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                             /'_/\     /'_/|
                             |  \ `\   | | |
               ______        |   `\ `\ | | |         ______
             /'______/\      | |\  `\ `| | |       /______/\
            |    ___ \/|     | | |\  `\| | |      |  ___  \ \
            |  /'/  \_|/     | | | `\    | |      | | | \  \/|
            | | |    __      |_|/'   `\__|/'      | | |  | | |
            | |  \__/_/|                          | | |__| | |
            |  \/___| |/    China News Digest     | |/__/  |/
             \_______/  (Books & Journals Review) |_______/
 
                               July 17, 1994
 
CND B&J is part of CND-Global News Service. Broadcast weekly or bi-weekly,
it attempts to bring to readers news and reviews related to Chinese arts,
literature, and articles of interest to supplement daily CND news service.
 
No. Subject                                                      # of Lines
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Tongue-Tied - Hong Kong's Bilingual Education Backfires ............ 104
 
2. What It Takes to Do Business in China .............................. 120
 
3. The Cutting Edge of Birth Control ................................... 87
 
4. Dragon Rags --
   "Chinese Clothing: An Illustrated Guide" by V. Garrett .............. 80
 
5. Magic Eye --
   "Thomson's China" by J.Thomson ...................................... 38
 
6. Plain Ways --
   "The Changing World of Mongolia's Nomads" by Goldstein & Beall ...... 39
 
7. Dr. Mountain --
   "Learning from Mount Hua" by K.M. Liscomb ........................... 67
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Note:  We welcome all CND readers to contribute to this column. If
                you encounter any China-related books  or journals that you
                would like to share with  other CND readers, please send in
                comments, newspaper reviews, journal articles, and excerpts
                etc to  [log in to unmask]   Thank you.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Tongue-Tied - Hong Kong's Bilingual Education Backfires ............ 104
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: XU Ming Yang
Source: The Far Eastern Economic Review, June 30, 1994
Written by: Louise do Rosario
 
For Angus Mui, geography class was the worst. He says he could make out "at
most 30% or 40%" of what was being said. "Other classmates also couldn't
understand the teacher's English. He spoke too fast and had a heavy American
accent. So most of us just read comics, daydreamed or fell asleep," says
Mui, 18, who managed to graduate anyway from Cognitio College.
 
Welcome to a Hong Kong secondary school, where the classes are taught in
English but the students speak a Chinese dialect, Cantonese. Introduced
in the 1960s, the predominantly English-language curriculum was intended to
produce a bilingual breed of citizens able to cement the British colony's
place as an international trading centre. But instead, according to critics,
it has produced a linguistic lost generation that has mastered neither
English nor Chinese.
 
"Where else in the world is the teaching medium a second language and not
one's mother tongue?" demands W K. Kan, a lecturer at the Chinese
University. Most teachers argue that educational standards would improve if
classes were taught in Cantonese. But parents, who view English proficiency
as a sign of status and a key to success, are resisting efforts to reform
the curriculum. Hong Kong's Roman Catholic Archdiocese has taken a step that
may point to the way of the future: starting in September, Catholic
secondary schools will teach some subjects in Cantonese. The language
debate, which has long swirled through educational circles, has become more
pressing as the explosive growth of Hong Kong's service sector creates
urgent demand for employees with good language skills. But hanging over the
debate like a giant question mark is July 1, 1997, when Hong Kong reverts
to the sovereignty of Mandarin-speaking China. Amid the uncertainty over
what language the new rulers will require in the schools and civil
service, the government appears unwilling to embark on fundamental
educational reform.
 
But many fear that the widely perceived decline in English will blunt Hong
Kong's edge as one of the most accessible places in Asia for foreigners to
do business. "It's very worrying," says Legislator Henry Tang, who sits on a
public education body that is spending increasing sums each year to improve
the English of secondary-school graduates. "The poor standard of English has
reached epidemic proportions," he says. So concerned about the decline in
English are big companies such as Hongkong Bank, Hongkong Telecom and
Swire Pacific that they started a HK$20 million (US$2.6 million) campaign in
1988 to improve employees' English.
 
Educators believe that students' command of their mother tongue has also
slipped. "Most students today can't even write a proper simple letter in
Chinese," says lecturer Kan, who is a spokesman on education for the
Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, a pro-Beijing political
party.
 
Young people in Hong Kong commonly communicate in a hybrid of English and
Cantonese, "a kind of Chinglish," points out legislator Tang. Teachers say
Hong Kong-style bilingualism is hampering students' ability to express
themselves. "These days, they are using a lot of hesitancy words, like 'eh,
er, lau, lur, lor'," says David Tang, head of the Community English
Language Lab.
 
But some say these assessments of local language standards are too harsh.
With a much larger number of children attending secondary school in recent
years, average standards have inevitably dropped. When secondary education
was a more elite affair, fewer Hong Kong people spoke English, but they
spoke it better. Hong Kong schooling was in Cantonese until the 1960s,
when the colony's emergence as a major trading centre boosted the
importance of English. The government promoted the use of English further
through its civil-service recruitment policy. Secondary schools responded by
adopting English as the medium of instruction for almost all classes
(though primary school is still taught mainly in Cantonese.
 
The theory was that total immersion was the best way to learn English, but
in practice, many students have trouble learning a language that they
rarely use outside school
 
Only 52 out of Hong Kong's 392 secondary schools use Cantonese to teach
all subjects. The rest claim to be English schools, but in practice,
teachers frequently mix in Cantonese in the classroom to get lessons across.
"There are very few fullfledged English schools in Hong Kong, but
principals do not want to admit the truth for fear of upsetting parents and
losing students," says Chiu Chi-shing, vice president of the Hong Kong
Professional Teachers' Union.
 
When one secondary school tried to drop the pretense of being an English
school in 1987, it failed miserably. Led by principal David Cheung, who
was also a legislator, Carmel English School planned to shift to teaching in
Chinese. But two years later, Cheung was overruled by the school council and
had to resign. "It's a major struggle," admits Chinese University's Kan.
"But as the years go by, the voice asking for change will get louder."
 
The Catholic Church -- which runs 24 secondary schools with 200,000 students,
a sixth of the territory's total - isn't waiting. The church has asked
its schools to start teaching some subjects in Cantonese in September, with
a goal of teaching half of all classes in the language by 1996. "Everybody
has talked about the issue for years; it's time to take some action," says
Fr. Dominic Chan, the church's vicar general in Hong Kong. The government
agrees that teaching more classes in Cantonese would improve educational
standards, but its efforts to encourage the shift through financial
assistance to schools have had limited impact.
 
"We provide all the broad objectives, but schools have the autonomy to
decide what medium of teaching they should use," explains Man Tzefong,
assistant director of the Education Department. This year, however, the
government will begin assessing the language ability of students completing
primary school and advising parents and schools which teaching medium
is best for the child.
 
Critics say language-streaming will make little difference because the
government's assessment is not binding. "The government is merely
tinkering with the system," says Chiu of the teachers' union.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. What It Takes to Do Business in China .............................. 120
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: Daluo Jia
Source: Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 1994
Written by: Peter R. Schmidt
 
(Peter R. Schmidt. Peter R. Schmidt, director of Boyden World Corporation,
led a recent delegation of senior US business executives to Hong Kong,
Shenzhen, and Beijing. The 11-day mission was sponsored by Boyden and
others, and organized by the Hong Kong Association of New York.)
 
Chinese mythology tells us that its most important god, "The August
Personage of Jade," lives in a heavenly palace guarded by Wong, a ferocious
bureaucrat. Armed with a stick, clad in armor, Wong the doorkeeper admits
some but rejects many.
 
Investing in China today is like getting past Wong: China's riches may be
heavenly, but to realize them, foreign investors must overcome some high
hurdles.
 
Since 1987, America's vanguard companies have had some difficulty realizing
profits. Today's investors may have to wait until 2001 or later before they
realize a significant yield.  Planting seeds
 
During a recent visit to Shanghai, our trade mission visited several
businesses, including the Pacific department store - one of three in this
financial capital. The ultramodern, six-story building with more than 1
million square feet, looked as if it was transplanted from midtown
Manhattan. During our tour, the general manager said that the store's
products - from jeans to perfumes to watches, all highly priced - were
Western brands admired by the 300,000 Chinese who entered the store daily!
 
"How many buy?" I asked. "None," he said proudly. He added that Pacific was
"planting seeds" in the consumers' minds. "While they're developing some
disposable income they might consider buying our products at some future
date," he explained.
 
Think of it: By 2001 Pacific's investors - from Taiwan and Hong Kong - might
make a profit. The other two stores are willing to take a similar loss.
 
Certainly, money can be made in China if investors enter carefully.
 
The  only  intelligent  way to go in is through an experienced joint-venture
partner  or  through  one of the Hong Kong business organizations that have
Chinese- mainland representation. The long-term view is the only one to take
unless you have a specialty that the Chinese need and that will yield an
immediate financial return. Study in contrasts
 
The Chinese are a study in contrasts. They're very proud of what they've
built and they see growth opportunities for the future. But they're not
quite sure who is going to fill all those new airports, buildings, and
expressways.
 
The new China "West," Shenzhen, brings to mind the Wild West of the 1800s.
Many Taiwanese, Japanese, French, German, and United States businesses are
setting up shop there because of its proximity to Hong Kong and the ability
to build businesses from the ground up. It's an impressive undertaking: The
skyline reflects at least 20 major skyscrapers of 50 or more stories each.
Tenants include such companies as Merck, AT&T, Mobil, J&J, and United
Technologies.
 
China, too, has rich farmland. Close to three-quarters of the population
lives in rural villages; 70 percent are farmers. So it comes as no surprise
that consumer goods, with the exceptions of food and textiles, have lagged
behind heavy industry. This lag also stems from outdated technology, a
shortage  of  highly  trained  engineers and technicians, waste and
inefficiency in production, and an outdated, railroad-based transportation
system that can't handle current demand.
 
So Chinese companies are looking first and foremost for investment capital;
then technology, training, management knowledge, and equipment. The Chinese
that we met - from the mayor of Shenzhen to deputy mayors of Shanghai to
governors of the financial district in Shanghai - all are eager to lure
firms that are willing to risk capital and, within five years, build a
positive image and franchise among consumers. That capital, furthermore, is
at great risk because outside the country, the Chinese monetary unit has no
value or foreign-exchange standing.
 
Businesses that already exist with Chinese management and/or Hong Kong
participation are a far more intelligent and less risky way to enter: You
have some assurance that your partner is going to be trustworthy and will be
able to repatriate profits.  Inflation threat
 
Economic reforms and improved living standards are being pursued vigorously
in China so that the Communist Party can retain its power. Industrial
production is growing at about 12 percent a year. Now the danger is
inflation spurred by greed.
 
Investors  should  be  aware  of the hodgepodge of controls and
free-enterprise zones. To say anyone controls them - much less inflation,
which was running at a 20 percent clip in the first quarter - is a misnomer.
 
Such new cities as Shenzhen enjoy a certain independence from Beijing, so
everyone makes the best deal possible. A part of the population in and out
of government wants to get rich fast, which is a real danger in an
overheated Chinese economy.
 
Prices are set by local councils consisting of top officials, separate from
anything that comes from Beijing. In essence, they have their own fiefdoms,
not unlike feudal lords of yesteryear. So a major city can have three or
four levels of government that affect what a company charges for its
services.
 
Shanghai is the largest city in China, one with the longest business
relationships, and sophistication not found in other centers of commerce. On
the other hand, Beijing, as the political center for China, is rife with all
kinds of political maneuvering that only distracts business.
 
Ten or even five years ago, foreign companies that entered China were
greeted with open arms because the country wanted some show pieces.
 
AIG, the insurance giant, for example, went into Shanghai in 1985 in a $200
million construction project to build a modern hotel and commercial office
space. It took the firm close to three years to set up a massive
construction site in the center of Shanghai; the real estate cost virtually
nothing and it came with a 10-year lease, which is now being extended. These
operations all revert to the Chinese in 15 years.
 
Today the Chinese appear much more sophisticated about investments and which
incentives they're prepared to provide. The country's "Golden Projects," for
example, involve major initiatives in the development of a national
information infrastructure and AT&T's multimillion-dollar joint venture in
equipment, technology and network planning demonstrate their serious intent.
 
These deals were long in process. Today, many companies knock on the golden
door; however, it's going to take a considerable amount of time, effort, and
money trying to get into China, and considerable patience to succeed.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The Cutting Edge of Birth Control ................................... 87
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: Kate Newburger
Source: The Sun Herald, 17/7/94
Written by: Peter Pockley
 
In China, World Population Day is treated as a major national event for
promoting the Government's increasingly urgent measures for population
control. Epitomizing the virtues of China's one-child-per-family policy, 50
parents were flown to Beijing and given hero treatment after their selection
as models of birth control.
 
In Australia, however, World Population Day passed almost unnoticed last
Monday, reinforcing the sense of unreality here about the world's most
desperate problem.
 
An intensive tour of China (population 1,180 million), Indonesia (188
million) and Hong Kong (6 million) leaves an impression of tidal waves of
people overwhelming the resources needed to feed, house, educate, employ and
transport them and to keep a semblance of health in horrendously polluted
environments which Australians would never tolerate.
 
China's demographers estimate the nation's numbers are increasing by 15
million each year, almost the entire population of Australia (17.8 million).
India (904 millions will overtake China as the world's most populous nation
by 2035 if its present rate of increase of 20 million a year continues.
 
Slowing the growth demands a worldwide effort by scientists in finding
better methods of contraception and by government authorities, with
community groups, in education and application.
 
Mr Zhao Yu-fong, of the State Family Planning Commission in Beijing, claimed
some success: "As a result of voluntary measures, China's population growth
has been reduced by 200 million over the past two decades." Nonetheless, the
total inexorably increases, if at a somewhat lower rate.
 
"Voluntary measures" mean "official policies" through which families are
offered inducements to limit their numbers of children (support for land,
housing, fertilsers and health, for example).
 
The difficulties of applying the one-child policy nationwide are shown by
lenience to rural families who are allowed "quotas" of two children and
minority groups (non-Han Chinese in outlying provinces generally the
poorest) who may have three children per family.
 
Dr Zhu Yao-hua, the commission's director of science and technology, said
intra-uterine devices were the first choice for contraception in rural
areas. Large-scale research with World Health Organisation support is
comparing more than 200 types of IUDs with 100,000 women and has identified
five types which are most effective.
 
IUDs, sterilisation and vasectomies account for 80 per cent of all the
Chinese exercising contraception. Only 5pc of women take contraceptive
pills.
 
As in India and Indonesia, the burden falls mainly on women. Condoms account
for only 11pc of contraception, while almost 30 million men have had
vasectomies.
 
Research at the 200-strong National Research Institute for Family Planning,
which I visited in Beijing, is leading to a potentially popular form of
vasectomy which will allow "the unkindest cut" to be reversed. This would be
made possible by inserting a removable plastic plug in a man's vas deferens
(the tube which carries sperm). Reversing a vasectomy would be permitted if
an only child died, and its availability is expected to make the procedure
much more popular.
 
The institute has also developed a new type of surgical vasectomy which does
not involve use of a scalpel for making the normal 2cm-long incision through
the scrotum to reach the vas deferens. Dr Gu Yi-qun, who trained at
Melbournes's Monash University, said the new method, using very small
scissors and clamps, took as little as five minutes,, was 98-99pc successful
and had little trauma for the patient. Deputy director Dr Li Weixiong said
there was promising research on a long-term contraceptive implant. A
development of the Norplant device now available in the US, the
"Sinoimplant" would be bio-degradable and would not have to be removed
surgically after five years, like Norplant.
 
A contraceptive vaccine for women, under development at the institute, has
been tested in monkeys and rabbits and is about to undergo its first
clinical trials in humans. The Rockefeller Foundation in the US is
supporting research on a contraceptive vaccine for men which would prevent
the fertilising action of sperm.
 
Uncomfortable though it is to the Catholic principles of the Pope and others
such as Senator Brian Harradine, the only answer to controlling population
before it totally outstrips the Earth's resources lies in effective measures
for birth control. This is the strategic area for increasing Australia's
financial and scientific support to our region.
 
[Under the auspices of the Australia-China Council, Dr Pockley was the guest
of the "Science And Technology Daily" and the Government of the People's
Republic of China.]
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Dragon Rags --
   "Chinese Clothing: An Illustrated Guide" by V. Garrett .............. 80
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: F.E.E.R. 6/30/94
Written by: Valrae Reynolds
 
"Chinese Clothing: An Illustrated Guide"
by Valery M. Garrett. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. HK$295.
 
Valery Garrett has taken on a vast subject in Chinese Clothing: An
Illustrated Guide, but has managed to deal authoritatively with this complex
material only in limited areas. To her credit, Garrett has attempted to
discuss the full range of geographical types and social classes represented
in Chinese costume within the last 150 years, the period from which the
majority of visual documentation (photographs and genre paintings) and
actual clothing examples survive. Garrett considers, for example, the
cotton, hemp and straw garments of farmers and coolies, as well as the
elaborate silk ensembles of the imperial court that are usually the sole
focus of Chinese-costume studies. A real contribution has been made in
Garrett's chapters on stylistic evolutions in clothing in China from 1912 to
the present, for this is a time period generally ignored by textile
scholars.
 
A general criticism of the publication is the overall poor quality of the
black-and-white photographs. This is a severe failing in a book which must
base its discussion on visual material. The quality of colour photographs is
much better, especially of the pieces in Garrett's own collection. The
haphazard captions for illustrations, often leaving out crucial information
such as date and location, are annoying, and sur- prising for such a
prestigious publisher.
 
Garrett's book necessarily suffers in comparison with other publications
which have a narrower focus. Two that are standards in the field are
Schuyler Cammann's China's Dragon Robes (1952) and Verity Wilson's Chinese
Dress (1986).
 
The complex interchange between native Chinese traditions and successive
waves of foreign influence from the Han (206 BC-AD 220) to Mongol
(1279-1368) periods, which was reflected in the cut and decoration of court
attire, is ably conveyed by Cammann, who cites numerous literary references.
Garrett fails to use any of the extensive archaeological data on costumes
from tomb finds now available (which Cammann, of course, did not have access
to in 1952) and ignores the opportunity to give a meaningful overview of
pre-Ming clothing. In Garrett's Ming chapters, the discussion of dragon
robes and other official attire is poorly illustrated and lacking in
documentation.
 
Since the Ming dynasty was consciously nationalistic, a knowledge of the
official costumes of this period is crucial to our understanding of native
Chinese traditions. The Board of Rites in the early Ming period stressed a
return to the "pure" customs of the Han and Tang (618-908) dynasties and the
purging of foreign influences. Recent archaeological data from Central Asia
and China proper, however, suggests the wealth of costume types (at least
among the ruling classes) from Han through Ming periods and the rich
interrelations between the Chinese court and diverse groups across inner
Asia. All of these factors influenced the tailoring and decoration of
clothing in the Ming and Qing periods, particularly in the use of dragon
motifs and the symbolism of the cloud collar. Very little of this
fascinating history is considered by Garrett.
 
While Chinese Clothing is more reliable in the chapters on the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911), Garrett gives somewhat dated discussions on the forms of
official (Manchu) costume. Verity Wilson, working within the limited scope
of the Victoria and Albert Museum's Chinese costume holdings in her Chinese
Dress, does a more creditable job of exploring the complexity of late Qing
clothing for the upper classes. Wilson, for instance, discounts the
"animal-skin origin theory" for the cut of Manchu robes and gives sound
scholarly arguments for a more complicated relationship between Mongol,
Manchu and native Chinese garment structures. Garrett ignores Wilson's work
and perpetuates the "animal skin" idea.
 
Garrett, however, gives a good account of clothing changes after the fall of
the Qing dynasty in 1911 and provides interesting chapters on military
costume, dress for weddings and funeral and children's wear in the 19th and
20th centuries, with limited attention paid to earlier periods. Fine
end-paper maps, a glossary and index are helpful but the bibliography is
highly limited, failing to even cite Wilson's publication.
 
Chinese Clothing also attempts to give an overview of "minority dress."
Poorly illustrated by a few murky photographs, the author skims shakily over
a large assortment of ethnic groups who now find themselves in the powerful
embrace of China but whose linguistic and racial (and textile) origins are
quite separate. What remains of native costume traditions after decades (in
some cases, centuries) of official suppression and derision by Chinese
authorities is pathetically trotted out for show in the China Tourism
magazine photographs included here.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Magic Eye --
   "Thomson's China" by J.Thomson ...................................... 38
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by: Nury Vittachi
 
"Thomson's China: Travels and Adventures of a Nineteenth Century
Photographer"
by John Thomson with an introduction and new illustration selection by
Judith Balmer. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. HK$185.
 
Explorer John Thomson found himself in a land which was magical and
enchanting--but frequently deadly. In one town, pockets of poisonous air lay
hidden in the ground. Construction workers would lay bare the granite
bedrock, and then "from the exposed spots noxious miasmas were exhaled." In
another district, there were riots after missionaries allegedly distributed
"proselytising pills." Pop a few, and you find yourself compelled to change
religion.
 
This bizarre place was the Far East of the 1860s. Thomson was a Scottish
trailblazer who managed to document life in China and the region through
the newly invented form of magic known as photography. His notebook filled
in the gaps between the photographs. He even captured some of the pidgin
English speech of the day: "Tsing! Tsing! Too much long tim my no hab see
you!"
 
"Thomson's China" is an attractively bound re-issue of a selection of his
writings, together with a selection of engravings and photographs. A
scholarly essay by Judith Balmer places Thomson in the context of history.
 
It was a cruel and stunning world. You could buy a girl baby for five
English pence (a day's wage in the region at the time), while a boy would
cost  3. There were curious sights, such as the City of the Dead. This was
an estate of charnel houses, where people lived alongside the dead and slept
on the tops of coffins. He visited a leper centre, and saw how the inmates
eked out a living. Groups of sufferers would descend on high streets, and
lurk menacingly until horrified shopkeepers bribed them to go elsewhere.
 
The lensman himself was equally frightening in some eyes: "I have seen
unfortunates . . . fall down on bended knees and beseech me not to take
their likeness or their life with the fatal lens of my camera." Thomson was
clearly an adventurer in his travels, but he was also a pioneer in the way
he captured his material, in words and pictures, to take home to amazed
readers.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Plain Ways --
   "The Changing World of Mongolia's Nomads" by Goldstein & Beall ...... 39
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: F.E.E.R. 6/30/94
Written by: Nury Vittachi
 
"The Changing World of Mongolia's Nomads"
by Melvyn C. Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall.
University of California Press, Berkeley. US$20.
 
It's dinner time. On the table are freshly boiled sheep lungs, heart,
stomach and intestines. But diners await the piece de resistance: lumps
of solid fat. Haute cuisine, Mongolian style, is not everyone's cup of
tea.
 
Neither is a Mongolian cup of tea. You hammer flakes off a "tea-brick" into
eight litres of water, add one litre of yak-milk, and add butter and salt to
taste. The authors of this book lived in a Mongolian yurt, suffering
temperatures well below freezing, to capture something of the traditional
way of life before modern history catches up with the nomads of Mongolia.
 
The fat was surprisingly tasty. "If it hadn't been for our knowledge of the
risks of high cholesterol we could have learned to enjoy eating the
fat--although il is quite possible that our recollection of its tastiness
is coloured by the endless sips of nirmalike [alcoholic yak milk] and vodka
we consumed," say the authors. They also discovered that although the
Mongolians have what seems to be an unhealthy diet, their cholesterol
readings are not high.
 
Wedged between Siberia and China, Mongolia is a sunny but cold land, larger
than Western Europe, but with a population of only 2.1 million. The
researchers flew out to one of the nomadic areas, Moost district, a treeless
area of tent-towns, housing 4,000 people and 115,000 livestock. The book
covers the past three years, a period in which the death of the communistic
ethic led to the nomads' collective farming system being privations.
 
Goldstein and Beall are academics, not travel writers. I would gladly have
sacrificed some of the material on the changing economic structures of
Mongolia for some poetic reflection on the simple life on the plains, and
the answers to simple anthropological questions (where do you go to the
toilet if it's 50 below zero outside?). But the book's excellent
photography--there are 183 colour pictures--bring the bleak, desolate plains
to life. Life there is hard, and it breeds tough people. The authors remind
us that 750 years ago, the Mongolian hordes came close to conquering much
of Europe and Asia, from the Pacific Ocean to Vienna.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Dr. Mountain --
   "Learning from Mount Hua" by K.M. Liscomb ........................... 67
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: F.E.E.R. 6/30/94
Written by: Alison Hardie
 
"Learning from Mount Hua, A Chinese Physician's Illustrated Travel Record
and Painting Theory"
by K. M. Liscomb. Cambridge University Press. US$75.  50.
 
In 1381, a middle-aged doctor from Jiangsu, who was also an amateur painter,
climbed Mount Hua in Shaanxi. Excited by the dramatic scenery, he sketched
and made notes during the expedition. On his way home to Kunshan, he wrote
up his travel notes and produced a number of illustrative paintings in the
style of the 12th and 13th-century painters whom he most admired.
 
But the doctor felt there was something missing; the paintings did not
convey a true impression of the life-changing experience which he felt he
had undergone in climbing the Sacred Mountain of the West. For some time he
puzzled over what to do about this. Then, in a moment of enlightenment, he
realised what his approach should be -- not to filter his visual impressions
through the traditions of mountain painting but to react directly to the
forms of the particular mountain which had so inspired him. The result was
an album of paintings, poems and travel narrative, completed in 1383, in the
preface to which he explained: "I was taught by my heart, which was taught
by my eyes, which were taught by Mount Hua."
 
Kathlyn Liscomb, a historian of Chinese art at the University of Victoria,
has studied the paintings of this doctor-artist, Wang Lu, in the Beijing and
Shanghai museums. She has produced a translation of his travel narrative,
together with a discussion of the paintings themselves and of Wang's place
in art history. Although she has not tackled his poems, she conveys a vivid
impression of this interesting and unusual man.
 
Wang himself comments on the bafflement induced by his personal style in
contemporaries whoo saw his paintings; that was why he had to explain that
he had taken Mount Hua itself as his teacher.
 
It was not until the late Ming dynasty that art critics came to appreciate
his originality and also, conversely, to perceive the continuity between his
style and the Southern Song tradition that he so admired, even while he
rejected it as an inappropriate vehicle for his impressions of Mount Hua.
Late Ming critics remarked that while Wang's contributions to medical
science were well known, his achievements as an artist were not.
 
Wang seems such a typical late-Ming figure that it is hard to keep in mind
that he was actually born during the Yuan dynasty and was already well into
his 30s when the Ming was established; he died probably before the end of
the 14th century. His lively description of his Mount Hua expedition -- with
a physician's clinical awareness of his own palpitations of fear and panting
when crossing precarious log bridges or scrambling up rocky ascents -- has
the immediacy of late-Ming essays and travel writing such as the diaries of
Xu Xiake. And the proto-scientific attitude, which Liscomb persuasively
argues can be perceived in his desire to observe Mount Hua directly, and his
readiness to question accepted legends about the mountain, also foreshadow
such late-Ming scientists as Li Shizhen and Xu Guangqi.
 
Wang apparently came from a very ordinary stratum of society, and for a man
of such originality of mind he seems to have displayed little eccentricity
of behaviour and to have been conservative in his artistic taste. Of course
middle-class practising physicians, unlike wealthy literati, cannot afford
to indulge themselves in willful unconventionality. It was, perhaps, the
fact that Wang's expedition to Mount Hua was such a rare and remarkable
event for him and came so late in his life that left such an impact on him
that it gave him the courage to find a new mode of expression for his
experience of the mountain.
 
One of the contributions of Wang Lu, and of Liscomb in rescuing him from
art-historical obscurity, is to remind us that Chinese culture was never as
uniform or as tradition-bound as we are sometimes led to believe, and that
there were certain individuals who questioned established orthodoxy -- or
even established heterodoxy - and searched for their own personal artistic
truth.
 
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