Slow Boat to China

Keeping this blog makes it possible for me to go back and figure out that it's been ten months since I was last under the weather. So I guess I'm overdue. I woke up the day after Christmas with a sore-ish throat and things have gone downhill ever since.

Well, I'm glad at least that the germs held off until after the holiday. I needed every last minute this year. One of these years - when my home and life are more fully organized - that organization and structure is going to be reflected in my holiday preparations. I am determined that at some point in my life I will know what it feels like not to be a harried, last-minute Betty during the days before Christmas! I dream of being the kind of person who takes steps throughout the year to prepare for Christmas so she has the time during the holidays to really pause and enjoy the fun stuff. The little things that can't be done in advance... Maybe the work I do on myself in 2010 will bring me another long step closer to being that kind of person.



Our book club will be meeting just one week from tomorrow, so I'm going to use this downtime to get some reading done! When I'm reading something set in a place I've never visited before, I like to do a little digging to get a better idea of the setting for the story. At some point, your imagination has to take over --- but I've always liked getting my bearings. Have any of you ever visited this part of China?

Mother kept a boardinghouse in the least fashionable and, therefore, the cheapest corner of the British Concession, which is situated along the Hei-ho River. In appearance the concession is quite European, and the white people immediately feel at home in its broad, well-paved, tree-bordered streets, among buildings of modern architecture. Yet, at intervals, one comes to high gray walls intersecting the row of buildings - a Chinese abode, belonging to some rich citizen, which towers like a fortress over the rest of the street... The farther one gets from the center of the concession the less English it seems; for the people of other nations are massed on its borders under the protection of the mighty British Empire. Often these folk cannot afford separate houses, and are obliged to live crowded in boardinghouses. The Family kept one such establishment on Long Street, Number 11, which scarcely paid, so each one of the Family tried to contribute his mite to the expenses.

Nina Fedorova's The Family (1940) is set in Tientsin, China when the scene opens in May 1937. Tientsin - today known as Tianjin - is a walled port city on the Peiho and Haihe rivers. Located at the head of navigation on these rivers, Tientsin was also the hub of several rail lines and a major canal. It was one of five Chinese cities declared an "open trading port" during the mid-19th century. Several powerful nations leased districts in Tientsin that were populated by merchants, bankers, diplomatic officials, and missionaries: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia. The presence of these "concessions" lent an exotic architectural flavor to the city. Somebody touring the city might come away with a feeling they had just visited a world's fair! The 992-acre British Concession - located about two miles from old Tientsin - included Victoria Park, the Astor House Hotel, Gordon Hall (the seat of the British consul), and all of Tientsin's major banks. By 1928, some 2,045 "foreigners" and more than 33,000 Chinese called the British Concession home.