Government Controlled Media in China
There are two Chinas, and I’m not talking about Taiwan. I’m talking about the Communist Party, the only legitimate political party in China, and its membership of seventy million compared to the rest of China, the other 1.3 billion Chinese that have little or no say in the daily decisions made by the government.
“Beijing Today”, with a reported circulation of fifty thousand, is the capital of China’s only English weekly newspaper and is published under the auspices of the Information Office of the Beijing Municipal Government and run by Beijing Youth Daily. The Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, with a reported circulation of six hundred thousand, is controlled by the Communist Youth League.
(sources: http://bjtoday.ynet.com/aboutus.jsp & http://www.danwei.org/media_business/beijing_youth_daily_on_the_cap.php)
It is no secret that the Communist government of China is notorious for altering historical facts to suit their purposes, and to censor others that disagree with the party-line.
In the multi-party democratic west, we call that censorship. In China it is an entirely different thing. It is saving face and maintaining dignity or increasing face by altering the facts a bit or a lot. It’s a case of a government making sure that the history books are all politically correct and paint only a positive, glowing image. Since losing face is embarrassing in China, don’t expect things to change soon. The Chinese have been like this for thousands of years.
The Chinese government is not in the business of telling the ‘real story’ to embarrass themselves. The Chinese doctor that reported the SARS epidemic now lives under house arrest, and it was debated if he should be executed or not. He lived.
My wife has said that in China when the government prints or says one thing, the rest of the people believe the opposite.
On June 9th, at the urgings of a friend that lived in China for four years, I submitted my novel, “My Splendid Concubine”, to “Beijing Today” for a possible book review. I did my research beforehand and knew this weekly paper was controlled by the government. I expected to be ignored/censored, since I was writing about a man that started China on the path to modernization more than a century ago.
The Communist government seldom gives credit to outsiders. Most contributions from outsiders are either ignored, censored or attempts made to discredit them. I didn’t expect an attempt to discredit my novel, but that’s what happened–a poor job at that.
When Sterling Seagrave wrote ‘Dragon Lady’, refuting many of the reported facts in Chinese history text books still studied in Chinese public school that vilified the Last Empress, he was denied entry into China when he attempted another trip using his American passport. Lucky him, he also had an Australian passport. He went anyway. I may not be so lucky next time I want to visit China. I only have one passport.
Robert Hart, the main character of my novel, arrived in China in 1854 to work as an interpreter for the British. The story is told from Hart’s point of view. When he left China in 1908, he was Inspector General of Chinese Maritime Customs and was named the guardian of the next Emperor to China. He worked for the Emperor for more than four decades. There is no argument that (as unknown as he is in most of the world today), he became the most powerful Westerner to ever have live in China and probably will retain that title for the next ten thousand years. He may not be a celebrity like the two individuals (Dashan and Cao Cao) mentioned in this review of my novel, but he was undeniably the most powerful and influential westerner during much of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth.
When I started writing “My Splendid Concubine”, my goal was to show how Hart became the man that left China in 1908 when he started out as just another interpreter for the British in 1854, the job he held his first few years in China before he went to work for the Emperor. Those are the years Concubine focuses on. Not the years he is best known for.
It is in the sequel, “Our Hart”, that we see his early years as Inspector General.
Little is known about Hart’s early years when he worked for the British, since he burned several of his journals that covered those years and gave orders to have the rest burned after he died. His wishes were not carried out and his diaries and letters (to our benefit) ended up at the University of Belfast. Harvard University scholars published some of Hart’s letters and journals in three volumes. I used those three books as the foundation of my nine years of research. I also used other sources.
To my surprise, “Beijing Today” published a review of “My Splendid Concubine”. After reading it, I was not surprised by the negative response to discredit the story. Since all six of my wife’s books have been banned in China because they do not follow the official Chinese, politically correct history, this review does not disappoint. As a matter of fact, it reinforces the reputation that the Communist Chinese have built over the decades since Mao became the modern emperor of China.
Beijing Today Book Review
My Splendid Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse
By Annie Wei
Robert Hart (1835-1911) is one of the few foreigners who achieved high status and power in China. He was inspector general of customs, and was involved in building the railroads, postal and telegraph systems and schools.
My Splendid Concubine (365pp, iUniverse Publisher’s Choice, US $21.95) written by Lloyd Lofthouse, is a fictional account of young Hart’s early years in China.
This book fabricates the details of how Hart became so absorbed: he wanted to learn everything Chinese, he dressed in Chinese clothes, he learned centuries of Chinese literature, talked with locals and attended Chinese opera.
What the real Hart is known for has little role in this story. Academic research has shown Hart played an important role in the relationship between China and the West.
This book is more about a young white guy’s adventure in China: facing culture shock, learning to deal with people around him. His life is surrounded by servants, friends and enemies who want to kill him over fighting for Ayaou, the young Chinese woman with whom Hart falls in Love. Poverty forces Ayaou’s father to sell her and her sister into poverty. Hart wants to free Ayaou but ends up buying her sister Shao-mei.
The most important part of the book is that “his feelings for the two sisters go against the teachings of his Christian upbringing and almost break him emotionally.” The story is also rife with sexual content, as the two young sisters beg for Hart’s love–probably little more than the author’s own fantasy and Asian fetish.
Although Hart was an important person who influenced modern history, today he is entirely without fame. The most famous foreigner in China would be Dashan, who owes much of his success to television, and Cao Cao, an actor from the US.
The writer, Lloyd Lofthouse, is a journalist and a veteran of the war in Vietnam. While he spent nine years preparing this book, numerous obvious flaws should leap out to any Chinese reader.
In the first chapter, when Hart is going to meet the Empress, a eunuch tells him, “You’ll have twenty minutes.” Watches were something very rare at that time, and the usages of hours or minutes would not have been popular, let alone with the conservative court.
In the later chapters, when Hart wants to learn Chinese medicine, a traditional doctor says he is a “hungry man,” phrasing which would never have been spoken verbally at that time.
_____
Annie Wei is correct when she says that I fabricated or fictionalized Hart’s early years in China. That’s why “My Splendid Concubine” is historical fiction, but what I wrote is based on extensive research into what we know about Hart. Here are a few passages from Robert Hart’s journals that I relied on. Some are notes from Harvard scholars and some are taken directly from Hart’s written words.
“We recognize it as the education of a generalist rather than a specialist, stressing command of language, self-discipline, the cult of an ideal mode of behavior suited to superior men. It was in a sense an education resembling that of a Chinese official; it was the base upon which he build the particular skills of his later career.” (page 7, Entering China’s Service, Robert Hart’s Journals, Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard)
“But anyone who reads the journals through knows that his mental struggles about women were not soon or lightly won; whether the relapse was to daydreams or to a Chinese mistress, it caused him ambivalence and anguish.” (page 8, Entering China’s Service)
“Bad company led me away from the path of duty; my punishment was not merely spiritual loss but bodily suffering…. I continue in sin… I come unto thee Lord, weary of sinning against Him–laden with a sinful nature and countless transgressions–and I pray for thy forgiveness for the sake of Jesus Christ.” (page 12 & 13, Entering China’s Service)
“Now some of the China women are very good looking: you can make one your absolute possession for from 50 to 100 dollars and support her at a cost of 2 or 3 dollars per month…. Then our lonely state here makes us wish very strongly for Female society…. I too often think of love and its pleasure… It is sinful to think of forbidden pleasures–to cherish such thoughts and yet fear to carry them into execution makes a person very unhappy, quite miserable in fact: So if I think to continue in the habit of such imaginings, I might as well carry them into execution.” (page 71, Entering China’s Service)
“However, as I really do feel lonely–terribly lonely–sometimes, I should be most happy to associate with almost anyone who speaks English, especially with one of the ‘softer sex’.” (page 74, Entering China’s Service)
“We may also infer that experience with Ayaou anchors him permanently in China, where so important a part of his maturation has occurred. He remains indubitably a foreigner, playing his foreign role in China, yet increasingly he is China-oriented…. The Robert Hart whom we meet almost three years later in the next remaining installment of his journal is a different person–self-confident, clear as to his own interest, and easily in touch with the Chinese he is dealing with…. Hart’s years of liaison with Ayaou (roughly 1857-1865) gave him his fill of romance, including both its satisfaction and its limitations.” (page 154, Entering China’s Service)
“By early May he had a sleep-in dictionary, his concubine, Ayaou. He had just turned twenty; Ayaou was barely past puberty but was wise beyond her years.” (page 150, Dragon Lady by Sterling Seagrave)
Annie Wey wrote, “The story is also rife with sexual content, as the two young sisters beg for Hart’s love–probably little more than the author’s own fantasy and Asian fetish.”
After reading the passages from “Entering China’s Service”, I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide if it is my fantasy or fetish or Robert Hart’s. Passages like the few examples I have included here from Hart’s journals and the conclusions of Harvard scholars influenced my plot decisions while writing “My Splendid Concubine”–not fantasies or fetishes. “My Splendid Concubine” went through many revisions since I started writing it in 1999.
Annie Wei goes on to point out numerous obvious flaws that should leap out to any Chinese reader. She claims that watches were something very rare at that time and the usages of hours or minutes would not have been popular, let alone with the conservative court.
If Ms. Wei is correct, how does she explain this from “Splendors of China’s Forbidden City” by Chuimei Ho and Bennet Bronson, Publisher: Merrell, London – New York, the Field Museum (ISBN 1-85894-258-6)
Page 215
“Spring-operated clock in the shape of a pavilion, 1775. Between thirty and forty Williamson clocks and watches came into the Imperial collection through Guangdong, making them the most numerous of the many European time pieces owned by the palace. Emperor Qianlong likes such designs, ordering local clock-makers to prepare copies for him.”
At the end of the review, Ms Wei points out that “In the later chapters, when Hart wants to learn Chinese medicine, a traditional doctor says he is a ‘hungry man,’ phrasing which would never have been spoken verbally at the time.”
When this scene took place, Robert was not talking to a traditional Chinese doctor. Robert asked his bilingual, Mandarin and English speaking Chinese teacher to tell him about Chinese medicine. Hart wants to understand how it differs from western medicine. Robert is always asking for more than just a language lesson and the teacher that is not a doctor responds by telling Robert he is a ‘hungry man’ meaning a man that never wants to stop learning. The teacher goes on to tell Robert that medicine is not his area of study and recommends other sources for Robert to study on his own.
This same teacher in another conversation expresses fascination with Western culture and expresses a desire to visit England and Europe one day. By the time the teacher says Robert is a ‘hungry man’, the two men have become friends. Eventually, in the sequel, Robert and Ayaou attend this teacher’s traditional Chinese wedding–a scene I borrowed from Hart’s journals.
Ms. Wei also mentioned that Hart wore Chinese clothing. If you have read the novel, you know that he only wears the Chinese clothing at home. He dresses in traditional English garb everywhere else.
I wonder what motivated Annie Wei to write this negative review full of errors and flaws. Even though she was wrong in her judgment that I wrote this book from fantasy and Asian fetishes, she has a right to her opinions. I only wish she had done a better job finding flaws in my novel. I’m sure they are there since it is historical fiction. After all, I had to ‘fabricate’ many of the details based on my nine years of research.
I question how much research Annie Wei did on Robert Hart and nineteenth century China outside of politically correct, Communist approved textbooks.
In “Around the Block” a memoir by Stephanie Elizondo Griest (she worked for one of the English language Communist Party publications in China at one time while she lived there), the Chinese people she worked with were proud of their self-censorship (doing what it takes to save face–my words, not Stephanie’s).
