I’ve posted before about the rotten weak tea that is sold under the Lipton’s label in China. It remains no better. Yet Lipton remains a fascinating character from his impoverished Glaswegian roots, his love on showmanship acquired some time in America, his tea business, quest for the America’s Cup and on and on. So any new biography or study of Lipton is interesting and welcome. Here I’ll note Michael D’Antonio’s A Full Cup – Sir Thomas Lipton’s Extraordinary Lie and His Quest for the America’s Cup which is a very easily readable (well I am on my holidays at the moment) account of Lipton’s life. As usual no review but blurb below.
If he hadn’t been so successful, so rich, and so damn charming, Thomas Lipton would have been truly annoying. No one had a better knack for popping up in the middle of big events and getting his name and picture in the press. The Queen’s Jubilee? Lipton puts on a banquet for 40,000 and earns a knighthood. Admiral Dewey’s return from Manila? There’s Lipton at his side for the daylong parade in New York. War breaks out in the Balkans, and yes, it’s Lipton who recruits doctors and nurses, and steams into the fray at the helm of a hospital ship. The guy was everywhere for half a century, and yet no one tired of seeing him. Indeed, for a time when he wasn’t around, people flocked to the theater to see a look-alike actor play him onstage.
Long before anyone heard of Richard Branson or Larry Ellison or, for that matter, Bill Gates, Thomas Lipton created the persona of the happy captain of industry who used self-promotion, or philanthropy, or sport (he used all three), to become a household name. Before him, no self-made rich man had had so much fun becoming famous. After him, everyone borrowed from the Lipton method. He succeeded because he knew, firsthand, the lives and feelings of the poor and working people who were his customers, and they knew that as improbable as it was, the story he told about himself was almost entirely true.
Born in Scotland to parents who had fled the Irish famine, Lipton spent his early childhood in abject poverty. On a journey to America he learned the tricks of modern retailing and the value of an entertaining stunt. Having returned home to open a chain of groceries, he used pig parades and elephants to draw crowds to his stores. He also dropped leaflets from hot-air balloons, scattered authentic-looking Lipton banknotes in the streets, and commissioned the world’s largest cheeses for his shop windows. After groceries he went into tea, and on the strength of outlandish advertising became the world’s largest supplier. But his greatest stunt was a challenge for the America’s Cup, which became a thirty-year quest that captivated millions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Having parlayed his fame into a profitable friendship with the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, Lipton volunteered when Britain needed a rich man to try for the coveted cup. He spent a fortune on his boat and crew and on parties in New York for the social set. He was thoroughly trounced on the racecourse but spectacularly successful with the press and the public. He would mount four more challenges, losing every time and yet winning more hearts. By the last challenge, he had most of America pulling for him and the great Will Rogers begging his fellow Yanks to just let the old fellow win.
What was it, in the end, that made Lipton so popular? First, he was the antithesis of the robber barons and monopolists who were so hated in his time. Second, with his adventures and philanthropy he used his money the way others imagined they would. Finally, he constructed himself with inspiring and loving attention to detail. Lipton loved being Lipton, and his enthusiasm—he called himself The Great Lipton—was infectious. His few critics said he eventually became the caricature he played for so many years. This was, in fact, true, and it made the man happy for nearly all of his days.
Dialect and language are of course as much part of heritage and culture as buildings and structures. There’s a lot of talk about buildings on this blog, less about language, though I’ve noted some of the attempts by various authorities to crush the Shanghai dialect/language in the past and the grass roots moves to preserve it too. Cantonese, though spoken by far more people, is also under threat in mainland China – there are plenty in power who would like to see the back of it and all dialects/languages. As with Shanghainese the basic problem seems to be officials not able to understand what those they would seek to rule are saying and naturally assuming (probably correctly) the worse!
Great to see then that about 1,000 people, mostly young in their 20s and 30s, reportedly gathered by a station of the Guangzhou Metro last weekend to show support for the Cantonese dialect. Police goons showed up flexing their muscles and the media were told to gag the event, but still it happened. The demonstration followed a controversial move by the government to switch programming on the main channels of Guangdong TV from Cantonese to Putonghua, the pared down and basic language preferred by Beijing as a nationwide form of linguistic control. The usual arguments about promoting tourism, investment, social harmony etc were trotted out.
The boys in blue got nervous telling a Cantonese pop band (rarely considered one of the most dangerous examples of rock band rebellion) not to perform or sing in Cantonese and then they hassled some guy who had the temerity to war a t-shirt that said ‘Not Guilty for having an opinion’. The crowd apparently jeered the police for being petty bureaucrats. There were some pointed criticisms of those looking to eradicate dialects in China and in particular of Ji Kekuang, the ignoramus official who is trying to forcing the TV stations to speak Putonghua.
Great to see the demonstration against this ridiculous officialdom that, to me anyway, just shows the hatred of ordinary people, their culture and opinions among the leadership in China. Across the country dialects are under attack constantly – we hear about attacks on Cantonese, Shanghainese and occasionally other major dialects (someone got in trouble last year for supporting the Manchu language) – other less high profile dialects are, I fear, losing the battle.
Still globally there are apparently something like 55 million to 70 million Cantonese speakers across the world – this makes it equivalent to say Italian or Turkish, which apparently most people think should probably be left alone! Incidentally Shanghainese and other Wu related dialects may well have as many as 90 million speakers globally too – so probably best to leave them alone too.
The grounds of Tokyo’s Imperial Palace are of course sprawling and large and not always accessible. However, I happened to have a meeting at a swanky tower block overlooking the Imperial Palace the other week and thankfully the person I was meeting with rather late so I got to stand around in an office and look down. Thought it worth a picture or two.
This Sunday the series of ‘Conversations’ about various things China that have been going on for a month or so at M on the Bund concludes with a chat between UC-Irvine prof Jeffrey Wasserstrom and the New Yorker’s China Correspondent (and the current Poster Boy for the Beijing hack pack) Evan Osnos. Should be interesting and the venue has pretty good air-con too!
Glamour Bar, M on the Bund, Sunday 25th July – 2.30pm
The Royal Opera House in Bombay, India’s only surviving opera house, has a link to China through having been part founded by David Sassoon, the Baghdadhi Jew and founder of David Sassoon & Sons that came to play such a role in the opium and other trades in Canton and Shanghai. The baroque style opera house opened in 1912 and began also screening films in the 1930s (more architectural and historical details here). It closed in the early 1990s. A pair of unique crystal chandeliers, called the ‘Sans Souci’, donated by the David Sassoon family, which had earlier been located in the Sassoon mansion, were shifted to the foyer of the opera house.
Talk of restoring the opera house has been around since 2001 and the building was then in a rather dilapated condition. Things seemed to be progressing up till 2008 but a recent report on the BBC suggested restoration work had halted. If anyone knows what is happening to the site I’d very much like to know.
I try to avoid glaringly obvious self-promotion on this blog but occasionally it slips in, like, eerrr, now. Happy to see Beijing Today report a blog post on the Thisischina blog entitled – Award for Best Title for a China Book: “Fat China”.
However, Beijing Today decided to stick their logo across our book cover! Rest assured that if you buy a copy (which you can do rather easily here) the Beijing Today logo is not included!
As someone who divides his time pretty evenly writing about China now and China back then this seemed like a place to throw all the interesting bits that fall through the cracks somehow and never get used anywhere else. It's basically the stuff that doesn't get used in my writing about modern China or in the books I do about old China — i.e. probably of little interest to anyone but me and therefore ideally suited to an obscure blog up a dark cul-de-sac of the Internet. I'm also adding the odd 'Deviation Posting' about non-China stuff that interests me — Paul French
