Narratives of Free Trade and the Commercial Cultures of Early American Chinese Relations

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Hong Kong University Press 14/F Hing Wai Centre 7 Tin Wan Praya Road Aberdeen Hong Kong www.hkupress.org© Hong Kong University Press 2012 ISBN 978-988-8083-53-4 (Hardback) ISBN 978-988-8083-54-1 (Paperback) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed and bound by Kings Time Printing Press Ltd., Hong Kong, China Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction: Revising First Impressions: American Stereotypes of China and the National Romance of Free Trade Kendall Johnson 1. Bookkeeping as a Window into Efficiencies of Early Modern Trade: Europeans, Americans and Others in China Compared, 1700–1842 Paul A. Van Dyke 2. A Question of Character: The Romance of Early Sino-American Commerce in The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the First American Consul at Canton (1847) Kendall Johnson 3. China of the American Imagination: The Influence of Trade on US Portrayals of China, 1820 to 1850 John R. Haddad 4. Russell and Company and the Imperialism of Anglo-American Free Trade Sibing He 5. Chopsticks or Cutlery? How Canton Hong Merchants Entertained Foreign Guests in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries May-bo Ching 6. Representing Macao in 1837: The Unpublished Peripatetic Diary of Caroline Hyde Butler (Laing) Rogério Miguel Puga Contents vii ix 1 17 33 57 83 99 117 vi Contents 7. The Face of Diplomacy in Nineteenth-Century China: Qiying’s Portrait Gifts Yeewan Koon 8. To Make a Way: Telling a Story of US–China Union through the Letters of Henry Adams and John Hay Paul A. Bové 9. The Flow of the Traders’ Goddess: Tianhou in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century America Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce and Yedan Huang Notes Bibliography Index 131 149 163 177 211 231 In June 2009, the American Studies Programme in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong worked with the Department of History at Sun Yat-sen University, the Instituto Cultural do Governo da R.A.E. de Macau, and the Hong Kong-America Center to invite a group of scholars to participate in a colloquium on the representation of free trade in narratives of early American and Chinese relations. The participants included Dr. Paul Bové (University of Pittsburgh), Dr. Max Cavitch (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. May Bo Ching (Sun Yat-sen University), Dr. John R. Haddad (Penn State University), Dr. Vincent Ho (University of Macao), Dr. Sibing He (Independent Scholar, Guangzhou), Dr. Yinghe Jiang (Sun Yat-sen University), Dr. Yeewan Koon (University of Hong Kong), Dr. Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce (University of Hong Kong), Dr. Joseph Abraham Levi (University of Hong Kong), Dr. Aili Li (Sun Yat-sen University), Dr. Rogério Miguel Puga (FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa/FCT, Portugal), Dr. Paul A. Van Dyke (University of Macao), and Ms. Huang Yedan (University of Hong Kong). The moderators who generously contributed their time and insightful commentary were Dr. Wayne Cristaudo (Director of the European Studies Programme, University of Hong Kong), Professor Douglas Kerr (School of English, University of Hong Kong), and Dr. Pui Tak Lee (Centre for Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong). The colloquium experience materialized through the hard work and planning of several people, including Dr. Dixon Wong (Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong), Marie Imelda Macleod (Director of the Arquivo Historico de Macau), Dr. May Bo Ching (Department of History, Sun Yat-sen University), and Dr. Glenn Shive (Director of the Hong Kong-America Center). For their intellectual energy and support of the events, deep appreciation goes to Professor Takeshi Acknowledgements ...