February Read: Nobody Said Not to Go

Okay, I think we've finally decided on Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn by Ken Cuthbertson for our next book. Why don't we start discussing on Monday, February 7, 2011?

See you back here then!

Posted by bleuroses in the Virago Remembrance thread of the Virago Books group:

Emily Hahn (Chinese: 項美麗, January 14, 1905 - February 18, 1997) was an American journalist and author.

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 writings in the 20th century played a significant role in opening up Asia to the west.

One of six children of a dry goods salesman and a free-thinking mother, Emily Hahn was born in St. Louis Missouri on January 14, 1905. Nicknamed "Mickey", she moved with her family to Chicago, Illinois when she was 15. In her memoir No Hurry to Get Home, she describes how being prevented from taking a chemistry class in which she was interested caused her to switch her course of study from English to Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1926 she was the first women to receive a degree there in Mining Engineering—despite the coolness of the administration and most of her male classmates. It was a testament to her intelligence and persistence that her lab partner grudgingly admitted, "you ain't so dumb!"

After graduation she worked briefly for an engineering company in Illinois, before traveling 2,400 miles (3,900 km) across the United States by car with a female friend, both disguised as men, and then working as a "Harvey Girl" tour guide in New Mexico. Later she traveled to the Belgian Congo, where she worked for the Red Cross, and lived with a pygmy tribe for two years, before crossing Central Africa alone on foot. Her first book, Seductio ad Absurdum: The Principles and Practices of Seduction--A Beginner's Handbook (1930), was a tongue-in-cheek exploration of how men court women.

Her years in Shanghai, China (from 1935 to the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941) were the most tumultuous of her life. There she became involved with prominent Shanghai figures, such as the wealthy Sir Victor Sassoon, and was in the habit of taking her pet gibbon, Mr. Mills, with her to dinner parties, dressed in a diaper and a minute dinner jacket.

Supporting herself as a writer for The New Yorker, she lived in an apartment in Shanghai's red light district, and became romantically involved with the Chinese poet and publisher Sinmay Zau (traditional Chinese: 邵洵美; pinyin: Shao Xunmei). He gave her the entrée that enabled her to write a biography of the famous Soong sisters, one of whom was married to Sun Yat-sen and another to Chiang Kai-shek.

Hahn frequently visited Sinmay's house, which was highly unconventional for a Western woman in the 1930s. The Treaty of the Bogue was in full effect, and Shanghai was a city divided by Chinese and Westerners at the time. Sinmay introduced her to the practice of smoking opium, to which she became addicted. She later wrote, "Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can't claim that as the reason I went to China."

After moving to Hong Kong, she began an affair with Charles Boxer, the local head of British army intelligence. According to a December 1944 Time article, Hahn "decided that she needed the steadying influence of a baby, but doubted if she could have one. 'Nonsense!' said the unhappily-married Major Charles Boxer, 'I'll let you have one!' Carola Militia Boxer was born in Hong Kong on October 17, 1941".

When the Japanese marched into Hong Kong a few weeks later Boxer was imprisoned in a POW camp, and Hahn was brought in for questioning. "Why?" screamed the Japanese Chief of Gendarmes, "why ... you have baby with Major Boxer?" "Because I'm a bad girl," she quipped. Fortunately for her, the Japanese respected Boxer's record of wily diplomacy.

As Hahn recounted in her book China to Me (1944), she was forced to give Japanese officials English lessons in return for food, and once slapped the Japanese Chief of Intelligence in the face. He came back to see her the day before she was repatriated in 1943 and slapped her back.

China to Me was an instant hit with the public. According to Roger Angell of The New Yorker, Hahn "was, in truth, something rare: a woman deeply, almost domestically, at home in the world. Driven by curiosity and energy, she went there and did that, and then wrote about it without fuss."

In 1945 she married Boxer who, during the time he was interned by the Japanese, had been reported by American news media to have been beheaded; their reunion—whose love story had been reported faithfully in Hahn's published letters—made headlines throughout the United States. They settled in Dorset, England at "Conygar", the 48-acre (190,000 m2) estate Boxer had inherited, and in 1948 had a second daughter, Amanda Boxer (now a stage and television actress in London).

Finding family life too constraining, however, in 1950 Hahn took an apartment in New York City, and visited her husband and children from time to time in England. She continued to write articles for The New Yorker, as well as biographies of Aphra Behn, James Brooke, Fanny Burney, Chiang Kai-Shek, D. H. Lawrence and Mabel Dodge Luhan.

According to biographer Ken Cuthbertson, while her books were favorably reviewed, "her versatility, which enabled her to write authoritatively on almost any subject, befuddled her publishers who seemed at a loss as to how to promote or market an Emily Hahn book. She did not fit into any of the usual categories" because she "moved effortlessly ... from genre to genre."

In 1978 she published Look Who's Talking, which dealt with the controversial subject of animal-human communication (her personal favorite among her non-fiction books); she wrote her last book Eve and the Apes in 1988 when she was in her eighties.

Hahn reportedly went into her office at The New Yorker daily, until just a few months before she died on February 18, 1997 at the age of 92, following complications from surgery for a shattered femur.
"Chances are, your grandmother didn't smoke cigars and let you hold wild role-playing parties in her apartment", said her granddaughter Alfia Vecchio Wallace in her affectionate eulogy of Hahn. "Chances are that she didn't teach you Swahili obscenities. Chances are that when she took you to the zoo, she didn't start whooping passionately at the top her lungs as you passed the gibbon cage. Sadly for you ... your grandmother was not Emily Hahn."

In 1998, Canadian author Ken Cuthbertson published the biography Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn. "Nobody said not to go" was one of her characteristic phrases. In 2005 Xiang Meili (the name given to Hahn by Sinmay) was published in China. It looks back at the life and loves of Hahn in the Shanghai of the 1930s.

Bibliography
Seductio ad Absurdum: The Principles and Practices of Seduction—A Beginner's Handbook (1930)
Beginner's Luck (1931)
Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degree North (1933)
With Naked Foot (1934)
Affair (1935)
Steps of the Sun (1940)
The Soong Sisters (1941, 1970)
Mr. Pan (1942)
China to Me: A Partial Autobiography (1944, 1975, 1988)
Hong Kong Holiday (1946)
China: A to Z (1946)
The Picture Story of China (1946)
Raffles of Singapore (1946)
Miss Jill (1947) also as House in Shanghai (1958)
England to Me (1949)
A Degree of Prudery: A Biography of Fanny Burney (1950)
Purple Passage: A Novel About a Lady Both Famous and Fantastic (1950) (published in the UK as Aphra Behn (1951))
Francie (1951)
Love Conquers Nothing: A Glandular History of Civilization (1952)
Francie Again (1953)
Mary, Queen of Scots (1953)
James Brooke of Sarawak: A Biography of Sir James Brooke (1953)
Meet the British (with Charles Roetter and Harford Thomas) (1953)
The First Book of India (1955)
Chiang Kai-shek: An Unauthorized Biography (1955)
Francie Comes Home (1956)
Spousery (1956)
Diamond: The Spectacular Story of the Earth's Greatest Treasure and Man's Greatest Greed (1956)
Leonardo da Vinci (1956)
Kissing Cousins (1958)
The Tiger House Party: The Last Days of the Maharajas (1959)
Aboab: First Rabbi of the Americas (1959)
Around the World With Nellie Bly (1959)
June Finds a Way (1960)
China Only Yesterday, 1850-1950: A Century of Change (1963)
Indo (1963)
Africa to Me (1964)
Romantic Rebels: An Informal History of Bohemianism in America (1967)
Animal Gardens (1967)
The Cooking of China (1968)
Recipes: Chinese Cooking (1968)
Times and Places (1970, reissued as No Hurry to Get Home 2000)
Breath of God: A Book About Angels, Demons, Familiars, Elementals and Spirits (1971)
Fractured Emerald: Ireland (1971)
On the Side of the Apes: A New look at the Primates, the Men Who Study Them and What They Have Learned (1971)
Once Upon A Pedestal (1974)
Lorenzo: D. H. Lawrence and the Women Who Loved Him (1975)
Mabel: A Biography of Mabel Dodge Luhan (1977)
Look Who's Talking! New Discoveries in Animal Communications (1978)
Love of Gold (1980)
The Islands: America's Imperial Adventures in the Philippines (1981)
Eve and the Apes (1988)

February 7th sounds good, Terri. I've got this to arrive the last week of January on ILL.

Thanks for the background info, Marise.

I'm looking forward to this after reading Marise's post. It sounds like Emily Hahn led an exciting life. I had to get it from another Missouri library, and it is now waiting for me at my local library. What a great service this is!

My ILL copy is also waiting for me at the library. I'm really looking forward to it now, after Marise's post.

Her life really was fascinating. I can't believe I've never heard of her until now! I just finished the book, and am looking forward to discussing it. And her. Mostly her, actually.

I haven't finished it yet, but I'm about 1/3 of the way through. I've already added like 4 of her books to my wishlist. Unfortunately, most of her stuff isn't in the library. I'm with you, Jennifer--I can't believe I've never heard of her! What a fascinating life!

Just got an email that my ILL copy of Nobody Said Not to Go has come in. I've got a week to pick it up and will do so either on Thurs or on Sun.

Probably will start reading it soon thereafter.

I'd never heard of her before but it sounds like she had a fascinating life.

Just stopping by to see when we start. Glad that I've got a few more days. Even with two snow days, I'm still only about half way through.

I am enjoying the book - especially the part about her trip to Africa. This sentence about Mickey's traveling companions stuck with me:

"She was accompanied by her Pygmy guide, Matope, her cook Sabini, her pet baboon Angelique, and a dozen native porters bearing luggage and food." (page 111) What a sight they must have been!

My first question: Have any of you ever read anything that Emily Hahn wrote? I can't believe I've not heard of her before, especially with all the writing she did.

I have to say, also, that I was simultaneously reading a biography of P. L. Travers, whose life spanned just about the exact time that Hahn's did. Travers didn't come off well at all, and yet everyone knows her books. Hahn was a fascinating character, and I've never heard of her before. I found it very odd.

Terri - No, I'd never heard of Emily Hahn either. I can't believe it, given how much she wrote. My local library doesn't have anything by her, but I see a couple of books on Amazon - The Soong Sisters and her memoirs alongwith a few others. I wonder if most others are out of print?

I was in the dark about Emily Hahn, too. I'm not surprised that my library doesn't have anything by her. I think the book I'm most interested in that she wrote would be China To Me.

I'm glad she spent a good portion of this book on China because that was my favorite part. I did question her decision to keep Carola in the country, however. I tried very hard not to be judgmental, but that seemed very selfish of her to me. I would like to know how her daughters turned out...and if they've had to undergo psychotherapy as adults!

I'm not quite finished with the book. This evening I'll start section 5 about Hong Kong. So far, the parts I've been most interested in were those which highlight the rampant racism of the time. The page I bookmarked was in chapter 10, when she'd first arrived in Africa and was on her way to Penge. Page 97 in my book. She felt uneasy about engaging in the racial stereotyping that was common, the author says, but quotes her saying "They (African natives) are animals, but articulate animals." He also says she would have agreed with Andre Gide (no introduction, but the author of a book about the Congo from 1929 according to the footnotes) who said "The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the blacks." I don't know why Cuthbertson thinks she would agree, but I do like the sentiment. I was also impressed by her apparent repugnance to the way the African women were treated by her friend Patrick Putnam. And her willingness to flout convention and become friends with Chinese nationals while in Shanghai.

Her independence, her willingness to follow her own mind, her fearlessness about seeking out new experiences - all these things arouse a bit of envy in me. But, I'm not sure I'd really like to be personally acquainted with her.

Our library has 5 different Emily Hahn books in the catalog, if anyone is interested in any of them.

One of her less-endearing character traits, to me, was the way she kept acquiring pets and then, seemingly, abandoning them. In Africa, in China, in England, all over! It's such a nitpicky little point, but I don't like people who do that. So every time the author mentioned a new pet, I was all "oh, God, no, why is someone letting that woman get another animal!"

I would guess that the daughters ended up in counseling - how could they not! It sounded like they came around in the end, but I thought that how she raised the girls was pretty selfish.

Overall, I thought she has a crazy interesting life. I can't imagine driving across country pre-highway system days, in a crappy 1920s car. For me, the Hong Kong parts were the most interesting, especially once WWII started.

I'm glad to see that others seem to have liked the book without particularly liking whom it was about.

Jennifer, I was bothered by the animal thing, too. She had a real thing for monkeys. Maybe because they emulated her outlandish behavior? The idea of her pet gibbon Mr. Mills going to parties with her in his diaper and fur coat were both humorous and repugnant.

It reminded me of a strange incident here in Springfield a few years ago when a woman sued the city because restaurants were refusing to serve her and her pet monkey. It seems that he was her "service" animal that allowed her to overcome her agoraphobia and panic attacks when she left the house. I think the unofficial ruling is that she was a 'nut' and the monkey was not allowed in places where food was served.

Sandy, read faster so you can jump in here and 'monkey around' with us!

My book MUST be returned today, so I'm not sure I'll be able to finish - too much to do today to read. I bogged down in the Hong Kong section. I was totally repulsed by Boxer's "let's make a baby" appeal to Mickey. That whole situation is too much like a friend of mine who now has a ten-year old daughter and lives openly with the father who is still married to the mother of his other children. I love my friend, and her daughter, but hate the situation she is in. I didn't like it any better in the book and finally had to just put it down.

However, I would like to read something she's written - just to get a feel for the woman herself without Cuthbertson's interferrence.

Cuthbertson's interference is a downer, especially since I hate his writing style. He didn't need to tell me multiple times the nickname of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. I didn't need to be reminded repeatedly that her friend Jim or whoever had lived in Africa w/ a wife but that wife died. His writing was so plodding and dull and boring. I would much rather read her own writing, too.

I have to agree, I didn't much care for the writing either. Maybe we should pick one of her books and put it on our list! Although none of them have anything to do with MO...

I stand corrected. Apparently, not everyone liked this book. I rated it 3.8 stars which comes slightly above my "good but not great" rating. I was irritated quite a few times when I was reading it, but I'd have to say I wasn't bored.

>16 sjmccreary:: Sandy, it's tough when a bad situation in real life is mirrored in a book. I don't blame you for not wanting to read the rest of this. She certainly didn't come off as a good mother.

>17 jfetting:: Jen, I don't read many biographies for the very reasons you mentioned. The few I've read have seemed plodding to me. Just the fact that the writer can't (or shouldn't) interject his or her own opinions make them somewhat dull to me. When a person has done something outstanding or the subject is intensely interesting, then a biography comes to life for me. Unbroken comes to mind in that category.

#19 I would have finished the book if only I could have kept it a couple more days - I just couldn't stick with it any more that evening.

I've heard too many teasers about her mothering ability - someone please tell me what happened in the last section!

Biographies have never been my favorite genre, but I wouldn't say that I don't like this book. I'm going to count this as a completed book, even though I didn't actually finish. I will probably rate it about a 3. I would like it better if it were written as a biographical novel. Actually, I think a different author could have done a better job with the straight biography. I think the description I used over on Jennifer's thread was "wooden and unimaginative" when talking about Cuthbertson's writing. I think she called it "dull and plodding".

My question to the group is, What do you think of Emily Hahn?

>20 sjmccreary:: Oh good, we're still talking about this. I have to take it back to the library today and wanted to say a few more things about it.

Good question, Sandy...What do you think of Emily Hahn?

Cuthbertson used the word (several times!) exhibitionist to describe Hahn's behavior. For me, she would be exhausting to be around. She's one of those people that sucks all the energy out of the room.

I'm not a psychologist but I saw some bipolar tendencies in her behavior. While around others, she was the 'life of the party' but was often withdrawn and depressed when by herself. At times her life mimicked what was going on around her. I was especially aware of this during her time in Chungking and Hong Kong. Her opium withdrawal and the very real suffering she underwent during the Japanese occupation and air raids, etc. seemed to have a tempering effect on her grandiosity. I must admit I liked the quieter version of Emily better than the manic side of her.

Regarding her "mothering ability"...I don't doubt that she loved her children, but she selfishly kept her baby daughter Carola with her in Hong Kong when she had an opportunity to get her out of the country. Carola suffered from malnutrition and had some severe (but understandable) socialization problems when they returned to the U.S.

One final comment from me going back to the period after her African "adventure" (which seemed more foolhardy than adventurous to me!). Her father was gravely ill in the late stages of diabetes. One short paragraph was devoted to her visit with him where she gave him an overdose of morphine. In an interview she admitted, "I did it. I killed Daddy." I don't think I could have done that. I wish the author had explored this a little further. I'd like to think she had feelings of remorse.

Edited to repair butchering of author's name.

The assisted suicide part was very interesting, but I'm not sure I can see her having feelings of remorse. From the description of his suffering, I imagine that she saw her action as good and loving - helping him out of his misery. Personally, I couldn't do it, but then I'm not like Emily.

I think she'd be a lot of fun to have at a party, or to have a very casual acquaintance with (brunch friends or something). She sounds really entertaining, although her sense of humor could be mean. I thought that she was fascinating, especially compared to the standard behavior set of the time. Now, we'd think nothing of a college kid going on a cross-country road trip with some friends. Back then - never. Think of the stories she'd be able to tell!

Donna, I think you are on to something with the bipolar diagnosis. My main problem with her as a person is the way she kept acquiring sentient beings (dogs, monkeys, babies), keeping them around for awhile, and then (caveat: this isn't said outright, I'm reading in between the lines) when she gets tired of them, off they go to become someone else's problem. Pets get foisted onto other people (or just disappear from the narrative completely as she jets of to another place), her kids get farmed out to schools and nurses and the like while she lives in the US most of the time!

>22 jfetting:: her kids get farmed out...

It was interesting that she complained at various times throughout her life about being "flat broke" yet she still managed to employ an amah or the equivalent of a nanny for her children. It was similar to the situation with her animals. She liked having them around, however, she didn't want to be bothered with long-term care of them.

I agree that Mickey would be a "fun" person to be around -- in small doses. I'm the type that leaves parties early so maybe I could get out of there before the boozing got too heavy and the sarcasm became too biting.

I'm still in the middle of the book - she just got pregnant - so my opinion of Emily Hahn may change by the end. But so far, I've gone back and forth in my feelings about her. Sometimes, I'm frustrated with her - her lack of responsibility, her self-centeredness, etc. But I also feel a little sorry for her. In my opinion, she did some amazing things in her life. But she never really seems satisfied or content.

In some ways, it is hard to know what to think of Emily because what I am learning about her is filtered through the biographer. Sometimes an event that seems like it would have been emotionally significant - like the assisted suicide or the addiction to opium - are told in a flat, matter-of-fact way. I wonder if Emily herself conveyed them like that, or if the biographer is simply trying not to pass judgment.

Good point - and I think the biographer is especially problematic because she was alive while he was writing it. So it comes across as a bit of a puff piece.

For all her faults (and there is no question that she had them), I do think Emily was a progressive woman of her times. I've read about other women who were born at the beginning of the century, who traveled abroad like it was nothing at all, living one adventure after another. I don't think she was a particularly good mother, and I seem to recall comments later in the book by her daughters, who felt that she prevented them from having a good sister relationship by sending them off to different schools, instead of living as a family. I agree with Amy above--she had an extremely adventurous life, but until the very end of her life, she never came across as content.

After mulling over my own question, I also have to wonder whether she really ever felt happy or contented with her own life.

The adventurousness that she displayed seems like it might have been a relatively common trait among some women of the time. It seems there was a sort of "women's liberation" wave in the 20's - nothing to the extent of what we saw in the 60's and 70's of course. Terri mentions other women of the time also travelling abroad and having adventures. My own great-grandmother, a little older than Hahn, was described by my mom as being 50 years ahead of her time. In the 1920's, she was living the same lifestyle that 1970's women were seeking. She was divorced, a single mom who worked and raised her children alone. (Mom adored her - I grew up hearing dozens of stories about "Grandma Bob".) So, the fact that Hahn lived a "modern" lifestyle is less impressive to me than her actual travels.

I don't know whether it was the biographer, or whether it came from Hahn herself, but I felt like there was an awful lot of name-dropping throughout the book. Reminded me a little of the Forest Gump movie - every time she turned around a famous person from history was bumping into her.

The emotional flatness already mentioned, her rejection of social mores, her irresponsibility in caring for all her "pets"... I'll bet she broke her mother's heart with all of it.

I hope she was an excellent writer - I'd like to think there was some greater benefit that resulted from her selfish behavoir. She was probably fun to be around in a large group, but I doubt I'd have been personal friends with her.