72 Books & arts The EconomistNovember 14th 2020
2 British history; the loan it required was
paid off only in 2015. The money provided
the seed capital for mines, banks, railways
and more. Britain’s liberal, free-trade em-
pire was, in part, built on human bondage.
Slavers gained not just gold but a fine
gilding from their trade. Many were men of
status and consequence. Joshua Reynolds
painted them; Eton educated them; society
opened its doors for them. Until this year,
Colston had not only his statue but a fleet
of institutions named after him. Even to-
day scholars at Oxford study in the Cod-
rington Library in All Souls College, en-
dowed by the Codrington family who
owned plantations in Barbados. The great-
grandfathers of George Orwell and Graham
Greene were slaveholders. After emancipa-
tion, Orwell’s received £4,000 in compen-
sation for the 218 slaves he had owned,
which Mr Taylor describes as “a perversion
of justice that would have fitted seamlessly
into the Orwellian canon”.
“Slave Empire” is lucid, elegant and fo-
rensic. It deals with appalling horrors in
cool and convincing prose. “The Interest”
is more impassioned. Mr Taylor can tell a
story superbly and has a fine eye for detail
(George IV, readers learn, breakfasted on
pigeon and beef-steak pie, washed down
with champagne, port, wine and brandy).
His argument is a potent and necessary
corrective to a cosy national myth. But his
writing can be a distraction, peppered as it
is with phrases such as “bogus nonsense”
and “twisted logic”. Such caustic judg-
ments may be correct but they are superflu-
ous. An argument of this gravity does not
require such flourishes.
It never did. One of the most striking
things about Britain’s debates over slavery
is how unemotional many of the most in-
fluential texts were. Take the basic ques-
tion of how slaves in the West Indies were
treated. As in the United States, British abo-
litionists and slavers had for years quar-
relled bitterly over this, the latter painting
an image of paradise, the former of hell.
There was stalemate.
Then, in 1789, the Board of Trade pub-
lished a damning report on slavery, filled
with statistics and testimony of the tor-
tures inflicted on slaves. “It is no uncom-
mon thing”, the document recorded, “for a
Negro to lie by a Week after Punishment.”
More damning still was the mass of data
published in the Anti-Slavery Monthly Re-
porter, which sold 1.7m copies in six years.
You can read its findings now, online.
Even at a distance of almost two centu-
ries, they make appalling reading: “39
lashes”; “three or four hundred lashes”; “on
her bared body fifty-eight lashes of the cart
whip”. On and on go the accounts, unemo-
tional, unsparing, utterly unpardon-
able—50 lashes, 49 more. This was not
rhetoric. It was cruelty, quantified. And lit-
tle was more persuasive. 7L
enwueychew’slookinvolvesa
layered mash-up of florals and plaids
of a kind you might spot on a couturier’s
catwalk. Her runway is a steep hill in San
Francisco’s Chinatown, which she nego-
tiates with a pink-and-blue cane. Her
husband, Buck, favours white gloves and
loud ties festooned with parrots or but-
terflies. In their winningly garish outfits,
the nonagenarian couple embody a
thrifty yet exuberant way of life.
On every bench in Portsmouth
Square, Chinatown’s outdoor living
room, elderly people in bright plumage
chat, play cards and practise tai chi.
Fuchsia scarves top crocheted vests;
paisley sweaters wrap formal striped
shirts. Jade accessories glint. Impishly
stylish, this venerable crowd is “Chi-
natown Pretty”, in the words of a new
book devoted to their sartorial flair.
Valerie Luu, a writer, and Andrio Lo, a
photographer, spotted their first “poh
poh hou leng”—“pretty grandma” in
Cantonese—six years ago. A blog and a
photography show in a Chinatown alley
followed. Their book collects portraits
from six North American Chinatowns,
including Chicago, New York, Los Ange-
les, Oakland and Vancouver. But their
heart remains in San Francisco, home of
America’s oldest, densest Chinatown.
Five thousand souls, a big chunk of
them elderly, are crammed into 30 cityblocks. Many emigrated from China long
ago, have endured war, revolution and
exile and now subsist on fixed incomes
in single rooms. Around a third live in
poverty. Yet their neighbourhood bursts
with colour. Look past the tourists and
pagodas, and Chinatown resembles a
bustling, open-air senior centre, the
denizens of which pay close attention to
their clothes. “Going out is dressing up,”
Feng Luen Feng, 77, tells the authors.
The eclectic outfits are pragmatic. In
the city’s foggy, unpredictable climate, it
pays to wear several layers—sometimes
up to seven or eight, plus a hat or two.
Beyond the insulation, though, the
fashions speak volumes about the com-
munity’s resourcefulness and joie de
vivre. In his bright red suit, for instance,
You Tian Wu has been a Chinatown
fixture, sometimes seen wearing two
bow ties above a Windsor knot. Dressing
to the nines on a tight budget is a matter
of pride. “When you’re young you don’t
have to care about fashion,” says Mr Wu,- “But when you’re old, you have to.”
Each garment tells a story. Some were
stitched in Hong Kong decades ago;
others have been sewn or patched at
home, or were handed up or down. One
lady sports a hot pink backpack over a
tailored blue skirt-suit. Another’s socks
bear the slogan “My favourite salad is
wine”. The styles may not be to every-
one’s taste. But as surrounding neigh-
bourhoods become ever more costly and
gentrified, this frugality and grit are both
a sign and a means of survival.
Fashion statements
Street styleChinatown Pretty.By Andria Lo and
Valerie Luu. Chronicle Books; 224 pages;
$24.95 and £18.99