Fuzhou women in the lens of British traveler John Thomson (1870)
Cover of "The Princess of the Royal Family: A Little Note on China"
Cover of A Journey to the Far East by a World Traveler
After the end of the Opium War in 1842, Fuzhou opened its port, and Fuzhou became an important window for foreign exchanges in the late Qing Dynasty. Victorian merchants, missionaries, envoys and travelers followed. They were extremely interested in this "picturesque port" and left a lot of writing related to Fuzhou.
Novelist Lewis Wingfield (1842-1891) published in 1887 The Lovely Wang: A Bit of China, a 214-page novella set in Fuzhou and telling the story of the Fuzhou people, which portrayed a feminist in the late Qing feudal era. The narrator of the novel, "I", is Chinese, and the narrator and the author are of different nationalities and independent; the narrator takes the position of late Qing China, calling the missionaries or The British "barbarians".
Winfield's people
Born into an aristocratic family in London, Winfield studied at Eton College and the University of Bonn. Like his contemporary, the American writer Mark Twain, Winfield had a adventurous spirit and a career of ups and downs.
He worked as an actor in a theatre in London, as a correspondent on the Franco-Prussian War, and then focused on painting, which was also exhibited at the Art Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and later became a costume designer for the theatre. At the age of 40, he began writing novels, writing about 10 novels in his lifetime.
His creative approach is also quite personal. In general, novelists prefer to work in seclusion away from what Conrad calls "destructive factors"; occasionally a small number of novelists are willing to get up close and personal with these factors. But no writer has devoted himself so brazenly to these "destructive factors" as Winfield.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies describes it this way: "Winfield behaved strangely, such as dressing as a 'black bard' to go to a derby jockey club, spending the night in a workhouse, sleeping rough with wanderers, and working as a waitress in an insane asylum. ”
For him, life experience is essential to literary creation. His two novels related to East Asia embody this view of creation. From 1886 to 1888, he traveled to China and Japan in the late Qing Dynasty, becoming a "world traveler", and then created two novels and essays, "The Princess of the Royal Family: A Little Tale of China" and "The Curse of Yuesheng: Chronicles of Ancient Japan" (1888), and two novels and prose works, "A Journey of a World Traveler in the Far East" (1889).
Two of the travelogues are related to Fuzhou, the first is "Yongfu Temple", which describes the author's visit to Fang Guangyan Temple; the second is "Fuzhou Hospital", which records a Scottish doctor who established a Western-style hospital on Zhongzhou Island and performed some minor surgeries on the people of Fuzhou, but the hospital was eventually burned down by arsonists.
Fuzhou romantic comedy
Most of the Victorian writings about Fuzhou were travelogues, such as explorer Richard Collinson's "Fuzhou Fu See" (1846), the missionary Schmifer's "Travels to the City of Five Ports of Commerce" (1847), the missionary and sinologist Madus's essay "Drum Mountain" (1855), the British traveler and photographer John Thomson's illustrated travelogue "Fuzhou and Minjiang" (1873), and the "Fuzhou Street Scene" published by an anonymous author in the literary magazine "All year round" (1881).
There are fewer novels set in Fuzhou. In July 1875, an anonymous author published a short story titled "Building a Bridge: A Chinese Legend" in the literary magazine Canhill Magazine. The 12-page work tells the story of the construction of the Bridge of Ten Thousand Ages on the Minjiang River, and the first half of it is an adaptation of the folk tale of guanyin bodhisattva incarnating a girl to raise funds for the bridge.
In 1898, novelist Liz Bohm published the novella Dobson's Daughter: The Story of China's Treaty Ports, a 72-page novella about the misfortunes of Sha jia, the illegitimate daughter of the British tea merchant Dobson, in Fuzhou.
"The Princess of the Wang Family: A Little Tale of China" is a romantic realist comedy novel that tells the love story of the hostess, Plumbloom, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a rich merchant surnamed Huang on Zhongzhou Island in the Minjiang River in Fuzhou (Foochow), with a son and a daughter under his knees. The daughter is 18 years old, and the son is 16 years old, and his name is Huang Chu. At this time, huang merchants were not in a good position and were in debt, and the whole family pinned their hopes on the marriage of their daughter to Wang Yu, the prince of Wang County Ling in Yongfu County (Yuen-Foo, yongtai County), hoping that soon his daughter would marry into the Wang family and Wang Xianling would be able to rescue him.
However, although Wang Yu was only 20 years old, he was troubled and trapped in a sickbed. Wang Xianling, in desperation, begged the Huang family to send their daughter to the Wang family, hoping that Wang Yu would see her and turn the crisis around. Forced by the situation, huang merchants prepared to send their daughter into the Wang family, but Lady Huang and Lady Huang were firmly opposed. Huang Shangshang himself also had some scruples, so he let his greedy and school-weary son Huang Chu dress up as a sister and go to the Wang family with the matchmaker Lady Wei.
The two took a boat along the Yongfu River (i.e., Dazhang Creek) to the residence of Wang County Ling. Before huang chu met Wang Yu, he met Wang Xianling's daughter Wang Meihua and fell in love with her at first sight. Wang Meihua is delicate and lively, and has a personality like a tomboy. Then, Huang Chu saw Wang Yu, who was bedridden, and Wang Yu was a little confused at this time, thinking that marrying "Miss Huang" could wash away the obscurity and decide to leave "Miss Huang". However, Wang Yu was seriously ill, so he asked his sister Meihua to visit the church for himself and "Miss Huang" when he arrived. At the same time, MeiHua also had an inexplicable liking for this "sister-in-law" who had not passed through the door, so she agreed to come down...
The book is divided into three parts. The first part takes Fuzhou City as the background to introduce the male protagonist Huang Chu's family background and the plight of the Huang family, paving the way for the development of the plot; the second part takes Yongfu County as the background to narrate the acquaintance, love and mismatch marriage between Wang Meihua and Huang Chu; the third part describes Huang Chu's escape from the palace and fall into the capital, while Wang Meihua knows the truth and is not afraid of hardships and is determined to find a husband, and finally the two become relatives in Fuzhou.
The Self in the Other
The title page of The Princess of the Royal Family: A Little Tale of China reads: "The novel describes in detail the family life of the Chinese and the etiquette system of the aristocratic families of that country. "But the perception of China is through Fuzhou.
Winfield's fuzhou figures cover characters, costumes (bride's red hijab), utensils (paper money, incense, palanquins, and sailing ships), crafts (white tin crafts), idioms (calling matchmakers termites, new wives, coolies, grooms, shoufang, heart hair, and dying wood), etiquette (arching hands, bowing, kneeling, and nine kowtows), catering (roast pigs at weddings), customs (chong xi, foot binding, son preference, selling oneself, marrying women's hair, burning incense chants, celebrating ancestors, Tomb sweeping during the Qingming Festival and the boots of the Qing officials leaving office), as well as the geographical landscape, the description of the area around Zhongzhou Island in the Minjiang River and along the Dazhang Creek is particularly detailed.
In addition, there are two characteristics of the novel that are worth noting.
First, the novel has progressive feminist ideas. In terms of plot, the novel is similar to "Qiao Taishou Chaos Mandarin Duck Spectrum" in "Awakening to the World", and has the plot of "brother marrying sister, sister marrying brother". However, the novel shows an independent female figure that is not limited to secular moral concepts, which is rare in the feudal society of the late Qing Dynasty at that time. Wang Meihua does not hesitate to violate traditional moral concepts, but also obeys her own inner call, showing the courage not to compromise with fate.
The novel emphasizes Wang Meihua's masculine qualities many times, and the narrator describes Wang Meihua through the wang family's nursing mother: "She must have been a man before herself, did not spend enough time in the underworld, and was reincarnated into a woman by mistake." After much deliberation, she finally realized that this was the root of the problem. Many women in this world are supposed to be men, and vice versa. Her independence and liveliness can't help herself... Unfortunately, as a woman, she is very intelligent. She did not want to marry someone, which was a terrible stain. For a woman's first duty is to marry.
"'You care more about Wang Yu,' MeiHua always pleaded, 'let me resign myself to fate, the man who suits me must be different, and maybe I will never find a suitable one for me.'" It may be shocking that a woman wants to take charge of her own destiny. But I was born that way – no one can change that. Maybe I was a seabird, a squirrel in a tree, or a wild goat in the Mongolian mountains. ’”
The plot of Wang Meihua dressing up as a man and looking for a husband in the vast sea of people makes people see the fearlessness and bravery she shows for love. Winfield's praise of women and love in the late Qing Dynasty is completely different from the description of women in the late Qing Dynasty as deep boudoir women in English works of the same period, reflecting the author's unique view of Chinese women. Winfield seems to have seen in late Qing society the Victorian "partnership marriage" of england —marriage based on free will and love, rather than a stopgap measure for economic gain or social advancement.
Second, the decolonist narrative of the novel. In the second half of the 19th century, the British Empire expanded dramatically, with colonies spread across the globe, known as the "Empire of the Sun Never Sets". At the same time, the British had more contempt for the political system, traditional religion, ethical thought, and social customs of late Qing China. As a result, English novels set in late Qing China at the time often focused on sea robberies, mysterious treasures, and Qing torture.
Some British novelists, such as George W. Bush, were killed in the united states. A. Hunty, Harry Collingwood, and William H. C. David vigorously promoted the national superiority of the British and showed great enthusiasm for the expansion of British interests around the world, and they used late Qing China as one of the strongholds of the British Empire, grafting their novels on these strongholds. As a result, these novels are basically colonialist.
"The Princess of the Royal Family: A Little Tale of China" does not have this shortcoming. This can be seen from the plot, theme and character development of the novel, and is also reflected in the novel's unique narrative method. Most of these novels and travelogues are narrated in the third person, with the narrator being a foreigner, and the narrator and the author culturally homologous and merging into one, viewing the late Qing Dynasty as a "heterotopia". The narrator "I" of "The Princess of the Royal Family: A Little Tale of China" is Chinese, and this change in narrative angle seems to be unremarkable, but in fact, it shows that the British people's understanding and understanding of late Qing China has a long process of transmutation. At this time, their understanding reached a new level: they began to examine themselves from the standpoint of the Chinese; through this self-examination, they actually came to know the late Qing Dynasty further.
Thomas S. G. Selby, a long-time English missionary in the Guangzhou area, published his Chinese book As the Chinese See Us in 1901, which was also examined by the British from the position of the late Qing Dynasty. (Zheng Hongsheng text/photo)
(Author Affilications:College of Humanities, Fujian Institute of Technology)