Chinese Characteristics (1890), by Arthur Smith.

Some excerpts from arguably the most influential book ever written in English about China. 🧵 Arthur Henderson Smith, a veteran of the US Civil War, moved to China as a missionary in 1872. After studying Chinese in Tianjin, he lived in Shandong, and in 1900 he survived the siege of the foreign legations in Beijing. By then, his first book was already hugely popular.

The decline of honour (aka ‘face’) in the West can be linked to the loss of SHAME and the rise of GUILT. To illustrate this, it’s worth looking at how the English behaved (or wanted to) in the 15th century - in Thomas Malory’s Chronicles of King Arthur. 1/7 Keep in mind, as Joseph Henrich puts it in The Weirdest People in the World (2020, pp. 22 & 34), ‘in most non-WEIRD societies, shame – not guilt – dominates people’s lives.’ The ‘public nature of [one’s] failure is crucial: if there’s no public knowledge, there’s no shame…’ 2/7

Travelling party (1908). Possibly working for British plant collector E.H. Wilson, near Kangding in Sichuan (Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library, Harvard University): digitalcollections.library.harvard.edu/catalog/W28799… Mao County (Mao xian 茂县, then Mao zhou 茂州, north of Chengdu), photographed by Wilson in August 1910. digitalcollections.library.harvard.edu/catalog/W29368…

New profile pic (plus out-takes). This one is called 'Productive Morning: Would I Lie to You?' This one: 'Oh I was listening alright. Carry on, please.'

Axial morality emerges when societies have passed a certain threshold in scale & structure, when ‘they must adopt more prosocial and egalitarian moral principles if they are to survive’. @SeshatDatabank on the rise, fall & rise of morality. 1/11 Moral intuitions are evolved adaptations to collective action problems. In small-scale societies, ‘innate moral predispositions might be sufficient to sustain many forms of cooperation, [but] they became less effective in larger-scale and more complex societies’. 2/11

In April 1587, a small fleet of galleons arrived at Manila. On board were 300 heavily armed conquistadores, the first of thousands expected from the New World. Spain, after a century of expansion, was preparing to launch its most daring campaign yet: the conquest of China. 🧵 After crossing the Atlantic in search of Asia, the Spanish had devastated the Americas. In 1521, just 500 men – led by Hernán Cortés – had seized Mexico. With superior weaponry & disease resistance (plus an army of local allies), they had crushed the Aztecs with ease. 2/

The Cultural Revolution.

In 1966, Mao Zedong – whose policies had already cost tens of millions of lives – resumed his crusade for a communist utopia by launching the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The following is from ‘China: A Century of Revolution.’ [1/22] Few dared blame Chairman Mao for the disaster he had caused. Still, in the early 1960s, he withdrew from frontline politics. [2/22]

https://twitter.com/evohopp/status/1406985341781827585

Sun Yat-sen & the Republic of China. In this clip we see Dr Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan 孙中山, the first provisional president of China) making a speech. It comes from the US documentary ‘China: A Century of Revolution.’ [1/4] ‘In May 1919 [the ‘May Fourth Movement’] Chinese took to the streets… They saw that the problems of imperialism & warlords had pushed China to the verge of collapse… One of the few political leaders addressing these problems was Sun Yat-sen.’ [2/4]

Taiwan in 1959. This (original colour) footage comes from the American film Taiwan: The Face of Free China. It was shot shortly after the CCP had attacked Taiwanese Kinmen and the Matsu Islands (and launched its disastrous Great Leap Forward). [1/7] Industry: ‘A flood tide of thousands of refugees from the mainland pours over the island in the hope of finding work… This mushrooming of industrialization has raised the Formosan standard of living to a place [in Asia] 2nd only to that of Japan.’ [2/7]

The English Inn (1940s). ‘Flanked by the church, the rectory and the people’s homes, stands the Inn. In its shade and beneath its roof, men of all degrees and of all opinions meet in comradeship and comfort.’ [1/3] ‘Side by side with the monastic inns grew the royal inns, which were used by the king’s servants when travelling in the Middle Ages… these, too, in time became commercial inns under such ancient signs as The Crown.’ [2/3]

Choosing China.

At the end of the Korean War (1950-3), prisoners on both sides were given the chance to return home; twenty-one Americans, and one Briton, refused. The following clips come (mostly) from the documentary They Chose China (2006). [1/12] ‘We got into a kind of a firefight, and I got hit, and when I woke up I was in a Chinese field hospital… The first words I heard were from the doctor, who said: “We are friends, we’re not going to hurt you.”’ [2/12]

Tikal & the Star Wars.

In 378 AD, warriors from the city of Uaxactún took to the field to fight their southern rivals, Tikal. They were surprised to find their opponents wearing strange foreign clothes and carrying new weapons. What happened next shook the Mayan world. [1/12] The civilization of the Maya came to the world’s attention in the 1840s, when J. L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood wrote of their travels in Central America. How the Maya had lived, however, remained a mystery, as their script could not be read. [2/12]

https://twitter.com/evohopp/status/1413818714860949509

In 1836, British artist Frederick Catherwood met American travel-writer John Lloyd Stephens in London. They had read about some mysterious ruins discovered recently in Central America, so, in 1839, they set off on an expedition. [1/6] This is perhaps the only picture we have of Catherwood (left, Stevens right). He died in 1854 when the steamer he was on collided with a French ship in the north Atlantic. He didn’t even appear on the casualty list (until friends and family kicked up a fuss). [2/6]

Cambodia, 1979.

Between 1975 & 1979, the Khmer Rouge – inspired by communist China – killed roughly 2 million (25%) of their own people. After Vietnam invaded, a TV crew found their way in: they passed booby traps laid to stop Cambodians from escaping. [1/5] ‘There were many terrible killings in my village. They executed ordinary people, soldiers, they even killed the chief communist official in my district.’ New officials came, and ‘everything was quiet. Then the massacres started again.’ [2/5]

Teacher's Pets.

Employees of the Imperial Maritime Customs, a British-dominated (but thoroughly cosmopolitan) branch of the Chinese government, pose with their teacher (Beijing, 1905). A look at how the imperialists got schooled… [1/8] American Willard Straight (right) spent 6 months at the IMC’s Nanjing college in 1902: ‘Early in the morning the boy comes in with tea,' then the teacher arrives and ‘shakes hands with himself… wreathed in smiles.’ (Historical Photographs of China, Univ. of Bristol) [2/8]

The Great Famine.

Between 1959 & 1961, as a result of the CCP's policies, an estimated 30 to 55 million people starved to death in China. It was the worst famine in recorded history. The following clips come from the US documentary ‘China: A Century of Revolution’. [1/15] The Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, came to power in 1949 after defeating the Nationalists. They had a ‘vision of momentous change… to transform the lives of one quarter of mankind and create a strong and modern industrial China.’ [2/15]

The Faithful Dog (A tale from the Six Dynasties)

During the fourth century, a man named Yang had a dog to which he was very much attached. He took it wherever he went. Once he fell into a drunken sleep in the marshland just when men came to burn the reeds… [1/5] The dog took fright and howled, but Yang was too drunk to realize his danger. As there was a pool nearby, the dog plunged in, coming back to sprinkle water on the grass all around. It did this several times, in a circle, so when the fire reached them, they were not burned. [2/5]

British & French forces assemble at Hong Kong in 1860, ready for their assault on Beijing.

Open it, zoom in... take a moment to think about what you're seeing: 11,000 British troops & 6,700 French, on 173 ships, about to open China by force. [1/5] It was the conclusion of the ‘Arrow War’ (1856-60), which led to the legalization of missionary work in the interior and the opening of new ports & foreign legations in the capital. Here is one of the captured Dagu forts 大沽炮台, at the mouth of the Hai river 海河 [2/5]

Remembering Tiananmen.

On 4th June 1989, hundreds - possibly thousands - of students and workers were killed by the People's Liberation Army in Beijing. The following clips come from the US documentary 'China: A Century of Revolution.' [1/20] Autumn, 1978: ‘debate [about the disastrous Cultural Revolution] spilled on to the street, to an area in Western Beijing that became known as Democracy Wall. people came and pasted up writings, articles & poems; they wanted to express their anger and sorrow’ [2/20]

Faces of Guangyuan. Here are some (previously unseen) photographs from late-nineteenth century Sichuan, China. They come from the unpublished journals of missionary Florence Beauchamp, and I’ll add some more when I can. [1/?] [2/?] Florence and Montagu Beauchamp were missionaries for the (Protestant) China Inland Mission. The story of how they got there is pretty special, but you may need to wait for my forthcoming book to see what I mean! For now, there’s this:

https://twitter.com/evohopp/status/1344139297352527872

Christ on the Yangzi. Here are some seasonal extracts from the (unpublished) journals of Florence Beauchamp, an English missionary based in north Sichuan in the 1890s. Merry Christmas! [1/14] Florence and her husband Montagu worked for the China Inland Mission. They dressed in Chinese clothes, but were religious (Protestant) fundamentalists, and her diaries document their struggles with Satan for the souls of Sichuan [2/14]