______t.z_J_ CULTURAL HABITS : THE TRAVEL WRITING OF ISABELLA BIRD, MAX DAUTHENDEY AND A! WU, 1850 - 1930. by MARIA NOELLE NG B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1978 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 1982 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Programme in Comparative Literature) We accept this )besis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA July 1995 @ Maria Nöelle Ng, 1995 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. (Sigf Department of FAAr7 Ii i7& The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date 2 i’2 DE-6 (2/88) ii ABSTRACT Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) has generally been recognized as an influential study of western literary perceptions of the East, but numerous critics have also challenged his geographical parameters as too narrow and his conceptual framework as insufficiently complex. This thesis further expands the study of Orientalism (1) by focussing on a colonized area generally overlooked in this context, namely Southeast Asia; (2) by including a writer of German background, a nationality frequently omitted in the discussion of colonial history in general and of Orientalism in particular; and (3) perhaps most importantly, by juxtaposing the views of a Chinese author with those of western writers. This thesis is the critical study of three authors about their travels in Southeast Asia: Isabella Bird (1831-1904), Max Dauthendey (1867-1918) and Ai Wu (1904-1992). Since postcolonial criticism does not generally concern itself with the cultural habits which are formed in a traveller’s native society prior to his or her departure, this approach alone does not provide the tools for the differentiated kind of investigation I wish to conduct. I therefore draw on the cultural criticism of Pierre Bourdieu (1972, 1979, 1993), Johannes Fabian (1983, 1991), and Walter Benjamin (1969, 1974, 1985), to focus on a decisive moment in each traveller’s background, which may be said to have shaped his or her perception of other cultures. In Bird’s case, this event was the 1851 Exhibition which encapsulated the Victorian ideals of industrial progress, imperial expansion, and Christian philanthropy. By contrast, Dauthendey’s responses were shaped by the Art Nouveau sensibilities he bad acquired in Ill the German, French, and Scandinavian bohème. Finally, Al Wu derived his outlook from the May Fourth Movement, a brief period when western ideas were welcomed into Chinese social and literary history. Said’s Orieiflalism posits the homogeneous cultural entity of an imperial West in contradistinction to a victimized East. This thesis does not reverse these categories, but it does provide the space for an equal discussion of Chinese and western writings within a differentiated historical context. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents i v Acknowledgements v A Personal Preface 1 Introduction 7 Chapter 1: Isabella Bird: Visitation in Southeast Asia 1851: Celebration in a Glasshouse 48 Mayhew’s Exotic Poor and Bird’s “Loathsome Infectious Sore” 56 A Benevolent Lady of Leisure in Asia 64 The Hierarchy of Non-Europeans 76 In Southeast Asia and Canton With No Baedeker 9 1 Chapter 2: Max Dauthendey: Seduced by the East Berlin and the Shaping of an Aesthete 101 The Orient in Nineteenth-Century Germany 118 The Blue Light of the Exotic East 133 “A Wanderer Upon the Face of Public Resort” 149 Chapter 3: Ai Wu: Learning How to Curse Chinese and Dogs Not Allowed 168 The Milk of the May Fourth Movement 177 Life As a Sahib or a Dog in Burma 186 Invocations of China Abroad 196 We Are Not One Big Happy Family 206 Conclusion 224 Glossary 230 Works Cited 232 V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank the members of my research committee, Dr. Jan Walls and Dr. Stephen Taubeneck, for their helpful comments. I also want to thank Charles Moorhead for our many stimulating discussions on architecture and the built environment. A scholarship from Graduate Studies enabled me to conduct research in Hong Kong and Singapore. But this thesis would not have been completed without the constant encouragement and advice of my research supervisor, Dr. Eva-Marie Kröller, who has patiently read and re-read my writing. 1 A PERSONAL PREFACE Because I am reluctant to take an unequivocal position against western colonial history and influence, some of my friends have seen me as a victim of wavering ideology. These are usually friends who are non- Chinese, interested in questions of postcolonialism, but individuals who have generally not lived under colonial rule themselves. However, I grew up in a colony, and my experience has taught me that one must first subscribe to the concept that a homogenized West exists in opposition to an undifferentiated East before one can take up a clear position in favour of either. I was born in Macau with Portuguese nationality, but my family was Han Chinese who did not speak English, although we lived in the British colony of Hong Kong. My education was primarily Anglo-American under the missionary system. Although there were many Chinese public and private schools, most Chinese parents preferred an English-speaking institution which provided their children with a western education, so that they could compete in the Anglo-centric world of Hong Kong. I lived in a kind of western culture from Monday to Saturday. We were taught English folk songs such as “Flow Gently Swift Afton” and learnt to make crumpets in Home Economics class. My evenings and Sunday were spent as a Chinese with regular visits to relatives in Macau, where the population 1 and where the military spoke mostly Portuguese or Cantonese, guards were Africans from Angola. Until I started reading about postcolonialism as a graduate student, I did not perceive a problem in being both a westerner and a Chinese. But my academic discussions with friends and fellow students quickly made me realise that cultural unities such as the West and the East can be evoked too easily, and the many confluences 2 which exist between cultures ignored. Yet a close examination of these connections will show us that, first, unicultural identities rarely occur in reality, and that second, a post-independent country’s colonial history creates new kinds of knowledge, cultural habits and political practices. I wish to resist any simple categorization and, instead, offer a critical examination of the intricate and often contradictory processes of forming cultural identities and habits. Travel writing, a literary genre composed of cultural observations and personal impressions, is an excellent vehicle for such a study. I was well-prepared by my multicultural background to become a comparatist, but was less prepared for the debates which currently dominate the discipline. In her essay entitled “Comparative Exile,” Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1995), Emily Apter describes postcolonial literacy as “imbued . [with] amnesia of origins, fractured subjectivity, border trauma . .“ (90), and she sees the contest between different generations of comparatists as “a border war” (94). Although I agree that some of the problems Apter cites do exist, I do not believe that the field of comparative literature has been quite so disabled. Mary Louise Pratt suggests, less combatively than Apter, that comparative literature could be cultivated as “a site for powerful intellectual renewal in the study of literature and culture” (“Comparative Literature” 62). She proposes that the discipline should produce “bilingual, bicultural people (or multilingual, multicultural people)” instead of students who know several languages. It is possible that students who culturally and linguistically appreciate non-European countries, ethnic groups and so on will help to break down the Eurocentric tradition of comparative literature, hut I think that a complex phenomenon such as a multicultural mindset cannot be 3 “produced” readily in a university environment which, though it draws on a multicultural clientele, exists largely within a Eurocentric tradition. Any culture is a complex study. For instance, what does a Chinese cultural identity mean? It means more than speaking one or many of the dialects. It also involves more than an intellectual appreciation of the culture. To be Chinese is to have a “sense of belonging to a unified civilization that boasts several thousands of years of uninterrupted history,” and though Chinese culture has been “amalgamating, restructuring, reinventing,” most Chinese still believe in the superiority of the Han people as the race of China (Wu 160-2). Many Asian cultures share a similar racial and nationalistic consciousness, however mythical or invented it may be. Thus, to be Chinese, as is the case in all cultural identity-formation, means drawing upon historical and social processes which have changed and shaped daily lives over a long period of time. As a person brought up in several cultures, I have fostered a habit to view situations from various perspectives. This habit