Roy Chapman Andrews

I just finished reading Roy Chapman Andrews' Camps and Trails in China, an account of his expedition to southern China in 1916-17. This was long before his palaeontological expeditions to the Gobi; it was devoted to the collecting of specimens for natural history museums - i.e., lots of shooting and trapping. It was fairly interesting, though naturally marred by the racism of the era (mostly of the "heathen Chinee" variety, but with an admixture of "noble savage"). Still, there were a couple of passages I'd like to quote. First, from near the end of the journey, as he prepared to leave China for British-controlled territory:

What a difference between the country we were leaving and the one we were about to enter! It is the "deadly parallel" of the old East and the new West. On the one side is China with her flooded roads and bridges of rotting timber, the outward and visible signs of a nation still living in the Middle Ages, fighting progress, shackled by the iron doctrines of Confucius to the long dead past. Across the river is English Burma, with eyes turned forward, ever watchful of the welfare of her people, her iron bridges and macadam roads representing the very essence of modern thought and progress.

A century later, there is little doubt which of the two countries - China and Burma/Myanmar - has more successfully modernized.

A bit earlier, he visited some British customs officers, holding extraterritorial rights connected with the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion. He writes:

Like all Britishers, the Customs men had carried their sport with them. Just beyond the city walls an excellent golf course had been laid out with Chinese graves as bunkers....

An excellent golf course. With Chinese graves as bunkers. Tell me, who's the barbarian here?

I have another of his books on my Kindle, this one set in Mongolia. I think, when I read that one, I'll go in with rather different expectations.