EXTREMELY RARE, WWI-ERA CHINESE TRAVEL GUIDE BY WHITE PUBLISHER IN HONG KONG & SINGAPORE, “TEACHING CHINESE TO HATE THE GERMANS…”

PLAN TO SPEND A WEEK IN CANTON, CHINA. THE CITY OF RAMS. THE CITY OF THE FIVE GENII. KWONG-CHOW-SHI. Called locally Shaang-sheng. First Walled, A.D. 1067. Published for Board of Co-Operation of Missionary Conference by J. R. Flynn Anderson, Hong Kong and Singapore, [c.1918]. Original cardstock covers (5.5 x 3.25 inches), [22] pages (including covers), stapled, illustrated. This fascinating WWI-era Canton, China travel guide was published before foreign tourists were common in China. It details the streets, churches, businesses, missionaries, schools, tourist attractions, hotels, transportation, “unique industries,” and includes wonderful advertisements. It also includes a statement from the Hong Kong War Publicity Office, stating (in part): “... one object of the book is to convey in simple words to as many Chinese as possible the truth about what the Germans have actually and indisputably done. There is no question of teaching the Chinese to hate the Germans, it is purely a question of spreading facts… [about] these unthinkable horrors… S. B. C. Ross, Hon. Sec, Hongkong War Publicity Department.”

Fine condition, with the covers and text crisp and clean.

EXTREMELY RARE– unrecorded by OCLC; absent from the trade, and auction records.

The publisher, Mr. J. R. Flynn Anderson, was a “veteran newspaper man, with 20 years experience.” He had offices in Singapore and Hong Kong. Anderson was a globetrotting marketer who once served as an army chaplain in Africa during the Boer War and then made some money conducting lectures in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and India about his Zulu campaign experience. He started the first English newspaper in Cebu, Philippines – ‘The Cebu Chronicle.’ One of his first projects in Cebu was to publish a directory of its 400 foreign residents, which was a precursor of the Dollar Directory idea.

After 7 years in the Philippines he moved to Hong Kong where he compiled and published the Dollar Directory, containing information about everything and everyone you needed to know in the colony. It was an instant success and prompted him to launch a Singapore edition in 1918 where he also established the first advertising agency in Malaya. Sadly he was overworked and died of a heart attack in Singapore in 1919 [the year after this guide was published].

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