Michigan State University Press | No Foreign Bones in China

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Peter Stursberg

Peter Stursberg is a well-known writer and journalist whose work has spanned more than six decades. As a CBC war correspondent, he covered the Canadian troops in Sicily during the Second World War...

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No Foreign Bones in China
Memoirs of Imperialism and Its Ending

Peter Stursberg

Winner of the 2003 Life Stories Book Award from The Word Guild

Noted Canadian journalist Peter Stursberg traces his family's history in China through the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, and the Second World War. Captain Samuel Lewis Shaw arrived in China in the 1830s. He eventually settled in the port of Foochow, married a young Japanese woman, and started a family. A century later, virtually all foreigners were kicked out of the country. No Foreign Bones in China reveals a cultural history through the eyes of one British colonial family.

No Foreign Bones in China tells a story of China through the eyes of a British colonial family. Through the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, two world wars, and the rise of Mao, the Shaws were witness to the turbulent birth of modern China. Captain Samuel Lewis Shaw, a merchant seaman, arrived in China in the 1830s. After a long and colourful career, he settled in the port of Foochow, married a Japanese woman, and started a family. The Shaw children grew up in Pagoda Anchorage, the heart of the Chinese tea trade, and expected to spend their lives in this beautiful place. But a few years later, they were forced to leave. In a dramatic display of pro-Chinese nationalism, foreigners were expelled from the country from the country—even to the bones lying in their graves. Told with emotion and insight, No Foreign Bones in China explores cultural history in lavish detail. In re-creating the story of his family, Peter Stursberg reveals history as it was lived and made.

Praise for No Foreign Bones in China

"More interesting than family genealogy or Chinese history are the insights Stursberg provides of life in the imperialists' China."
Carolyn Redl, Times Colonist

"[Peter Stursberg's] new [book], No Foreign Bones in China: Memoirs of Imperialism and Its Ending, deals entertainingly with his ancestors whose lives in East Asia were rather more materialistic than spiritual…. The centrepiece is the author's grandfather, Capt. Samuel Lewis Shaw [1821- 1908] who went to sea at 13 and arrived in China not long afterwards. This was well before the Second Opium War, which led to the system of so- called treaty ports by which Britain, and soon other Western nations, turned much of China into a virtual colony, at least economically. [Another instrument was the British- run Chinese customs service and post office department, where Stursberg's father worked.]"
George Fetherling, The Vancouver Sun

"[Peter] Stursberg hasn't lost his ability to tell a great story. In No Foreign Bones in China--his 14th book--he unravels the tale of three generations of his own family and their life in China. He seamlessly weaves together the country's history--from British imperialism to the Cultural Revolution--with the experiences of his colonial family, beginning with the birth of his grandfather, Capt. Samuel Lewis Shaw in 1821."
Maclean's

"From Europe to Asia, through extensive research into his family background, Peter Stursberg takes his readers on a captivating journey focusing on the China of the 19th and 20th centuries. On page after page rich details bring authenticity and originality to his book. And as a reflection on the heydays of British and European dominance in China, it also casts an unblinking eye on the attitudes and, yes, strong prejudices of the day."
Robert LeBlond, retired Foreign Service Officer
,br> "I must say how much I enjoyed reading No Foreign Bones in China. Your family's long relationship with China is fascinating and the story deserves a wide readership in Canada and abroad. Your discovery of your Japanese grandmother and the veil of silence around her should resonate with readers in this increasingly multicultural country."
Robert C. Fisher, Archivist,
National Archives of Canada

"The most cunning aspect of the book lies in Stursberg's immense talent as a storyteller. No Foreign Bones in China, while ostensibly a memoir of British Imperialism, shines most in its telling of family history. It is through this history that the reader is party to such events as the Boxer and Taiping rebellion, the wave of anti-German sentiment in England and her colonies during the First World War, the dirty history of England's involvement in the opium trade, and the double-crosses and accidents of Colonial policy that allowed the British to turn a tenuous relationship with China into unacknowledged and unofficial rule over the country. And brilliantly, these events are told so as to almost seem as accidents that happened around the lives of average people who had tea, courted lovers, and raised families like anyone else."
Mark Wells, The Gateway

"A fascinating narrative of life in China as seen through the eyes of a British colonial family, the Shaws.... An eye-opening, personal, and memorable look at a great land and its people, No Foreign Bones in China is compelling, informative, and highly recommended reading for students of 20th Century Chinese history."
Wisconsin Bookwatch

"Author Peter Stursberg is a Canadian journalist, writer and war correspondent who has turned his talents to giving us a slice of cultural history through recounting the story of his own family. China fascinates us now just as it did in the Victorian era, and the detail and insight Stursberg provides in this family memoir bring the sights and sounds of pre- Communist China vividly to life. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and it is a pleasure to find a family with such an engrossing history given life again in capable hands."
Mary Denis Garrett, The Advocate

University of Alberta Press

U.S. distribution.
0 pp., 6.00" x 9.00", 2002
Cloth, $24.95,

0-88864-387-X
978-0-88864-387-2

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