New! Shorter! Part 4 -- A 19th Century Australian Racist Poet Writes About Chinese Chefs
Australia forever!! (Never been there, but hopefully some day someone will move it close to the USA and it will be easier to visit.)
Greetings! Day four of the experimental daily schedule.
And if you haven’t noticed yet, they are shorter. Much shorter this week, too.
Things are going okay so far on my end, but please check your spam filters if you miss an issue. One piece of data, I receive is the actual number of newsletters that get delivered versus those that disappear and there has been a small increase in the non-delivery rate with this change. If you don’t find it there, and aren’t sure if it arrived or not, please either shoot me a message (readership is still low enough so I should be able to respond) or check the archives to see if the latest issue has “dropped” there. (Oooh! Look! In one month, I not only used the classic word “ouvre” correctly, but I also used the new, hip, cool word “dropped” as a synonym for “published” or “released” correctly. I feel like a real writer.)
In the meantime, thanks for stopping by, hopefully pieces are short enough to actually get read at this point, and, as always, feel free to share, like, leave a comment, or buy a paid subscription, if you wish.
Peace.
While Australia is not the USA, obviously there are historical and cultural parallels as well as a shared language. And both nations had a situation where Chinese fortune seekers began arriving in the mid 19th Century seeking gold and a chance to get rich. And today, in the years of the early 21st century, both of our nations are trying to work through and understand these experiences as the travel times between nations shrink, the economies and food and energy supplies of nations becoming increasingly interconnected, and our populations become increasingly ethnically and racially diverse and mixed as well. And we both have our embarrassments where our nations did not live up the ideals we wish they should have.
So, yes, for those who weren’t aware of it, there were Chinese in Australia from about the same time there were Chinese in the USA, and there was also anti-Chinese racism in Australia, just as there was in the USA and Canada.
And before we discuss a bit about the racist poetry of an Australian intellectual of the late nineteenth century, let me just offer a preview of a recent Australian mini-series from 2022 that deals with Chinese and Whites interacting in an 1857 Australian frontier mining camp.
First, the trailer:
How is the program itself? Honestly, I don’t know yet, but it appears quite well done. I recently purchased the DVD1 and look forward to watching it. It consists of four episodes totalling 220 minutes of program, almost four hours, and a mere ten minutes or so of “extra segments” offering background on the making of the series and the real history. (Oh!! But why not more? Why not? Why not?)
Someday I hope to watch it and share my thoughts and reactions with you, the readers. As some of you know, I have a weakness for watching Westerns and when I see something like this, what appears to be a Western but set in Australia or New Zealand, I get curious and try to watch it. It’s kind of like those science fiction shows where time travel is real and one finds oneself in an alternate time line where everything iskind of the same but also different.
Which brings me to some anti-Chinese Australian poetry, and, yes, it does involve claims of Chinese secretly feeding animals best known as household pets to unsuspecting White folks. After all, that is the topic of the week now, isn’t it?
JAMES BRUNTON STEPHENS, 19TH CENTURY EMINENT RACIST AUSTRALIAN POET
James Brunton Stephens ( 1835-1902), an early patriotic poet and intellectual of Queensland, Australia. Photo taken from his biographical page on the website of the State Library of Queensland on 9-17-2024 ( https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/james-brunton-stephens-scholar-poet-early-queensland )
There are several biographical entries for James Brunton Stephens on the web. For instance:
The Australian Dictionary of Biography includes this one, written originally in 1976. That page also contains an interesting introduction warning members of some indigenous Australian groups that the page contains images of dead people, an obvious attempt at cultural sensitivity (except they wrote it in English, thus demonstrating implicit, irredeemable, linguistic imperialism. Bigots.)
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stephens-james-brunton-4642This one come from State Library of Queensland and is entitled, James Brunton Stephens : scholar poet of early Queensland and written in 2016.
https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/james-brunton-stephens-scholar-poet-early-queensland
And, of course, there is always Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brunton_Stephens
Just be aware that this man was not a minor figure in Australia of his time and was definitely considered one of the top poets of his region when his career was at its peak. He wrote of many things including the benefits of a united Australia and its great potential in the world.
Born near Edinborough, Scotland in 1835, he had an interesting life.
According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, linked above:
James Brunton Stephens (1835-1902), poet, novelist, critic, schoolteacher and public servant, was born on 17 June 1835 at Bo'ness near Edinburgh, son of John Stephens, schoolmaster, and his wife Jane, née Brunton. Educated at his father's school, then at a free boarding-school, he attended the University of Edinburgh in 1849-54 but took no degree.
As a tutor with the Massey-Dawson family he travelled widely on the Continent; with the family of Lieutenant Leyland of the 2nd Life Guards for about fifteen months he toured the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Egypt. Parts of his travel diary survive. For another year he was probably a tutor in a military garrison and a teacher in London. In 1859 he became a teacher at the Greenock Academy and then at the Kilblain Academy in Greenock where he wrote some minor verse and two short novels 'Rutson Morley' and 'Virtue Le Moyne', which were published in Sharpe's London Magazine in 1861-63.
On 28 December 1865 for obscure reasons Stephens migrated to Queensland in the Flying Cloud, which reached Moreton Bay on 28 April 1866. He taught French briefly at Tollerton House Academy, and then became a tutor with the Barker family of Tamrookum station on the Logan River. Though he admired the scenery, Stephens found bush life monotonous and the conversation boring; thrown on his inner resources, he turned to verse and composed his best-known poem, Convict Once (London, 1871).
In 1869 Stephens applied to the Board of Education and on 1 February 1870 began teaching at the Normal School in Brisbane but resigned on 9 December 1871 and spent 1872 once more on Tamrookum. Next year he returned to the Normal School, but in April again resigned and went as tutor to the family of Captain Sherwood on Unumgar station, only to return to teaching at Stanthorpe in 1874. There are suggestions that his erratic moves were caused by drink.
Settling down, making a new life in his new and seemingly much loved nation, he took to writing poetry. His poetry seems to have been well received, despite the fact that some of it, clearly, has not aged well. For this reason, despite his importance during the time, he is often not included in modern collections of Australian poetry.
Stanthorpe, Queensland, Australia's first school, ca. 1872. James Brunton Stephens was one of the teachers. Photo also taken from his biographical page on the website of the State Library of Queensland on 9-17-2024 ( https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/james-brunton-stephens-scholar-poet-early-queensland )
He wrote a pair of clearly racist poems that embraced period stereotypes of Chinese that were published in 1902, coincidentally the year of his death. (And, no, I have run across no evidence that they were intentionally published post-humuously. Instead it just seems he wrote another book of what he seems to have considered humorous poetry and died sometime after it was finished.
The first of these two poems was called “my Chinee cook” 2 The second, racist poem was ( really, I am not making this up, it is not a joke) called “my other Chinee cook.” Both appeared in a collection entitled, “My Chinee Cook and Other Humorous Verses (1902)” The collection included several racist poems, two of them about Chinese (aka “Chinee”) cooks, and the humor is, um, a matter of personal taste. While his first Chinese cook steals, the second has a completely different problem. I am including the second poem in its entirety below as it is relevant to our theme and topic. If you like, I have included a link to the other, earlier poem, if you wish to read it yourself.
For the earlier poem,
See http://3.218.68.253/james-brunton-stephens/poems/my-chinee-cook/
For the second, “My other Chinee cook” see: http://3.218.68.253/james-brunton-stephens/poems/my-other-chinee-cook/
My Other Chinee Cook:
Poem by James Brunton Stephens
Yes, I got another Johnny; but he was to Number One
As a Satyr to Hyperion, as a rushlight to the sun;
He was lazy, he was cheeky, he was dirty, he was sly,
But he had a single virtue, and its name was rabbit pie.
Now those who say the bush is dull are not so far astray,
For the neutral tints of station life are anything but gay;
But, with all its uneventfulness, I solemnly deny
That the bush is unendurable along with rabbit pie.
We had fixed one day to sack him, and agreed to moot the point
When my lad should bring our usual regale of cindered joint,
But instead of cindered joint we saw and smelt, my wife and I,
Such a lovely, such a beautiful, oh! such a rabbit pie!
There was quite a new expression on his lemon-coloured face,
And the unexpected odour won him temporary grace,
For we tacitly postponed the sacking-point till by-and bye,
And we tacitly said nothing save the one word, “rabbit pie!”
I had learned that pleasant mystery should simply be endured,
And forebore to ask of Johnny where the rabbits were procured!
I had learned from Number One to stand aloof from how and why,
And I threw myself upon the simple fact of rabbit pie.
And when the pie was opened, what a picture did we see!
They lay in beauty side by side, they filled our home with glee!
How excellent, how succulent, back, neck, and leg, and thigh!
What a noble gift is manhood! What a trust is rabbit pie!
For a week the thing continued, rabbit pie from day to day;
Though where he got the rabbits John would ne'er vouchsafe to say;
But we never seemed to tire of them, and daily could descry
Subtle shades of new delight in each successive rabbit pie.
Sunday came; by rabbit reckoning, the seventh day of the week;
We had dined, we sat in silence, both our hearts (?) too full to speak,
When in walks Cousin George, and, with a sniff, says he, “Oh my!
What a savoury suggestion! what a smell of rabbit pie!”
“Oh, why so late, George?” says my wife, “the rabbit pie is gone;
But you must have one for tea, though. Ring the bell, my dear, for John.”
So I rang the bell for John, to whom my wife did signify,
“Let us have an early tea, John, and another rabbit pie.”
But John seemed taken quite aback, and shook his funny head,
And uttered words I comprehended no more than the dead;
“Go, do as you are bid,” I cried, “we wait for no reply;
Go! let us have tea early, and another rabbit pie!”
Oh, that I had stopped his answer! But it came out with a run:
“Last-a week-a plenty puppy; this-a week-a puppy done!”
Just then my wife, my love, my life, the apple of mine eye,
Was seized with what seemed “mal-de-mer,” — “sick transit” rabbit pie!
And George! By George, he laughed, and then he howled like any bear!
The while my wife contorted like a mad “convulsionnaire;”
And I—I rushed on Johnny, and I smote him hip and thigh,
And I never saw him more, nor tasted more of rabbit pie.
And the childless mothers met me, as I kicked him from the door,
With loud maternal wailings and anathemas galore;
I must part with pretty Tiny, I must part with little Fly,
For I'm sure they know the story of the so-called “rabbit pie.”
Now, to repeat a statement, I made earlier, I am not making this up.
See, the study of history is full of surprises and truth can often be stranger than fiction. After all, fiction must be believable to be effective. This is real Australian published poetry of the late 19th, early 20th Century written by a significant poet of that time and place. um, nuff said on that.
Obviously Australia is not the USA or even anywhere near it geographically, but in the international scope of things, it is culturally closer to the USA than most other nations, and therefore we know that around the turn of the century, people in the English speaking parts of the world there as well as in the USA were talking about Chinese cooking and feeding dogs to unsuspecting people.
And, yes, oh my goodness me oh my, this really does reinforce several ugly stereotypes about Australian literary and its intellectual culture, now doesn’t it? Kind of ironic, seeing as its intended person was for it to reinforce stereotypes of Chinese, but something shifted with perspective in the last 120 years.
Well, g’day mate. See ya, tomorrow.
(can’t help myself, this gets shared now. For those who don’t know, Monty Python was the name of a British comedy troupe whose long career started with a 1970 TV show called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” This one features a visit to an Australian university’s philosophy department.)
Be aware to watch Australian DVDs you will need to have a DVD player that is able to play Australian DVDs. Fortunately, I have a region free DVD player, so this is not a big thing for me.
No, “Chinee” is not a typo. That was a term used for “Chinese” in Australia of the time. While not terribly familiar with it, I can’t imagine it was a term of strong respect.