in which “No verve in writing can redeem [its] pathological obscenity”? That is a matter for the sympathetic reader to decide…

That ardent defender of the Empress Dowager, and scourge of Western Orientalists, Ku Hung-ming, summarized an article of his criticizing Bland and Backhouse’s work in his book ‘The Spirit of the Chinese People.’ In light of Backhouse’s memoirs, it is worth quoting in full:

I have wanted to include in this volume an essay I wrote on J.B. Bland and Backhouse’s book on the famous late Empress Dowager, but unfortunately I have not been able to find a copy of that essay which was published in the ‘National Review’ in Shanghai some four years ago. In that essay, I have tried to show that, such men as J.B. Bland and Backhouse do not and cannot understand the real Chinese woman – the highest type of woman produced by the Chinese civilization viz the late Empress Dowager, because such men as J.B. Bland and Backhouse are not so simple, – have not the simplicity of mind, being too clever and having, like all modern men, a distorted intellect.

Ku Hung-ming; “The Spirit of the Chinese People”

Notes and Links:

•‘Décadence Mandchoue’ was published in Chinese by New Century Press as «太后與我» (‘The Empress Dowager and I’).

• The epigraph to this piece was taken from Le Jardin des supplices (The Torture Garden) by Octave Mirbeau, a French author Backhouse was more than familiar with, and whom he quotes in ‘Décadence Mandchoue’.

• Read a previous article on the works of J.-J. Matignon, including numerous photos and illustrations: ‘La Chine Hermétique: Superstitions, Crime et Misère’

• Readers knowledgeable of French will find a number of different editions and formats of Matignon’s book online:

•  A scan of the first edition @ the Internet Archive.

•  A scan (OCR) of the second edition @ Gallica.

•  A text edition of the second edition @ Les classiques des sciences sociales.

• Lisez ‘René Leys’ de Victor Segalen en format PDF @ Gallica.

Both of Backhouse’s main works are available online @ the Internet Archive:

•  China under the Empress Dowager (1910)

•  Annals & Memoirs of the Court of Peking (from the 16th to the 20th Century) (1914)

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Ku Hung-Ming – Higher Education

“Higher Education”

A New Translation

辜鸿铭：《大学》英译

by Ku Hung-Ming

(Gū Hóngmíng, 辜鴻銘, 1857-1928)

When a man has a standard of excellence before him, and only then, will he have a fixed and definite purpose; with a fixed and definite purpose, and only then, will he be able to have peace and tranquillity of mind; with tranquillity of mind, and only then, will he be able to have peace and tranquillity of soul; with peace and serenity of soul, and only then, can he devote himself to deep, serious thinking and reflection; and it is only by deep, serious thinking and reflection that a man can attain true culture.

In a work entitled “China and Europe: Intellectual and Artistic Contacts in the Eighteenth Century,” the author states that, in Ku Hung-ming’s writings, “Europe is urged to follow the example of Confucian philosophy and to get a clear insight into the “fundamental concepts” in order that Europe, like China of old, may construct for itself on that basis a solid conception of the world, and thereby attain to more stable political conditions.” These “fundamental concepts” are to be found in the Confucian Classics.

In addition to his books, essays and articles, Ku Hung-ming also published translations of three of the four books that constitute the Confucian canon. They are the “Discourses and Sayings of Confucius,” (the Analects), “the Universal Order or Conduct of Life,” (the Doctrine of the Mean), as well as what he termed the “Higher Education” (the Great Learning). This last text was considered lost by scholars until recently, and has been the subject of some speculation. It was, in fact, first published in 1915 by the Shanghai Mercury. However, it was also later published abroad, in a periodical, the Theosophical Quarterly Magazine in 1931 (vol xxviii, July 1930-April 1931). The editorial matter preceding the text (‘On the Screen of Time’) gives some information as to how the magazine obtained the translation from Ku Hung-ming, some time before his death in 1928, but did not indicate whether it had been published before or not.

As the editor of that magazine stated: “Ku Hung-ming was a law unto himself. He probably saw no reason why his work – good work – should not be published repeatedly, by different people all over the world.” – Neither do we.

In his introduction, Ku gives his reasons for the delay in publishing this short but key work in the Confucian canon:

The following is a new translation of one of the four books in the Confucian Bible which has been translated by Dr. Legge as the “Great Learning.” This Ta Hsüeh (大學), the “Method of Higher Education,” together with the Chung Yung (中庸), the “Universal Order or Conduct of Life,” forms what may be called the Catechism of the Confucian Teaching. When first publishing my translation of the Chung Yung some ten years ago, I said: “It was my intention to publish these two books together; but I have not been able to bring my translation of the other book into a shape to satisfy the standard at which I aim at in my translation.” Now the present translation is, in my humble opinion, fit to be presented to the public. I therefore venture to offer it to the consideration of educated men who are really and sincerely interested in the cause of education in China and in the world.

And in the introduction to his “Conduct of Life,” first published in 1906, he writes:

My object, after I have thoroughly mastered the meaning, is not only to reproduce the matter, but also the manner of the original. For, as Wordsworth says of all literature of really intrinsic value: “To be sure, it is the manner, but the matter always comes out of the manner.” But to be able to reproduce the manner – what in literature is called the style – of the great and wise men of the past, one must try to put oneself in the same state of mind as that to which they attained – a thing one finds not easy, living in this modern world of the ‘civilisation of progress.’

In the following translation then this idea of moral obligation, which forms the basis of human conduct and social order in the scheme of the Chinese civilisation, will be explicitly set forth. There is of course no “new learning” in all this, but what is better, there is true learning in it. The enunciation of it in some form or other is to be found in the best literature of every nation that has ever had a civilisation; and what is most remarkable, as I have shown in the notes I have appended to the translation of the text, the enunciation in the same form and language as it is in this book, written two thousand years ago, is to be found in the latest writings of the best and greatest thinkers of modern Europe.

This extract from The Scriptures of Mankind gives a concise introduction to the Higher Education:

The Ta Hsueh or Great Learning, better translated, thinks Ku Hung Ming, as “Higher Education,”is also to be found as Chapter 39 of the Li Chi. It was the twelfth-century philosopher, Chu Hsi, who lifted this book and the Chung Yung out of the Li Chi and, joining them with the Analects and the works of Mencius, formed the Four Books, thus giving them a greater importance than they had, tucked away in the Book of Rites. The Ta Hsueh may have been written primarily as the basis of an education for princes, but it has for centuries been studied by all who have aspired to any important place in government.

The writer and translator Lin Yutang (林語堂), in “The Wisdom of Confucius,” states that: “The original title of this essay is Tasueh, translated by James Legge as “The Great Learning,” but more accurately by Ku Hung-ming as “The Higher Education.” Furthermore, in that book, Lin used Ku’s translation of “the Conduct of Life”, which he terms “The Central Harmony.” He writes: “Ku Hung-ming’s translation of that chapter is so brilliant and at the same time so correct and illuminating that I am sorry he did not translate more Confucian texts. It makes that chapter intelligible to the modern man… Ku’s translation has merits which are sufficiently apparent to make any justification for its use here superfluous.” Moreover, the eminent scholar, Wing Tsit-chan, in a review of Lin’s work, wrote: “In using Ku Hung-ming’s translation of Chung Yung, Dr. Lin has made a very happy choice, for Ku’s version is undoubtedly the best English translation not only of the Golden Mean but of all the Chinese classics.”

We hereby present this invaluable and timeless work as a PDF file, to read online, to download or to print – but above all – to study and to apply. It was transcribed from the version that appeared in the Theosophical Quarterly Magazine. The Chinese characters present in the original were included, a small number of typos were silently corrected and the original layout has been modified slightly for clarity. If there are any errors in this transcription, please be so kind as to let us know.

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Download the PDF: Higher Education

Interested readers may profitably consult Lin Yutang’s rendering of the “Higher Learning” in his “Wisdom of Confucius,” which also includes copious notes, as well as excerpts from the other books in the Confucian canon. Ku Hung-ming’s translation of “the Universal Order or Conduct of Life,” was first published in Shanghai in 1906, and was then reprinted in the series Wisdom of the East, though with the slightly different title “the Conduct of Life or the Universal Order of Confucius,” but without the Chinese characters and certain notes and appendices. We also encourage readers to consult other translations of the sometimes difficult but always rewarding Confucian texts, in order to gain better insight into their profound meaning.

Alternate versions of this text online:

An annotated edition from Indiana University

Read the Chinese version online, with instant character references at Zhongwen.com.

Read the English translation of James Legge; The Great Learning, and the French translation of Pauthier; le Ta Hio ou La Grande Étude @ Wengu: Chinese Classics & Translation

Another version from Lapis Lazuli Texts

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‘La Chine Hermétique: Superstitions, Crime et Misère’

In 1899, a French military physician, Dr J.-J. Matignon, attaché to the French Legation in Peking, published a series of articles and lectures under the title ‘Superstition, Crime et Misère en Chine’, essentially comprising studies of what the author terms ‘social biology’, on such varied topics as feng-shui, footbinding, eunuchs, homosexuality, and Chinese medicine, accompanied by numerous woodblock prints, photographs and illustrations. The general tone and approach belong very much to the school of thinking, popular at that time, known as the study of national characteristics. After going through a number of reprints, this work was later revised and augmented, in 1936, as ‘La Chine Hermétique’, though amputated of a couple of chapters, either deemed too risqué or simply out-of-date, as well as about half of the illustrations – but with a few more photographs not present in the first edition included.

First of all, however, it should be noted that the work is far from being a sensationalist account of Chinese superstition, a genre much in vogue at the turn of the last century (for example, Arthur Smith’s ‘Chinese Characteristics’). Most of the articles had previously been published in scholarly journals of medecine and anthropology, and the first edition was part of a series on criminology. This specialized audience, and the lack of such previous studies, the author writes, explains the nature and the variety of the subjects dealt with.

Ce n’est ni un livre d’histoire, ni un récit de voyages, ni des collections d’anecdotes que j’apporte, mais une documentation sur la biologie sociale des Chinois. (from the preface)

One curious chapter, entitled ‘L’auto-crémation des prêtres bouddhistes’ (‘The Self-Immolation of Buddhist Priests’) examines in depth the ascetic practices of Buddhist monks, including the phenomena of self-immolation and self-combustion. This section, essentially based on an earlier paper by Dr. D.J. MacGowan; ‘Self-Immolation by Fire in China’ (1888), looks at some of the historical and doctrinal reasons for such practices, along with reporting a number of anecdotes and legends. A recent academic work; ‘Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism’ by J.A. Benn extensively deals with the subject.

The illustrations found throughout the book are quite interesting for this kind of work. There are numerous photographs of buildings and monuments, as well as of people; beggars and eunuchs, for the most part, especially in the revised edition. One often-reproduced picture is that of a young eunuch, with a striking look on his face. But perhaps more interesting are the woodcuts and prints, both in colour as well as black and white. These come from a wide variety of sources; illustrated novels, official announcements, classic works, religious literature, folk art and auspicious inscriptions, as well as advertisements.

We present a representative selection of these pictures below, with brief captions taken from the book itself. (Click to enlarge)

The Golden Lily – Footbinding

A print from the 24 Examples of Filial Duty

The King of the Beggars

The Art of Pulse-Reading

A Buddhist Monk undergoing austerities

A Young Eunuch

Lao-tzu on his ox

Taoist Medicinal Talismans

The Spirit of Suicide

Infanticide: A woman who drowned her daughters gives birth to a snake with a human head.

Infanticide: Those who oppose drowning touch the hearts of the gods.

A Turtle inscribed with the words ‘Son of a Turtle’, a sign equivalent to ‘No Littering’.

Readers knowledgeable of French will find a number of different editions and formats of Matignon’s book online. All 3 contain illustrations, though with varying degrees of quality. Medical works aside, Dr Matignon also authored a number of other books on the Far East; ‘L’Orient Lointain’ (1901), and ‘Dix Ans au Pays du Dragon’ (1910), among others.

 A scan of the first edition @ the Internet Archive.

A scan (OCR) of the second edition @ Gallica.

A text edition of the second edition @ Les classiques des sciences sociales.

Chinese Characteristics by Arthur Smith @ the Internet Archive

Read the second part of this study; ‘The Hermit of Peking’ – ‘La Chine Hermétique’.

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Uncivilized United States – Ku Hung-ming

Ku Hung-ming (Gū Hóngmíng, 辜鴻銘, 1857-1928) was a prolific writer and it is not easy to draw up a complete list of his writings. Over a span of almost 40 years he published a great deal of articles, letters and reviews in the press, both in China and abroad, under a variety of pen-names, and then recycled some of this material in his books. While the list of his known published books can be established more or less with certainty, the extent of his journalistic publications is much harder to pin down. The precarious position of the foreign press in China has meant that archival records often do not exist, or only partially so. The transient nature of many of these journals does not help either. Thus it has been a matter of some contention whether or not he translated such and such a text, and whether or not it was ever published, and if so, where and when.

Additionally, many of the articles and letters in question were republished in different newspapers and journals, in different countries and in different languages. As one editor said: “Ku Hung-ming was a law unto himself. He probably saw no reason why his work – good work – should not be published repeatedly, by different people all over the world.” – Neither do we.

The following article, “Uncivilized United States,” (《没有文化的美国》) was first published in the “North China Standard” of Peking, and was subsequently republished in the New York Times in 1921. Thanks to digitization, it is now available as a PDF file. By using the search function of the NYT database, one may also find a number of responses to this article, including one entitled “Poetry & Government” and another called “Civilized United States.” (Note the hackneyed caricature of a mandarin standing in front of skyscrapers.)

“If the United States were destroyed tomorrow, I want to ask what great spiritual thing have the Americans as a nation done which they can leave behind them to show to men of after generations that they were once a nation with a civilization.”

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The polemical tone of the article will no doubt come as an affront to many, but one must always bear in mind the author’s intention. At the very least it should be regarded as a thought-provoking view of culture and civilization. In the coming weeks we hope to present selected excerpts from the works of Ku Hung-ming that further illustrate the traditional basis of civilization. Discerning readers should be capable of reading between the lines, beyond the deliberate provocation and sweeping statements. His work, more relevant than ever, deserves a wider readership and closer consideration, beyond sterile scholarship and vain argumentation.

“My object in writing this article is not to abuse the American people. My object is to tell people that the only way to save civilization – the first thing you must do if you want to save civilization – is to know what civilization is.”

Read or download this article here.

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Neither Old School nor New School – the Timeless Sort: Ku Hung-ming, Part I

The life and works of the Chinese writer and diplomat, Ku Hung-ming, (Gū Hóngmíng, 辜鴻銘, 1857-1928) have, in recent years, again begun to attract attention, after almost a century of neglect. His chief works, originally written in English, have now been translated into Chinese, due to the renewal of interest in traditional Chinese culture, and his English translations of Confucian texts have been the focus of attention by Chinese scholars in the field of translation studies. His main works include “The Spirit of the Chinese People”, “Papers from a Viceroy’s Yamen”, “The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement”, and English translations of three of the four canonical Confucian classics; “The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius” [論語], “The Conduct of Life” [中庸] and “Higher Education” [大學].

Chiefly known for his controversial and reactionary political positions, he was also a writer of great talent and a skilled translator. His writings and correspondence – with Tolstoy, among others, as well as descriptions left by those who met him, provide a wealth of material, but to date there has no been no systematic study of his life, thought, or works in any European language, nor any recent edition of his books. Critics have typically chosen to focus on a couple of fictional accounts of dubious value and spurious anecdotes to paint a picture of a deliberately polemical and bitter old contrarian.

Chinese readers have been better served with the slew of recent studies and republications, among which “文化怪杰辜鸿铭” by 黄兴涛 and “辜鸿铭评传” by 孔庆茂 stand out. The collected works of Ku Hung-ming have been published in a number of different editions, such as the 2-volume “辜鸿铭文集”, and the 3-volume set entitled “中国人的精神”. An anthology of writings by and about Ku Hung-ming, also compiled by 黄兴涛; “旷世怪杰－名人笔下的辜鸿铭－辜鸿铭笔下的名人”, contains extensive accounts from Chinese sources as well as translations from English, French and German works. There have also been bilingual editions of some of his works published in China.

The success of Ku’s works, particularly in Britain and Germany, meant that Western writers and travellers were eager to correspond and meet with him. Among those who left behind written accounts of Ku Hung-ming include Richard Wilhelm, best known for his translation of the Book of Changes, who translated “Chinas Verteidigung gegen europäische Ideen”; Count Hermann von Keyserling, on the round-the-world trip that would provide fodder for his “Travel Diary of a Philosopher”; the novelist Somerset Maugham, as recounted in “On a Chinese Screen”; the Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke; the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright; and the British tutor to the last Chinese emperor, Sir Reginald Johnston.

The scholar Lo Hui-min provided the following succinct account of the life and activities of Ku:

A returned student from Britain and Germany, he was to become one of the most colorful intellectuals of his time. His attacks on missionaries and his defense of traditional Chinese culture made him unpopular with many foreigners. However, his intellect was widely recognized and admired, and a work of his translated into German became required reading for German students of philosophy. His eccentricity attracted the interest of foreign scholars and writers, among them Somerset Maugham, who made him the subject of one of his sketches in ‘On a Chinese Screen’ (1922). Ku was for twenty years, from 1885 to 1905, on the staff of Chang Chih-tung, whose views on the relative values of Chinese and Western cultures were attributed to Ku’s influence, and it was while in Chang’s service that Ku came to know Liang [Tun-yen] who was Chang’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Wuchang. A committed Monarchist, Ku preferred poverty to serving the Republic after the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911, and after the abortive Restoration attempt in which he served as Senior Councillor in the Foreign Ministry under Liang, he went back to teaching and writing. He remained as uncompromising as ever until the end of his life, and left his family destitute when he died.

Correspondence of G.E. Morrison 1912-1920, p.608, ed. Lo Hui-min.

One of the best-known descriptions of Ku Hung-ming is that left by Somerset Maugham, in a vignette entitled “The Philosopher”, included in his 1922 travelogue, “On a Chinese Screen”. Maugham’s popularity and literary talent ensured that this particular account should overshadow any others, but it should be noted that it may not be strictly accurate. After all, the ‘Philosopher’ in question is never actually named directly, and it is more than probable that Maugham’s piece is an amalgam of his meeting with Ku; Ku’s own writings; and the book by G. Lowes Dickinson, “Letters from John Chinaman”, which was based on Ku himself.

The following account by the renowned American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, offers a rather different view of a complex, and sympathetic man, quite unlike the image of the cantankerous conservative he is usually portrayed as. To the best of our knowledge, this piece has not been mentioned in any of the works on Ku Hung-ming that we have been able to consult. Interested readers may find the rest of their exchange in the complete book by following the link at the end of the passage. It is the first in a planned series of writings by and about Ku Hung-ming – “the last representative of the old China.”

“When I went to Peking, 1918, to let contracts for the rugs for the Imperial Hotel, I learned facts regarding China and Japan from Dr. Ku Hung-Ming of Peking. He had once been secretary to the Empress Dowager of China. Dr. Ku was an Oxford graduate, but wore his cue (a Manchu inheritance) curled up under his red mandarin cap as a protest against what he called the motor-car Chinaman. While in Peking (Peiping) he wrote several famous books – one, “The Spirit of the Chinese People,” I had read which so impressed me that I determined to look him up when I arrived in Peking. I had a chance to sit and learn from him.

The sage and I went off the beaten track exploring Peking. Since he hated the motor-car Chinaman, we took a strapping young Mongolian (six feet seven for me and another smaller for Dr. Ku – he was not very tall) and we would usually take along a guide who had attached himself to me – not very welcome he, but useful often.

We saw the old palaces, the blue-tiled Temple of Heaven, the Imperial palaces, the great gates, dusty caravans of camels going through from the Gobi desert – loaded with furs. And then branched off into the unknown. One day he took me into an ancient temple little known to tourists. He was continually showing me the obscure but significant, interpreting it all to me in the spirit of the Chinese people. This particular temple-roof was down, water coming in on the sculptured walls – one entire wall was covered with pottery figures in complete relief set into niches in the wall. There were several hundred in several ranks, each some two and half feet high – brilliant in color.

Dr. Ku walked away to take in the view. I was again like the “hungry orphan turned loose in a bakeshop” for the moment coveting the sacred images. Satan in the bulky form of the guide stole up alongside me and now that Dr. Ku’s attention was on the landscape that came through the fallen walls, he said in a low voice, “You like statues very much? Yes? All right – you pick out one, two, tree. I bring you hotel tonight, you see in mornin.”

I was tempted for a moment, and then came a reaction – a revulsion of feeling would be it. I couldn’t bribe this fellow to plunder the place – sacred to such as Ku Hung-Ming – a plundering process across the years that was stripping China of her finest things. I said, “No. No, I don’t buy that way. Some day this temple might be restored.”

“Never,” said the guide. “Soon all gone. Somebody else will get.”

“Not me.”

The little sage’s ears must have been sharp. The dialogue had all been sotto voce, but I heard steps behind me and felt an arm laid over my shoulders as the old philosopher’s voice almost down to a whisper in my ear said, “No, it is not so. You are no American.” The token of affection and respect, for so he meant it to be, touched me and I have never regretted abandoning those marvelous figures to the “somebody else who would if I didn’t.”

We stood looking at the figures. Dr. Ku talked about them. He said there was not much chance of saving them. But it was better to leave them to their fate than go to perdition (or at least purgatory) with them.

The little old scholar, gray cue still curled up under his little red mandarin cap, said many wise things. He truly was a wise man – one of the few I’ve met. He was neither old school nor new school. He was the timeless sort so far as his mind went.”

Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography, 1932, pp 460-463.

Further Reading:

Works by Ku Hung-ming available online:

“Higher Education” – A Bamboo Sea Exclusive & PDF Download.

“The Spirit of the Chinese People”

“Papers from a Viceroy’s Yamen”

“The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius” (Click the green button on the left to download)

“L’Esprit du Peuple Chinois” (Fr.) (as Kou Houng-ming)

“Der Geist des chinesischen Volkes und der Ausweg aus dem Krieg” (De.)

“Chinas Verteidigung gegen europäische Ideen” (De.)

Somerset Maugham: “On a Chinese Screen”

G. Lowes Dickinson: “Letters from John Chinaman” (based on Ku Hung-ming)

Count Keyserling: The Travel Diary of a Philosopher, Volume Two.

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