Reflections on the Middle Kingdom

The author somewhere in western China. 

The contemporary People’s Republic of China is a far cry from earlier versions of the same entity under the dismal shadow of the Maoists. It remains a single party state, of course, and the said party is officially called the Communist Party, but as one gentleman, a German who has been living in Luoyang for many years, explained to the present writer over dinner one night, “there are no communists left in the communist party.” Instead, the Middle Kingdom has reverted to age-old patterns of rulership and the Party’s authority rests more upon a general perception of the “Mandate of Heaven” than upon credentials conferred by the historic class-struggle of the masses. All the same, there is no escaping the fact that the good people of China have, over the last few generations, been through a Marxist hell and signs of it are everywhere if one cares to see them. 

This is a place where all religion was officially banned, where the institution of the family was crushed under the One Child Policy and under collectivist fantasies, and where the Cultural Revolution attempted to forcibly eradicate 4000 years of tradition - one of the greatest crimes of the modern era. The Cultural Revolution, in particular, has left the Middle Kingdom impoverished at various levels. The Chinese boast of their modernization, but it is especially shallow and uncreative for all of that. China is a casebook study of a society in which there is no longer, or not obviously, a deep well of tradition from which to draw, but also of the fact that tradition is, finally, irrepressible: the patterns of the past remain as strong as ever somewhere below the surface. 

In Xi’an, at the end of the silk road, where the author sojourned, the entrance to the ‘Revolutionary Park’ in the city centre is now adorned with a larger than lifesize statue of Donald Duck. Most of the old city has been bulldozed and replaced with row after row of ugly, functional apartment blocks – that hallmark of Marxist social engineering. Yet, within the city’s historic Mahometan quarter, and elsewhere, life continues on much as it always has and there is a strong sense that nothing substantial has changed, really, in hundreds of years. 

For their part, the Chinese people prefer to forget about the Maoist nightmare. Chairman Mao is acknowledged by lip-service as the founder of modern China or, more significantly, is adopted into the pantheon of Taoist deities as the man who defined the notion of the “people”. Slowly but surely the wounds inflicted by the Marxists are healing and the Middle Kingdom reverts back to something like its old self, albeit transformed by modernity, or the sino- version of it. There are many paths to modernity. China chose a particularly nasty one. The Party justifies it by the manifest evidence of contemporary prosperity and the growth of the middle class. But this is a lie. The miracle of the Taiwan economy is there to show that the transition to modernization did not require such appalling violence. Similarly, the fact of Hong Kong, and Singapore, exposes the lie that it was the “colonial running dogs” who had held the Chinese back and that “thought reform” and “class struggle” and “reindoctrination” were the only path forward. The real success of modern China is purely a function of the size of its market, not the wisdom of the Party elders or the historical mandate of Marxist ideology. Indeed, the emergence of a prosperous market-driven China owes virtually nothing to Maoism. On the contrary, Maoism retarded the country for long dark decades and it was only when the Marxists all retired to their miserable godless graves that the place was able to begin to fulfill its modern destiny. 

The wonder of it is that the Chinese people are not outraged by the cost they have paid. When one stands under the ludicrous grin of Donald Duck at the entrance to ‘Revolutionary Park’ one wants to ask: so this is what all the suffering of the Great Leap Forward was leaping forward to?!! The Party seems intent upon the Disneyification of China now. The country is certainly well-managed, but it is rather like the management of a well-run amusement park.

The real essence of the Chinese tradition is a quandary to the Chinese themselves. What has become if it? There is an air of amnesia across the land. An example of this is the food. During Maoist times family traditions were so disrupted that the age-old heritage of traditional recipes and family culinary secrets were fundamentally disturbed. For those dreary decades the whole country – clad in their silly Mao suits – was nurtured on Party canteen food. The Maoists, of course, were peasant farmers who loathed peasant farming. It is estimated that some 30 million or more Chinese died of starvation under the wise guidance of the Great Helmsman. There is no gainsaying it: Mao really was one of the great lunatics of all time. The extraordinary thing is that the army allowed him to inflict the damage he did. What remains now is a much diminished cuisine. In truth, real Chinese food can more readily be found in the Chinese diaspora than in the homeland. The present author knows this as a fact. As previous posts to these pages relate, he spent months exploring the communities of the Malacca Straits Chinese, especially in Phuket and the Prince of Wales Island. One finds a rich Chinese culinary heritage there, unbroken and proud. Food in China, whether in the western outposts of Xi’an and Luoyang, or the modern metropolis of Shanghai, is a tale of disappointment, by and large. These days chefs from China travel to centres of the diaspora to relearn Chinese cooking. If this is what has become of the kitchen, one can imagine what impact the mad hand of Maoism has had in other areas of life. 

The spiritual vacuum is most noticeable. The lineages of Taoism were stopped in 1951 but resumed again in 1987. This represents the hiatus that befell China in all walks. In much of China the sacred places of Taoism are now Disney-style theme park exhibitions where the Party has erected signs – belatedly – commanding that abstract entity “The People” to “Respect Our Heritage!” Traditional Taoist medicine and other traditional sciences are now being reconstructed according to Party requirements. Again, if one wants the real thing rather than the Party reconstruction one needs to go to Taiwan or Hong Kong or Singapore, or George Town, or even San Francisco.

Similarly, the great guiding wisdom of Confucius still exists as a bedrock of Chinese social customs, but Mao had a particular disregard for the Confucians and tried to wipe their influence from Chinese society altogether. Taoism and Confucianism are a matching set, a heaven-ordained synergy that, together with Chan Buddhism, form a complex that is the spiritual core of the Chinese tradition. (Perhaps more on this in a later post.) Today, Confucius has been rehabilitated as a great pioneering “educator” in the Party’s official secular history but his true place in Chinese ideas is largely unrecognized. There are signs of renewal though. There is a ‘New Confucianism’ movement and the contemporary scholar Jiang Qing (ironically the same name as Mao's wife!) has bravely proposed a political Confucianism to replace the withering experiment of Marxism. He believes – a view with which this present author is in sympathy – that Confucianism represents the best and purest and most authentic genius of China and that many of the Middle Kingdom’s social and political difficulties in these present and coming times would be best addressed by a new embrace of the Confucian tradition. The present author was privileged to visit several of the great extant Confucian temple complexes during his recent travels. The temple in Soochow was especially impressive. Such once-sacred places are now essentially schools and universities but it was noticeable that many Chinese visitors greeted the temples with solemn reverence and there is at least a functioning priesthood again. 

The Confucian temple in Soochow

All the same, the symptoms of secularization of the tradition are evident everywhere, not least in the quite remarkable spread of evangelical Christianity in China. How can the spread of Christianity be a symptom of seculaerization? Chinese Leftism, like Leftism everywhere, is essentially a species of self-harm. The thing that motivates a Leftist above all else is self hatred - usually dressed up as a concern for 'justice' for others. It is always a self/other pathology. In China, it was the Chinese tradition that the Maoists hated first and foremost. And it remains expressions of the Chinese tradition – let us note the conspicuous example of Falun Gong – that the Party continues to persecute first and foremost. Into the vacuum thus created moves exotic ideologies and especially, these days, Christianity. These are boom times for Christian missionaries in China, although one needs to note that – remarkably – Christianity grew and advanced during the Cultural Revolution too. Again, that “revolution” took aim at China’s own traditions – it was an extended exercise in self-harm - and in doing so it created the space for external ideologies to fill the void, rhetoric about “colonialism” notwithstanding. 

For the present writer this fact is a salient lesson. In the contemporary West, Leftists – “cultural Marxists" who are conducting their own “cultural revolution" through the sophisticated tactics of “soft totalitarianism” – are first and foremost out to do as much harm to the Judeo-Christian tradition as possible. They are perfectly happy to have Mahometanism and Lamaism and other exotic creeds infiltrate the occidental spiritual arena purely because it advances the vandalism of their agenda. (How else is one to explain 'Feminists for the Burqa' or 'Gays for Shariah'?) This is what occurred in China, mutates mutandis. Why, one must ask, did the Party, does the Party, so tolerate Christianity yet crushes a movement like Falun Gong? The answer to this question reveals much about the real nature of Leftism everywhere. 

Throughout his travels across China the present author encountered converts to Christianity at every turn. Islam too is advancing, or at least holding its own. Maoism deliberately damaged the native traditions of China. The Party remains watchful lest unwholesome vestiges of that tradition arise again. The sublime play that is religion has been replaced for most of the population with the inane trinkets of Disney consumerism. But there is – this writer can report – thirst in the ground. Sadly, the Chinese are turning to Protestant forms of the Christian religion as a cure. It is estimated that in a few decades time, at the current rate, China will boast one of the biggest Christian populations in the world. Sadly, because it is actually a side-effect of the Marxist vandalism of the Chinese tradition, undertaken in the demonstrably false belief that it was a necessary step on the path to modernity. It is just as sad – in the same manner - that people in the West are turning to Boodhism and Kung Foo because their own heritage has been systematically and tirelessly sullied by the vicious social engineers who now rule over the institutions of cultural production. This writer’s travels and experiences in China have served to underline this for him and to bring such politico-cultural issues to some new clarity.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Garden Windows of Soochow

Relief sculpture from below a bridge illustrating the patterned windows as part of the heritage of Soochow city.

Soochow, or as some call it Souzhou, is known as the ‘Venice of the East’. An ancient city built on a series of canals, it is rightly famous as a showpiece of traditional Chinese culture. This is not to downplay the extraordinary damage it sustained during the Maoist’s so-called Cultural Revolution – damage that can be seen everywhere in China – but thankfully much of Soochow has remained intact. On his recent journeys throughout the Middle Kingdom, the present author made a largely unplanned detour to Soochow and was happy to be stranded in a city of waterways, boutique cafes and classical gardens. The latter – the gardens – are, they say, among the very best in China and represent the aesthetics and values of classical Chinese horticulture, albeit minus the guiding principles of feng sui which are among those elements that fell foul of the aforementioned ‘Revolution’. The gardens, that is to say, are largely secularized nowadays, and have been stripped of many traditional features. Nevertheless, in their essential design many of them go back several hundred years or in some cases nearly a thousand. 

The largest is the Garden of the Humble Administrator. It is the most famous but, as it happens, probably the least inspiring. Far better are some of the smaller gardens such as the Garden of the Master of Nets – the author took lodgings directly opposite this small garden and found it both beautiful and unique. Also worthwhile was the little-visited Garden of Couples – a lover’s garden – that is more compact and modest but appropriately intimate and romantic. Temples and other religious institutions were completely trashed during the Cultural Revolution – the most wanton outbreak of mass vandalism in history – but gardens largely emerged unscathed. Certainly, they were removed from private hands and placed under public control, and they were often turned into "fitness parks" for the ‘People’s Recreation’, but they generally remained as before. These days, some of the lost elements are being reconstituted. In the Garden of Couples, for instance, a public notice now explains to visitors – Chinese and foreign – that the ‘Book of Changes’ pavilion (a beautiful, quaint little building at the edge of a lotus pond) was used for a “type of Taoist fortunetelling once popular in the old days”. 

If you are looking for traditional China and want to learn about the Chinese tradition, the People's Republic is not the place to go. You would find more of the authentic Chinese tradition in San Francisco.  The Cultural Revolution was appallingly thorough. It is common to encounter Chinese with next to no knowledge of their cultural history. It is a country where religion was outlawed for an entire generation. The great Buddhist temple in Shanghai was turned into a plastics factory. Many Chinese have never even heard of Confucious. The Party, though, recently admitted for the first time that the Cultural Revolution was a "mistake" and have instituted a re-culturation program called "China Dream". It is only now that the Chinese people are slowly, slowly recovering something of what was lost. 

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One of the notable features of the gardens of Soochow, as well as the walls that define them, and buildings all along the canals of the city, are windows set with geometric, floral and other patterns. There are, literally, hundreds of different designs on display. They are everywhere, such that they form one of the conspicuous visual features of the whole landscape. 

Many posts ago, this present writer made mention of the similarities between the Chinese sense of geometric patterning and that of the Mohammedans. The garden windows of Soochow are, surely, another example. The writer, in fact, began his travels through the Middle Kingdom in the Mohammedan western provinces, following the silk road to Xi’an where one finds the oldest mosque in China. From there, he followed the Chinese Musoolmen tradition to Louyang, and then to other locations, and found to his own satisfaction that it extends all the way eastwards to Shanghai. There is no mosque in Soochow, but the city is near to Shanghai and there can be no doubt that Mohammedan influences, driven by trade, extended all the way from west to east, and could not have missed such a cultural centre. 

There is no need to prove “influences” and “contact” though. It is enough to observe that many of the patterns that adorn the garden windows throughout the classical gardens of Soochow, and much loved by the Chinaman, are identical to favoured patterns used extensively in the Mohammedan tradition. 

The author made some attempt to collect photographs of as many instances of these windows as possible, but there are simply too many. Most are rectangular, some are circular, some irregular. All are abstract and, thankfully, none are representational. Only a few designs are repeated. In most gardens every window has a unique pattern. They allow veiled views from one space into another. It will be noted that in a modern relief sculpture situated under a bridge on one of the main canals, the subject of which is the illustrious history of Soochow (see the picture at the top of this page), these geometric windows appear as if they are regarded as part of the city’s heritage. The appearance of these patterns on bus stops and the like is, of course, a modern affectation, but it does seem likely that the origins of many if not all of these designs extends back into the city’s past. This page (see below) features examples of the garden windows of Soochow. They are much to this author's taste.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Sino-Portuguese Style

One of the great and enduring sociological mysteries is how the Jews and the Chinese are able to establish small minority communities in hostile countries throughout the world, endure oppression and indignity, and yet thrive in and often out-compete the societies that oppress them. The Jews and the Chinese have an unusual gift for adaptation. They prosper wherever they go, even in the most unfavorable circumstances. For this they are subject to resentment, suspicion and conspiracy theories, because it is devilishly difficult to give any reasonable account of exactly how they manage it. What is it in these communities that allows them to adapt and thrive against all odds? What, moreover, enables them both to adapt to the societies in which they live as minorities and yet maintain a strikingly robust sense of their own identity and traditions with remarkable endurance and continuity?

In regards to the Chinese, it is a question that has occupied this present writer since arriving in South-East Asia many months ago and travelling through the historical centres of the Straits Chinese, that being the Chinese (mainly from the southern regions of China) who, centuries ago, migrated to various parts of the Malacca Straits. The prosperous state of Singapore is the most outstanding instance of their success, but in other places too – Penang, Phuket, southern Thailand – they have been remarkably successful. In Malaysia, more than a few people the author encountered told him candidly that “The Chinese are the brains of the outfit.” They are a minority in Malaysia, and increasingly uncomfortable in the face of creeping Islamization in that country, yet, despite the odds, their history has been illustrious and they are more successful in business, arts, law – every field – than the native Malays. The Malays resent this, but the fact of the matter is that without the straits Chinese Malaysia would, very likely, become a second-rate affair. 

In Siam, further up the peninsula, it is a similar story. The Chinese element constitutes some 40% of the population – this element, and not the ethnic Thais alone, constitutes the real genius of the place. The Chinese came for trade and tin mining. They stayed and, somehow, have become disproportionately prosperous. Wherever they go, the Chinese make a profound contribution. Those places from which they have been chased away, as the author has also seen – Calcutta and Cochin in India, for example, both of which once boasted thriving Chinese populations which are now departed – are that much poorer without a Chinese dynamic.

No doubt, much depends upon a capacity for hard work. The Chinese work like dogs. But there are other factors, surely, as well. One of them seems to be a great capacity for the creative appropriation of elements from other cultures; this, and an unfailing sense of what is and is not essential in their own. The author has been witness to examples of this throughout his travels among the Straits communities in the form of so-called Sino-Portuguese architecture. This is the style of architecture that the Straits Chinese created in their new home and in which they built monuments to their industry, success and prosperity. Shop-houses – also called “link houses” – are the most common example of Sino-Portuguese architecture to be seen, but the Chinese magnates and tycoons who grew fabulously rich on trade in the Malacca Straits built mansions and palaces in this style as well. Many of them are still intact and ,happily, many private residences are now open for public viewing.

The term “Sino-Portuguese” is not entirely appropriate, or at least the “Portuguese” part of it is not. Sure enough, the Portuguese were among the first Europeans to arrive and establish a presence in South-East Asia, but in fact they had little direct impact upon the hybrid architectural styles of the area. The Dutch, French and even more so the English make a greater contribution. All the same, the word “Portuguese” became attached to this particular architectural hybridization, and in this sense it merely means “European” inasmuch as Europeans in general were referred to as “Portuguese”. Thus, “Sino-Portuguese” actually means no more than “Chinese slash European”, being a style created by the Chinese by combining elements of traditional Chinese domestic architecture with what they came to learn of various European styles, borrowing and adapting those features they saw fit. The maturity of the synthesis, moreover, did not come about until the late XIXth century – long, long after the Portuguese had disappeared from Asia, and in fact under the fullest expansion of the British Empire. Actually, the heyday of the style was the 1920s, and the fine examples still to be seen in such places as George Town and Phuket Old Town are from that illustrious period. 

So-called 'link houses' - or what are in Australia called 'terrace houses'. Single-fronted, two storey buildings. The ground floor was usually used as a shop or workshop with the upstairs for bedrooms and living space. They are narrow but deep and feature an interior air well. 

This page, below, offers a short folio of examples of the Sino-Portuguese style. The style is a particularly charming synthesis and illustrates the creative powers of adaptation typical of the Straits Chinese. This is an architecture that documents exactly how the Chinese of the Malacca Straits were able to establish themselves as such extraordinarily succesful communities. One characteristic deserves comment. Despite their minority status, and despite a history of oppression and discrimination, resentment does not figure prominently in the Chinese psychology. They are not a people burdened, for instance, with post-colonial angst. Unlike others, they looked upon Europeans with admiration and a determination to acquire those things worth acquiring. In this, as noted above, they were unshakeably secure in their own cultural and religious identity. They did not feel that acquiring the benefits brought by Europeans in any way threatened or compromised their own traditions and identity. This same unshakeable security is typical of the Jews as well. Regardless of how much they acquire of non-Jewish societal norms, their own religious and ethnic identity remains unthreatened.  This sense of security is a prerequisite to creative appropriations. 

We see the fruits of such self-security in the Chinese in the Sino-Portuguese style. It is confidently Chinese and regardless of how much it acquires from European styles it never compromises on this. Compare this to those peoples who have spent decades whining and moaning about "colonial oppression" without achieving much of anything. The Chinese know that the best way to defeat your oppressors is to be succesful. Nothing succeeds like success. This architecture is a testament to that strategy, above all. 

The Sino-Portuguese architecture of the Staits Chinese communities is unquestionably some of the most charming and elegant architecture in Asia. It is no accident that it is the product of a happy blend of oriental and occidental styles. As elsewhere, much of it is now surrounded by modernist cement monstrosities underlining the sad fact that little architecture of any consequence has been built since before the Second World War. 

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The link houses in Soi Romani (Love Lane) in Phuket Town. Previously brothels, now boutique guesthouses and coffee shops. 

The interior air well for light and ventilation is a characteristic feature of the style. 

The typical hemispherical window of the Sino-Portuguese style. 

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A RESTORATION

The photographs below are of an old Sino-Portuguese home being restored in George Town, Prince of Wales Island. 

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Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black