A solo woman traveller in China: bombs, opium, and the end of an empire

Baron, Mary, French teacher and traveller (fl. ca. 1907-1912). Au long des Mers de Chine: De Yokohama à Manille, Shanghaï, Hongkong, Canton, Macao, 19 novembre - 12 décembre 1911.

€ 25,000.00

An unpublished first-hand account in French of a lone woman traveller in China during the revolution of 1911, which resulted in the deposition of the last emperor, Puyi, in the following year. On a long letter on a roll of rice-paper, the French traveller Mary Baron describes the difficulties of journeying as a single woman through a region gripped by both excitement and insecurity. She also recounts the jubilant mood of the Chinese and their hopes to expel the western imperialist powers, a cause for which she expresses her full sympathies. In addition to the unusual form, this represents a rare French-language first-hand account of a highly charged period.

The roll is accompanied by a booklet containing a partial transcription, lacking the more recent sections concerning her stay in Manila. There are also two postcards and a letter written on the back of a handsomely illustrated dinner menu from the steamer SS Hitachi Maru. The letter and cards have been bound into the booklet, which, together with Baron's requests to her correspondent, Roger Champs of Lalinde in the Dordogne, to keep her letters, suggests that one or both of them created the booklet after her return. Little is known of Mary Baron, but she appears to have been a teacher resident in Japan from at least 1907, when she was invited by L'Alliance Française to give a presentation on feminism in Turkey, which suggests she was an experienced traveller, in spite of the difficulties faced by women, particularly single ones, in the early twentieth century.

Baron's first port of call in China is Shanghai, which she finds gripped by revolution: "les chinois ont la mine fière, et les drapeaux révolutionnaires flottent partout". As the journey continues, we hear of the other travellers on her ship, not all of whom are agreeable, and complains of the unpleasant atmosphere for a female traveller: "On examine les nouveaux embarqués: une famille de millionnaires américains, père, mère, deux filles et une femme de chambre francaise. Cela émoustille les hommes, on joue, on fleurète, et ces américains sont parfaitement insupportables. L'homme est grossier; il est bien difficile pour une femme seule de voyager, surtout dans la mauvaise saison. Dans la saison des touristes, on peut faire nos choix, mais maintenant c'est impossible".

In Canton she again finds the city alive with pro-revolutionary sentiment: "en face de moi, la poste chinoise: 'Chinese imperial post office'. Le mot 'imperial' est gratté, et le drapeau révolutionnaire flotte partout, ramplaçant le dragon." She shows herself sympathetic to the revolutionary cause: "Comme j'approuve les chinois. Leur principal grief contre les mandchous est principalement le morcellement de la Chine au profit de l'étranger [...] Chacun chez soi, la Chine aux chinois, disent-ils, et ils ont raison".

At the final stage of her journey, Baron encountered difficulties entering the Philippines, then occupied by the USA. The ship's captain became aware that she had opium, which could lead to a severe punishment if brought into American territory, and confronted her. She hastily returned to her cabin, threw the opium out the window, and deflated his further questions with humour: "Je le prends et le jette à la mer. Cette fois, c'est bien fini. Le commandant revient de nouveau, très mystérieux. 'Avez-vous des armes'? Je liu ris au nez. 'Mais voyons, commandant, à quoi pensez-vous'? 'Vous n'êtes pas révolutionnaire'? me dit-il. Alors, à mon tour, prenant un air de mystère, je lui dis tout bas: 'Commandant, j'ai un aveu à vous faire: j'ai une grosse bombe dans ma malle'. Il a compris, et rit de tout son coeur".

The 1911 revolution brought an end to over two millennia of imperial rule in China and led to the birth of the Republic of China in 1912, under Sun Yat-sen as president, with a government dedicated to modernisation, national unity and opposition to the colonialist incursions of western powers, which the emperors had been unable to curtail. This unpublished account, alive with detail and humour, provides a first-hand account both of crucial turning-point in Chinese history and of the challenges faced by early twentieth-century women travelling the world alone.