Australia’s Norman Rockwell.

What a piece of work is man! (Shakespeare: Hamlet Act II, Scene2.)

Is a cricket field!

Best laugh I (and the visiting Helensvale team) could have had on a Saturday morning last year. There are a few cricket grounds around the globe (!) I wouldn’t mind seeing; Lord’s in London, Cape Town South Africa, even the new Korean cricket oval in Incheon. But I wouldn’t have missed D’arcy Doyle Oval on the Gold Coast for any in Australia.

“WHO MOWED THIS?” gave rise to further jokes. Me: “Gold Coast Council groundsman…obviously on LSD.” A parent: “There are crop-circle enthusiasts at Mudgeereba?”

The photo perhaps doesn’t quite convey the sheer strangeness of the area around the wicket. A radius of about 15 metres from the pitch…good. Outside that radius overgrown grass at about 2 to 2 and a half feet. The odd result was that there was no reason to have fielders on the boundary. The ball could never be hit for 4 along the ground through the overgrowth. The fielder’s skill was not so much in stopping the ball (no cricket match other than a 5th day Test Match late-afternoon session with spinners operating at both ends to win it have all fielders been within 15 metres of the bat save this Gold Coast open fixture?!) but spotting the ball…finding a red solid shape slightly bigger than a tennis ball in deep grass where it has plopped after a hit!

Comedy was all on the field. In the covers, at these 15 metres, I watched the oldest player on the Gold Coast, T.R. get caught at Point by one of the youngest, J.D. “Good innings, well played, T.R.” I said as he walked off. “Now where the heck is young J.D?” I thought. As well as being one of the youngest he is one of the shortest (not all Australian 16 year olds are tall) of HPPCC cricketers. Last seen submerging to take the catch before he rose above the tall grass!

“Wh..Wh..Where are we? North Vietnam?” (Woody Allen in one of his movies finding himself in upstate New York/not Manhattan and having to walk back through an overgrown field towards a road). Memories of kunai grass for Woody, not just from the recent Vietnam War of his movie but World War 2 in newsreels of American and Australian troops in New Guinea.

Norman Rockwell.

“Darcy D…Darcy Dugan…D’arcy Doyle?” (thinking aloud and reminiscing to myself – Darcy Dugan was a famous Sydney criminal from the 1930s to the 1980s who spent long periods in prison). I supposed that Darcy Doyle after whom this work of cricket horticultural ‘art’ was named was a Mudgeereba/Nerang local councillor or businessman.

No. D’arcy Doyle. An artist. Of the Gold Coast. Though originally from Ipswich, near Brisbane. Royal Australian Navy sailor (with service in the Korean War), signwriter, amateur artist, then professional painter.

Australia’s Norman Rockwell in the sense that he painted popular, quintessentially Australian scenes. Naturally not in favour with modern art decision makers/arbiters of taste so therefore one of the most popular Australian artists in terms of sales!

And he painted cricket scenes from his home at Mudgeereba (hence D’arcy Doyle Oval) and even a portrait of The Don.
Alas, a very modern art postscript for D’arcy who died in 2001.

http://www.westernadvocate.com.au/story/928402/dozens-of-doyles-aint-doyles/?cs=4189

DOYLES AIN’T DOYLES (A clever double entendre on a well-known Australian tv commercial “Oils ain’t Oils” re: car oil changes and oil painting.

Allow me to put forward my own wordplay, or nominative determinism. The wonderful English surname “Sloggett”. If Professor Robyn wasn’t Australia’s foremost art fraud expert she would be an aptly named Australian woman cricketer!
The Widow Doyle…too trusting and badly advised. Loyalty to your art dealer is all very well but the guy defrauded, if not the Doyles, then other Australian artists, so saying everything he sold was authentic? Likewise, that the more Doyles on the market, the better? Less would increase their sale price, surely!

“…others feature young children with Asiatic features. All were deemed genuine by Mrs Doyle on the day.”

I suppose all effort by the Australian Governments, States and Territories, could be directed to finding this Taiwanese art forger. Of Doyles. But really, a painting with Chinese kids running around Mudgeereba, described as a fake? The Federal Police in Canberra should be pouring more resources into art fraud but this Taipei bloke wasn’t even trying. Even if he did sign it in the style of D.D. (thereby proving forgery) would any art buyer believe the scene unless there was proof of the local Chinese restaurateur’s children in Mudgeereba playing on the street in the 1950s/60s/70s? Don’t think so. As if I forged a Fuzhou street scene painting with European-looking children running around an apartment block. They could be the children of the Swiss surgeon, English teacher, expat residents, but a Chinese art expert would genuinely have doubt!

NOTES:

BBC TV on Painting authentication. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mxxz6

D’arcy Doyle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Arcy_Doyle

The Prof. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/art-conservator-mohammad-aman-siddique-takes-legal-action-against-police-and-professor-20140620-zsgl9.html

Mudgeereba. http://www.visitgoldcoast.com/places-to-see/mudgeeraba

Iron-kneed Rat.

Match on turf recently, I was fielding at square leg…

Square Leg is to the right perpendicular of the top light green strip of wicket diagram

…when an energetic pull shot from the batsman landed in front of me and bounced into my knee.

“THAT’S GOTTA HURT!” (as the American colour commentators on tv network sports broadcasts exclaim).

“See how you’re doing in 5 minutes.” (Opposition team player/umpiring) standing adjacent.

“Yep, I’m alright!” (2 overs later, about 5 minutes). At least he looked a bit embarassed, when I informed of complete fitness of leg/knee despite the sound. I didn’t think the well-wishes from the opposition were completely sincere!

“Flipping heck, we heard that from the sideline. Ball hitting your knee.” (Helensvale Club fellow cricketer).

What or who was I thinking of?

Russell Fairfax actually.

Left to right, Ron Coote/Russell Fairfax/Mark Harris. Eastern Suburbs Roosters premiers Sydney Rugby League mid-1970s.

“You could hear Fairfax’s leg break as he was tackled.” (Dad to Grand-Uncle Angus after watching an Amco Cup Rugby League evening telecast). I was confused, as any child would be, not just at the hushed conversation about Fairfax, one of the stars of football cards which we primary school boys swapped and bartered, but also…

“How could any limb-break on television be heard?”

Good hearing, but maybe crowd acoustics turned down now, in 2015, compared to then, in the 70’s?

Being Hit. The Iron Head Rat. Dr Jardine himeslf, founder of an interesting business in 1820s southern China comprising go-fast boats running a certain substance. As he admitted when dismissing a captain refusing to unload on the Sabbath…”We have every respect for persons entertaining strict religious principles, but we fear that very godly people are not suited for the drug trade.” Jardine in Kowloon got hit in the head by a piece of metal, whether a deliberate attack or something falling off a building site, accounts differ. Just shrugged it off and kept walking. “The Iron-headed Old Rat, the sly and cunning ring-leader of the opium smugglers has left for The Land of Mist, of fear from the Middle Kingdom’s wrath.” (Lin Zezu, Commandant of Southern China).

Disraeli didn’t think much of him either… “A Scotchman, richer than Croesus, one McDruggy, fresh from Canton, with a million of opium in each pocket, denouncing corruption and bellowing free trade.” (Disraeli’s 1845 novel, ‘Sybil’)

Certainly sent packing. By Lin and Disraeli respective Chinese and British political bigshots. Not that their opinions of the doctor/businessman had much effect. Jardine now an MP himself returned to London with the Plan of Attack on China – Jardine Matheson ships to carry the troops out from India sub-contracted with Bills of Lading at full charge to the UK taxpayer!

And so finished 2014 for me, with a big whack on the knee but no harm done. Happy 2015 everyone. From the Iron-kneed Rat (which sounds a bit Chinese horoscope!).

IN MEMORIAM

Phillip Hughes, batsman, New South Wales, South Australia, Australia. (1988-2014).

Hillel Oscar, former Captain, administrator, umpire, Israel. (1959-2014).

‘The Cricket Ground’, David Inshaw 1976.

Fame’s Brush with Fuzhou Part IV (continued).

Warning: This entry contains strong language.

https://dougiejones.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/fames-brush-wi…fuzhou-part-iv/ ‎

“Dr Alcock.”
“Have we a got a job for you.”
“Her Britannic Majesty Victoria’s Consul to Fuzhou.”

The 18th Regiment of Foot’s (The Royal Irish) opposed landing at the Gulangyu Island fort, Xiamen (1841, First Opium War).

The first Opium War had been won by 1842 and it only remained, under the terms of the peace treaty, The Treaty of Nanking, to appoint the 5 H.M.U.K. Consuls to Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai.

But Alcock wasn’t the first British government representative in Fuzhou. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tradescant_Lay
Poor old Lay was having a hard time of things. Confined to his residence on the Min River which was flooding the floorboards. The Qing Magistrates and the locals not respecting his authority. “George, I’ll take over from here, thank you for your efforts”, was Alcock’s effective message.

A house for H.M.U.K. Government’s new Consul was built up on higher land near a Buddhist Temple. Mrs Alcock, her younger sister, and their mother, soon after arrived. When Mrs Alcock, and her sister and mother probably became the first ever western european women to promenade on the streets of Fuzhou (one can imagine the surprise of the Fuzhouites in 1845 seeing the crinoline dresses of Mrs Alcock and Mrs, (mum) and, Miss Bacon (sis)).

This is all very correct. Nothing out of the ordinary that your average western expat in Asia wouldn’t do. Sorting out the accommodation and then having the western in-laws join the household. The second part is probably a lot more than your average western expat in Asia would do. Also joining the household was the translator since Dr Alcock did not speak Chinese, his only foreign language exposures would have been French and Spanish (he spent 6 months in Paris during his medical studies and his deployment to Spain with the British Army during the Carlist War as related in Part One).

The Chinese translator wasn’t anyone you’d expect, though. A 16 year old English boy, Harry Parkes, an orphan sent out to live in Macao with missionary relatives and who from the age of 13 had witnessed the First Opium War.

So a 16 year old orphan boy joined the Alcock household in Fuzhou too. Even more than your average western expat in Asia nowadays would do.

It’s what happens next, however, after re-establishment of Her Majesty Victoria’s diplomatic and consular representation in Fuzhou in 1845, that things get interesting. Not least in terms of law enforcement. Wikipedia provides the quote by Sir Rutherford Alcock: “(I) performed the functions of “everything from a Lord Chancellor to a sheriff’s officer.”

That’s the self-description of the functions performed. Alcock and his ward Parkes in Fuzhou in 1845, instead, seem to have turned into a sort of Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson, i.e. Batman and Robin.

From Michie’s biography of Sir Rutherford Alcock in the 1890’s prose…

“a year elapsed before the violence of the people and the studied rude- ness of the officials were finally stamped out. For,
curiously enough, as Mr Lane-Poole has so well pointed out, every outrage in Canton found its echo at Foochow, showing clearly where lay the ” centre of disturbance,” as our meteorologists express it.

In the end, however, the ascendancy of the British authority was completely achieved. The consul and the interpreter between them succeeded in getting proud Tartars put in the common pillory and lesser ruffians severely flogged,”

The reaction of the local Fuzhouites to this new dispensation of justice we don’t know. Suppose an alternate history in which the Chinese had fought a war off the coast of Britain to open up British ports and a Qing consul was sent ashore in Southampton, for instance, one could only think the English locals’ reaction would have been an astonished…

“What the f**k is this guy, and the kid with him, doing?” Excuse the Anglo-Saxon language but I suppose the Fuzhouites response was something similar.

“…while before they left Foochow in 1846 they had extorted from the authorities substantial pecuniary compensation for injuries sustained
by British subjects.” [Injuries here are property damage to British houses caused by Fuzhouite stone-throwing mobs, not personal injuries to individuals].

Well that’s law enforcement 1845-46 style in Fujian, a virtuous circle if ever I saw one. First you beat up the criminals, then you strong-arm the politicians (for money, ‘extort’ 1890s English) who allowed it to occur in the first place. I’m sure the Chinese Communist Party with their vaunted long memory of foreign humiliation would like to do a prime-time tv drama on the iniquities of Dr Alcock. May be a bit problematic, though. Summary street justice meted out, fining parties for alleged property crimes even if not beyond reasonable doubt that they sanctioned such property crimes, zero tolerance towards street gatherings of protesting individuals…Alcock and Parkes’ ideas of law enforcement and the administration of justice might be just a bit too close to modern CCP ideas of same for it to be safely shown on prime-time tv to ‘old hundred names’ even for the purpose of patriotic education.

Enough political commentary, a linguistic question remains. How did a 16 year old know that a local Fuzhouite was expressing something untoward about Dr Alcock as they passed by? “Sir, he said a bad thing to you..!” Harry Parkes could only have known a Chinese language spoken in Macao/Hong Kong and a written language from Beijing being sent southwards. He couldn’t have exactly comprehended what the bystander was saying in Fuzhou-hua, Min-Nan, Min-Dong, Min-Bei, Min-Go and all the others now, could he?

And another question to conclude. What did Dr Sir Rutherford Alcock look like? There is a photographic reproduction stored with the National Portrait Gallery in London as befits H.M.’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (the modern term for Ambassador) to Japan (1859-1864) and China (1865-69).

Judge Dredd from the British comic 2000 AD.

The sentiments expressed are most similar to Dr Alcock’s. But I don’t think he looked like that. Nor Batman for that matter.

Neither do I think he looked like Joe Cocker (circa 1969-1973) on tour in Fuzhou. (Chinese waxwork of an 1870s British Consul). The white naval-style uniform may, however, be accurate. White vice-regal uniforms can be seen worn by Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy of India in the 1940s and Sir Murray Maclehose, Governor of Hong Kong in the 1970s. More likely Dr Alcock wore civilian clothes.

Timothy Olyphant as Sheriff Seth Bullock in the tv show “Deadwod” (HBO 2004-2006).

The clothing is Wild West American menswear circa 1876-80. At least 30 years in the future. As with Judge Dredd, the sentiments are the same, however, and we know Dr Alcock was quick to draw a pepperpot pistol as he proved in Tokyo 13 years on from Fuzhou when faced with residential invasion by homicidal samurai.
But I find it difficult to believe Dr Alcock would use such language (not “disperse this riotous assembly”, he could well have used those exact words to the Fuzhouites, rather…the other phrase) nor wear such a moustache. Facial hair in the form of moustaches only became customary in the British army after 1854 when the soldiers in the Crimean War began to imitate their Russian infantry opponents. 1858 when Alcock arrived in Japan, doubtful ‘the mo’ style had taken off, and definitely not as early as 1845 in Fuzhou.

No. Dr Sir Rutherford Alcock looked like this.

NOTES
Dr Sir Rutherford Alcock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_Alcock

Young Harry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Smith_Parkes

The Earl of Malmesbury, 26 Februrary 1857, in The House of Lords, as Harry sets off the Second Opium War in Canton with the Arrow Incident…”If it were not for the serious consequences involved in this matter, I do not know that I have ever met anything which I should consider more grotesque than the conduct of Consul Parkes throughout these transactions”.

But let’s not give a politician the final say on a still young man’s (Harry at 28) character and behaviour – let us conclude with this touching tribute from Michie’s biography of Sir Rutherford…

“In the biography of Sir Harry Parkes he speaks in the warmest terms of the kindness he received [in Fuzhou] from Mr and Mrs Alcock, who tended him through a fever which, but for the medical skill of the consul — no other professional aid being available — must have ended fatally. They helped him with books, enlarged his field of culture, and there is no doubt that daily intercourse with this genial and accomplished family did much to supply the want of that liberal education from which the boy had been untimely cut adrift. The value of such parental influence to a lad who had left school at thirteen can hardly be over-estimated, and he did not exaggerate in writing, “I can never repay the Alcocks the lasting obligations I am under to them.”

Fame’s brush with Fuzhou Part IV

Part IV should really be Part II (I’m renumbering episodes in chronological order – like George Lucas with the later Star Wars movies!). After Marco Polo but before Paul Claudel comes Fuzhou’s next brush with fame.
The Alpha Ang Mos personified…

DR RUTHERFORD and MRS ALCOCK
Alcock was born in 1809 in the London suburb of Ealing (where else!) and apprenticed to his surgeon father at age 15 (they started young back then). He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons by age 21 and house surgeon at Westminster Hospital. Two years later, in 1832, he was called up as an army surgeon for deployment to the Carlist Wars.

Ever heard of the Carlist Wars? Neither had I. About as remembered as the Wars of the Spanish Succession in the 1700s -although the W.O.S.S. were important in enlarging Britain’s overseas possessions. History repeated in that the Carlist Wars were again wars of the Spanish succession with Britain and France supporting a liberal (for those times) Infanta against her deep-conservative Catholic uncle. Spanish historians, naturally enough, have focused on the domestic impact of the Carlist Wars, seeing in them the start of a century of civil unrest in Spain that only concluded with the victory in 1939 of the Caudillo, Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

These Carlist Wars were to have a totally unforeseeable impact on Fuzhou, however.

Dr Alcock (I use the modern title “Dr” for surgeons, the traditional title for UK and UK-modelled medical national systems was “Mr” + “surname of surgeon”, retaining the trade, barbers etc, origins of surgery) is remembered today, not in Spain, nor in his homeland Britain, and not in China, but in Japan.

In 1859, he arrived in Japan to take up the post of British Consul General and Envoy Plenipotentiary. Regrettably, homicidal samurai were out to get Alcock – they were none too pleased about the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry’s black ships 5 years earlier. Quite sensibly, Alcock made himself scarce from the British Residence in Edo (Tokyo) and went on a tour around Honshu, the main island, where he became the first Westerner to climb Mt Fuji. Accompanied by his Scottish terrier, Toby. Unfortunately Toby blew up, not on Mt Fuji, but at hot springs nearby when he trod his paws on a geyser and was thrown 40 feet into the air.

Returning to the Legation, in contemplative mood no doubt at the loss of Toby, Alcock found that…the samurai were still after him. Guns weren’t absent in Embassies in those days. The local Japanese staff bravely held the intruders off at the wall and in the garden until the samurai managed to break into the residence where they were met by…the British staff, armed to the teeth with guns and shooting back, Dr Alcock included, with his pepper pot pistol. Which appears mysteriously at the top of the post thanks to the eccentricities of the internet and photo sharing!

No more problems with embassy invasions after that, not for the British, nor for any other nation establishing diplomatic relations with Japan.

Last year’s debacle in Libya – would the homicidal mob have been deterred if they’d known U.S. diplomatic staff would respond with guns blazing? Probably not. Which raises the interesting implication that deterrence theory works with every other world culture except the Arab mob. But then it wasn’t an Arab-Street mob (a mistake which cost Susan Rice her chance of becoming Secretary of State). It was an agitated-into-a-frenzy by Al-Quaeda group of about 20 embassy invaders. They share a not dissimilar cultural affinity to the samurai of 1860 in seeking to destroy what they regard as Western individual ‘polluters’ of their sacred land. So, if nothing deters, then diplomats encountering such sub-cultures might as well be armed.

Maybe the Japanese were embarassed by Dr Alcock’s incident-packed welcome to Nihon and wanted to make amends by a dignified stone memorial to him and Toby. Alternatively, could this not have been the first instance of Japanese successful adoption of Western models, not of science and engineering or legal-political structures, but of art and aesthetics? A canine memorial, a new sentimental tribute to the pet dog only recently originating in Britain. Greyfriars Bobby comes to Meiji Japan, but Made in Japan! (See top of post with pepper pot pistol).

And that’s the only memorial to Dr Sir Rutherford Alcock in the world.

But back to the Carlist Wars. Dr Alcock completed his service in Spain with HM Armed Forces, mostly the Royal Marines and Royal Artillery who were the combat troops sent to the Iberian Peninsular. He advanced medical scholarship too, based on his battlefield surgery experience, with Royal College of Surgeons prize-winning essays in 1839 “On Concussion or Commotion of the Brain.” and 1841 “On Injuries of the Thorax and Operations on its Parietes.“, the latter drawing on his experience in treating gunshot wound injuries.

He was also asked to serve on a Commission of Enquiry into the war, and to help settle compensation claims for wounded British servicemen. His career track was set, to become an army General of medicine, maybe even the chief surgeon to the army, the Surgeon-General. Or to become a highly-regarded civilian surgeon in London.

Until in 1844…
His thumbs became paralysed.

An affliction that would floor me, you, anyone I suggest. But especially in Dr Alcock’s field of medicine. Career-ending, then, and I would imagine now, for a surgeon. The diagnosis was that he had contracted some unknown disease in Spain.
Her Majesty’s Government did not forget Dr Alcock’s service, however.
In the prose of the Victorians…

When thus thrown upon his beam-ends in 1844, an appointment was conferred on Mr Alcock which was not only honourable to him but creditable to the Government which selected him…The Minister responsible for the appointment may be excused if, while selecting a man of proved capacity for a post of unknown requirements, he did not realise the full value of the service he was rendering to his country. Governments are not always so perspicacious in gauging the merits of the uncovenanted, and other nominations made under circumstances not dissimilar have shown how easily the efficiency of the candidate may be subordinated to considerations extraneous to the public weal.

as it was put in a memoir written in 1900 by Alexander Michie using personal and official papers provided by Dr Sir Rutherford’s family and friends (Alcock himself wrote no autobiography).

The State made him an offer.
HAVE WE GOT A JOB FOR YOU.

NOTES
Ang Mo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang_mo
Caudillo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudillo
Greyfriars Bobby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby Hachiko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D

Three Sims and Three Diffs.

“…collapsing into a vortex of repetitive hackdom.”

OR

“A recurring leitmotif in the camera work of Jones’ visual mise-en-scene is the frame within the frame, as seen in Yahoo 360 blog entries such as the offshore islands of China near Xiamen. This visual device can also be noted in the fictional films of Michelangelo Antonioni, “Blow Up”(1966) and in the non-fictional documentary photography of Dr Robert Rines at Loch Ness (1972, 1976).”

Take your pick of those interpretations!

We see here a Gold Coast sky.

But look closely.

There is a small plane within that sky.

Thinking the other day, “What are the visual differences between Australia/Korea/China?” On second thoughts I realised it was a question to which the answer would be infinite! So I decided to limit it to 3. And further refine the set by asking “What would you see in 2 of those countries (Australia/Korea/China) that you wouldn’t see in the third?”

Similarity-Difference One: Private Aviation

Light planes always buzz overhead in Australia or at least they always have in Sydney and Queensland in the places where I reside. I can understand why they wouldn’t in China. The airspace is reserved for the military and commercial aviation. But why not in Korea? Plenty of Koreans could afford a Cessna. I then saw the problem. If your adjeosshi pilot had a soju hangover and made a turn in the wrong direction he’d be over the DMZ in 2 minutes with every SAM (Surface to Air Missile) of the Peoples Republic of Korea aimed at him. Not an acceptable risk to the South Korean Republic hence no light planes for individuals. I wonder if West Germany pre-1989 also prohibited.

So…Korea and China the same. Australia different. 

Similarity-Difference Two: Uncooked Vegetables

Well this is rather based on the premise that all Chinese dishes consist of cooked vegetables. Which is probably not the case if you considered all Chinese regions’ cuisines. However, going on Fuzhou food and recalling what the Headmaster said when I prepared my attempt at an Australian dish (schnitzel [which is more Austrian than Australian] 🙂 and salad); “This is just like on my (the headmaster’s) visit to Melbourne – the vegetables are served like this, uncooked.” (telling the other school staff members accompanying).

So…Korea (with the kimchi) and Australia the same. China different.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If the answer is Julia Gillard.

It must have been a heck of a question.

Indeed it was. What the heck could Australia and China have in common visually that Korea doesn’t? I could not solve this until our Prime Minister on a recent visit to Seoul dropped in for a visit to the students at Gyeseong Girls Catholic School.

Similarity-Difference Three: Catholic Nuns in Public

Here is a nun in a classroom with her students and the PM. I saw no nuns in China. Do they even have nuns in China? Not such an odd question, considering the Catholic Church in Fuzhou has a large church built by the French in 1932.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Dominic’s_Cathedral,_Fuzhou

And in Australia? If I could allow myself a concluding indulgence in repetitive hackdom or recurring leitmotifs from previous Y360 entries…along with

1. midgets
2. people with Down’s Syndrome
3. lift operators/drivers

you can add 4) Catholic nuns to the list of people you would have seen in the public space in my childhood/teenage years but not now. I haven’t seen a nun since my return.

So…Australia and China the same. Korea different.

A Yongsan for Darwin.

 

ON THE GO WITH B.H.O. 🙂

Yongsan Garrison

“It’s not a US Base. Get your facts right.” (Australian Conservatives).

Well, up to a point.

“Making a joke of threats to world peace. Disgraceful.” (Australian Left).

Yep, I sure am.

“It risks contributing to a vicious circle of tension and mistrust.” (Foreign Minister of Indonesia Marty Natalegawa).

Marty is the Foreign Minister of Indonesia…or maybe China?

“…we do not want any development that would undermine this as a region of peace and stability, nor anything that would increase tension.” (Malaysian PM Najib Razak).

Thought Malaysia was in some way allied to Australia and USA. Must recheck.

Now that we’ve got objections (from the first two above, at least, to the title entry) out of the way, let’s look at the details. 2500 US Marines, on 6 month rotation, to the Australian Army’s Robertson Barracks in Darwin. USAF planes including B52s to RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory.

As the Hawks, Defence, not Helensvale 🙂 say, “no biggie, we already have American forces stationed in Australia at Joint Facility Pine Gap .” I say, if you think the socio-economic footprint of a small number of mild-mannered US technical boffins equals that of thousands of the US Marine Corps and US Air Force then…you ain’t been to The Won or A-Town.

But what does China think of all this?

“Australia surely cannot play China for a fool. It is impossible for China to remain detached, no matter what Australia does to undermine its security. If Australia uses its military bases to help the US harm Chinese interests then Australia itself will surely be caught in the crossfire… Gillard may be ignoring something – their economic co-operation with China does not pose any threat to the US, whereas the Australia-US military alliance serves to counter China,” People’s Daily.

The many, many China experts around the world…have they considered Chinese Foreign Policy in the following formulations?

Formally. “China has no permanent allies only permanent interests.” (to paraphrase Lord Palmerston, UK PM ironically enough at the time of the Second Opium War, giving the classic definition of 19^th Century British foreign policy.) A logical, realpolitik position.

Informally. “China’s foreign policy is that of the Millwall Soccer Club Supporters Association. No one likes us, we don’t care. (Me.)

You betcha your strategic think-tank China experts haven’t thought of this new formulation! Or if they have, not quite in those terms.

AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL REFERENCES

[Bill Leak cartoon, The Australian] “I did but see her passing by and yet I love her till I die.” Robert Herrick 1591-1674

Romantic conclusion to a speech by Sir Robert Menzies (Aus PM) to the much younger Queen Elizabeth the Second on her first visit to Australia in 1954. HM QE, on maybe her final visit, was in Australia in November.

[“On the go with BHO”(Barrak Hussein Obama)

”All the way with LBJ.”(Lyndon Baines Johnson)] Aus PM Harold Holt’s (Menzies successor) effusive tribute to President Johnson on the first visit by a US President to Australia in 1966 expressing Australian support for the war in Vietnam.

Fame’s Brush with Fuzhou: An Occasional Series

When you or I meet, or encounter, a celebrity, we have a ‘brush with fame’. But can two inanimate objects, ‘fame’ and ‘a city’ brush up against each other? Or, if the celebrity is substituted for ‘fame’ can he or she rightly be said to take precedence, such as ‘my brush with fame (the celebrity) not the ‘celebrity’s brush with me’, which would be the result if I entitled the entry “Fuzhou’s brush with fame.”? OK, enough word games…one final point…Is there a city in the world that no celebrity has ever visited? 🙂

PART ONE: MARCO POLO

Marco Polo visited Fuzhou in the 1270s.

Or did he?

From Marco Polo: The Travels, translated by Ronald Latham (Penguin Classics).

“Fifteen miles from Unken lies the splendid city of Fu-chau, which is the capital of the kingdom. So I will tell you what I can about it.

“You must know that this city of Fu-chau is the capital of the kingdom named Choncha, which is one of the nine divisions of the province of Manzi. It is an important commercial centre, inhabited by many merchants and craftsmen. The people are idolators and subject to the Great Khan. It is garrisoned by a large force of soldiers. For you must understand that several armies of the Great Khan are stationed here, since this district is one in which there are frequent rebellions of cities and towns. This is because, as I have said before, the natives hold life very cheap, believing that they will enjoy an honoured existence in the next world and also because their dwellings are in fastnesses among the mountains. So, when they are intoxicated with the spirit of revolt, they kill their rulers, and troops have to be called in to take their strongholds and crush them. That is why several armies of the Great Khan are stationed in this city

Through the midst of the city flows a great river, fully a mile in width.”

Asides about an army being stationed in the city as a point of similarity I won’t make 😉

Fu-chau vis Fuzhou, ‘a river a mile wide’…good enough for me. Good enough for Colonel Sir Henry Yule (1), scholar of The Travels too. Latham:

“I have accepted Yule’s identification of the city of ‘Fugiu’ as Fu-chau, though this has been questioned; the kingdom called ‘Fugiu’ or (?) ‘Choncha’ corresponds to the province of Fu-kien.

I’m sure the scholarly arguments against young Marco visiting China (let alone Fuzhou) with his dad and uncle, amount to more than, in the modern vernacular, “Guy was in China for years and doesn’t mention tea or chopsticks once? Come on!” By the time he got back to Italy, and in time to be made a Prisoner of War by the Genoese in 1298, not so young Marco by now, like a lot of celebrities, decided to write a book. A top “as told to”, “with the assistance of” (as American celebrity biographies now say on their covers) ghost writer was at hand. Rustichello of Pisa, European Romance writer, had worked in England, been to Palestine, saw a new genre possibility, THE TRAVEL BOOK. “And from this partnership of the merchant adventurer with the observant eye and retentive memory and the professional romancer with the all-too-fluent pen emerged one of the world’s most remarkable books. We may regret that, with such incomparable material to work on, neither of the men was a literary genius.” (Latham, Introduction).

Safe to say, the book took off on the 14^th century Amazon equivalent, European bestseller lists. But which edition, or to put it in those pre-printing days, which manuscript? We have F (French), L (Latin), V (Venetian), VB 🙂 (Venetian 2), R (Italian), and Z, probably the oldest, in Latin.

Marco in Fu-chau continued…in the Z manuscript…to mention that lions roamed the Fujian countryside! (well, tigers no doubt did back then, is that what he meant? And how did the Chinese know about lions anyway to put them as statues in front of their buildings?). He describes little fox-like creatures that the Fujianese caught, and huge geese, “that a single one weighs 24 lb”.

One final piece of information Marco relates,

When Messer Maffeo, Marco’s uncle, and Messer Marco himself were in this city of Fu-chau, there was in their company a certain learned Saracen, who spoke to them as follows: ‘In such-and-such a place there is a community whose religion nobody knows. It is evidently not idolatrous, since they keep no idols. They do not worship fire. They do not profess Mahomet. And they do not appear to observe the Christian order. I suggest that we should go and have a talk with them. Perhaps you will recognise something of their usages.’

To cut a long story short, Marco and his uncle talk to these folks, find out they’ve got some ancient books, and paintings of three apostles, and exclaim,‘You are Christians, and we are also Christians. We advise you to send to the Great Khan and explain to him how you stand, so that he may grant you recognition…” With the happy result that the Great Khan grants them freedom of worship! It’s possible that this may have been a community of Nestorian Christians somehow existing in Fu-chau.

Marco’s conclusion on the city:

“Moreover it is not far from the port of Zaiton on the ocean, a great resort of ships and merchandise from India; and from Zaiton ships come up by the big river of which I have spoken as far as the city of Fu-chau. By this means many precious wares are imported from India. There is no lack here of anything that the human body requires to sustain life. There are gardens of great beauty and charm, full of excellent fruit. In short it is such a good city and so well provided with every amenity that it is a veritable marvel.”

Zaiton is identified with the port of Quanzhou to the south of Fuzhou. A fourteenth century writer, Jacopo D’Acqui, supposedly had Marco as declaring on his deathbed that, so far from exaggerating, “he had not related the half of what he had seen.”

I think anyone who’s been in China for an extended period of time could identify with that.  🙂

NOTES

Sir Henry Yule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Yule

Nestorians in China: http://www.anchist.mq.edu.au/doccentre/Zayton.htm

 

 

 

From Fuzhou With Love

The School Principal was down in Xiamen on the day of my departure but returned late that afternoon so as to give me a lift to Fuzhou Changle airport (to make sure I was on the plane out…no, just kidding) 🙂

I was presented with a bouquet of flowers at the departure gate (a gift I’d received before at school functions). It’s a nice gesture and it’s the thought that counts but…giving me flowers is like ordering General McChrystal to dine in a candlelit Paris restaurant with a French politician. The recipient is mismatched to the gift/request.

Check-in at the Dragonair counter went smoothly (or so I thought, more on which later). I re-gifted the flowers to a bemused granny there with her family, and proceeded through the security checks. The Fuzhou Customs man wanted to see my carry-on bag. “Could you open this please?” “Yep” (contact lens fluid container). “And this please.” A rectangular box about a foot long. He was quite apologetic when he saw that the box merely contained a gift pair of Chinese dolls for my niece Lisi. Fuzhou Customs dudes…I’ve struck worse! 

In the Departure Lounge for the flight to Hong Kong was a European or South American fellow in tee-shirt and jeans talking loudly into his mobile phone giving a convincing impression of fluent Chinese language skills until…he said, ‘Hong Kong’…”Mate you just blew it. Even I know that the word for ‘Hong Kong’ in Putonghua is not  ‘Hong Kong’.” What it is in Min-Dong, Min-Bei, Min-Nan, or Fuzhouhua, let me get back to you! Unless…he was speaking Guangdonghua and the word for ‘Hong Kong’ is ‘Hong Kong’? 🙂

Also in the Departure Lounge was a young Chinese woman with a Country Road (Australian clothing brand) bag. Eventually the boarding call goes out and we all shuffle onto the plane. “Mind the bag”, I tell the young Chinese woman who it turns out is seated next to me, warning her not to trip on my oversized carry-on stashed under the seat in front.

Weird s**t happens to me at international airports like being detained and questioned for explosives possession at Kingsford Smith/Mascot/Sydney. Deplaning at Chek Lap Kok/ Hong Kong, I’m greeted by a Cathay Pacific airport staffer holding a sign with my name on it. “Mr Jones?” “Yes”. “Could you please go to Cathay Pacific check-in. There was a mistake uploading your passport details at Fuzhou.”

Haven’t heard of this one before! My fellow passenger Rosie, who’s going to Australia to finish off a uni course in tourism decides to accompany me to straighten things out. She then makes the eminently sensible suggestion to get airport trolleys for her Country Road bag (actually purchased in Fuzhou, not Australia…authenticity, well…!) and my laptop computer and carry-on bag. I have a learned reflex not to use airport trolleys simply because Sydney International and Domestic were (not sure the situation now) the only airports in the world as far as I know that charged $2 for trolleys.

Eventually finding the Cathay Pacific check-in it turns out that the correct details have now come through from Fuzhou 🙂 Rosie confirms this in Chinese with the counter-staff and I’m free to proceed.

Wheeling our trolleys through HKIA’s concourses and chatting together, I then begin to notice, or more rather sense…”DEAD-EYED STARES FROM MIDDLE-AGED BLONDES” :-(( …”What an odious man.”… “She must be half his age.”…”He’s as bad as Ronnie Wood.” (1). Oh well, I can see how the mistake would arise!

We board Cathay Pacific’s overnight flight to Brisbane, Rosie seated in the aisle across from me (wonder if it’s airline practice to seat people next to each other if they’re travelling on unusual routes eg Fuzhou to Brisbane? A buddy system at work?). I get stuck into Cathay’s entertainment system, watching 2 eps of the sitcom ‘Curb your Enthusiasm’ (2) listening to the debut album by Them Crooked Vultures (3), and watching the first hour of the Robert Harris/Roman Polansky/Pierce Brosnan/Ewan McGregor/Kim Cattrall/Tony Blair film.

Arrival in Brisbane mid-morning (I’m sure I’ve had faster trips HK-Sydney 4 0r so years back with an early morning arrival…do they use a slower plane HK-Brisbane?!). At least Brisbane Airport is not as crowded as that great swamp of humanity at Sydney Arrivals. I’m through Passport Inspection pretty quick, run into Rosie at the baggage carousel, thank her for her help in Hong Kong and wish her luck in her studies, move to quarantine inspection half-expecting to get ordered to open my bags seeing I’ve just arrived back from almost 2 years in China…but no…they believe my “Nothing to Declare” Quarantine Card. Being quite sleepy by this time, I veer my luggage trolley (which is free) towards the little beagle drug sniffer dogs and probably alarmed that I’m going to run them over with my 2 suitcases/laptop/carry-on, a woman Quarantine officer urgently redirects, “Please this way, straight ahead.”

And with that, I was home.

NOTES

1) Ronnie Wood: Rolling Stones guitarist. Left his 50 year old wife Jo, 2 years back and has been dating 20 year old Russian cocktail waitresses in London since.

2) ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. Sitcom by Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld. Cringe-inducing humour.

3) ‘Them Crooked Vultures’. New hard-rock supergroup comprising John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Dave Grohl of Nirvana/The Foo Fighters, and some well-regarded current singer. Album ok…but not particularly heavy at first listen.

The term ‘Nongmin’.

Chatting with a colleague recently and the conversation turned to parents occupation…I had a first President Bush moment with supermarket scanners (“Golly Gee, how long have these been around?”) when she showed me the Chinese/English translation on her mobile phone. (“About 10 years at least”!).

‘My parents are Nongmin’.

The translation on the mobile phone said, Peasant.

Putting on my rarely used politically-correct linguistic cap I said, when asked if this was a good translation,

“Ah…no, we wouldn’t say ‘peasant’ in english…we’d say ‘farmer’.

From English historic/linguistic and Chinese historic/linguistic angles…

ENGLISH: When did the term ‘peasant’ fall out of use in the english language? 1381, Wat Tyler’s Peasant Revolt, the term ‘peasant’ definitely exists. 1536, The ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, a Northern English revolt against Henry V111, the term ‘peasant’ still in use. I would guess that by the early 1600s that the term ‘peasant’ had become in some way obsolete, with the rise of the Puritans. Peasants maybe became ‘agricultural labourers’. In France (at the same time) there was a peasant class that in 1789 brought on the French Revolution.

CHINESE: The absence of an industrial proletariat is the difference btw Russian and Chinese Communist Revolutions. Mao celebrated the ‘peasants’ as the revolutionary vanguard. But surely after the completion of the revolution and the establishment of the PRC the ‘nongmin’ cease to exist as an identifiable class, being subsumed into collective farms or leaving for the cities?

The term, ‘Nongmin’, therefore continues. My colleague’s mobile phone translation may well be right. Under Internet Censorship here in Mainland China, I noted but could not read an article stating that in 2007 the Central Committee directed to all government orgs that the term, ‘Nongmin’, no longer be used in official language.

Sports Day

Back in the late Autumn. One can see the influence of the October Grand Parade in Beijing. Now schools don’t ‘do’ parody, except unintentionally, so I can discount any deliberate irony being directed at Beijing by the school. I’m sure parody must exist as an aesthetic in Chinese art and literature, just not officially.

The Tank (created by school Art Department) progresses:

The Tank fires confetti 🙂

Students march like the red pom-pom go-go boot women in Beijing!

A writer for the English magazine ‘The Spectator’ visited Beijing for the 60th Anniversary. In a generally complimentary article he took a contrarian approach to civil liberties saying that Beijingers have more protesting spirit than Londoners…Beijingers ignore the smoking ban, and don’t like the closed circuit television systems set up in their neighbourhoods – both government actions he claimed meekly accepted by Londoners. What he did find most different culturally was…yes…the red pom-pom go-go boot marching women! “It’s not that we couldn’t do this back home, select women in the armed services for height and looks and dress them up in red pom-poms and white go-go boots and have them march in a parade. It just wouldn’t occur to us to do this!”