Shao Xunmei (;

Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the Districts of Shanghai, central districts of the Shanghai, City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as ...

: Zau Sinmay; 1906–1968) was a Chinese poet and publisher.Sun and Swindall, p
133
He was a contributing writer for ''

T'ien Hsia Monthly ''T'ien Hsia Monthly'' (; "T'ien Hsia" meaning "everything under heaven") was a monthly English-language magazine published in Shanghai from August 1935 to 1937 and in Hong Kong from 1937 to 1941. The editors of the magazine were ethnic Chinese, i ...

'', and also was the owner of '' Modern Sketch''.Jones, Andrew F. ''Developmental Fairy Tales''.

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

, May 2, 2011. , 9780674061033. p
228
He originated from

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

. Jonathan Hutt wrote in ''Monstre Sacré: The Decadent World of Sinmay Zau'' that "For many, Shao was not simply inspired by the Occident but rather was of it" and that his lack of awareness of "the Chinese literary scene" distinguished him from his colleagues. On some occasions he used the name Hao Wen ().Bien, Gloria. ''Baudelaire in China: A Study in Literary Reception''.

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...

, December 14, 2012. , 9781611493900. p
125
"47. Hao Wen 浩文 (pseud. of Shao Xunmei),"

Life

He was born Shao Yunlong () in 1906 into a wealthy Shanghainese family with its ancestral hometown in

Yuyao Yuyao () is a county-level city in the northeast of Zhejiang province, China. It is under the jurisdiction of the sub-provincial city of Ningbo. It is located west of central Ningbo, east of Hangzhou, bordering Hangzhou Bay in the north. Yuyao ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

. Shao lived in the wealthiest part of Shanghai,

Bubbling Well Road Nanjing Road (; Shanghainese: ''Noecin Lu'') is a road in Shanghai, the eastern part of which is the main shopping district of Shanghai. It is one of the world's busiest shopping streets, along with Fifth Avenue, Oxford Street, Orchard Road, T ...

. His grandfather was a high-ranking official who served as governor of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

and as a diplomat to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. His father Shao Heng () married Sheng Xihui (), a daughter of the tycoon

Sheng Xuanhuai Sheng Xuanhuai (; November 4, 1844 – April 27, 1916) was a Qing dynasty Chinese tycoon, politician, and educator. He founded several major banks and universities and served as Minister of Transportation of the Qing Empire. He was also known as ...

; Xunmei was the oldest of their six children. Shao had been tailed by tabloids since his childhood and had various girlfriends, including the actress White Lotus (白蓮 ''Báilián'') and a woman with the English name Prudence; Shao was briefly jailed after a man who was infatuated with Prudence was murdered, but Shao was found to have been not guilty and released. Shao began a tour of Europe at age 17 in 1923 and continued it until 1927, going to

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

;

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and the

École des Beaux Arts École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

; he was educated in Cambridge and Paris. While in Europe he had relationships with women there. He finished a poetry collection towards the end of the trip and published it, titled ''Parade and May'', in 1927. He became intrigued by the English writer

Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...

and French writer

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...

. The titles of works ''Fire and Flesh'' (火與肉 ''Huǒ yǔ ròu'') and ''Flower-like Evil'' (花一般的罪惡 ''Huā yībān de zuì'è'') were respectively inspired by a Swinburne poem and ''

Les Fleurs du Mal ''Les Fleurs du mal'' (; en, The Flowers of Evil, italic=yes) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. ''Les Fleurs du mal'' includes nearly all Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First publish ...

'' by Baudelaire. The latter is an updated version of the earlier ''Paradise and May''. In December 1927 he married his cousin and childhood love Sheng Peiyu (), a granddaughter of

. Hutt described Sheng as a "

trophy wife A trophy wife is a wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband. The term is often used in a derogatory or disparaging way, implying that the wife in question has little personal merit besides her physical attractiveness, requires sub ...

". She was also known as "Zoa". ''Twenty-five Poems'' (詩二十五首 ''Shīèr shíwǔ shǒu''), Shao's collection of poetry that was published in 1936, did not garner significant attention. Hutt stated that Shao's popularity was declining by 1936. In 1937 he began an affair with Emily "Mickey" Hahn; the affair ended after Hahn stopped smoking

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

. When Hahn wrote articles for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'',Lee, Leo Ou-fan (Li Oufan). ''Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945'' (Interpretations of Asia Series).

, 1999. , 9780674805507. p
377
she referred to Shao as "Pan Heh-ven," forming the basis of the 1942 book '' Mr. Pan''. Hahn used Shao as the inspiration for Sun Yuin-loong, a character in '' Steps of the Sun''. After the Japanese invasion Hahn was not interned since she had stated she was legally married to Shao Xunmei on a document, and therefore the Japanese treated her as, in the words of Taras Grescoe of ''

'', "an honorary Asian". Hahn stated that Shao's wife approved of the document since it was a possible method of saving his press and that Shao had not been married "according to foreign law". According to an article published in ''

Ming Pao ''Ming Pao'' () is a Chinese-language newspaper published by Media Chinese International in Hong Kong. In the 1990s, ''Ming Pao'' established four overseas branches in North America; each provides independent reporting on local news and colle ...

'', a Hong Kong newspaper, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Shao had a habit of drinking alcohol and gambling, and therefore racked up a lot of expenses; Hahn covered the costs by selling her books. Hahn later wrote about Shao in her memoir, ''China to Me: A Partial Autobiography'', using his actual name, spelled as "Sinmay Zau". Shao had a son, Shao Zucheng, who attended schools operated by American missionaries and became an English teacher. He also had a daughter, Shao Xiaohong. In 1958 Shao Xunmei wrote a letter to a friend in the United States, and as a result was imprisoned. He was released in three years, but his health had declined and did not improve afterwards. Shao Zucheng stated "When he came out of jail, he was so thin. He looked just like a monkey." Hahn learned that Shao eventually stopped using opium. After Shao died, Hahn was unaware that he was dead. He was buried in Gui Yan Cemetery.

Legacy

Hutt stated that Shao continued to be perceived as "a caricature" by the 1990s even though his image had been somewhat rehabilitated in that decade. Jicheng Sun and Hal Swindall, authors of "A Chinese

Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...

: Shao Xunmei's Life and Art," wrote circa 2015 that few people were aware of him "except for a handful of scholars of modern Chinese literature"; they stated that there were not many scholarly articles about Shao, and that reference books published in China "give him a few lines as a minor poet with decadent tendencies".

Selected works

* ''Flower-like Evil'' (花一般的罪惡 ''Huā yībān de zuì'è''). Jinwu shudian (Shanghai), 1918. * ''Paradise and May'' (poetry collection), 1927. * ''Tiantang yu wuyue'' (天堂與五月). Guanghua shuju (Shanghai), 1927. * ''Fire and Flesh'' (火與肉 ''Huǒ yǔ ròu''). Jinwu shudian (Shanghai), 1928. * "Jinwu Tanhua" (金屋談話; Talk at Maison d'or). ''Jinwu Yuekan'' (金屋月刊; La Maison d'Or Monthly), January 1929, Volume 1, Issue 1, p. 157. ** Translated into English by Reverend Moule and Paul Pelliot, within ''Marco Polo: The Description of the World'' (Routledge and Sons, London, 1938). * As Hao, Wen: Review of ''

The Escaped Cock ''The Escaped Cock'' is a short novel by D. H. Lawrence that he originally wrote in two parts and published in 1929. Lawrence wrote the first part in 1927 after visiting some Etruscan tombs with his friend Earl Brewster, a trip that encouraged t ...

'' by

D.H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

. In: "Shubao Chunqiu" (書報春秋; Books and Newspapers Annals), Xinyue (), 1932, 1-4. * ''Yigeren de tanhua'' (一個人的談話; A One-Way Conversation). Diyi Chubanshe (Shanghai), 1935. * ''Twenty-five Poems'' (詩二十五首 ''Shīèr shíwǔ shǒu''), 1936.

References

* Sun, Jicheng and Hal Swindall. "A Chinese

: Shao Xunmei's Life and Art." In: Marino, Elisabetta and Tanfer Emin Tunc. ''The West in Asia and Asia in the West: Essays on Transnational Interactions''.

McFarland McFarland may refer to: People *McFarland (surname) Places in the United States *McFarland, California, a city *McFarland, Kansas, a city *McFarland, Missouri, a ghost town *McFarland, Wisconsin, a village Other uses * USS ''McFarland'' (DD-237) ...

, January 16, 2015. ISBN . Start p
133

Life

Legacy

Selected works

References

Notes

Further reading