Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Zadig Bey brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips, very lightly. ‘Please, Bibiji, do not upset yourself. Try to think of it calmly. Vico will help with the arrangements, and so will I. As it happens I myself am due to travel to China next year. I will arrange matters so that I can sail on the same ship as you and Rosa. Whichever ship you take from Bombay, it is sure to stop in Colombo. I will join you there — Vico will let me know so that I can book my passage accordingly.’

‘You!’ The blood rushed to Shireen’s face with such force that it was as if her cheeks had been scalded. ‘But Zadig Bey … what would people say if they found out that we were travelling together? You know how people gossip.’

‘There’s no reason why they should find out,’ said Zadig. ‘And if they do, we can tell them that it was just coincidence that we were on the same ship.’ He paused to stroke his chin. ‘For myself, I confess it would be a pleasure to make this journey with you—’

Cutting himself short, he coughed into his fist. When he resumed it was as if he were correcting himself for having been too forward: ‘What I meant is that it would be a pleasure to be of service to you on the journey. I would particularly like to arrange a meeting between you and Freddie, in Singapore.’

Shireen clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Please stop, Zadig Bey, please stop!’ she cried. ‘I can’t make a decision like this at the snap of a finger.’ She rose to her feet, pulling the veil over her head. ‘I need more time.’

Zadig rose too. ‘Bibiji,’ he said quietly, as she was lowering her veil, ‘please do not worry about the details. The difficulties are all in your head. Once you make up your mind everything else will fall in place.’

These words made so deep an impression on her that she realized that she trusted Zadig completely, perhaps even more than Bahram. But she still could not bring herself to take the leap.

‘Let me think about it, Zadig Bey. When I am ready, I will let you know, through Vico. But for now, let us say goodbye.’

November 18, 1839

Honam

The disaster at Humen has galvanized Commissioner Lin and his circle of officials — but no one would know it from the look of the city. In Canton and beyond, everyday life continues unchanged — and this, says Compton, is exactly what the authorities want: that people go about their business as usual. The battle has been underplayed even in official dispatches: Beijing has been informed that it was a minor clash, in which the British also suffered significant casualties. Compton says that it is in order to avoid panic that the battle is being treated as a minor event — but I wonder if it isn’t also meant to save face and avert the Emperor’s wrath?

Underneath the surface though, the battle has opened many eyes. Compton for one, has been deeply shaken by what we saw that day at Humen. Since then an aspect of him that is usually concealed by his habitually cheerful demeanour has come to the fore: a tendency to fret and worry. He makes no apology for this propensity of his: when teased about it, he quotes a line from Mencius, something to the effect of: ‘It is by worrying about adversity that people survive; complacency brings catastrophe.’

Nowadays Compton’s fretfulness bubbles over quite often. In the past his attitude towards translation was fairly matter-of-fact. But now it is as if language itself has become a battleground, with words serving as weapons. He sometimes explodes with indignation while reading British translations of official Chinese documents: Look, Ah Neel, look! Look how they have changed the meaning of what was said!

He disputes everything, even the way the English use the word ‘China’. There is no similar term in Chinese he says; the English have borrowed it from Sanskrit and Pali. The Chinese use a different expression, which is mistakenly represented in English as ‘Middle Kingd He says that it is better translated as ‘the Central States’ — I suppose it is the equivalent of our Indian Madhyadesha .

What makes Compton angriest is when the Chinese character yi is translated as ‘barbarian’. He says that this character has always been used to refer to people who are not from the Central States: what it means, in other words, is ‘foreigner’. Apparently this was not disputed until recently — Americans and Englishmen were quite content to translate yi as ‘foreigner’. But of late some of their translators have begun to insist that yi means ‘barbarian’. It has repeatedly been pointed out to them that the word has been applied to many revered and famous people in China — even to the present ruling dynasty — but the English translators contend that they know better. Some of these translators are notorious opium-smugglers: they are clearly twisting the Chinese language in order to make trouble. Since Captain Elliot and his superiors know no Chinese, they accept whatever the translators tell them. They have come to believe that the word yi is indeed intended as an insult. Now they have turned this into a major grievance.

This drives Compton to despair: How can they pretend to know, Ah Neel? How can they claim to know that the picture they see when they say ‘barbarian’ , is the same that we see when we say ‘yi’?

Thinking about this I realized that I too would protest if Sanskrit or Bangla words like yavana or joban were translated as ‘barbarian’. I think Compton is right when he says that the reason the English use this word is because it is they who think of us as ‘barbarians’. They want war, so they are looking for excuses and even a word will do.

Mat dou gaa — it’s all a pack of lies!

But the Humen battle has had some good consequences even for Compton. For instance Commissioner Lin has begun to pay even greater attention to matters like translation and intelligence. As a consequence Zhong Lou-si’s position has been greatly strengthened in official circles. This is a matter of much pride for Compton; he feels that his mentor has at last been given his due.

According to Compton, the principal subject of Zhong Lou-si’s studies — overseas matters — has generally been regarded as unimportant and even disreputable in official circles. And the fact that he does not hesitate to seek out sailors, shipowners, merchants, emigrants and the like is considered unseemly by many of his peers: those are classes of men that officialdom has traditionally regarded as untrustworthy.

For all these reasons Zhong Lou-si’s work was long overlooked. Compton says that he was able to continue with it only because he succeeded in gaining the ear of a former governor of Guangdong Province who was interested in learning about foreign traders and their countries. He gave Zhong Lou-si a job in a prestigious new academy of learning in Guangzhou and it was there that Compton entered his orbit.

Compton is not from the kind of family that generally produces scholars and officials: he is the son of a ship-chandler and has grown up on the Pearl River, in close proximity to foreign sailors and businessmen: it was they who had taught him English; it was from them too that he learnt about the world overseas; they also gave him his English name.

But Compton isn’t the only one who has learnt about the world in this way: along the banks of the Pearl River there must be hundreds of thousands of people who make their living from trade and are in close contact with foreigners. Millions of them also have relatives who have settled overseas; they too are privy to reports about what is going on in other countries. But knowledge such as theirs rarely filters through to the scholars and bureaucrats who are at the helm of this country’s affairs. Nor are ordinary Chinese at all eager to be noticed by officialdom: what business is it of theirs, what the mandarins make of the world? Compton says that for centuries people in Guangdong have taken comfort in the thought that saang gou wohng dal yuhn — ‘the mountains are high and the Emperor is far away’. What is the sense of stirring a pot that is sure to scorch you if it spills over?