An ornate post box adds style to street

An ornate post box adds style to street

The post box in the picture is a fine example of the design excellence of the Victorian era.

The first post box in mainland Britain was set up in Carlisle, in the north of England near the border with Scotland, in 1853. More post boxes followed on the streets of the nation.

The post box in the picture is of the Penfold design, which was installed between 1866 and 1879, and it can be seen today on a street in Stoke Newington, London, where it is still in use.

Originally post boxes were painted green and they only changed to red with the adoption of the Penfold design. However, green is still the colour of post boxes in China, including Hong Kong and China, and in Ireland.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Ancestors of the TV evangelists

Anyone seeking fine entertainment and a good laugh need only turn to the television channels carrying the programmes of the con men engaged in separating the religiously inclined from their money.

These bunco artistes have a long heritage and their forerunners have preyed on the gullible from time immemorial.

In the 19th century British people, for some reason, felt that foreigners were in need of enlightenment and funds were enthusiastically raised to send out busybodies to interfere with native cultures around the world.

Then, as now, the Horn of Africa, was a constant source of tales of misery and woe.

A character called Chelsea George found himself in jail in Winchester, where he palled up with two other convicts, Russia Bob who was, in fact, Irish but who had visited Russia. Jew Jim was a fine impersonator of various characters. Chelsea George had acquired a dark tan from traveling overseas.

When they heard that a missionary from Sierra Leone had been rousing the faithful at packed meetings in Staffordshire, the jailbirds started planning. On release they printed some leaflets, bought costumes and hired a few assistants.

In no time at all, they were holding their own missionary meetings in small towns. Kellow Chesney, quotes an account in his excellent book “The Victorian Underworld,” 1970, Book Club Edition. He says an observer attended one of the meetings.

Jew Jim started things off, claiming to be a Jew who had converted to Christianity. He had become a minister and had traveled to the South Seas, Africa and India. Then Russia Bob appeared.

“…as his worthy and self-denying colleague, and Chelsea George as the first fruits of their ministry – as one who had left houses and land, wife and children, and taken a long and hazardous voyage to show Christians in England that their sable brethren, children of one common Parent, were beginning to cast their idols to the moles and bats…As argument always gains by illustration the orator pulled out a tremendous black doll dressed up in Orient style. This, Jew Jim assured his audience, was an idol brought from Murat in Hindoostan. He presented it to Chelsea George for his worship and embraces.

“The convert indignantly repelled the insinuation, pushed the idol from him, spat in its face, and cut as many capers as a dancing bear. The trio at this stage began ´puckering´ [talking privately] to each other in murdered French dashed with a little Irish; after which the missionaries said that their convert (who had only a few words of English) would now profess his faith. All was attention as Chelsea George came forward. He stroked his beard, put his hand in his breast to keep down his dickey, and turning his eyes upwards said: ´I believe in Desus Tist – dlory to ´is ´oly Name´.

“This elicited some loud `amens` from an assemblage of nearly 1000 persons, and catching the favourable opportunity, a ´school of pals,´ appointed for the purpose, went round and made the collection. Out of the abundance of their credulity and piety the populace contributed sixteen pounds. The whole scene was enacted out of doors, and presented to the stranger very pleasing impressions…One verse of hymn, and the blessing pronounced was the signal for separation. A little shaking of hands concluded the exhibition, and ´every man went to his own house.”

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

An early world opera tour

Opera stars frequently tour the world today playing to packed houses and commanding sky-high fees. They travel in luxury and with every comfort.

Things must have been a little different back in the 1830s but at least one opera company was engaged in a tour that took it very far from its Italian home.

John Francis Davis, records in his book “The Chinese”, published in 1836, that the small foreign community at Macau was delighted to have enjoyed a season of opera in 1833.

“A party of Italian opera-singers from Naples, consisting of two signoras, and five signors, after having exercised their vocation with success in South America, proceeded on their way across the Pacific westward towards Calcutta, as to a likely and profitable field. Circumstances having occasioned their touching at Macao, they met there with inducements to remain some six months, until the season should admit of their prosecuting the voyage; and a temporary theatre having been contrived, they performed most of Rossini´s operas with great success. The Chinese were surprised to find what, in the jargon of Canton (Guangzhou), is called a Sing-song, erected by the foreigners on the shores of the celestial empire, and in that very shape, too, which most nearly resembles their own performances, a mixture of song and recitative. As the nearest way home from Calcutta, for these Italians, was by the Cape of Good Hope, they were a singular instance of the Opera performing a voyage round the world.” Davis, John Francis, 1836. The Chinese. Volume Two, pages 186-187. Charles Knight, publishers. London.

The vastly-expensive grand new Opera House in Beijing floats like a giant egg in a lake. But it was back in 1833 in a temporary shed in Macau that the first Western opera arrived in the country and foreign residents and curious Chinese would have been able to enjoy Rossini´s works such as the Barber of Seville.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Two Hong Kong photographs

Here are two Hong Kong photographs from my collection. They were taken by a sailor of Britain’s Royal Navy who spent a considerable amount of time in Hong Kong in the 1930s. Click to enlarge the images.

The first photograph shows a procession in a street. Two large lanterns with big characters are in front, with a boy banging a drum and two boys beating gongs. Behind them is an ornate decoration, which would no doubt have been very colourful. Can anyone come up with any suggestions as to the purpose of the procession? Could it have been a funeral? Or was it the celebration of some happy occasion?

The second photograph was taken from Queen’s Road looking up Wyndham Street. With a magnifying glass it is possible to identify the distinctive striped building of the old Dairy Farm building, now home to the Foreign Correspondents´ Club and the Fringe Club. Many flower sellers can be seen. When first established, the Hong Kong Club moved into a club house at the junction of Queen’s Road and Wyndham Street. The gentlemen members of that club for the colony’s business elite liked to wear flowers in buttonholes in their jacket lapels. The flower sellers provided fresh blooms each day. The club later moved to its present location but the flower sellers remained behind. Today there are no flower sellers actually in Wyndham Street but some can be found in nearby side streets, a colourful and fragrant reminder of old times in Hong Kong.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Strong wheels for Beijing carts

This picture shows a workshop that made wheels for the tough carts that ferried goods and people around Beijing about a hundred years ago. The wheels had to be very strong to cope with the poor roads and the heavy loads.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

A theatre in an historic Chinese Garden

The beautiful Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai is a gem. The garden is said to have been built by a wealthy official in 1559, in the Ming Dynasty, for his parents to enjoy in their old age.

The garden includes a spacious theatre. The stage is raised and ornately decorated with a courtyard in front and long side galleries. The style is somewhat like that of early European theatres, where members of the audience would roam about, talk with each other, enter and leave, eat and drink, as the entertainment went on. Drama was the background to all sorts of social activities and was not the sole focus of the audience as it is in the dark and formal theatres of today.

John Francis Davis, later British Governor of Hong Kong, who spoke and read Chinese fluently, published a two volume book, “The Chinese” in 1836. He said that Chinese were very keen on drama.

“In the moderate collection of Chinese books belonging to the East India Company, there are no less than two hundred volumes of plays, and a single work in forty volumes contains just one hundred theatrical pieces.”

He gives extracts from several plays but his comments on the actors make clear their low status. “The players in general come literally under our legal definition of vagabonds, as they consist of strolling bands of ten or a dozen whose merit and rank in their profession, and consequently their pay, differ widely according to circumstances. The best are those who come from Nanking (Nanjing), and who sometimes receive very considerable sums for performing at the entertainments given by rich persons and their friends. The female parts are never performed by women, but generally by boys.”

The examinations of Imperial China which chose scholars for official employment through open competitive examination were not, in fact, open to everyone. Actors were specifically excluded from applying to take the examinations.

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©Phillip Bruce

Cosy cafes for cab drivers

London taxi drivers are able to enjoy a good cup of tea and something tasty to eat at a number of historic little green wooden cafes that dot the streets.

These cafes date back to Victorian times when they provided a respite for the drivers of the thousands of Hansom cabs and Hackney carriages that drove people like Sherlock Holmes around the foggy city. Often nearby was a large stone water trough where the horses that worked so hard could drink. Taps to which tin cups were attached by a chain meant that there was no need for pedestrians to pay for bottled water. I used these cups when thirsty as I wandered around London in my childhood.

The cafes, known as cabmen’s shelters, were set up by a charity created in 1874 by the Early of Shaftsbury. He and friends felt sorry for the cab drivers who couldn’t easily find a hot meal as they were not permitted to leave their cabs while parked at stands.

Sixty one of the shelters were built between 1875 and 1914 and they weren’t allowed to take up any more space than a parked horse and cart. Today the 13 surviving shelters are still very popular and they are Grade II listed buildings.

When the shelter at St John’s Wood was last visited it was doing great business. Only taxi drivers can sit inside the little café where there is space for about a dozen people. By anyone can enjoy a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich while standing at the little window at the side. A lucky horseshoe nailed to the side provides a memory of the vanished horses of London.

Today the surviving shelters can be seen at:

Chelsea Embankment, near the Albert Bridge.
Embankment Place.
Grosvenor Gardens, near Victoria Station, on the west side of the north garden.
8-10 Kensington Park Road.
Kensington Road, north side.
Pont Street
West side of Russell Square.
Temple Place,
Thurloe Place, Kensington, opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum.
St George’s Square, Pimlico
Warwick Avenue, Clifton Gardens
Wellington Place, St John’s Wood.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

The end of Lord Napier

In 1833 the monopoly of the East India Company on trade with China was abolished. This opened up the trade to all British merchants. However, there were still strong restrictions imposed by the Chinese government on their activities.

The British Government sent William John Lord Napier to China to try to work out new arrangements with the authorities in Canton. He was a somewhat unusual choice as his “two great interests had been sheep and ships” rather than Chinese matters. His China mission was a dismal failure and his name was even translated into Chinese as “Laboriously Vile” in official communications. There was no way that the Chinese government was going to recognise anyone claiming to be a representative of a government which thought itself the equal of China. Foreigners were barbarians and that was that. Napier caught a fever and died in Macau on 11 October 1834.

The funeral took place in Macao at 10am on 15 October and it was attended by all the British and Portuguese leaders and traders. In the harbour the Royal Navy warships, Andromache and Imogene fired salutes. A guard of honour, formed by the coloured troops of the Portuguese led the funeral procession, with two British sailors holding up the British flag. His wife and daughters were in the procession. Opium traders William Jardine, James Matheson and James Innes also walked behind the coffin.

The foreign community in Canton (Guangzhou) and Macau collected funds and put a monument on Napier´s grave.

In 1953, this monument was discovered in a marble shop where it was about to be pulverized. It was rescued and erected in the Hong Kong Cemetery, at Happy Valley. Now, with the permission of Napier´s descendants, it has been moved to the Hong Kong Museum of History where it is on display.

The photograph does not show all the wording clearly. If anyone can supply the missing words this would be appreciated.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
WILLIAM JOHN LORD NAPIER
OF MERCHISTON
CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY
HIS MAJESTY´S CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT
OF THE BRITISH TRADE IN CHINA
WHO DIED AT MACAO, OCTOBER 11 1834
AGED 48 YEARS
AS A NAVAL OFFICER
HE WAS ABLE AND DISTIBGUISHED
IN PARLIAMENT
HIS CONDUCT WAS LIVERAL AND DEEPLY(?)
ATTACHED TO THE PURSUIT OF SCIENCE
AND THE DUTIES OF RELIGION
?UPRIGHT, SINCERE, AFFECTIONATE..?
HE WAS THE
FIRST SUPERINTENDENT
CHOSEN BY HIS MAJESTY
ON THE OPENING OF THE TRADE IN CHINA
TO BRITISH ENTERPRISE
?VALUABLE LIFE WAS SACRIFICED?
??ENDEAVOURED TO DIS??
??DUTIES OF THE SITUATION
THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY THE BRITISH COMMUNITY

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Summer Palace maze still puzzles visitors

The Old Summer Palace in Beijing features an interesting European style maze.

The maze is still very popular with visitors who find out that things are not as simple as they look. In the middle is an ornate pavilion, or summer house, which is presumably the target destination although anyone reaching it then has to find their way out.

The emperors who lavished money and resources on the Summer Palace, or Yuanming Yuan, were very well aware of the fantastic gardens of Versailles where French kings spared no expense in creating fantasy landscapes. A maze or labyrinth at Versailles was a key feature of the amusements.

Francis Loring Payne wrote a book “The Story of Versailles”, published in 1919. He explained: “An illustrated guide, printed at Amsterdam in 1682, contains the following quaint description of the Labyrinth, or Maze: "Courteous Reader," it begins, "it is sufficiently known how eminently France and especially the Royal Court doth excel above other places with all manner of delights. The admirable faire Buildings and Gardens with all imaginable ornaments and delightful spectacles represent to the eye of the beholder such abundant and rich objects as verily to ravish the spectator.

“Amongst all these works there is nothing more admirable and praiseworthy than the Royal Garden at Versailles, and, in it, the Labyrinth. Other representations are commonly esteemed because they please the eye, but this because it not only delights the ear and eye, but also instructs and edifies. This Labyrinth is situated in a wood so pleasant that Daedalus himself would have stood amazed to behold it. The Turnings and Windings, edged on both sides with green cropt hedges, are not at all tedious, by reason that at every hand there are figures and water-works representing the mysterious and instructive fables of Aesop, with an explanation of what Fable each Fountain representeth carved on each in black marble.

“Among all the Groves in the Park at Versailles the Labyrinth is the most to be recommended, as well for the novelty of the design as the number and diversity of the fountains that with ingenuity and naïveté express the philosophies, of the sage Aesop. The animals of colored bronze are so modeled that they seem truly to be in action. And the streams of water that come from their mouths may be imagined as bearing the words of the fable they represent. There are a great number of fountains, forty in all, each different in subject, and of a style of decoration that blends with the surrounding verdure. At the entrance to the Maze is a bronze statue of Aesop himself--the famous Mythologist of Phrygia."

The Chinese emperors were well aware of the glories of Versailles, largely due to the presence in Beijing of French Jesuit priests. The Qianlong emperor, who ruled from 1735 to 1796 and who grew up at the Summer Palace, was very interested in the French palaces and gardens. Between 1745 and 1796 a large number of foreign-style palaces, fountains, gardens and other delights were built at the Summer Palace. Presumably the stone-walled maze dates from this period. Although it has Chinese elements the maze is in a decidedly foreign style with a particularly distinctive pavilion in the middle.

In the early 1780s, Qianlong decided to have a series of line-engravings made of his European palaces and the series was prepared by local artisans following European styles. Several copies of these engravings are now in the collection of the Biliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, including an etching of the maze which measures 49.4 by 86.7cm. The etching is reproduced in the lavish book “From Beijing to Versailles, Artistic Relations Between China and France, published to accompany a major exhibition in Hong Kong in 1997. ISBN 962 215 151 5. UC 10646. Published by the Urban Council of Hong Kong and produced by the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

The caption to the maze engraving, by Jean-Paul Desroches, explains that the picture “…offers a sort of bird´s eye view to the north with vanishing lines which disappear into the wooded hill in the background. The maze emerges from a lush, green copse, it is surrounded by a river and bordered on three sides by rockwork. The south section is square with a series of walls which fit successively into each other, culminating at the four corners in four honeycombed spaces each planted with a tree pruned into a parasol shape. In the centre stands a high summer-house, octagonal in section and with a basilica roof. To the north, in the alignment of the summer-house, can be seen a rectangular pavilion with similar ornamental features.”

Anyone wishing to visit the maze and the ruins of the palaces, destroyed by the French and British in 1860, should be careful to head for the Old Summer Palace, or Yuanming Yuan, and not the new Summer Palace which is close by. The English signs at Yuanming Yuan are of no help. The palaces are in the Xianglou Area and the best way to get there is by walking due north from the main entrance to the Feng He Lou area where electric vehicles run to Xianglou.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

The Happy Farmer

After a hectic few months of travel around China and other places in Asia it is pleasant to be back in the autumn sunshine at my small farm in Spain.

The trees are heavy with almonds, olives and carobs and life goes on at its traditional relaxed country pace. There is good wine and coffee to drink and fruit and vegetables in abundance together with fresh baked bread.

A Tang Dynasty (618-907)poet, Chu Kwang-hi (in Wades Giles spelling), wrote a poem “The Happy Farmer.” This was translated into English by Charles Budd and appeared in his book Chinese Poems, published in 1912. At the time he worked in the Tung Wen Kwan Translation Office in Shanghai.

I´ve a hundred mulberry trees
And thirty ´mow´of grain,
With sufficient food and clothes,
And friends my wine to drain.

The fragrant grain of ´Ku-mi” seed
Provides our Summer fare;
Our Autumn brew of aster wine
Is rich beyond compare.

My goodwife comes with smiling face
To welcome all our guests;
My children run with willing feet
To carry my behests.

When work is done and evening come,
We saunter to the park,
And there, ´neath elm and willow trees
We´re blithe as soaring lark.

With wine and song the hours fly by
Till each in cloudland roams,
And then, content with all the word,
We wander to our homes.

Through lattice-window steals a breeze,
As on my couch I lie,
While overhead the ´Silver Stream´
Flows through a splendid sky.

And as I gaze it comes to mind –
A dozen jars at least
Of the aster-scented wine remain
To grace tomorrow´s feast.

The Mulberry trees would have provided food for silk worms. Chinese aster is a flower, Callistephus Chinensi, obviously used to flavour wine – probably rice wine. The “Silver Stream” is the Milky Way is the great arc of stars and dust seen in the night sky. Does anyone know what “Ku Mi seed” is? How much area in modern terms is “Thirty Mow”? What is the name of the author in Pinyin?

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Hong Kong street mystery

A Hong Kong street is shown in this old postcard.

The photographer was obviously shooting downhill, perhaps from Hollywood Road on Hong Kong Island.

Can anyone offer any clues as to the name of the street and location? Click on the picture to enlarge.

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c. Phillip Bruce

Lovely rice

Chinese people have always loved food and this happy chap enjoying a bowl of rice is seen on a 1920s postcard.

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c. Phillip Bruce

Excitement at Shanghai racecourse

This picture shows an exciting finish at the Shanghai Racecourse.

From the straw hats of the spectators on the right, the picture could have been taken in the 1920s, or perhaps a little earlier or later. Shanghai´s residents were fanatical about horse racing and the track was always a popular destination.

The race course site is now the site of the People´s Park.

It is difficult to say with certainty where the picture was taken, but it is possible it was taken from along the line of Nanjing Road, somewhere near where the Radisson Hotel and Pacific Hotels are located.

There is a tower in the distance, which might be that of the Shanghai racing club, but it looks a bit too far away.

If anyone can offer any more information please email me at raxomnium@gmail.com. Click on the picture to enlarge.

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c. Phillip Bruce

What else lurks in the Mekong?

One of Asia´s mightiest rivers, the Mekong, has revealed some more of its secrets. Floating about on the river and venturing up its creeks in Vietnam recenty there were plenty of strange creatures to see. On muddy banks half-glimpsed things scattered and dashed into holes, crabs, insects, reptiles?

Recently biologists announced that they had identified 163 new species in the Mekong as it passes through Cambodia and Vietnam. This total included 100 new plants, 28 new fish, 18 new reptiles, 14 new amphibians, two mammals and a bird.

For decades, the research of naturalists was hampered or prevented by wars but now they are stepping up their investigations. The effects of defoliants, such as Agent Orange, which were widely sprayed to kill vegetation under which guerillas sheltered are still in evidence.

However, the bigger threat today is probably over-development, with roads, new towns and construction destroying habitat.

No doubt, however, the Mekong still contains surprises yet to be discovered.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

How to deal with a snake

British explorers in the 19th century were a tough breed. The Saturday Magazine, of March 8, 1834, recorded how one traveler encountered a snake in South America.

“Waterton, in his Wanderings in South America, gives the following account of his catching a snake. He had sent his Indian servant, Daddy Quashi, to look for something he had lost in the forest, and during his absence, he says, I observed a young Coulacanara, ten feet long, slowly moving onwards, I saw he was not thick enough to break my arm, in case he got twisted round it. There was not a moment to be lost. I laid hold of his tail with the left hand, one knee being on the ground; with the right hand I took off my hat, and held it as you would hold a shield for defence.

“The snake instantly turned, and came on at me, with his head about a yard from the ground, as if to ask me, what business I had to take liberties with his tail. I let him come, hissing and open-mouthed, within two feet of my face, and then, with all the force I was master of, I drove my fist, shielded by my hat, full into his jaws. He was stunned and confounded by the blow, and ere he could recover himself, I had seized his throat with both hands, in such a position that he could not bite me; I then allowed himself to coil himself round my body, and marched off with him as my lawful prize. He pressed me hard, but not alarmingly so.

“In the mean time, Daddy Quashi having returned, and hearing the noise which the fray occasioned, was coming cautiously up. As soon as he saw me, and in what company I was, he turned about and ran off home, I after him, and shouting to increase his fear. On scolding him for his cowardice, the old rogue begged I would forgive him, for the sight of the snake had positively turned him sick.”

Charles Waterton, who was born in 1782, was one of Britain´s great naturalists and spent much of his early life in South America. In 1825 he published his “Wanderings in South America, the North-west of the United States and the Antiles in the years 1812, 1816, 1820 and 1824.” A large octavo edition was published in 1828. The book was very popular. He climbed a tree at his home at Walton Hall, Yorkshire, on his 80th birthday. He died after being injured carrying a log in 1862.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Telling the time in ancient China

To the north of the Forbidden City in Beijing the prominent building known as The Drum Tower can be seen.

The drums inside this building and the bells inside the nearby Bell Tower regulated the day in the Imperial City.

Anyone fit enough for the climb up the steep flight of many steps that rise inside the drum tower can see giant drums which are replicas of those of ancient times. These are regularly beaten for the benefit of visitors. In the silence of the past the sound would have carried for many miles.

However, the drummers needed to know when to beat their drums and that is where an ingenious water clock came in.

The flowing of water between four different containers allowed time to be measured accurately enough for the purposes of the past.

A replica of the water clock can be seen today. This is referred to as a “Clepsydra,” although the term can’t be found in the Oxford English Dictionary.

There are four bronze water containers. The upper one is known as the Sky Pond, the second as Calm Water, the third as Myriad Parting and the fourth as Water Collecting.

The passage of each quarter of an hour was marked by a small statue of a man with cymbals. A flow of water into the mechanics beneath the figure caused it to clash the symbols together eight times every 15 minutes.

A record of longer periods of time was kept by means of wooden indicators which floated on the water of the lowest tank. Supported by two dragons, the wooden slats were marked with time periods. A store of slats, presumably so that different time periods could be measured, was kept at the side.

The drummers always knew, thanks to the ingenious water clock, when it was time to beat the big drums.

The word "clepsydra" is used to describe a water clock from the Western Han Dynasty (206BC to AD8) which was exhibited in 1998 in Hong Kong at the "Heavenly Creations, Gems of Ancient Chinese Inventions" exhibition This was excavated from a tomb at Mancheng, Hebei in 1968. It is a simple single vertical cylinder with a handled lid at the top and a water outlet at the bottom. The exhibition catalogue explains: "A clepsyrda is an ancient time-measuring device which works by the flow of water. Such water clocks, called "dripping vessels" (louhou) were one type of time-measuring instruments used in ancient China. This particular type came with an indicator called "sinking arrow" (chenjian),inserted through a hole in the handle and the cover. As the water in the vessel dripped through the hole in the bottom, the water level fell and the indicator rod, which was fitted to the float, sank accordingly. The outflow was so adjusted that the marker took a specific time to sink. From graduations on the sinking indicator it was possible to tell the time."

The same exhibition also displayed another clepsydra, from the Yuan Dynasty, cast in 1316. This is similar to the water clock in the drum tower, with four water vessels. The exhibition catalogue states: "Ancient water clocks came in different designs: some consisted of a single vessel, others had multiple vessels. This is the earliest extant example of a multiple vessel design. The four vessels were placed on descending steps of a stepped platform. Water flowed from the sun vessel into the moon vessel, then into the star vessel, finally reaching the water vessel. As the water level rose in the bottom tank, the wooden indicator rose with it, giving a reading of the hour."

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©www.pbbitsandpieces.com 2009

What was that name again?

One of the biggest challenges facing anyone visiting China or attempting to understand Chinese history is the various names that refer to the same emperor.

Many Chinese people, official sources and plaques at historic sites, refer to dates by year of the period in which an emperor reigned. This means that foreigners are often confused as they do not carry around dynastic dates tables in their heads.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that emperors are known by a number of different names.

Take the Qing Dynasty of the Manchu emperors who ruled China from 1644 to 1911. Not to be confused with the Qin dynasty, of the first emperor and his terracotta warriors who ruled from 221 BC to 206BC.

The Qing Dynasty was actually founded in 1616 and at first it was known as the Later Jin. The title was changed to Qing in 1644.

As an example of the naming of emperors take the man who ruled from 1875 to 1908.

His family name, like that of all the Qing Emperors, was Aisin Gioro. His personal name was Aisin Gioro Zaitian. However, use of this name was taboo and it was never spoken. A title would be selected for the reign of each emperor, and, in this case, the name chosen was Guanxu. This was used, particularly by foreigners, as if it was his personal name. In China, during his reign he would normally be referred to simply as “His Majesty The Emperor.”

After an emperor died, however, he would be given a name which would be used for ancestral worship rites. The name selected for this emperor was De Zong. Educated Chinese would never use anything other than De Zong in referring to him, with use of Guangxu being regarded as vulgar.

Few foreigners find it easy to cope with all this and many are mystified as they visit the historic sites of China and attempt to understand explanations and signs.

Reading books on Chinese history in English is further complicated by the fact that many use the old Wade-Giles system of writing the sounds of Chinese Characters, rather than the modern Pinyin system, used above.

In Wade-Giles, you will find this emperor's personal name written as Tsai-T'ien (Zaitian). Guanxu is written as Kuang-Hsü. De Zong is written as Té Tsung.

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©Phillip Bruce.

Shanghai bridge is back

The old bridge over the Suzhou Creek at Shanghai is back in position after being taken away for a complete restoration and makeover.

The bridge has long been a landmark in Shanghai and now it is again carrying traffic and pedestrians over the Creek.

The photograph shows the bridge in the 1930s, with what is probably a building of the British consulate in the foreground. The Russian Consulate can be seen behind the bridge with the Astor House Hotel across the road.

See also the June 2, 2009, story “Historic Shanghai bridge gets a facelift.”

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Museum of Chinese in America re-opens

New York´s museum dedicated to the Chinese experience in the United States has re-opened in Chinatown.

The Museum of Chinese in America has benefited from an $8.1 million makeover and it has 1,300 square meters, or 14,000 square feet of space to show its exhibits, videos and interactive displays.

The New York Times commented that the Chinese museum has joined a roster of American museums of identity. “The strange thing is how similar the arcs of their story are: they recount how after a long period of suffering, prejudice and hatred, a group has carved a distinctive place in the history of the United States, its once scorned identity now a source of strength. Many of these museums also serve as anchors for the community and as educational centers, recounting political morality tales and honoring a shared history. That is certainly the case here as well.”

For a slide show on the museum see - http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07/08/arts/20090708_CHINESEMUSEUM_SLIDESHOW_index.html

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