47
There was a downside to this denial of access and more reliable information. For most Britons (as for most Europeans) China had been a country steeped in fantasy and misconception. The 18th century craze for "Chinoiserie" had left them with a vision of Cathay, rather than knowledge of the real China. But as time went on; in some curious way, a much less attractive hodgepodge of exotic notions about the country and its people had been assembled, and by the time of the Opium War, this seems to have displaced the benign willow-pattern, and the romantic tale which accompanied it, in the public mind.
An early Protestant missionary to China told his readers that when he went there in 1839 he carried with him the following notions in regard to what 'most people in the West entertain about the Chinese,' some of [which] elements may be said to be, "odd manners, pig-tails, cramped feet, long nails, fans, paintings, rice-paper drawings, processions, concentric balls, lanterns, chopsticks, eating rats, mice, and bird's nest soup, popular infanticide, and an utter want of benevolence'.73 These were attributes which found visual expression in the comic illustrations provided by the artist John Leech for Thomas Henry Sealy's 1841 compilation, The Porcelain Tower, Nine Stories of China, a book purporting to provide more information on the country, but more likely intended as a great "send-up" of the entire Chinese nation.74
Nor, in retrospect (albeit there was little alternative, given the linguistic variations of the Chinese language and the more or less permanent ban against teaching it to Westerners) was the enforced adoption of “pidgin" at Canton, as the lingua franca of commercial and social exchange, calculated to convey a fuller understanding or enhance mutual respect.75
Chinese disdain for the West
The half truths and misconceptions common to those Britons who bothered to think at all about China and the Chinese were only matched by the even greater ignorance exhibited by Chinese about the West, even by the governing classes. However erudite (they were largely scholar-officials) their mind set was cast in an entirely different mould. For them, China was the "Middle Kingdom," the centre of the universe, and all outside its borders were barbarians who were only allowed a
47
There was a downside to this denial of access and more reliable information. For most Britons (as for most Europeans) China had been a country steeped in fantasy and misconception. The 18th century craze for "Chinoiserie" had left them with a vision of Cathay, rather than knowledge of the real China. But as time went on; in some curious way, a much less attractive hodgepodge of exotic notions about the country and its people had been assembled, and by the time of the Opium War, this seems to have displaced the benign willow-pattern, and the romantic tale which accompanied it, in the public mind.
An early Protestant missionary to China told his readers that when he went there in 1839 he carried with him the following notions in regard to what 'most people in the West entertain about the Chinese,' some of [which] elements may be said to be, "odd manners, pig-tails, cramped feet, long nails, fans, paintings, rice-paper drawings, processions, concentric balls, lan-terns, chopsticks, eating rats, mice, and bird's nest soup, popular infanticide, and an utter want of benevolence'.73 These were attributes which found visual expression in the comic illustrations provided by the artist John Leech for Thomas Henry Sealy's 1841 compilation, The Porcelain Tower, Nine Stories of China, a book purporting to provide more information on the country, but more likely intended as a great "send-up" of the entire Chinese nation.74
Nor, in retrospect (albeit there was little alternative, given the linguistic variations of the Chinese language and the more or less permanent ban against teaching it to Westerners) was the enforced adoption of “pidgin" at Canton, as the lingua franca of commercial and social exchange, calculated to convey a fuller understanding or enhance mutual respect.75
Chinese disdain for the West
The half truths and misconceptions common to those Britons who bothered to think at all about China and the Chinese were only matched by the even greater ignorance exhibited by Chinese about the West, even by the governing classes. However erudite (they were largely scholar-officials) their mind set was cast in an entirely different mould. For them. China was the "Middle Kingdom," the centre of the universe, and all outside its borders were barbarians who were only allowed a
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