“And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell.” - Wicked Witch of the West, Wizard of Oz
At the risk of turning this into an opium blog — and really, Thomas de Quincey aside, where’s the harm in that? — I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention today’s diplomatic row over the power of a flower. As most readers know, it is custom among our British cousins to wear a poppy or poppy substitute on November 11 as a remembrance of those who perished in The Great War. Trouble happens though when you want to wear your ceremonial poppy into the Great Hall of the People; for you see, the Chinese have a different view of Brits bearing buds.* David Cameron and his entourage refused and the matter was dropped, but it presented an interesting clash of symbols. Lest anyone forget, the poppies are for all of the Allies who died in The War, including several thousand Chinese who gave their lives on the fields of Belgium and France.**
Nevertheless, I think most people can appreciate how — from a particular Chinese perspective — the idea of British politicians sporting the poppy plant on a state visit to “New China” could be a thing. I’m glad that David Cameron did not back down, and I’m also glad that the Chinese protocol boys didn’t press the issue, but it’s amazing how historical wounds can be be ripped asunder in the most unlikely and unusual of ways.
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*The British didn’t invent opium smoking or the planting of opium for medicinal (and other purposes) and opium had been ingested in China for centuries. Nevertheless, it was merchants operating under license from the British East India Company who set up the incredibly lucrative trade which flooded the coastal areas of the Qing Empire with smokable opium and led to a wholesale ban on the import of the drug…a ban which the British ignored and that ultimately led to war between the two empires. Any one interested in reading more on that history can check out this post from the summer.
**Though that sacrifice didn’t stop the other Allied Powers from greasing up and royally screwing the Chinese at Versailles when the treaty signatories attempted to hand Shandong over to the Japanese. Chinese students were, to put it mildly, pissed and vented their frustration on May 4, 1919.
I think you’re out by a considerable factor on Chinese casualties there. The Chinese labor corps involved about a hundred and fifty thousand workers, and about ten thousand casualties (very roughly). There was a plan to put together a fighting regiment, but the war ended before they finished training.
150’000 *workers*, 10’000 *dead.*
Which actually raises the interesting question of what happened to the other 140,000. Some of them must surely have ended up sticking around Europe, like the Chinese sailors did in Liverpool. Also be interesting to see whether their experience (albeit not as front-line soldiers) of full-scale war led any of them into military careers in the 20s.
“in The Great War” should be “in war since The Great War”. Lots of pics of soldiers who died in Afganistan this year.
another factor in the spread of opium addiction was the newly increased concentration … or perhaps delivery method of smoking which gives you a bigger hit. i read that somewhere but it’s a rare fact. cos basically you have to explain why this plant that’s been around for thousands of years suddenly takes off as a drug.
Also regarding the 1919 stuff, it’s unclear to me as to how people conceived of china at the time. i think it probable that the geographical space we call china today was at the time perceived by europeans as an assortment of internally unconsolidated states. or perhaps in some cases tribal regions. so it’s not clear that if your frontline support staff do a sterling job, you’ll be able to identify them with a ‘country’ to which you would then show your appreciation.
ACTUALLY yeah, i think i got that opium fact from the online set of harvard lectures about chinese history. woot.
Potato Potato,
Yeah, I talked about that in the post linked to above. Here’s another link if you’re interested. My source was Jonathan Spence, “Opium” in Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture. (W.W. Norton & Company, 1992), an essay originally published in the 1970s.
As for 1919, while certainly “China” was a basket case at the time, it was recognized by the foreign powers as a country, with a government, even if the area actually under that government’s control was often limited.
I’m British, and wearing a poppy today that I purchased at a British run bar here in Beijing. The poppy is a controversial symbol in Britain too. Not because of opium, but due to the fact that some believe the red poppy originally connected to WW1 glorifies war as noble and heroic, therefore some sport the white poppy to show solidarity with all war dead. For me personally I believe the red poppy is a symbol of the horrors of all wars, no matter the side and a call to never forget the awful mistakes we made (are making). However, despite wearing one on 11th Nov, I refuse to wear the poppy on Remembrance Sunday (the nearest Sunday to 11th), as I am very uncomfortable with connecting religion to the remembrance of war.
I read this New York Times article too. I’ve spent a lot of time in Britain, and I think the analogy someone (I think maybe Evan Osnos’s London equivalent, though she can’t have been the first) drew between poppies in Britain and American flag pins in the States is pretty valid–they’re must-haves, not to be done without. It’s to the credit of the Chinese government that they didn’t make a fuss of it.
What I find truly amazing is that there doesn’t seem to be a fenqing reaction to it. I Baidu’d yixia and couldn’t find anything in the news or on the Chinese internet about the poppies. To my memory, usually something that gets rejected by the Chinese government will get picked up by the thin-skinned and scabby nationalist youth. Usually I wish they’d shut up they talk so much, so I was pleasantly surprised by their silence.
Um, you guys know the Remembrance Day poppy and the opium poppy are not even the same flower, right? They are different species (Papaver rhoeus/Papaver somniferum), and don’t even have the same name in Chinese (虞美人/罌粟). In other words, this is a contrived controversy.
Tiffert,
Which makes it all the more surprising that the protocol boys for the foreign ministry decided to make a thing out of it, yeah? Then again, one might suggest that contrived historical controversies are a bit of a CCP métier.
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing that they would ask David Cameron to remove the poppy. The flag-pin analogy, though, is not really that valid. The main purpose of the poppy is not so much to show solidarity with veterans, but as an indication that you have already contributed to the Royal British Legion (or, what was up until a few years ago known as the Haig Fund – as in Douglas Haig, for some reason poppies no longer seem to bear this inscription). To be seen without it is to allow the impression that you do not care about veterans and did not give anything to the charity which supports them.
Re: the Chinese contribution to WW1 – Robert Fisk wrote an interesting description of an incident involving his father putting down a riot by Chinese labourers, including the shooting of several of the Chinese, in his book “The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East”. Well worth a read, even if you do not agree with Fisk’s interpretation of history/politics.
Oh, and just to show how, if you look hard enough, pretty much everything is connected, check out this picture of David Cameron accompanied by a British Korean war veteran, both wearing poppies, laying a wreath at a memorial dedicated to those killed by North Korean and Chinese soldiers in a war described by Xi Jinping as “a great and just war for safeguarding peace and resisting aggression.”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2010/nov/11/remembrance-day-in-pictures#/?picture=368579576&index=10
What I don’t entirely understand is why this story has so captured everybody’s imagination. Is it the interplay between layers of inter-cultural symbolism, like an “oh, I hadn’t even considered that” kind of moment? Is it the symbolism of the British delegation standing up to China’s request? I’ve been hearing about this particular issue from all quarters and areas, but it’s hard to pin down what it is that captivated people about this really very minor incident. It’s so minor that the Chinese government, usually so quick to take offense, dropped the issue. I’d be interested to hear who the original news source was: was it the Chinese or an affronted member of the British delegation? I think that missing piece may be the key to reading the tea leaves in this news event.
http://www.salon.com/news/china/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2010/11/12/the_memory_of_opium_wars_and_a_china_trip_preview
“The memory still rankles, egged on by the Chinese Communist Party, which finds it a useful tool for rallying domestic support, as explained by historian Jeremiah Jenne.”
Wow! Quoted on Salon. As a HISTORIAN no less! Tell the wife to buy a new car, because fame and fortune are on the way!