Carl Crow (1884–1945)

We have a paradox of a book here, a compelling 300-page account of China with virtually nothing to tell us about life in China or the Chinese. How does Carl Crow, the famous Shanghai newspaper editor and American China hand of 25 years, pull it off? We are given the bigger historical picture, a sweeping discussion of the centuries of maritime trade up through the opium wars, the occupation by the Western powers and the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, before the narrative circles inward to give show more us a close-up of life in foreign-occupied Shanghai over the early decades of the 20th century - right up to the day the author is forced out of the country upon the Japanese invasion in 1937. It is a fine historical introduction written by the sure hand and balanced objectivity of the experienced journalist.

But we soon realize that despite being less than a hundred years ago we are encountering an era as strange as that of Marco Polo's, or to be more exact, the US antebellum south, or the world of "gay cocktail parties" that a China-bound F. Scott Fitzgerald might have penned (when "gay" had a different meaning from what it does today), and Crow is not entirely able to extricate himself from the biases of his age - this was a time when it was still fashionable to be racist. It is a China peopled entirely by expat bachelors and families, bored bridge-playing wives, their China "boy" servants, amahs, and anonymous kitchen hands. Not a single fleshed-out Chinese person is described in the entire book, nor a single one even named, apart from the brief, touching mention in the final pages of one "Ching," a servant of Crow's hastily delivering some food as he and his family flee the Japanese attack. The remaining cast of hazy Chinese occupy the narrative background as ciphers, as so many shadowy and inscrutable Fu Manchus.

We do note changes in prejudices and attitudes. Before the First World War, when Shanghai was divided into the French, British and American concessions and effectively walled off from the rest of the city, the parks there had signs forbidding entrance to "Dogs and Chinese" (I presume the signs were in Chinese as well as English). It would never have occurred to anyone on either side to extend social intercourse beyond business relations or transactional necessities, not surprising considering the "very large class [of foreigners in China] who looked with considerable disdain and disgust on all Chinese people." After the war and start of the Republic, things began to relax and there was more mutual curiosity and gesturing across the cultural divide. But the Chinese remained as unknowable as ever. Here Crow succeeds with his knack for the telling anecdote, even when it doesn't reflect too well on the author himself. He relates without irony how he was once picked up by a taxi driver whom he failed to recognize he had previously employed as his personal chef of four years! Or the bizarre methods of communication designed to keep personal relations impersonal, such as between this American bachelor and his servant: "Seated at his breakfast table he would strike the table bell as a signal to put the eggs in boiling water and, watch in hand, would strike it again when it was time to take them out."

Even in its heyday of excitement and notoriety, gay Shanghai, the Paris of the East, seemingly had very little to do with China. The foreign community was too busy with their ponies, polo and racing matches, golf courses and drinking and yachting clubs to be much bothered with the Chinese. Crow spends considerable space detailing the controversies preoccupying the exclusive foreigner clubs - the restrictions on proper dress and the knotting of ties, the election of new members to a club, the etiquette of buying rounds of drinks. And yet it is these particulars that are oddly fascinating in their very remoteness to our own experience in present-day China, with the easy interaction of foreigners and locals meeting online or at Starbucks or in the workplace, and the burgeoning cohabitation and intermarriage between foreigners and Chinese.

Walls do remain in entrenched attitudes among many Chinese and foreigners even today: the parents who forbid their daughter to marry a foreigner (and vice versa), locals who are easily whipped up into anti-foreigner nationalist hysteria, foreign expats who after many years in the country can't count to ten in Chinese or remember how to say their Chinese-assigned name. One quote from the book could be lifted out and inserted into any current Western account of China, as we all know expats like this: "The foreigner was rarely tempted to try Chinese food and many of them lived a lifetime in China without every tasting roast duck or sweet-and-sour pork." show less

Update: I just read that this book is considered a forgery by most modern scholars. Regardless of its origin, it's a gripping read none the less because it so closely telegraphs the Japanese pre-war moves in China and even if it's nothing but propaganda, gives some insight into how Japan's enemies viewed them at the time. I still recommend reading it.

Original review:
This book gave me a greater understanding of the Japanese strategy leading into World War II. It is an engrossing read, and its show more matter of fact plan for world domination left me at once impressed with the Japanese ability to develop and implement a long term strategy over the course of years, and then horrified by the blatant imperialism expressed within its pages. I would recommend The Far Eastern Crisis by Henry L. Stimson as a good complement to this book as it shows how the Japanese were able to implement parts of this strategy during the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 with little communication and often to the amazement of their enemies and the international community at large. Basically the Japanese Generals were always looking for opportunities to implement the plan and did so time and time again during their campaign. I highly recommend this quick read. show less

Hinreissend geschrieben, gute Einführung in das Leben der Expats in Shanghai bis 1937