Wen | Haimei
At the end of the 19th century, the trip to China by Paul Goldman, a reporter from the Frankfurt Times, recorded all aspects of the social landscape of the city in the late Qing Dynasty, and also left the silhouette of the times of Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Rong Lu, Tan Zhonglin, Cai Jun, Wang Cunshan and other figures. More than a hundred years later, goldman's writings were rediscovered and translated, with the title of "Summer of 1898: A German Journalist's Observations on China", which was published by the People's Literature Publishing House in Chinese translation. A German journalist's observation of the officialdom and society at the end of the Qing Dynasty always carries some prejudices, but from another point of view, his observations and analyses are also often unique, often Chinese he is easy to ignore and turn a blind eye to. Goldman's travels and interviews show some primitive forms of Chinese society around 1898 and have unique historical value.
Summer day of 1898: A German journalist's observation of China
By Paul Goldman
Translated by Wu Weili
People's Literature Publishing House
Treasure hunting in antique shops
The discoverer of the original German edition of "Summer of 1898" was Wu Weili, an overseas Chinese living in Germany. He studied and lived in Europe for many years, and every time he went to a city, he liked to see antique shops and stamp shops. Hiking the ancient streets in search of historical traces is his greatest passion for traveling outside.
In the early autumn of 2011, Wu Weili made his first trip to the Adriatic coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and the border port city of Trieste in northeastern Italy piqued his interest. It is a city steeped in history and retains a lot of original imprints. Wu Weili strolled along the ancient streets to an antique shop. There, he stumbled upon an old book translated into German, "A Summer in China," all in German in classical font. When he returned to Frankfurt, he immediately took the book to someone to translate, and found that it was the German journalist Paul Goldmann's description of Chinese society in 1898.
The year 1898 was an important year in China's modern history. A revolution shook the whole country and is still a hot topic in historiography. On March 6 of that year, the Qing government signed the Jiao'ao Lend-Lease Treaty with Germany, through which Germany leased Jiao'ao (i.e., Jiaozhou Bay) and its surrounding areas, and Shandong became Germany's sphere of influence. On April 10, Goldman was assigned by the Frankfurter Zeitung to conduct an interview with China from the Italian port of Geniana.
Jiao-Macao Lend-Lease Treaty
Paul Goldman was born on 31 January 1865 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), and died in Vienna on 25 September 1935. He was an Austrian and German journalist, travel writer, theatre critic, and small theatre writer. Goldman's father was a local merchant and his mother was a housewife. After graduating in law from the University of Breslau in Germany, he went to Vienna after receiving his Juris Doctorate to work for the magazine "On the Beautiful Blue Danube", which was chaired by his uncle Mamlos.
From 1892 to 1902, Goldman worked as a reporter for the Frankfurt Daily in Brussels, Paris and China. In 1896, due to the Dreyfus Affair, he had a pistol duel with the French anti-Semitic journalist Lucian Milleva, which ended in abandonment.
From 1902 onwards, Goldman worked as a theatre reporter for the Vienna Neue Libertée zeitung in Vienna and Berlin. He also served as a field correspondent during World War I.
Goldman was ill-fated by his anti-Nazis. According to Wu Weili's research, Goldmann was a close friend of the German Imperial Army Field Marshal and President of the Weimar Republic, Hindenburg, and Hitler's most feared figure was Hindenburg. Goldman, who was anti-Nazi, chose to flee Milan to hide with his daughter, and the Austrian Secret Police arrested him from Milan in August 1933, which caused worldwide attention and dissatisfaction.
Goldman's identity is special. He was president of the Association of Foreign Correspondents of Germany from 1916, and he was also its founder. After learning of his arrest, the association of journalists from all over the world, represented by the United States, sent letters to the Nazi regime demanding that Goldman be treated fairly. Under strong pressure from many quarters, the Nazi regime released Goldman three days later. After his release from prison, he was repatriated to Vienna. He died in Vienna on 25 September 1935 at the age of 70 and was buried in the Vienna City Cemetery.
Wu Weili painstakingly found Goldman's information and found his former residence in Vienna, and at the same time found the number of Goldman's cemetery in the Vienna Cemetery Administration. Unfortunately, since the cost of the cemetery was only paid until 5 June 1994, and no one came to pay the fees thereafter, the cemetery administration was unable to contact its descendants and had to extend the extension for 20 years as was customary. On June 5, 2014, the tomb was treated as an unowned tomb, and now the tombstone no longer exists.
It was listed as a banned book by the Nazis
After the end of the Sino-Japanese War, the Western media became deeply interested in Chinese society and sent a large number of journalists to China, of which Goldman was one. During this trip, he made a special trip to investigate the economy, politics, military, justice, publishing, and religion of the Qing Empire.
In April 1898, he set sail from the port of Geniana in northern Italy on a mechanical ship using the German Prussia from the Mediterranean Sea to Singapore via the Egyptian port of Sade, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. After that, he landed in Chinese mainland from Hong Kong and penetrated deep into the hinterland of China via Guangzhou and Shanghai.
Throughout the summer, he visited the secretary of the Governor of Guangdong and the director of the Lijin Bureau, the mayor of Shanghai, and the local dignitaries of the two trade cities. He took a boat down the Yangtze River and stopped in Hankou, Wuchang, Zhenjiang and other cities, and had some understanding of the inside story of the competition between the great powers in China's railway construction. He inspected the German officer training camp in Wuchang, got to know Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, and recorded the whole process of German engineers and military instructors working in China.
Subsequently, he went to Qingdao, Weihai, and Zhifu (i.e., Yantai) in Jiaozhou Bay to visit Jiaozhou, which had just been incorporated into the German concession. Then, he continued north from Zhifu to Tianjin, where he visited and visited the Tianjin Wubei Academy. At this time, there was a change of law in Beijing, and he was trapped in Tianjin for many days. Only when martial law was lifted in Beijing was he able to enter beijing for an interview.
Goldman's luck was good, and he met many great figures in modern Chinese history on this trip. At Zhifu, he met Chen Jitong, a former Qing government diplomat in Europe, an important figure in modern history who had vigorously promoted Chinese culture in Europe. In Tianjin, he interviewed Rong Lu, the Qing government's army chief and governor directly under him. In Beijing, he visited Li Hongzhang, who had just left the wilderness.
On his return journey, Goldman sorted out his Chinese observations, and after the original book was published in Germany in 1899, a second edition was quickly released in 1900. In order to ensure the accuracy of the historical record, Goldman made some annotations based on subsequent developments in the republishment. Wu Weili bought the second edition, so readers can better understand the whole picture of the book.
Because the author opposed the Nazis, the book was once banned in Germany, and during the Nazi period, it was required to be destroyed, and not many books survived. Wu Weili wanted to republish this book with important historical value, so he immediately contacted the German copyright administration, and they quickly gave a written reply: the book has passed the 70-year lifting period and can apply for the right to reprint. Since the original book was in classical German, it was difficult for ordinary people to read, so Wu Weili commissioned professionals to spend a year converting classical German word by word into modern German, which was published in German-speaking countries in 2014. After several years, the Chinese translation of the book finally met with the Chinese people.
Love the bay of Zhifu alone
As a journalist, Goldman observes meticulously. He seized the hard-won opportunity to document China in every way. In a city of Beijing alone, he wrote 25,000 words.
He began to write from the train, to the imperial city, to the landscape of fields, graves, and plains, to the people living in the city, and to the imperial grandeur that was reflected all the time in the capital of the Qing Empire: "The other carriages of the train are stuffed with Chinese, and some people wear gorgeous robes embroidered with square patterns on their chests. All of them wore black winter hats with upright brims on their heads. Because a few weeks ago the Emperor issued an edict to change into winter clothes, so the entire empire, whatever the climate, from the far north to the tropical south, from the day the emperor liked, began to enter winter. Once the holy shang in Beijing found that the clean north wind was blowing through the tip of his noble nose, then his four hundred million subjects would also feel cold and need to hide in warm robes. Residents in the south, such as in the Guangdong area, even if they were still in summer, had to change into winter clothes because the emperor felt cold. When the summer begins, it will be determined in the same way, by the emperor's edict. ”
It is somewhat surprising that Goldman has visited so many cities, and seems to have a particularly good impression of Zhifu on the Shandong Peninsula. In his words: "In a bland and monotonous China, Zhifu is a very popular place. ”
In his writing, the scenery of Zhifu is not as open and free as qingdao, so all the buildings between the mountains and the sea are crowded together. But the crowd is not restrained or dull, because beyond the mountains is an endless ocean. In summer, the waters of Zhifu Bay appear blue from time to time, like the waters of Italy. In particular, the seashore opposite Zhifu has a mountain stop, forming a deep blue sea area. The village at the foot of the mountain seemed to him a lot like the Italian island of Capri.
Goldman loved the setting. "Generally speaking, the bay of Zhifu is very calm, and the sea surface looks smooth on weekdays, sometimes with a slight movement. The air here is extremely clean and the sun is shining. Whenever it is almost dusk, the western sky will have a beautiful color change, the clouds will all turn rose, and a sky blue will clearly shine out of the clouds, and the sunlight will appear brilliant golden yellow. Just where the sun was sinking, the water and the sky formed a bright light and shadow. The ships that sail on the sea stay in this golden yellow, like the magnificent landscape that the French painter Claude Laurent imagined in his paintings. ”
He also has an interest and research on the local wine industry. When Europeans came to Zhifu, they observed that the climate was suitable for growing grapes here, and tried to make wine locally. However, the vineyards built by the Europeans were eventually acquired by the Chinese Zhangyu Brewing Company.
Goldman has high expectations for Chinese domestic wines: "Chinese are very clear, the value of good quality grape juice is geometric, in the past few years, they have become accustomed to drinking sparkling wine, unconsciously become experts, European businessmen can not take secondary products to fool through." 」 They can tell the brand by taste and know exactly what the brand with the gold mark represents. Now they want to make their own wine. There was an excellent, gracious wine expert from Austria at the Zhangyu Brewing Company who studied winemaking techniques at the Neuinburg Monastery. At present, they have planted eight hectares of grapes, and the planting area is constantly expanding. Grapes thrive under the scorching Chinese sun, and in the near future we will be able to drink Chinese champagne. ”
In fact, Goldman is not the only one who loves Zhifu. At that time, almost all of China's treaty ports were at the mouth of the river, and only Zhifu was directly connected to the ocean, which is why in the hot summer, the local area can still feel a little fresh. As a result, Zhifu has become a recognized seaside resort at home and abroad. It was not until later that Beidaihe, which was closer to Beijing and Tianjin, appeared as a competitor.
Read history to Ming Zhi. After more than a hundred years, the book "Summer of 1898" can still bring us a lot of nutrition and surprises. China and the world are in a community of common destiny, which needs historical communication, cultural communication, the elimination of prejudice, and mutual respect. This is precisely the other value and significance of such a historical work published today.