Woke With My Knee In Pain

The Marquis de Moges: Memories of an embassy in 1857

Moges Alfred is famous for his travel to Japan, so he accompanied in 1858, the diplomatic mission of Baron Gros in this relatively forgotten empire of the West. The previous year he traveled to China and left a few pages on his way to Hong Kong.

Memories of an embassy in China and Japan "is the name of the book that the Marquis de Moges relates his journey of two years in the Far East. Published in 1860, this relationship is a journey relatively dry with few long descriptions. The Marquis is more fun to talk about the mundane and, thereby, to show his support for the regime of Napoleon III, which is a strong supporter. It also retains more passages that relate to Japan, because its mission, led by Baron Gros, led to the signing of the first Treaty of Friendship and Commerce between France and Japan.
China is nevertheless an important aspect of the mission and the resulting book ... and Hong Kong is a must. The Marquis de Moges arrived off the coast of the young British colony in October 1857 aboard the frigate "the Bold". The first stop on the embassy site in Macau to meet Minister of France Bourboulon, but signs of the decline of the Portuguese colony and time changes, most of the tour continues in Hong Kong.
The traveler attaches great importance to the protocol, the first impressions of the landscape are unimportant, however, he noted that immediately Baron Gros welcomed "the nineteen-gun by Admiral Seymour and a British frigate, a corvette and a corvette Dutch American. " It follows a long conference with Lord Elgin, his English counterpart, then a warm welcome and attentive Bowring of the governor. Again, the cannon friendlies are counted and the presence of the garrison at attention on the road to the residence of the governor are as much detail as the Marquis enjoys. Banquets and receptions follow each other: the social events are well underway.
During the five days of calls that follow, the diplomat started to crack a few comments. "We travel in all directions this wonderful array of English power in the Far East." After a brief history, the marquis confesses: "Fifteen years have sufficed for the colonizing genius of Great Britain to make this wonder and to make this place, unknown until then the busiest port in these seas." What is surprising more the observer, is the ubiquity of Chinese and Hindu personnel in connection with the lack of escort or protection of the British, while those nations are at war against England and the head of the governor is putting rates. We learn, however, that the East India Company finances part of the arsenal and the ships present in Hong Kong, where ...
Embassy attending a theatrical performance of "sing-song." "The show starts at eight o'clock in the morning and lasts until eight o'clock at night, without ever the stage remains empty for a moment. All kinds of heroes, geniuses, gods will take place, and thus engaged in fighting the most fabulous. Nothing beats the pantomime of Chinese actors and luxury costumes, all sparkling with gold and silk. "The music and tone are confusing, and once the surprise and curiosity past," the poor man lost in the European demand through locations and fled. "
A visit is made to the Fathers of the Foreign Missions and the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres. Marquis stresses are 4000 Catholics in Hong Kong and explains the ministry of missionaries sent across from the colony, with this amusing conclusion: "the poor, lost in the interior Asia, are in communication once a year with Europe and the civilized world. What a horrible kidnapping! "After visiting the college of missions on the mountain, Alfred Moges down to the" happy valley ", he learns that the name comes from three cemeteries all around. The racetrack is already serviced every day "as in English parks.
Other more serious matters at the same time animate the embassy. Baron Gros preparing an offensive against the "haughty viceroy of the two Kwangs" in Canton. This operation is conceived in consultation with the English who also want battle with their neighbor. The tricks are many and Hong Kong appears to be a platform for diplomacy in the Far East: the Marquis accurately scans the other embassies. He is suspicious of the Count Poutiatine, the Russian envoy, veteran of the Crimean War and is now protecting Russian interests in China. Reed is sent by the United States and has a warmer look, because its task is confined to the observation. It poses no threat to French interests.
At the end of his stay, Alfred Moges draws the necessary conclusions, "Hong Kong is future trade and movement, the city of Macao is quiet and the past. The time is past when the intrepid Portuguese sailors were the rulers of the seas. "

FD.

Sources and photo credits: Alfred Moges, Memories of an embassy in China and Japan in 1857 and 1858, Paris, Hachette, 1860.

Azémar Thanks to Yves and his inexhaustible library of old books on Asia, 89 Hollywood Road - Hong Kong.

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Andree Viollis reporter in Hong Kong

In 1931-1932, journalist Andree Viollis performs a series of reports on events drama that crosses the China occupation of Manchuria by the Japanese student riots calling for resistance, anti-Japanese boycott and political uncertainties within the Kuomintang. Although the British colony is away from the violence, the journalist does not feel less like other Western travelers, the Chinese community as a potential threat.

Figure famous committed journalism, Viollis Andree (1870-1950) investigated the USSR in 1927, the Afghan civil war in 1929 and published India against the British in 1930. In 1935 it will publish Indochine SOS, prefaced by André Malraux, to denounce the abuses of the colonial administration. Malraux sees Andree Viollis a representative of the "new journalism" whose purpose is no longer "[...] to search for characters, but things. Andree Viollis is now one of very few female senior reporters.
From December 1931 to March 1932, journalist "cover" the events in China for the Petit Parisien. En route to Shanghai, she arrived in Hong Kong at the end of the year: "So, I forget China, because it is a wonderful spectacle. Never more so than in the conquest of this rock England has shown its power and tenacious energy. Above, the city of pleasure with its white tiled palaces in parks, and below, the city labor and business. It piles up to a width of less than 600 meters from the base of the rock at the port, its monuments, its squares, lawns ensure the same sad statues of rulers in London, dressed in finery same bronze. It aligns along the streets and docks its banks, trading houses, shops with names proud, that sound the same throughout the Empire [...]. "
Unable to visit the shops closed on Saturday, she attended a movie. If the decor of the room surprised him by its luxury, it is especially sensitive to the separation between the two communities: "Families in crowds get inside it, press it, it loll: English families, fathers flourished , briar in the face of a ham, well planted on large yellow leather shoes, mothers lean and anxious, brooding look of sturdy children, hair straw hat in the club or school Chinese families, fathers to the long neck, displaying their belly in a long black dress or suit European, thin girls mannered, with bright hair short rouged cheeks and saffron, rolling in silk tunics clear gains closely ears to the hips; boys extraordinarily elegant, lacquered black heads, sober jackets and tortoiseshell glasses. All the world is ready and happy. The English groups exchange signs, Chinese groups interpellate. We talk, we joke, we laugh. But between English and Chinese, no contact, no mixing. Sitting side by side, they remain distant, impenetrable, grouped by blocks in this room that no current links. "
His evening is devoted to the Chinese city:" It is huge, bright and yet mysterious [...] These are sinkholes of blinding clarity, deafening and frightening tumult. All stores are open wide. Everywhere men leaning on the iron tap, carve or sawing wood, carried fabrics, cut or embroider leather. When do they sleep? They work, work tirelessly, night as day. [...] What a crowd! This is not the slippery softness of eastern India but people with strong shoulders, manly-looking, not at the farm. In the hard faces flat net, this is not the leak sly gaze Annamese the Annamite who sees himself as a slave, but a bold eye, sharp scans and you fathom you without fear or amenity. [...] Suddenly, a group is formed and grows around a freshly pasted poster: under large Chinese characters red, a drawing shows two small Japanese soldiers, one with a gun, the other with a bayonet, rushing to a giant Chinese shock that awaits them, despising law and its great curved in hand [... ] And I think that suddenly in this city of Hong Kong, they are a million of Chinese against a handful of Europeans who have come home. " As Marc
Chadourne, another famous journalist, who spends himself as Hong Kong in 1931 she perceives the Chinese community as a veiled threat that he recalls the words of a Chinese diplomat to the Peace Conference in 1919 " [...] Did you know that four men there is always a Chinese? Did you know that we are four hundred million, one quarter of humanity? Four hundred million in 1919, four hundred and fifty million today! These figures I saw then in an abstract way, how they seemed to me terrible eloquence that night, I was lost in the crowd stirred this city frightening tumult and splendor! "
This distrust, it does not feel it during a brief visit to Canton:" Like Hong Kong, cinemas, theaters, restaurants, peeps, music, clapping sound of wooden clogs on pavers. But yet, strangely, no animosity in looks and yet I do not encounter a single European. "
early January, she went to Shanghai and has witnessed the bloody battles of January-February between Chinese and Japanese troops around the chapei neighborhood. In mid-March, wanting to pursue its investigation of "reactions happened in Manchuria and Shanghai, she sailed for Japan.

DVR.

Sources: Viollis (Andre), "Shanghai and fate of China", Paris, Editions Correa, 1933. Credits: http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de