The Paradoxical Tourist Gaze: Ambivalence and the Empire in Constance Gordon Cumming’s Wanderings in China https://doi.org /10.5281/zen od o.14979211

The Paradoxical Tourist Gaze: Ambivalence and the Empire in Constance Gordon Cumming’s Wanderings in China
https://doi.org /10.5281/zen od o.14979211

Author(s): Debabarnine Bhattacharya

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14979211

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The Paradoxical Tourist Gaze: Ambivalence and the Empire in Constance
Gordon Cumming’s Wanderings in China
Debabarnine Bhattacharya
Doctoral Student,
Department of English,
Visva-Bharati.
Article History: Submitted‐05/02/2025, Revised‐12/02/2025, Accepted‐25/02/2025, Published‐28/02/2025.
Abstract:
The study aims to address the contradictions inherent in the business of conveying China,
a semi-colony by the privileged tourist Constance Gordon Cummings, as recorded in her 1886
travelogue Wanderings in China. Whilst partaking in the benefits of Western imperialist crusade,
Cumming’s discourse demonstrates an engagement, both intellectual and social with the country.
Viewing China through the lens of Western luxury, her social position as an aristocrat offers her a
certain detachment from the workings of the Empire. Nevertheless, an unmistakable tone of
imperialist haughtiness and an unawareness of the historical context ultimately translates into an
aggrandization of the role of Britain in propping up a regressive China. Her status as a privileged
tourist allows her to go in and out of the discourse she engenders, while an adherence to her
imperialist persona manifests as a misrepresentation of the opium question and a latent fear of a
possible “Yellow Peril.”
Keywords: China studies, British imperialism, treaty ports, travel writing, colonialism.
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Introduction
The forced opening of China to European and Western incursions following the First and Second
Opium Wars (1839-42, 1856-60) engendered large-scale changes, where China transformed into
a fertile ground for a multitude of imperialist endeavors and contestations among a variety of
stakeholders, including merchants, missionaries, adventurers, officials, writers and travelers. This
influx triggered significant socio-economic, cultural and political changes, reflecting the multi-
faceted dynamics of imperialism and its heterogeneous impact on China. The century-long
trajectory of imperialist encroachment on the country, punctuated by multiple military encounters
(including the Taiping and Boxer crises) and ultimately culminating in the economic and cultural
colonization by the various Western powers, therefore fomented, not just the formation of a
stringently dogmatic and insular foreign community which over time exercised an almost
hegemonic sway over foreign occupied areas, but also transformed China into a conducive locale
for travelers and globetrotters, especially in the era following the signing of the punitive Boxer
Protocol of 1901. Furthermore, the nature of imperialism in China, generally termed as “informal
imperialism” due to the absence of a formal colonial government, entailed that the China coast
community as it developed in the treaty ports harbored a certain proclivity towards cultivating
local loyalties (Bickers 14).
To the transient visitors in China, this intricate power dynamics governing the expatriate/settler
community along the China coast remained an enigma. Often come to China in search of local
colors, to seek, as it were, the “real” China in the fringes of the 19th century chinoiserie motif that
so dominated Victorian imagination, the treaty ports often became an aberration and a source of
embarrassment, as reinforced in the accounts of writers such as William Somerset Maugham (in
his On a Chinese Screen) and Arthur Ransome who coined the phrase “the Shanghai Mind” to
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delineate the severely anti-Chinese attitude in the foreign community of China’s largest treaty port,
which via dogmatic institutions like the Shanghai Municipal Counter, the Mixed Courts or the
International Settlements enforced an almost domineering sway over the massive native populace
living there. Conversely, however, the traveler’s naivety regarding the underlying power structures
that sustained this community within the framework of an informal imperialist setup, made them
an object of ridicule and scorn to the settler society that was well-versed in the local lore and
policies that upheld their privileges and status quos in China.
Narrative Paradox and Ambiguity in the Transient Traveler Constance Gordon Cumming
It is in this intersection of the dynamics between the traveler/tourist and the settler/expatriate
groups that one gets a glimpse into the narrative paradoxes and the ambivalence of imperialism in
the writings of the long-time traveler and painter Constance Gordon Cumming vis-à-vis her
sojourns in China from the winter of 1878 to 1879 as recorded in her Wanderings in China (1886),
an account which occupies a significant position in the discourse that shaped the Western vision
of the country during the 19th century. With an extensive travel history spanning Scotland, India,
Sri Lanka, Fiji, Australia, California, and Japan, Cumming’s visit to China at the end of a four year
long journey evinces a certain equivocation with regards to her impassive delineation of the
evolution of the Empire as she saw it. The dichotomy inherent in the business of conveying China,
a semi-colony through the lens of Western cultural colonization by the transient tourist, privileged
by the spoils of imperialism, while simultaneously participating in a critique of the colonial project
is thus marked by a curious paradox—the contradiction implicit in the very fact of her presence in
the country which whilst reinforcing the colonial power structures also fortified the image of China
as an open field to be exploited by multiple concerned parties; and her genuine engagement, both
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intellectual and social with it, a fact which inevitably underscores the complexities of inter-cultural
exchange.
Ethnography vs. Autobiography: An Imperialist’s Perspective
Daughter to the Scottish baronet, William Gordon Cumming, her social stature and aristocratic
privileges, which even in China translates into a particularly sheltered visit filtered, as it were,
through the lens of Western luxury, doubtlessly granted her an objective impartiality and a certain
autonomy from the workings of the Empire. Positioning herself therefore, as “an unbiased stranger
… continually receiving kindness from all ranks and conditions of my fellow country-men”,
Cumming’s sojourns in China whilst revealing a sustained friction between the often incompatible
claims of ethnography (facts) and autobiography (experiences), also betrays a shallow
understanding of the immediate historical and cultural backdrop that gave rise to the foreign
presence in China, together with a superficial engagement with the country which she views solely
via the rose-tinted glasses of European privilege in the treaty ports (Cumming 243). Indeed, an
uninhibited acceptance of the spoils of imperialism and an implicit endorsement of the colonial
crusade transforms Cumming’s China into a site of imperialist escapades to be cashed for its
entertainment value. Even the perceived squalor and unpleasantness in the “real life” of China
does not escape the scrutiny of her tourist gaze so much so that as an overwhelmed response to the
“foulest dirt” of the Shanghai streets, she is coerced into expressing sympathy for the Europeans
living there (Cumming 2-3).
Consequently, the most significant episode in Cumming’s visit to China, namely the fire that
destroyed large areas of the slum along Queen’s Road during the Christmas of 1878, offers a
glimpse into the nature of her discourse on the country. Having witnessed the conflagration from
the privileged vantage point of an Englishman’s hillside veranda, Cumming’s almost god-like
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complacency in treating the entire episode as a spectacle is understated only by her inability to
understand that in critiquing the Chinese for their perceived reluctance to be grateful for English
help, she inadvertently underscores her own community’s sustained objectification of the plight of
the masses (Cumming 15-6). Furthermore, as Susan S. Thurin notes, the Queen’s Road fire episode
assumed additional significance as a sort of literary device in the sustained rivalry between
Cumming and Isabella Bird Bishop, two prominent figures in the realm of Victorian travel
literature. Their competition for narrative authenticity and the need to establish themselves as well-
informed, empirical observers of China transformed the tragic event into a pawn, with each author
attempting interpretive control over the Chinese landscape, which is cashed for its sensational
value—“A published account of a journey exploits distant people, customs, and places to enhance
the fame and fortune of the author. In the quest of these two travelers to establish representational
authority, China becomes a pawn” (Thurin 91).
Indeed, an instinctive loyalty to her overarching imperialist identity manifests in an unstated
affirmation of Hong Kong’s elevated status as a bastion of British dominance and an epitome of
colonial power—“In short, everything is so pleasant that already I have begun to feel myself quite
at home in this British isle of Hong Kong” (Cumming 9). This innate adherence to the precepts of
a popular treaty port discourse which, via the creation of simulated foreign spaces (in imitation of
home life), sought to assert Western cultural superiority, while at the same time functioning as
bulwarks of security, thus also translates in Cumming’s narrative as an expression of the deep
sense of insecurity afflicting the China coast community vis-à-vis their liminal status in the
country. Consequently, a mention of the long standing native-foreign dispute regarding the
handing over of Jesuit land to Westerners in the post Opium war era, ultimately transforms into an
inherent fear of a recurrence of the 1870 Tianjin Massacre.
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A Created Paradise: Foreign Enterprise and Missionary Endeavour
In a sense, Cumming does manage to integrate herself into the colonial discourse. Her repeated
use of “our” to refer to the insignias of foreign presence in China undoubtedly hints at an
unconscious indoctrination into the narrative of the Empire despite being a sojourner in it. Even
her extensive discussions on the honest fervor of native Christian converts regardless of financial
gains and subject to local violence and ostracism, or her entitled remonstrance against the
uncooperative nature of Chinese officials biased in favor of natives, continues her sustained
discourse on the regressive and recalcitrant nature of China that refuses change even when faced
with beneficent Western aid. It is not surprising, then, that her narrative bent on Christianity
ultimately culminates in a skewed optimism regarding the imminent Christianization of China—
“It may be that in years to come, when China has taken her place as THE GREATEST
CHRISTIAN NATION IN THR WORLD, such troubles as these will be remembered as we in
Britain remember the persecution of the earliest Christian by our pagan ancestors” (Cumming
253).
As Thurin notes:
Cummings support of missionaries stems from her conventionality, religion, and a sense
of duty. Her strategy for bolstering mission work is to attack its critics and provide
hagiographical accounts of missionaries and converts, often registering a surprising
credulity in repeating stories such as those about a miraculous cure, an exorcism, and the
heroic fortitude of Christian converts enduring ‘one outrage after another’ during anti-
foreign riots (101).
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An incomplete knowledge of the realities of the Chinese mission field or the supposed
infringement of treaty clauses eventually translates into an attack on whatever she perceives as
impeding the noble business “to win these millions from their miserable idolatry” (Cumming 435).
Indeed, the failure of Christianity to leave a significant mark on China’s socio-cultural fabric
despite the relative success of other areas of imperialist incursions has been the object of much
scrutiny. The foreign religion’s defects in gaining substantial traction in China has been attributed,
in part, to the religion’s rigidly monopolist stance, which precluded meaningful integration into
the Chinese social fabric, unlike in the case of Buddhism in the 1st century C.E (Purcell 126-27).
Furthermore, the presence of heretical and non-conformist sects and the perpetual threat of
rebellions fueled by large-scale dissenting sect-based activities compelled China’s rulers to
vigilantly suppress any subversive movements, something which remained detrimental to
Christianity due to missionary aggressions and interference in Chinese legal and judicial systems
(Purcell 126-27). Indeed, the missionaries, often dubbed as the “scapegoats of imperialism,”
incurred widespread contempt among the native populace due to their belligerent land acquisitive
tendencies, confrontational attitude towards local authorities, and general disregard for Chinese
customs. Additionally, the influx of bandits seeking sanctuary within the churches further eroded
their credibility. It is hardly surprising, then, that missionaries working in the isolated interior of
the country, in close proximity to disgruntled natives and suspicious government officials, became
the primary targets of anti-foreign violence with the church’s practices, such as baptism and
medical work, only exacerbating local skepticism and doubt.
Interestingly, Cumming also indoctrinates herself into the expatriate/settler discourse of the treaty
ports by not just extolling Western self-sufficiency and insularity in China, but also in concurrently
delineating Western presence as being quintessentially beneficent in fashioning a paradise,
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something which fundamentally reiterates the formation of the treaty ports’ “created histories”
which bolstered the local identities of the China coast community (Bickers 39-40)—
It is hard to realise that, previous to the capture of Canton in 1857, a hideous mud-flat
occupied the place where this green isle now lies. Having been selected as a suitable spot
for a foreign settlement, piles were driven into the river and filled up with sand, and on this
foundation was built an embankment of solid granite, which is now the daily recreation-
ground of all the foreign population. But nothing that now meets the eye on this artificial
island suggests the enormous labour by which this transformation was accomplished
(Cumming 27).
As an extension of this discourse is Cumming’s assertion that it is ultimately the foreign presence
which imparts on its surroundings a civilizing impact, one in which the primary hallmark of
civilization is a reduced anti-foreignism.
The bulk of Cumming’s discourse on China however pivots around the tactic of pitting English
rationality and progress against Chinese superstition and regressive backwardness, requiring as it
were, the conducive effects of Western modernism to prop up its antiquated bulwark of heathenism
and irrationality. A sensationalized portrayal of the strangeness of Chinese medicine, repeated
reports of floods, pestilences, natural calamities and their horrible side-effects, an extended
discourse on overpopulation, infanticide and inherent faults in Chinese national character is
supplemented further by her “fear of contamination by the ‘common herd’” (Cummings 25). As
Susan S. Thurin observes:
… to the colonial world, cleanliness and dirt take on racial significance as a paradigm for
the power relation between colonizer and colonized. It is a pattern that comes easily to hand
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as a method of defining and separating self and other, and consequently appears in various
cross-cultural and interracial contexts … For Cumming, dirt and bad smells also become
involved in a religious interpretation of culture. They are associated with a disorderly and
sinful world that the missionary must root out: class gives way to religion as a discursive
approach to China. Cumming dramatizes the vast field of work for missionaries by
enumerating images of “heathen” China that incidentally indulge the Victorian penchant
for the grotesque (96-7).
A Vacillating Stance: The Business of Narrating China, a Semi-colony
Nonetheless, a sustained note of critique with regards to the inequalities between the colonizer and
the colonized, together with an acknowledgement of the anomalous nature of the insularity
practiced by the China coast community does complicate the nature of her narrative. Thus, in an
account of the disastrous 1852 flood caused by the Yellow River changing its course, Cumming
does, in essence, manage to capture the smug complacency exhibited by the foreign world of
Shanghai, which remained ignorant of the disaster just beyond their insulated perimeters for five
long years—
Strange to say, so little did foreigners even then know of anything that occurred beyond
the limits of the treaty ports, that five years elapsed ere the Europeans living in Shanghai
had any inkling of the tremendous catastrophe which had occurred scarcely so far from
their homes as Edinburgh is from London! Two years later, though it was then known
beyond a doubt that the great river had vanished from its accustomed bed, no foreigners
knew what had become of it! (Cumming 5).
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In a similar vein, her first impression of the Canton foreign settlement is marked by a sense of
astonishment at the detached isolation of the Europeans living there—
… it was a most startling revelation to find myself in a very smart, purely foreign
settlement, as entirely isolated from the native city as though they were miles apart, instead
of being only divided by a canal, which constitutes this peaceful green spot an island. Here
is transplanted an English social life so completely fulfilling all English requirements, that
the majority of the inhabitants rarely enter the city! (Cumming 27).
Her humanitarian bent, although not as acute as other writers on China (such as Isabella Bird
Bishop, for instance), is nevertheless substantiated by her discussion (albeit nominal) on the poor
socio-cultural-economic conditions of Chinese women and children, and the pervasive social ill of
foot-binding which she believes will only be ameliorated by the willingness of these women to
embrace reform and change. Even then, her sympathies are hardly sustainable. As Thurin further
observes:
Cumming’s feminist leanings are evident in her concern for women’s health and education,
but when class and race are of consequence, she is unable to sustain her sympathies for
Chinese women. She finds the richly dressed, highly made up wives and daughters of the
wealthy to be tedious, and … she unkindly refers to the bound foot as a “hoof.”… From
another point of view, however, the dehumanizing term for the bound foot expresses the
travelers’ rebellion against the limitations placed on Chinese women: the bound foot
symbolizes their situation. When Cumming admits she prefers the company of men to that
of these women, she is making a pitch for freedom (95).
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Such a vacillating and inconstant stance on Cumming’s part is augmented further by the generally
impassive and detached tenor of her narrative, one in which she perpetually avoids assigning
positive or negative connotations to the things she delineates (be it the many facets of imperialist
incursions or a light-hearted account of a dinner party), something which, in effect, allows her to
go in and out of the discourse she is herself creating. It is then her tourist prerogative which permits
her to exonerate herself of accountability of being a partisan in the business of the Empire, whilst
at the same time being unable to fully extricate herself from an unmistakable tone of imperialist
haughtier which continually haunts her narrative. Such ambivalence in the discourse on conveying
China by the privileged tourist unable to arrive at a homogenous representation of the country thus
underscores the complications lying at the heart of chronicling a semi-colony with an informal
imperialist setup.
Imperial Guilt: Yellow Peril and the Question of Opium
This dichotomy manifests yet again in her discussion on the question of opium. Her intense
aversion to opium, as the narrative evinces, is ironically buttressed by the drug’s significance to
British economic and political interests, which she otherwise endorses. It is ultimately in an effort
to reconcile this paradox that Cumming employs a multi-faceted narrative tactic in which she—
inflates the importance of European philanthropic activities benefiting China; offers a
sensationalized account of increasing opium suicides among the Chinese; employs elaborate
statistics to address the spread of the drug in the Americas; and ultimately positions the use of
opium as being contrary to British respectability, whilst placing the moral onus of its usage on the
Chinese themselves (greed leading to excessive opium cultivation causing famine and poverty). In
her agenda to shift attention away from Britain’s role in the spread of opium in the Far East,
Cumming therefore, successfully manages to steer her discourse away from the fact of her nation’s
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historic role in China’s opium epidemic. As Ross G. Forman notes—“… the discourses associated
with China during the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries changed as a result of
the shifting imperial situation: opium now rivaled porcelain as a symbol of “Chineseness” (10).
It is however in her response to spread of opium “among [the] white population” that her true
agenda manifests (Cumming 488). An almost apocalyptic vision of a massive Yellow Peril
sweeping across “our own colonies”, poisoning at its wake the entirety of the Western world on
account of an increased migratory trend among the Chinese, thus ultimately translates into an
elucidation of a firmly entrenched anxiety of a possible yellow deluge (Cumming 487)—
Already this long-secluded race is colonising Thibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria. Tens of
thousands have settled in the beautiful Philippine Isles — in Borneo, Sumatra, Java,
Cambodia, and Hawaii. We find them in Australia and New Zealand, and in every corner
of the Pacific. And in how vast a stream they have poured into California we very well
know. Everywhere they work their way by gentlest but most dogged force of will … That
they will continue more and more to overrun the earth is certain. A vast portion of heathen
Chinamen carry with them the spreading curse of opium-smoking — a vice from which
the Christian convert must of necessity keep himself absolutely free. So from self-interest
it behooves all nations of the earth to help in this mission-work (Cumming 436).
It is, therefore, not surprising that her discourse on the opium question ends on a note of deep-
seated imperial guilt and an intrinsic fear of divine retribution—
If, in addition to this evil, a taste for opium-smoking should once gain a footing in England,
as it has already done in America, there may be reason to fear lest the poison which Britain
has so assiduously cultivated for China, may eventually find its market amongst her own
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children — a retribution too terrible to contemplate, though one against the possibility of
which it were well to guard (Cumming 490).
At its core, Cumming’s narrative thus disseminates and endorses the Victorian ethos of
legitimizing the adverse consequences of the Opium Wars as a necessary evil in the grand and
noble crusade to Christianize China and rescue it from the clutches of heathenism. Nevertheless,
China’s persistent resistance vis-à-vis Christianity and the possibility of conversion into a thriving
mission field perpetually haunted British conscience, riddling it with a lingering moral conundrum.
As Susan S. Thurin observes—“In being the purported good coming out of evil, missionaries faced
a moral dilemma mirrored by their relative lack of success … The Chinese language, culture, and
the deeply inbred Confucian ethic made it difficult for them to integrate themselves into the
community, much less convert people” (101).
Conclusion
Cumming’s objective to extol China’s cultural legacy and faded imperial glory by subtly pitting it
against the superiority of British modernism is thus understated only by a shallow understanding
of the historical and cultural context of 19th century China. As a consequence, her account
succumbs to a great deal of subjectivism, disseminating a conventional and well-established vision
of a decaying and regressive China, something which quintessentially reinstates an innate loyalty
to her imperialist persona that lies at the heart of her discourse. A sustained critique of the
Confucian orthodoxy, the imperial examination system, the aristocracy, social institutions and
perceived faults in the Chinese national character, together with the perpetual usage of exoticised
aesthetics, thus only serves to align Cumming’s discourse with the popular image of China in
Western imagination, an image which fulfilled the dual purpose of assuring the West of the
impending dissolution of China’s stagnant civilization, while concurrently emphasizing their own
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role in ushering in the seeds of modernism. It is perhaps only fitting that as an ultimate testament
to her vacillating stance is Cumming’s final impression of China steeped in a deep-seated imperial
guilt—a twofold vision of Peking, one enveloped by its bygone splendor, and one, a mere shadow
of its former glory, an indubitable outcome of the progressive colonial crusade.

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