Blue China by Bamboo Hirst
01/02/2007
Translated by Sue Rose
CHINA SEEN FROM THE WEST
INTRODUCTION BY XINRAN XUE, AUTHOR OF 'THE GOOD WOMEN OF CHINA' (SEE EXTRACT BELOW)
ISBN - 10 0952942682 ISBN - 13 9780952942689
Original paperback
extant pp 300
£13.50
Publication date: March 2008
Blue China is a shocking, unique, personal look at China, both old and new, by a courageous Westernised Chinese woman Bamboo Hirst. Despite abandonment as a girl, she survived the Japanese invasion, the communist revolution, and her transferral by boat, alone, to a harsh Italian orphanage at thirteen, with inspiring courage and self-reliance. ‘My China is not the romanticised one of my parents. I had to pay for this with reality. I have seen with my own eyes thousands dying of hunger, of cold. As a child, my “game” was to collect from the missionary doors, baby girls thrown away. These were my “dolls.”’
Bamboo Hirst made it into the Italian fashion industry. She is married to an Englishman and lives in London. ‘My family survived only because of my grandfather Radiant Wisdom’s good personal relations with the English.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In Bamboo Hirst’s life nothing is ordinary: it is torn between East and West, love and death, happiness and desperation, abandonment and coming home. It is written sparingly, like a series of Chinese ideograms.
Blue China is her first book to be translated into English.
Extract
Chapter One (Part One)
translated by sue rose
'Just the smell of it made me feel sick. So I sat there gazing at the large bowl brimming with milky coffee they were determined to make me drink, even though it had gone cold hours ago.
The nuns thought I was just being naughty. I couldn’t explain that in China only babies drank milk, and then only mother’s milk, and that cheese and dairy products didn’t exist.
I didn’t offer any explanations because I didn’t want the other girls at the Istituto to make fun of me. They already called me “Lady Mandarin” after finding out that I’d been “sold” to a Chinese governor, whose nickname was the “Mandarin”.
This governor was actually a very important man with the same privileges and powers as the mandarins of the past. According to custom, he was a polygamist and his sumptuously dressed wives and concubines lived with him in his mansion.
The big house was surrounded by camphor trees and oaks and there were tuberoses and forsythia in all his rooms.
He was a benefactor of the Mission that was my home during those years and had met me while I was playing in the shady garden.
When he wasn’t in military uniform, he wore a long, blue silk robe that showed the tips of his shoes. These were a masterpiece of craftsmanship with embroidery along the sides and velvet edging that matched his clothes.
I was impressed by his aura of authority. On one occasion, I rode in his rickshaw. There was a bell near the footrest that he sometimes impatiently pressed with his foot, as if to say to the driver: ‘Keep going straight through the crowd’. And all the people bowed, lining up on either side to let him pass.
He seemed to be a very kind, wealthy gentleman and I loved him like a daughter. I thought he wanted to adopt me when he learnt of my father’s presumed death and I had no idea there was nothing paternal about his feelings for me.
It was only later that I found out he didn’t mean to adopt me, that he’d earmarked me as a future concubine: at the age of fifteen, I would have become his fifth “little rose”.
When I realised his intentions, I was genuinely disappointed. He had only ever shown me kindness and generosity: I was too young to know that there are two sides to every coin.'
EXTRACT FROM INTRODUCTION BY XINRAN XUE, ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF 'THE GOOD WOMEN OF CHINA'
'If education is the key for women to open a professional door, then proving their capability could be a bridge between traditional chains and the new freedom. Unfortunately in today’s China, with more than half the population only educated for less than ten years, most women in the countryside hardly have a chance to either be educated or trained to enhance their capabilities. In the last twenty years millions of teenage girls have moved into the cities and taken over low-skilled labour and service work from urban people. They are stuck between their dreams and the facts, between a strange city with a better life or a familiar rural home.
If anyone wants to be able to understand today’s Chinese women no matter from what perspective, I think we have to work from one premise: in the past certain social phenomena that are accepted all over the world, have never really been accepted or put into practice in China: they are freedom of religious beliefs; freedom of the press; proper functioning of the legal system, and sex education. '
PEER REVIEW BY SUE ROSE (TRANSLATOR)
'Readers of this autobiographical novel will be amazed by its scope. On a human, emotional level, there is the touching love story between a Chinese woman and an Italian man with all the attendant cultural and emotional difficulties, there is the political and cultural tension between east and west, a potted history of China and a riveting description of the years leading up to and including World War Two interwoven with tales of espionage and political chicanery. Lastly, and perhaps most movingly, there is the personal journey of a young girl, the product of a mixed marriage in wartorn China, on a quest to find her true identity and reconcile her eastern and western roots, thereby achieving a sense of peace.
This is an inspiring story of personal strength and character set against a shifting political and cultural backdrop. Hirst paints a vibrant and authentic picture of everyday life in China in the mid-20th century, illustrated by anecdotes and memories. The reader learns about rites and ceremonies, folk beliefs and cultural markers, styles of dress and ethnic traits, as seen through the observant eyes of a Chinese-Italian girl whose European heritage makes her uniquely placed to comment on the many differences that exist between east and west.
In the tradition of books like Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, this compelling, uplifting and beautifully written story paints a broad social canvas which deserves to reach a far wider readership. As a translator, I believe that making key works of literature in other languages readily available is a crucial
activity and one that plays an important part in the education and development of every country. As George Steiner said, without it, we would all be living “in arrogant parishes bordered by silence”. As a poet in my own right and a linguist, I believe I am well-equipped to translate such an valuable book because of my skills as writer, my knowledge of the source language (kept up to date by reading, translating and frequent visits to family in Northern Italy) and my literary track record.
Not only would this project give me the opportunity to work on a book that I find fascinating and moving, but it would also be crucial for furthering my career as a literary translator, enabling me to branch out into literary translation in Italian and redress the perceived bias in my CV. Since the main thrust of my Italian work to date has been more commercial, although always highly creative, this project would be an important undertaking for me as it might well lead to other literary commissions in a language that I love.'
Sue Rose, February 2007
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