Tientsin the Cosmopolitan Ford of Heaven

By the 1930s, seventy years after the start of the foreign concessions in Tientsin, the
number of foreigners living there reached a total of 10,000, half of them Westerners and
half Japanese. Meanwhile the Chinese residents of the concessions, who had always
outnumbered the foreigners, increased to 170,000. But even that was a drop in the ocean
compared to the 2,000,000 who lived in the ancient walled city and surrounding districts.
With such numerical superiority one would expect signs of hostility from the Chinese,
but ever since the failed Boxer Uprising they showed, at least on the surface, a strange
willingness to accept the status quo. They competed with foreigners in most major
sports. A few young of their wealthy attended British, American, and French schools.

But ever mindful of their peril, foreign colonials tossed aside traditional enmities and
reached out to each other. In so doing they created a spirit of affinity that was the envy
of the troubled outside world. One year it was the German Eight that took top honours
at the regatta, next the British, then the Russian. In basketball it was the 15th US Infantry
over the Trumpeldors, in soccer the Italian Marines over the French Army. At the 100
yards finishing post the famed Eric Liddell was nosed out by Dimitri Tomashevsky of St
Louis College. In the ring Americans, Russians, French, and British met in some memo-
rable bouts. And in the pool, Consty Ovchinnikoff, in overtaking the sensational Chinese
Charlie Huang in the final lap, smashed the 220 free-style record held for six years by Dr
Ohlwein of Deutsch Sport Verein.

1
Where else in this world could you have fished for
pike (Chinese huang zhuan) in the Curling Pool
(Yes, in winter they curled there on the hard frozen
surface, the hardy Scots did), and in the blazing af-
ternoon watch the US Infantry take on the Peking
Marines on the baseball diamond at Can Do Field,
everyone joining in the rambunctious rooting and
hooting, and then an hour or so later be sipping tea
in the cricket pavilion where the odd burst of po-
lite handclaps broke the solemnity of the occasion.

In November 1934, no sooner had the Worcester Regiment arrived in Tientsin to replace
the Queens as the British garrison than they were challenged by the multinational Tien-
tsin Association Football Club to a “Welcome Match”. Standing on the far left with the
Worcesters is Tommy Wade (who refereed the match) and on the right with TAFC is
Freezer Frost, both prominent in sports circles and the Volunteer Corps.

2
 From the earliest days of the foreign presence in Tientsin, the Sport of Kings played an
important part in the lives of their military and civilian settlers. Paper chase meets or-
ganized by the Hunt Club were eagerly attended. The sport soon developed into steeple
chase, polo, and flat racing for which Tientsin Race Club built a superb track and grand-
stand beyond the perimeters of the British and German Concessions. Not to be outdone,

the Chinese owned International Race Club created a similar track but with a less impos-
ing grandstand northeast of the Russian Concession. Smaller than the Arab horse of the
European and American race tracks, those that raced in Tientsin (referred to as “Ponies”
by the local community) were descendants of Przewalski’s Horse. Every spring, yearlings
of the herds that ran wild on the Mongolian steppe were rounded up and the sturdiest and
most spirited sent to Peking’s “Pony Auction”. The ones that arrived in Tientsin not only
still bore their shaggy winter coats, they were much given to throwing their riders or bit-
ing their legs despite taming by Chinese or Russian grooms.

3
Even going back to the days of the Last Emperor, horse racing appealed as much to the
Chinese as it did to the foreign residents. In the above photo (my father in the foreground
walking away from the totalizator booth) the Chinese on the left and the one on the right
are wearing their obligatory Manchu queues. Race Days grew so popular among them
that by the 1920s and 1930s they far outnumbered the foreign spectators. On a visit to
Tientsin in 1984, I noticed the strangest phenomenon. Whereas the concessions’ colonial
street names had been changed (Victoria Road was now Liberation Street) there was one
notable exception. Race Course Road (Ma Chang Dao in Chinese) retained its original
name - Ma Chang Dao.

Never mind our diverse backgrounds, we were equally at home on a rip-roaring Fourth
of July, Quatorze Juillet, Empire Day. And on any day of the week we’d be at the street
stalls relishing the irresistible piroshky, jian bing guozi, tang d’er. On the surface we were
pretty staid, judging by the well attended churches, synagogues, social clubs. Can any
of us forget the spine-tingling choir at the Orthodox church on Easter Morning? For the
chic and sophisticated wasn’t there the Forum Ballroom in the Italian Concession, and for
the not so chic, Little Club in the ex-German Concession where Earl Whaley’s Coloured
Boys shook the foundations with their red-hot jazz?

In Weihsien prison camp I got to know Earl Whaley as well as members of his group Reg
Jones - double bass and Wayne Adams - clarinet.

4
In May 1937, the English surpassed themselves in their festivities for the coronation of
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth when they converted their piece of the Ford of
Heaven into a corner of Merrie England. On Min Yuan sports ground, 1st Bn the Lan-
cashire Fusiliers trooped the colour as though they were on Horse Guards Parade. The
service of Thanksgiving at All Saints Church followed exactly that decreed by the Arch-
bishops of Canterbury and York for the Abbey Church of St Peter, Westminster. Ye Olde
English Faire launched on Country Club’s grounds boasted of a coconut shy, Punch and
Judy show, Hampden Court maze, Aunt Sally booth, a country pub - Ye Olde Pig and
Whistle, and a Tudor maypole. The buildings on the main roads were illuminated for five
straight nights, the fifth culminating in a grand fireworks display in Victoria Park.

5
How did the Chinese react to all that pomp and circumstance of the British Empire being
thrust upon them? Well, on Coronation Night they poured into Victoria Park to take in the
fireworks display (see above). Throughout Coronation Week I heard the slogan shouted
many times over: “Ying Huang Wan Sui - May the English Monarch live Ten Thousand
Years!” Figure of speech? Perhaps not. In 1984, I stood on Sacred Way leading to the
Ming Tombs. For 500 years the pairs of giant marble figures lining the way as far as the
eye could see were poised curiously: an elephant standing an elephant reclining, a mythi-
cal creature standing a mythical creature reclining, and so on. I asked our guide. “Why is
every other figure lying down?” He stared at me agape. “Don’t you know that those rest-
ing have completed their guard duty and in time will rise to their feet while the ones now
standing will take their hard earned rest?” It hit me then and remains with me to this day
that fused into the very soul of the people of China is the truth that time is on their side.

So to the Chinese it must have been just the blink of an eye, the twelve years that passed
from King George’s Coronation to Chairman Mao’s Declaration of
Independence at Tiananmen Square. To those foreigners who re-
fused to pull up stakes it was the final blow. They were now obliged
to join the general exodus that followed the loss of the concessions.
Fortunately, some wrote about their experiences. I especially like
Richard Dyott’s chapters on Tientsin in his memoir An Edge In
Wordways in which he captures to a T the admixture of cultures a
foreign lad was exposed to while growing up in Tientsin. We were
classmates at the ultra English Grammar School until his parents
moved him to École municipale française. They knew of what they
were doing, for he mastered French and went on from Tientsin to
Harrow and to a brilliant career in electronics and a world authority
on fibre optics. An Edge In Wordways sticks to the facts, no embellishment, no fabrication,
which, regrettably, is so often not the case. You come across memoirs so heavily fictional-
ized that cannot rely on any of their contents being factual.

There is so much fantasizing in my brother Brian Power’s book about his upbringing
in the ancient city called the Ford of Heaven that I felt obliged to write a commentary
replacing fairy tale with fact. You will see that commentary if you do a Google search on
Brian’s Real Upbringing in the Ford of Heaven. Don’t forget to click on “Read in classic
mode” on the right hand side at the foot of the page.