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When in 1840, Dr. William Jardine was leaving China, at his farewell dinner he praised the Chinese and their country in the following words: Here we find our persons more efficiently protected by laws than in many other parts of the East, or of the world; in China, a foreigner can go to sleep with his windows open without being in dread of either his life or property, which are well-guarded by a most watchful and excellent police; … Business is conducted with unexampled facility and in general with singular good faith; …. Neither would I omit the general courtesy of the Chinese in all their intercourse and transactions with foreigners: These and some other considerations are the reasons that so many of us so oft re-visit this country and stay in it so long. 1 Yet, the effect of trying to govern the little island of Hong Kong since 1842 seems to have severely shaken this way of thinking. A newer and more stereotypical view of the Chinese character was attacking the formation of bonds based on mutual trust. The waves of religious fervour that had swept Europe and America at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries had led many people from the West to associate ignorance of the Christian God with moral degradation. Heathens were automatically considered ‘wretched’ and ‘benighted’. The Chinese, according to Rev. John Nevius: are so generally spoken of as ‘a nation of thieves and liars’, that a person who is not disposed to adopt or sanction these and similar stereotyped expressions, is in danger of being regarded as either ignorant or prejudiced. 2 No longer were the Chinese seen as protective of the persons and goods of the foreigners, honest in their commercial dealings and courteous. By the 1860s, the commonly accepted view of the Chinese people was appalling. Nevius had spent ten years in China as a missionary and in 1869 published a book, China and Chapter 14 The Chinese and Their Position in Relation to the Europeans Lim_txt.indd 286 28/12/2010 4:16 PM The Chinese and Their Position in Relation to the Europeans 287 the Chinese. He felt the need to begin his Chapter XIX, ‘General Estimate of the Chinese Character and Civilization’, with these words: ‘The Chinaman’ has almost become a synonym for stupidity, and his habits and peculiarities afford abundant occasion for pleasantry and ridicule. This impression has become so fixed and so general, that correspondents and editors of newspapers who wish to make their articles on China and the Chinese readable and interesting, gladly seize upon and exaggerate anything which can be made to appear grotesque and ridiculous. In speaking of this people, their pig-tails, shaven pates, thick-soled shoes, assumptions of dignity and superiority, and the great ignorance of many subjects with which we are familiar, make up the unfailing material upon which the newspapers generally draw. 3 From the Chinese point of view, the Europeans had, in the last century, inflicted two humiliating defeats on the Chinese Empire and forced the Chinese to sign much disliked treaties. Stories of killing, plunder and looting had circulated after the battles of the Opium Wars, which included the destruction of the Summer Palace at Peking and the desecration of the sacred imperial sites in the capital city. The arrogant and overbearing character of some foreigners and their sometimes over-hasty resort to physical violence in their dealings with the Chinese did not endear them to the more disciplined Chinese. Nor did the wellknown excesses of the lower levels of European society, particularly with regards to alcohol, enhance the standing of the foreigner in the eyes of the Chinese. It is therefore hardly surprising that Freeman Mitford, when describing Hong Kong as he passed through in April 1865 on his way to taking up his post at the British legation in Peking, could write: ‘The Europeans hate the Chinese and the latter return the compliment with interest’. 4 A number of further factors were at work including the prevailing ignorance of each other’s language and culture which made rapprochement almost impossible. The pidgin English, ‘an uncouth and ridiculous jargon’ that had grown up as a means of communication between the merchants and their Chinese business partners in Canton, could only be used for practical purposes, being so simplified in grammar and vocabulary that it was incapable of being a medium for higher levels of communication. The use of this jargon led...

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