Seeing China: Community Reflections
(Part One)
Introduction
Records of contact
Photography: changing gazes
Introduction
“I want the public in the West to have now a glimpse of our modern life. Ever since that remote land known as China
has been visited by adventuring Europeans, it has always been considered as the ideal locality for their traveller’s tales.
As the land is actually thousands and thousands of miles away, anything inconceivable and fantastic can be safely
planted there without the least danger of its being refuted.” S I Hsiung, The Professor in Peking, 1939
This exhibition explores a selection of the Society’s Chinese maps, photographs and books from the personal
perspectives of Chinese communities in London. Groups involved include the Camden Chinese Community Centre, the
Chinese National Healthy Living Centre, the Kings Cross Neighbourhood Centre and the Soho Family Centre.
Great Wall of China by Herbert Ponting, 1907
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Ninety adults, young people and children, from differing backgrounds and experiences, attended workshops and
discussed historic materials that date back to the 1840s. The collections evoked personal reminiscences, reflections on
the groups’ collective and diverse histories, and the subsequent legacies. Many issues came to the fore; global
migrations of Chinese peoples, exploration of identity and examination of complex shared and often unequal histories
of Britain and China.
These issues were discussed alongside a wider exploration of the historical relationship between these two countries.
Exhibition themes and selected photographs are annotated using:
• Contemporary commentary from community groups (bold italics)
• Historical quotes from diaries and publications (italics)
 Hyperlinks to other resources
“Seeing the pictures of China made me realise how different we looked in terms of the clothes we used to wear and
facial expressions...it made me want to learn more about my heritage and history.” Member from the Camden
Chinese Community Centre Youth Group, 2007
Group of Customs' Officials at the opening of the Szemao Custom House by F W Carey, 1899
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This timeline illustrates important events and interactions between China, Britain and other countries from 1839 –
1949:
1839 – 1842
First Opium War took place between Britain and China over trading issues. The Chinese
preferred silver as payment for traded goods with the British, leading to a British trade
deficit. To readdress the balance, the British began smuggling opium into China, a substance
banned since the late 18th century. It was hoped that reintroducing opium would also
subdue the population and make colonisation possible. War broke out when the Chinese
ordered the destruction of foreign opium stores. China was defeated and forced to import
opium from nearby British colonies into China.
1842
Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) between Britain and China, during which Hong Kong island was
ceded to Britain. Five treaty ports were opened and the treaty gave foreigners extraterritoriality rights in China and protection.
1856 – 1860
Second Opium War between Britain and France against China. China was defeated.
1858
Treaty of Tientsin (Tianjin) between France, Russia and the USA against China. Legations
(embassies) in Beijing - a previously closed city - were established; ten more treaty ports
were opened and warships could enter the Yangtze. Foreigners were granted access to the
interior for travel, trade or missionary activities.
1860
Convention of Peking (Beijing) between Britain, France and Russia against Kowloon;
Kowloon was ceded to Britain and Outer Manchuria to Russia. Tianjin was opened up as a
trading port and the opium trade was legalised.
1851 – 1864
Taiping Rebellion a large-scale revolt against the Qing government, the last Imperial
dynasty of China (1644-1911).
1894 – 1895
Sino-Japanese War fought over control of Korea. China was defeated.
1895
Treaty of Shimonoseki between Japan and China.
1898
Hundred Days’ Reform led by the young Emperor Guangxu and reformists, ending in a coup
d’état by conservative opponents.
1899 – 1901
Boxer Rebellion suppressed by the Eight-Power Expeditionary Force of Austria - Hungary,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the USA. The uprising began as an antiforeign, anti-imperialist peasant based movement in northern China.
1901
Boxer Protocol between China and Eight-Nation alliance plus Belgium, Spain and the
Netherlands.
1906
Constitutionalism campaign led by constitutionalists, in opposition to the imperial Qing
dynasty that governed national affairs, with the aim of gathering support for a revolution
and the establishment of a republic.
1911
Xinhai Revolution led to the overthrowing of Qing dynasty and the establishment of the
Republic of China.
1937 – 1945
The Chinese War of Resistance against Japan was fought before and coincided with the
Second World War. It ended with the surrender of the Japanese.
1949
People’s Republic of China formally established by Mao Zedong, under a communist
regime.
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Records of contact
Chinese in Britain
“Most English people think that the Chinese all look alike, but they might find it hard to believe that when I first came
to England I found it difficult to distinguish between English faces.” Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Oxford, 1944
The Chinese have arrived on British shores since early contact between these countries. In the 19th century, most
were seafarers employed by British companies and a few written accounts by them can be found from this period.
However, there are many substantial accounts written by Chinese visitors to Britain dating from the 20th century.
Chinese authors often noted differences in social customs and landscapes. Several also tried to correct British
misconceptions of China and Chinese people.
Early visitors
One of the earliest known Chinese visitors to Britain is the Catholic convert Shen Futsung (Fuzong). In 1687 he came to
promote the Jesuit mission in China and to demonstrate to the Vatican the ‘excellent Chinese candidates available for
priesthood’. Shen visited the royal courts of France and England. King James II was so fascinated by Shen that he
commissioned a portrait of him (now part of the Royal Collection). Shen knew Latin and was the first person to begin
cataloguing the Bodleian Library’s Chinese collection.
Another early visitor to Britain, in 1769, was the artist known variously as Chitqua, Tan-chet Gua and Shykinqua. He
was courted by King George III and exhibited at the 1770 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The first known
description of England by a Chinese traveller is by Xie Qinggao, a seafarer from Guangdong. From 1782, he spent 14
years sailing between Europe, America and Asia.
20th century
Writers, artists and thinkers of the Chinese group Crescent
Moon - friends with the British ‘Bloomsbury Set’ authors
Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster - were often referred to as the
‘Chinese Bloomsbury’ group. Among them, poet Xu Zhimo
wrote about Cambridge in the 1920’s, Ling Shu-hua painted
European landscapes on silk and paper. Xiao Qian, the only
Chinese war correspondent in Europe during the Second World
War, wrote China but not Cathay, a book criticising romantic
European representations of China. The famous writer Lao She,
who arrived in 1924, wrote Mr Ma and Son (Er Ma), a
humorous novel describing the lives and experiences of two
Chinese men in Britain.
Popular writers include Chiang Yee, whose Silent Traveller
series records his observations and drawings of a range of
British landscapes, people and customs. S I Hsiung became
world famous for his play Lady Precious Stream, premiered in
London, and also wrote about mutual misunderstandings
between the British and Chinese. Other visitors during the
1930s included the film star Anna May Wong and Mei Lan-fang,
th
the most famous Peking opera star of the 20 century.
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British in China
Direct contact between Europe and China first took place in the 13th century. Since then, desire for Chinese arts,
crafts, produce, technologies and later territories motivated many European entrepreneurs, travellers, adventurers
and officials to head east in order to open up the ‘China market’, paralleling Western interest in China today.
From the 19th century, China was visited frequently by the British, some even settled, and many recorded their
impressions in photographs, sketches and journals. These materials provide a valuable record of China and also
Victorian attitudes towards this country and its people.
Missionaries
“Missionary work was not easy in China, many people rejected it.” Member from the Chinese National Healthy Living
Centre, 2007
A significant European export to China was Christianity and early contact with China was made by missionaries such as
John of Montecorvino, an Italian monk in the late 13th century. Determined missionaries in the 19th century often
adopted local Chinese dress in an attempt to appease, and hopefully convert locals to Christianity. The Chinese were
generally suspicious of them and this was a contributing factor that led to the Boxer Rebellion (1899 - 1901).
The Reverend Heywood Horseburgh adopting Chinese dress
by Isabella Bird Bishop, 1895
Chinese passport of missionary William Lockhart who was
in China from the 1840s -1870s
Travellers, traders and officials
“Only the rich and privileged class could afford to travel so far and wide in the 19th century. It’s amazing that she
(Isabella Bird Bishop) had travelled all over China alone. Such courage is almost unheard of.” Member from the
Kings Cross Neighbourhood Centre, 2007
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The lone female adventurer, writer and Society Fellow, Isabella Bird Bishop was famous in the late Victorian period for
her romantic accounts of ‘far off places’. Her book published in 1899 entitled The Yangtze Valley and Beyond charts
her 8000 mile journey in 1897. Bishop’s attitudes towards the Chinese, although condescending, were often generous
in comparison to many of her male contemporaries:
“It is essential for us to see quite clearly that our Western ideas
find themselves confronted, not with barbarism or with debased
theories and morals, but with an elaborate and antique civilisation
which yet is not decayed, and which though imperfect, has many
claims to our respect and even admiration.”
Members from the Kings Cross Neighbourhood Centre in 2007
discuss the ‘stereotyping’ of Chinese people:
“Do you agree with Mrs. Bishop’s description of the Chinese
being hardworking, sensible, compassionate, kind, peaceful,
resilient, and honouring their parents and the law?”
“I think so. The description is quite true – we still obey our
parents and elders and care for our family.”
“No. That description was 100 years ago. Times have changed
now.”
Isabella Bird Bishop by Elliot & Fry, 1880-1904
There was a heavy presence of British Officials until the 1940s; Clarmont Percival Skrine and Captain Gerard Stafford
Staveley Gordon; both Society Fellows were present in the 1930s. Skrine served from 1922-1924 as British ConsulGeneral in Kashgar (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and wrote the book, Chinese Central Asia in 1926 and
Captain Gordon took photographs whilst surveying and constructing oil installations for the Shanghai based Asiatic
Petroleum Company.
Others included RGS Fellows Captain W H Jeffrey and businessman Archibald Little, the first European to have
navigated the Yangtze by steamship in 1898.
Mrs Bishop’s boat crew at dinner, Fukien by Isabella Bird Bishop, 1895
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Photography: changing gazes
Victorian Photography
“I found out more about China and the people in the past through looking at these pictures.” Member from the
Camden Chinese Community Centre Youth Group, 2007
Photography allowed 19th century European travellers to record their travels in a way that was until then
unimaginable. Early photographers faced technical and physical limitations; cameras were bulky with long exposure
times. It was also an expensive process and something only the wealthy could afford. However, this medium
flourished; cameras and fragile glass plate negatives survived long distances and revealed new worlds.
Photography was used to survey people and landscapes for many reasons. This included use of ‘objective’
documentary photography to confirm scientific and anthropological ideas of the time which often reinforced
European notions of racial and cultural superiority. Empire building Europeans were also captivated by the adventure
that travel offered. Both amateur and professional photographers fed a demand for visions of romantic vistas in far off
places and the ‘exotic’ cultures found there.
Amateur photographers such as Isabella Bird
Bishop illustrated their own travel accounts.
Professional photographers such as Herbert
Ponting and John Thomson took photographs
specifically for collectors and publishers.
Ponting, a freelance photographer travelled to
China, India, Japan, Spain and the USA. He is
best known for his images of Captain Scott's
tragic expedition to Antarctica in 1910-14.
Thomson was a Society Fellow and a pioneering
photographer, who after his travels to China
developed a style of photography that laid the
foundations for modern photo journalism.
A typical Chinese house in Peking by john Thomson, 1874
Regardless of the purpose for which the
photographs were taken, their images continue
to reveal many different sides of China.
Contemporary photography: revisiting the Victorian gaze
“As we are living in England, our children are exposed to different heritages and cultures. We too have to accept
difference.” Member from the Kings Cross Neighbourhood Centre, 2007
The way the Victorians saw China continues to fascinate people today. London born Grace Lau is an artist, whose
calligrapher father and poet mother settled in Britain in the 1930’s from Sichuan province. She responded in 2007 to
the Victorian gaze in her photographic series Twenty First Century Types.
The series came about whilst Lau was researching her book Picturing the Chinese in which she explores how
Imperialist travellers in China saw and photographed Chinese people. Lau responded to these images by turning her
gaze on the British. She set up a ‘turn of the century Shanghai-style’ studio in Hastings and invited passers-by to have
their photograph taken.
“Through these photographs, I am making an oblique comment on Imperialist visions of the ‘exotic’ Chinese and by
reversing roles, I have become the Imperialist photographer documenting my exotic subjects in the ‘Port’ of
Hastings. Intrigued by the exotic setting - a painted backdrop, antique Chinese furniture and a panda rug - people
collaborated willingly in striking formal poses, as in Victorian portraits.” Grace Lau 2007
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