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China by the Book: China Hands and China Stories, 1848–1949

China by the Book: China Hands and China Stories, 1848–1949 285 China by the Book: China Hands and China Stories, 1848–1949 Charles W. Hayford Northwestern University From the Opium Wars down to the revolution of 1949, American mis- sionaries, diplomats, businessmen, and novelists who lived in China— China Hands—wrote a series of popular books which construed China not just as a geographical space but as a virtual fable of modernization and proving ground of the American way of life. These men and women based their authority on personal experience—”forty years in a Chinese village,” “dateline Shanghai”—and formed what Paul Cohen calls the “amateur phase” of American writing about China; only after World War II was there a “true professional field.” Cogent scholars such as Harold Isaacs and T. Christopher Jespersen argue that Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, or the Dragon Lady often drowned out the voices of the China Hands and that Americans viewed China with “images” rooted in racism, fears of Chinese immigration, Orientalist fantasies, historicist mythology, diplomatic strategizing, and wholesale ignorance. Ameri- cans had come, in Jonathan Spence’s now obligatory phrase, “to change China” and Michael Adas has recently described “technological im- peratives” and “America’s civilizing mission,” including the mission in China. 1 In spite of all, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of American-East Asian Relations Brill

China by the Book: China Hands and China Stories, 1848–1949

Hayford, Charles
Journal of American-East Asian Relations , Volume 16 (4): 285 – Jan 1, 2009
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2009 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1058-3947
eISSN
1876-5610
DOI
10.1163/187656109792655508
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

285 China by the Book: China Hands and China Stories, 1848–1949 Charles W. Hayford Northwestern University From the Opium Wars down to the revolution of 1949, American mis- sionaries, diplomats, businessmen, and novelists who lived in China— China Hands—wrote a series of popular books which construed China not just as a geographical space but as a virtual fable of modernization and proving ground of the American way of life. These men and women based their authority on personal experience—”forty years in a Chinese village,” “dateline Shanghai”—and formed what Paul Cohen calls the “amateur phase” of American writing about China; only after World War II was there a “true professional field.” Cogent scholars such as Harold Isaacs and T. Christopher Jespersen argue that Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, or the Dragon Lady often drowned out the voices of the China Hands and that Americans viewed China with “images” rooted in racism, fears of Chinese immigration, Orientalist fantasies, historicist mythology, diplomatic strategizing, and wholesale ignorance. Ameri- cans had come, in Jonathan Spence’s now obligatory phrase, “to change China” and Michael Adas has recently described “technological im- peratives” and “America’s civilizing mission,” including the mission in China. 1 In spite of all,

Journal

Journal of American-East Asian Relations – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2009

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