ABSTRACT
Hsiao Ch’ien wrote China But Not Cathay (1942) in a wartime attempt to promote some real comprehension of China in the West. ‘Modern Hollywood’s’ dexterous combination of the ‘“picturesque” China … exuberantly portrayed … since the days of Marco Polo’ and ‘the “dark continent”’ constructed by nineteenth-century missionaries, ‘would be very entertaining’ he wrote, ‘if such poetic fantasies remained the monopoly of the amusement world’:
As a child I was always fond of standing before those magical mirrors in a funpalace to see myself twisted and transformed … Since I grew up I have long missed this secret pleasure, until I went to a Birmingham Pantomime called “Aladdin” in which my country was made out to be a Turkish bath, with my people all in fancy flowery jackets … The only lamentable thing was suddenly to be discovered by a fair lady sitting next to me, who screamed out, ‘Look, here is one!’.3
