The Happy Hsiungs : Performing China and the Struggle for Modernity.

Print version record.

Between 1935 and 1936, the play Lady Precious Stream was a big success as being performed and running for 1,000 nights at the Little Theatre in London. Its writer-director, Shih-I Hsiung, was the first Chinese person to direct a West End play. Hsiung's wife, Dymia, was also remarkable as the first Chinese woman in Britain to publish a fictional autobiography in English. By retrieving the lost histories of these two celebrated writers, this book considers how ideas of China and Chineseness are circulated and contested globally. Though fêted as 'The Happy Hsiungs', their lives ultimately highlig.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Note on Transliteration; Prelude; 1. Adrift in New China: Learning, Love and Labour; 2. 'Try Something Different. Something Really Chinese'; 3. 'The Greatest Success': The Rise to Global Fame; 4. China Fashion and the Politics of Success; 5. The Kaleidoscope of China: Authenticity, Orientalism and Discontents; 6. The End to Old Cathay?; 7. 'Looking Like an English Household': Performing Class, Family and Home; 8. Goddess, Housewife, Writer; 9. Into the Shadows; 10. Global and Contemporary Revivals; Afterword; Glossary of Names; Notes.

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