Mr. Pan

by Emily Hahn

Author of such celebrated and acclaimed works as THE SOONG SISTERS, CHINA TO ME, and FRACTURED IRELAND, Emily Hahn has been called by the New Yorker as "a forgotten American literary treasure." Now, E-Reads continues to reintroduce Hahn to a new generation of readers, bringing to light her richly textured voice and unique perspective on a world that continues to exist both through history and fiction. Mr. Pan is no highly-placed official. Mr. Pan is the Mr. Smith of China--an ordinary man with extraordinary reach--and China, like America, depends as much on its Mr. Pans as on its powerful and world famous officials. Here, in a series of linked vignettes, you'll get a glimpse into a new way of life--Mr. Pan at work, Mr. Pan with his father, Mr. Pan with his docile wife, Pei-yu. It is a rare glimpse into a time and place, as only Emily Hahn's perceptive pen could produce. This is fiction as delightful and penetrating as any truth.

Genres: Fiction, Asian Literature, Classics

ebook

First published November 26, 2013

About the author

Emily "Mickey" Hahn was called "a forgotten American literary treasure" by The New Yorker magazine; she was the author of 52 books and more than 180 articles and stories. Her father was a hardware salesman and her mother a suffragette. She and her siblings were brought up to be independent and to think for themselves and she became the first woman to take a degree in mining engineering from the University of Wisconsin. She went on to study mineralogy at Columbia and anthropology at Oxford, working in between as an oil geologist, a teacher and a guide in New Mexico before she arrived in New York where she took up writing seriously. In 1935 she traveled to China for a short visit and ended up by staying nine years in the Far East. She loved living in Shanghai and met both Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai. She became the lover of Zau Sinmay, an intellectual, whom she particularly liked for his overwhelming curiosity about everything, she felt it rubbed off on her, and together they founded the English-language magazine Candid Comment. During her time in China she learned to smoke opium, persisting for two years until, inevitably, she became addicted; she was then cured by a hypnotist.

In Hong Kong Hahn met Major Charles R. Boxer, a married British intelligence officer; in 1940 she became pregnant and they had a daughter, Carola. Boxer was captured by the Japanese after being wounded in the attack on Hong Kong; Hahn visited him as much as possible in his prisoner-of-war camp, until she and Carola were repatriated to the United States in 1943. On his release they got married and in 1946 they arrived in Dorset where she called herself a "bad housewife". Although Boxer continued to live in England, where he became Professor of Portuguese at London University, Hahn lived mostly in America as a tax exile.

Reviews

[Scott Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of New Yorker articles that the author wrote while living in Shanghai during the 1930's -- both shortly before and during the Japanese occupation of the city. The articles are all based on Hahn's experiences with her friend, and lover, Shao Xunmei, or as he is called in the book, Pan Heh-Ven. The articles are mostly about Shao's relations with his family members or creditors or with Hahn herself. The articles often revolve around Hahn's trying to understand Shao's reasoning for his actions. The articles are mostly humorous in tone, with Hahn possible playing up her ignorance. The book is worth reading for its wry look at a world that few Westerners at the time had the capability, or interest, of seeing. One objection I have to the book is that the Japanese occupation of Shanghai gets little attention in the book, as it mostly plays as a background inconvenience. The horror of the occupation is only directly dealt with in one chapter, and even there t is mostly glossed over.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most interesting look at a Chinese man and his family during the occupation of China by the Japanese.