Solo China: A Journey to China in 1933

Author: (English) Peter Fleming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: If Sarah Connor, who lived in China for seven years, provided a relatively detailed historical record of the political and cultural activities of the upper class in China at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, then Peter Fleming (1907—1971), a British travel writer who traveled in China for only seven months in 1933, depicted the political, military, and war situation of the entire country in the 1930s through his travelogue "Walking Alone in China" with the sensitivity of a journalist. As he said in the preface, "I dare say that on some major issues concerning the situation in East Asia, I can make my half-baked conclusions sound convincing." As a special correspondent for The Times, Peter Fleming conveniently traveled from north to south across the different political regions of China at the time and interviewed prominent figures in Chinese politics, such as Puyi, the puppet emperor of Manchukuo under Japanese occupation, Luo Wenggan, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Kuomintang region, Chiang Kai-shek, and Wang Jingwei. Of course, this is not a highly theoretical book on international politics, but rather a travelogue by a 26-year-old, spirited journalist. The author, with a strong curiosity about the mountains, rivers, landscapes, customs, and local cultures along his route from Harbin in the north to Guangzhou in the south, captured them all in his sketches or drawings.