Why a Booktrail?
1800s – See and experience Asia at the time of the Opium wars of the 19th century through the eyes of two young Americans
An Insular Possession
What you need to know before your trail
A novel which was nominated for England’s prestigious Booker Prize.
This transports you to the treachery and corruption which reigned at the time of the Opium Wars in Macao and Canton in particular. Greed and battles for supremacy, differences in class and race mix together and the effect is one explosive account of a very significant and dangerous time in Asia’s history.
The Opium wars were the battles between East and West as each side tried to get across their conflicting viewpoint on diplomatic relations, and the many complex issues of trade. This is the story of the beginnings of the British settlement of Hong Kong
Travel Guide
A powerful recreation of the battles and passion involved in the Opium Wars and the chaos of colonial times
”Rain distresses the river’s grey surface, making it seethe like an oil painting attacked by a strong reagent,”
This is the vivid world of the Chinese opium wars where the river is ”yellow-brown, the colour of tea as drunk in London.” This river is essential for trade at the time and is a symbol of the British Empire as it snakes its way into Hong Kong and a new land
The opium Trade was a very lucrative one. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the demand for Chinese goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) was huge. However this resulted in a trade imbalance as China was largely self-sufficient and there was not a trade of Western goods in the country.
The British East India company began to sell opium grown on British owned plantations in India to China in exchange for silver. However this opium was then sold within China and a drugs trade grew up on the mainland.
This lucrative trade is the one that the two Americans in the book come into – Gideon Chase, a teenager from New England and Walter Eastman his friend. Gideon becomes an interpreter for the British and reveals a lot from this vantage viewpoint.
They set up a newspaper, the Lin Tin Bulletin and River Bee, which competes British paper, The Canton Monitor. From several and opposing reports of this time,a whole and fascinating picture of the Opium Wars begins to form
A mix of fact and fiction about the fact that bad men do good deeds and good men do bad deeds? Did missionaries really go up the China coast, distributing Bibles with the drug?
A tale of an unbelievable time
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