Abstract
Seeing or being seen is a two-way street, and Shaw also interpreted China and the Chinese in his own unique way. In examining Shaw’s visit to Hong Kong, especially his meeting in 1933 with industrialist and philanthropist Sir Robert Ho Tung in his mansion Idlewild, this chapter explores how Shaw was seen by the Chinese, and also how he saw the Chinese and wrote them into Buoyant Billions. The Chinese shrine inside the Ho Tung residence became the Chinese temple setting in the play, a temple for Shaw’s advocacy of the Life Force and Creative Evolution, with Sir Robert as the prototype of Bill Buoyant.
I am grateful to the ingenious advice of Leonard Conolly, Richard Dietrich, Suzanne Merriam, and Christopher Innes on the Sagittarius–ORION–Shaw project.
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Li, K. (2016). Sir Robert Ho Tung and Idlewild in Buoyant Billions . In: Bernard Shaw’s Bridges to Chinese Culture. Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41003-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41003-6_5
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41003-6
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