NO DOGS AND NOT MANY CHINESE Treaty Port Life in China 1843-1943 FRANCES WOOD JOHN MURRAY: LONDON 1998 First edition. 'I set no value on objects strange and ingenious and have no use for your manufactures.' Thus in 1793 the Emperor rebuffed the first formal British mission to attempt to open China to foreign trade. Convinced that in the interior there lay a huge market for their goods, British merchants persisted, initially by diplomacy and then by force. As a result the first treaty ports in China were opened in 1843. Here for nearly a century, foreign traders ruled their own settlements, administered their own laws, controlled their own police forces and ran the customs service. One of the first treaty ports was Shanghai, soon a byword for both luxury and squalor. Later came tiny enclaves along the Yangtze, cities like Chungking, and sub-tropical towns like Pakhoi. Despite typhoons, disease, banditry and riots, merchant and missionary families in the treaty ports led as far as possible a foreign life. There were steeplechases on 'China ponies' and shooting parties on Shanghai's mudflats; Chinese cooks learnt to make Christmas pudding and Chinese tailors copied Paris fashions overnight. Many visitors were drawn to the treaty ports, among them Noel Coward and Wallis Simpson, Arthur Ransome and W.H.Auden, Peter Fleming and Robert Fortune. A few stayed on: Harold Acton, Osbert Sitwell and Robert Byron made a temporary home amongst Peking's diplomats. Still others sought in the treaty ports a refuge from bankruptcy, persecution or prison. In 1943 the treaty ports were returned to China and most of their inhabitants interned by the Japanese. Yet the record of their residency remains in Shanghai's solid office buildings, in Tientsin's mock Tudor facades, and in the Edwardian villas of Peitaiho and Amoy. The last inhabitants of the treaty ports are also still alive: through their reminiscences and the accounts of their predecessors Frances Wood recalls a foreign life lived in a foreign land. 24 x 16 cm. xiii + 368 pp + b/w photo plates.

NO DOGS AND NOT MANY CHINESE
Treaty Port Life in China 1843-1943

FRANCES WOOD

JOHN MURRAY: LONDON
1998

First edition.
'I set no value on objects strange and ingenious and have no use for your manufactures.' Thus in 1793 the Emperor rebuffed the first formal British mission to attempt to open China to foreign trade. Convinced that in the interior there lay a huge market for their goods, British merchants persisted, initially by diplomacy and then by force. As a result the first treaty ports in China were opened in 1843.

Here for nearly a century, foreign traders ruled their own settlements, administered their own laws, controlled their own police forces and ran the customs service. One of the first treaty ports was Shanghai, soon a byword for both luxury and squalor. Later came tiny enclaves along the Yangtze, cities like Chungking, and sub-tropical towns like Pakhoi.

Despite typhoons, disease, banditry and riots, merchant and missionary families in the treaty ports led as far as possible a foreign life. There were steeplechases on 'China ponies' and shooting parties on Shanghai's mudflats; Chinese cooks learnt to make Christmas pudding and Chinese tailors copied Paris fashions overnight.

Many visitors were drawn to the treaty ports, among them Noel Coward and Wallis Simpson, Arthur Ransome and W.H.Auden, Peter Fleming and Robert Fortune. A few stayed on: Harold Acton, Osbert Sitwell and Robert Byron made a temporary home amongst Peking's diplomats. Still others sought in the treaty ports a refuge from bankruptcy, persecution or prison.

In 1943 the treaty ports were returned to China and most of their inhabitants interned by the Japanese. Yet the record of their residency remains in Shanghai's solid office buildings, in Tientsin's mock Tudor facades, and in the Edwardian villas of Peitaiho and Amoy. The last inhabitants of the treaty ports are also still alive: through their reminiscences and the accounts of their predecessors Frances Wood recalls a foreign life lived in a foreign land.

24 x 16 cm. xiii + 368 pp + b/w photo plates.

Very good + condition. Pages slightly age toned but otherwise like new.





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