Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse

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Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse

Postby cptmarginal » Fri Dec 26, 2014 10:34 pm

Found out about this here:

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"The last empress of China--Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (1835-1908)--is remembered as one of history's monsters, an iron-willed concubine who, after usurping power in 1861, ruled from the Dragon Throne for half a century. Her reign, in the aftermath of the Opium Wars and through the Boxer Rebellion until the collapse of the 2,000-year-old empire, has traditionally been seen as one of murder, poison, and intrigue. But the wicked image is false." "In 1974, to the dismay of scholars, Sir Edmund Backhouse--the biographer most responsible for the widespread vision of Tzu Hsi as monster--was revealed to be a con man. And now the author of the celebrated best-seller The Soong Dynasty has undertaken the first complete reappraisal of the empress--exposing Backhouse's writings about her as a major hoax and forgery, and establishing that the most important Western correspondent in Peking during her reign--Dr. George Morrison of the London Times--kept a secret diary contradicting his own dispatches about Tzu Hsi." "Drawing on many unpublished or long-overlooked contemporary sources, Sterling Seagrave shows us Tzu Hsi as a complex woman whose desperate--though often misguided--efforts to hold her country together take on a different coloration in the context of unrelenting foreign attempts to colonize and tear it apart. Far from being all-powerful, she was actually a hostage of vengeful Manchu princes who were using her in a power struggle against both Chinese reformers and foreign interference." "Here at last is an authentic portrait of this fascinating historical figure, as well as insight into the Western craving to believe in a sinister, dragon-haunted Orient. Dragon Lady is at once a compelling biography and the equally compelling story of how a myth was contrived, how it endured, and how, ultimately, the truth has emerged."--BOOK JACKET


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/books ... wanted=all

“Would anyone believe a Chinese guy who said he went to England and had sex with Queen Victoria?”

Memoir (or Is It?) of Sex and Opium

By JOYCE HOR-CHUNG LAU
Published: March 30, 2011

HONG KONG — There are things we know about Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet, of England: He was one of few Europeans to live among the Chinese in the early 20th century, and his writings greatly influenced the way the West saw Peking. Then there are fuzzier facts, like his claim that he had affairs with both Oscar Wilde and the Empress Dowager Cixi.

At the peak of his career, Backhouse was a respected expert in the field of Orientalism. He worked for The Times of London as a researcher and translator, and his books on China were best sellers. Two works he wrote with the British journalist J.O.P. Bland, “Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking” (1914) and “China Under the Empress Dowager” (1910), shaped 20th-century views of the empress. But some of his sources and claims have since been proved fraudulent (he was roundly criticized after it was discovered that a diary he quoted turned out be a forgery), and historians are divided on the significance of his contribution to Western understanding of Chinese life — and whether it is significant at all.

Next week, two Hong Kong companies will release English and Chinese versions of a previously unpublished manuscript by Backhouse that purports to be a memoir. The sexually explicit “Décadence Mandchoue,” written in 1943, when Backhouse was 70 and dying, recounts his time as a young man as he explored Peking’s gay haunts and what he described as wanton practices within the Imperial Court.

Set largely from 1898 to 1908, the book starts in the ironically named House of Chaste Pleasures, where princes and other high-ranked officials buy the services of young men.

The memoir will primarily be distributed in Hong Kong, with a limited number of copies also available in the United States and Europe, but not widely in mainland China. Beijing has not explicitly banned the book, but the publishers are reluctant to do battle with censors.

Bao Pu, the head of New Century Press, which is publishing the Chinese translation, said there had been an attempt to contact mainland publishers.

“They were all fascinated, but they would have to cut out of the sex parts, and that’s a third of the book,” he said.

Backhouse (who claimed his name was pronounced “Bacchus”), however, is a footnote in history. The real figure of historical interest in “Décadence” is the Empress Dowager Cixi, the de facto ruler of the Middle Kingdom for 47 years.

According to Backhouse, he met the aging empress after he helped restore looted works to her palace. He was then called in for a private audience, during which the empress complained about the barbaric behaviors of foreign diplomats.

While there is documentation linking Backhouse to political life in Beijing, it is not known whether he actually returned treasure or had this conversation.

What seems really far-fetched is an alleged affair that began when Backhouse — or the Backhouse-like character in this book — was washed and perfumed by eunuchs and called up to the 69-year-old Empress’s bedchambers to perform like a slave girl in a harem. According to his manuscript, the liaison lasted until the Empress’s death in 1908 at the age of 73.

“Décadence Mandchoe” was written several months before Backhouse died. His Swiss physician, Reinhard Hoeppli, commissioned the memoir, but then never published it.

The manuscript was eventually passed to the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who also chose not to publish. Instead, Trevor-Roper wrote his own biography, “Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse” (1976), which cast Backhouse as a fraud and which has, until now, been the last word on him.

Backhouse’s original texts from 1943 gathered dust on a shelf at the Bodleian library in Oxford until Derek Sandhaus, the chief editor of Earnshaw Books, which is producing the English-language edition of “Décadence,” found them while researching another book.

“There are two reasons the manuscript was never published,” Mr. Bao of New Century Press said. “The first is that Trevor-Roper destroyed his reputation. The second is because of the greasy paragraphs about sex.”

Trevor-Roper had called Backhouse’s memoirs “worthless historic documents,” as well as snobbish and pornographic.

In the first paragraph, Backhouse manages to drop in Shakespeare, Wilde and Verlaine. He is a writer who will never say “rickshaw” if “charrette chinoise” will do. The famously multilingual author uses a mish-mash of French, Latin and Chinese, rendering a few parts hard to read, even if one has a background in those languages.

As for its historical merit, even the new publishers admit that the book may not be entirely true. Instead, they say, its value comes in its details of that era.

“These descriptions are historically significant because these accounts are not found in other sources,” Mr. Sandhaus said. “While there may be some inconsistencies, it is fundamentally based on fact. Even if he didn’t experience everything personally, this book may have been a way for him to relay things he had heard.”

“No Chinese living then paid much attention to, or bothered to document, the details of daily life — certainly not like an outsider living among them,” Mr. Bao added. “On the other hand, no Westerner lived quite in Backhouse’s situation.”

Bret Hinsch, a history professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan and the author of “Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China,” added that documents about gay life in that period were scarce.

“Compared to Japan, where there are hundreds of books documenting homosexuality at this time, there’s very little such material from China,” he said. “Writing personally about sex was seen as improper, even shameful, especially if one was describing an emotional dependence with the socially inferior, which is what these relationships were between rich patrons and the young opera singers who worked at these places.”

Ultimately, “Décadence” does not clear up confusion over whether anything Backhouse wrote was believable.

“It’s not an easy book to classify,” Mr. Sandhaus admitted. “Is it autobiography, fiction or non-fiction?”

The same question could be asked of most of Backhouse’s work. When he was writing, there was little information about China available in the West. Backhouse, who was fluent in Mandarin, Manchurian, Mongolian and Japanese, had a certain amount of clout — and it was almost impossible for his readers to verify his claims.

The critical modern reader would probably see “Décadence” as a fictionized memoir, with accurate details drawn from real life, but an outrageous plot. Backhouse knew full well European stereotypes of China — as an exotic, and erotic, fantasy world of empresses and opium smoke — and he gave his readers exactly what they wanted.

“Why were Westerners so willing to believe these outrageous stories?” Mr. Hinsch said. “Would anyone believe a Chinese guy who said he went to England and had sex with Queen Victoria?”


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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby semper occultus » Sat Dec 27, 2014 2:06 pm

.....interesting case....as is that of the rather reminiscent though more reputable Joseph Needham...who enlisted as an assistant Robert Temple of Sirius Mystery fame....

....since very few people can ever master Chinese then individual "experts" can exert an (over) powerful mediating influence over the source material...
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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby cptmarginal » Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:58 am

Didn't really know about Needham until now, interesting character.

I've recently been wondering recently about George H.W. Bush's role as special envoy to China, leading up to the political break with Taiwan (which subsequently became the main organizing hub and training base for the World Anti-Communist League cadres)

Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor, appointed Bush to be Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. Since the United States at the time maintained official relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China, the Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador", though he unofficially acted as one.


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Anyway, these pieces of info about Joseph Needham somewhat pique my curiosity:

Under the Royal Society's direction, Needham was the director of the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office in Chongqing from 1942 to 1946. During this time he made several long journeys through war-torn China and many smaller ones, visiting scientific and educational establishments and obtaining for them much needed supplies. His longest trip ended in far west in Xinjiang at the caves in Dunhuang at the end of the Great Wall where the first printed copy of the Diamond Sutra was found.


http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... 39512e65a3

Early in 1942 Needham and E.R. Doods, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, were invited to visit China under the auspices of the British Council. They arrived in the autumn of 1942, Needham travelling via the USA. In China Needham was made Head of the British Scientific Mission and later Scientific Counsellor to H.B.M. Embassy at Chungking (then the 'acting-capital' of China). Under the auspices of the British Council Needham established the Sino-British Science Cooperation Office (SBSCO) and became its first Director. The SBSCO was responsible for assessing the needs of Chinese scientific, technological and medical institutions and researchers, and facilitating the supply of equipment, medicines, books and journals to China. Needham made several journeys through China, visiting many institutions to assess for himself the needs of Chinese research and teaching centres. He also gave many lectures on a variety of subjects from biochemistry to world politics. He was later joined by his wife Dorothy who was appointed Associate Director of the SBSCO.


In a letter of 22 January 1946 (C.32) to A.C. Chibnall Needham set out the logistical achievements of the SBSCO:


'...with 17 scientists (5 British, 12 Chinese), not all present at one time... we visited 300 laboratories, covering over 25,000 km journeys; we flew in by RAF over the hump [£]60,000 worth some tons of scientific equipment for Chinese scientists; we flew in some 7,000 scientific and technical books worth many millions of Chinese $, and microfilm and actual copies of 200 leading British scientific journals. We sent 150 original MSS by Chinese authors to the west for publication, and 200 Chinese scientific journals. Exchanges of information were innumerable'.


In addition to his role as Director of the SBSCO, the Chinese Government appointed Needham adviser to the National Resources Commission, the Chinese Airforce Research Bureau and the Chinese Army Medical Administration. He was also warmly received by the Chinese scientific community and elected to a number of academies including the Academia Sinica and Peiping National Academy. Needham left China in February 1946. In October 1947 Chiang Kai-Shek awarded Needham the Order of the Brilliant Star with Cravat in recognition of his work in promoting good relations between Britain and China. It was presented to Needham by the Chinese Ambassador to Britain in July 1949.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_fo ... erstanding

The Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) is an organisation established in 1965 to promote understanding and friendship between British and Chinese people. The organisation has no political affiliation and is open to all who are interested in China and its peoples. It is a registered charity and currently operates with branches in different parts of the country. In the 1970s SACU offered a rare point of contact with the PRC authorities: it provided information at a time when there were few other sources available and was one of the few organisations that could arrange visits. The organisation's first chairman and president was the much esteemed scientist and sinologist, Joseph Needham, FRS, Fellow and President of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

[...]

The historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, a prominent founder member, resigned in June 1966 after he was criticised by members for launching an attack on the Cultural Revolution in The Sunday Times headlined ‘The sick mind of China’.[10]


So the author of Hermit of Peking was a member...
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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby semper occultus » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:55 am

...there's a whole cast of these extraordinary characters populating the history books or their footnotes......Sir Richard Burton was an original, TE Lawrence ofcourse.....expert on Templar fortifications becoming suffused with Arab Nationalism.....

.....a mind boggling specimen is St John Philby who became a Wahhabi, amongst a few other things aswell as father of the notorious Kim...
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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby semper occultus » Fri Jan 02, 2015 2:55 pm

.....just seen this in one of those "best of 2014" things they fill up the papers with at Xmas....concerning another odd character....

Ivor Montagu

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The son of the second Lord Swaythling, a well-known banker, Ivor Montagu was born on 24th April 1904. Educated at Westminster, the Royal College of Science, and Kings College, Cambridge, his special interest was zoology.


‘Ping-pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World’ by Nicholas Griffin

www.washingtonpost.com

Today many people use the phrase “Nixon to China” without fully understanding its origins. Griffin, a British-born journalist and novelist, fills in those blanks with an absorbing tale that really begins decades before Cowan boarded that bus. One key figure was a British banker named Ivor Montagu, a devoted communist who codified the rules of Ping-Pong in the 1920s and created the International Table Tennis Federation. He was “convinced that the sport could spread communism throughout the word,” because the toiling masses could play it during the workday. Griffin points out that the “balls were so light they flew best in windowless rooms,” making Ping-Pong a sport that could be played without ever leaving the factory.

The game was brought to Japan in 1902 by a university student who had learned to play in England. It eventually spread to China, where revolutionary leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai would often play against each other during their long years of political exile.

After the communists seized power in 1949, Montagu decided that table tennis could help reconnect China to the rest of the world. In 1951, 20 years before Beijing claimed China’s seat at the United Nations, Montagu invited the communist regime to join his international federation and enter the world championships. His strategy, Griffin writes, was that this simple and “faintly ridiculous” sport could provide a “human face to give Beijing the appearance of warmth no matter how cold or calculating the Chinese government intended to be.” After a Chinese player won the world championship in 1959, Mao congratulated him personally and called Ping-Pong China’s new “spiritual nuclear weapon.”
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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:13 am

That's extremely interesting to me actually, for reasons that don't have much to do with politics. I've been fascinated by competition ping pong in China for a while. Ever since seeing this movie as a teenager:

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When a Silicon Valley Chinese American executive goes back to his homeland of China for the first time in 30 years, he and his family encounter many culture clashes between the lives that they lead in the United States and the lives of their relatives in China. The finale of the movie includes an exciting table tennis match involving the Chinese-American son played by Kelvin Han Yee.


But I, uh, digress. I think. That Ivor Montagu bio you linked to is a good read.

The British Film Institute has the following about Montagu:

“In 1939, Ivor Montagu made Peace and Plenty for the British Communist Party. It opens with a series of statistics and charts showing that, despite the election promises the Tories made in 1935, Neville Chamberlain's government had made no improvements to nutrition, housing, education, agriculture or industry. It is almost like an item from Newsnight, but such reporting would not have been found in the newsreels of that time.

After highlighting the links between various ministers and big business, the film becomes an attack on Chamberlain and his colleagues, their indifference towards social services and their mistakes in foreign policy. It was considered "one of the most bitter and ironical documentary films ever produced in this country". Critics noted the "deplorable and revolting" scenes (rat runs in tenement blocks, slum-dwellers' insanitary domestic arrangements), which were contrasted with portraits of the cabinet ministers responsible for housing and health. A dancing puppet (pre-empting satirical programmes such as Spitting Image) is used to depict Chamberlain, implying that he was acting on behalf of vested interests. Meanwhile, Montague shows us children in playgrounds, their legs crippled by rickets (seven out of eight children of working-class parents had rickets) and their mouths containing only stumpy gums (20 out of 21 children had rotten teeth).

After a screening at the House of Commons, Montague recalled: "The place was absolutely packed . . . Afterwards, it was very entertaining to hear the MPs as they went away saying to one another, 'Now that's the thing we ought to have for our Party.' They didn't seem to realise that the content had something to do with the force of the film, and not every party could make such a bitter, acid film."


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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:19 am

semper occultus » Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:55 am wrote:...there's a whole cast of these extraordinary characters populating the history books or their footnotes......Sir Richard Burton was an original, TE Lawrence ofcourse.....expert on Templar fortifications becoming suffused with Arab Nationalism.....

.....a mind boggling specimen is St John Philby who became a Wahhabi, amongst a few other things aswell as father of the notorious Kim...


Just tracing back Joseph Needham's teachers leads to interesting places:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Needham

He then pursued, and mastered, the study of Classical Chinese privately with Gustav Haloun.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Haloun

Gustav Haloun (January 12, 1898, Brtnice, Moravia, Austria-Hungary — December 24, 1951, Cambridge, England) was a Czech sinologist. He studied in Vienna under Arthur von Rosthorn and in Leipzig under August Conrady[1] from where he received his Dr. phil. in 1923.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Conrady

August Conrady (Chi. 孔好古)[1] (1864, Wiesbaden - 1925, Leipzig) was a German sinologist and linguist. From 1897 he was professor at the University of Leipzig.

Conrady first studied classical philology, comparative linguistics and Sanskrit; he continued with Tibetan and Chinese language. He put forward his research findings in 1896 on the relationship between the prefix and tones in the Sino-Tibetan languages, in the work Eine Indo-Chinesische causative-Denominativ-Bildung und ihr Zusammenhang mit den Tonaccenten (1896).

He became extraordinary professor of sinology in Leipzig in 1896, that had among its students as future sinologist leaders Gustav Haloun, Otto Maenchen-Helfen, Lin Yutang, Bruno Schindler and his nephew and successor in Leipzig, Eduard Erkes. In 1916 he put forward the theory of an original relationship between Austric and Sino-Tibetan languages. He became a full professor of Sinology in 1920. Materials from the Danish orientalist Kurt Wulff concluded partially in Conrady's development of the theory, and Wulff continued Conrady's work in this field.
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Re: Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhous

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:21 am

When I check out Dragon Lady again from the local library, I will transcribe the excellent early chapter about Backhouse. It's pretty good...
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