The Wish House and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

context of the letters of travel in
From Sea to Sea.
He quotes several examples of Kipling’s Sinophobia but is curiously equivocal about their status: on the one hand, Kipling is “flagrantly racist”; on the other hand, “the uneasy phrasing and tone suggested that he did not entirely believe in the opinions he was voicing.” Again, Rickettssays, he was “careful while he sent up the Europeanised Japanese to point out his own ignorance and presumption.” Exactly.
    In India, Kipling unaffectedly despised the globe-trotter whose confidence was matched only by his superficiality. Leaving the known Indian subcontinent, Kipling is explicit in his identification with the contemptible globe-trotter: if the globe-trotter libeled India, it was Kipling’s comic role to revenge India by libeling other countries. “It was my destiny to avenge India upon nothing less than three-quarters of the world. The idea necessitated sacrifices—painful sacrifices—for I had to become a Globe-trotter, with a helmet and deck-shoes. In the interests of our little world I would endure these things and more. I would deliver ‘brawling judgements all day long; on all things unashamed’” (vol. 1, p. 208). And this is the persona Kipling adopts for his opinions.
    Since the question of the globe-trotter persona has been presented by recent biographers as problematic, I propose to cite the evidence at some length. The globe-trotter is “the man who ‘does’ kingdoms in days and writes books upon them in weeks”
(From Sea to Sea
, vol. 1, pp. 1–2). A page or two later: “Once or twice in my life I have seen a Globe-trotter literally gasping with jealous emotion because India was so much larger and more lovely than he had ever dreamed, and because he had only set aside three months to explore it in.
My own sojourn in Rangoon was countable by hours, so I may be forgiven when I pranced with impatience because I could not at once secure a full, complete, and accurate idea of everything that was to be seen”
(my italics).
    Then (vol. 1, p 241): “I put my twelve-inch rule in my pocket to measure all the world by.” Compare volume 1: “It grieves me that I cannot account for the ideas of a few hundred million men in a few hours.” A hundred pages later, he is undeterred (p. 361): “Thus we talked of the natures and dispositions of men
we knew nothing about
till we had decided [6 generalisations]” (my italics).
    In volume 1, Kipling notes uneasily that the Chinese work hard despite the climate. Feigning comprehension of the racial hatred of “the lower-caste Anglo-Saxon” for the Chinaman, Kipling adds the crucial parenthetical signal of irony, viz.: “(this has the true Globe-trotter twang to it).”
    Elsewhere, Kipling’s irony relies on the autodestructive excess of his comments. Extremism signals irony.
    He accuses the Chinese of cannibalism: “[the Chinese baby] isn’t as pretty as the pig that Alice nursed in Wonderland, and he lies quite still and never cries. This is because he is afraid of being boiled and eaten. I saw cold boiled babies on a plate being carried through theheart of the town. They said it was only sucking-pig, but I knew better. Dead sucking-pigs don’t grin with their eyes open.”
    The ironic undertow to all Kipling’s “hatred” of the Chinese is an awareness of their possible racial superiority. In Hong Kong, Kipling and his professor companion are impressed by Chinese art and agree that its accuracy makes it superior to Indian art. The professor thinks (p. 275), “They will overwhelm the world.” The globe-trotter Kipling says he hasn’t seen “a single Chinaman asleep while daylight lasted.” And it is this ability to work which evinces his fear and admiration.
    In Canton, Kipling twice says he hates the Chinaman. And he says: “It is justifiable to kill him. It would be quite right to wipe the city of Canton off the face of the earth, and to exterminate all the people who ran away from the