The Rhetoric of Approximation: Notes on the First Brazilian Mission to China (1880)

Latin American mappe-mondes

In the article Our Orient is Europe, Graciela Montaldo suggests that ever since its
"discovery" (and thenceforward, always), Latin America has had to think about the ways to
insert itself in a centered map of the world, delimiting its space through multiple strategies,
from military to diplomatic to textual. Also, it has been forced to reflect upon its inclusion,
given that maps, understood as forms of European knowledge, existed long before the
means to include it. In the context of Western culture, maps precede Latin America 1.
The nineteenth century is a particularly rich period where to reflect upon the complicated
nature global geographies and the preeminence of metropolitan cosmographies. It is a time
of increasing planetary displacement that runs mainly in a North to South direction.
Steamships accelerate trade and human transit between the capitals and colonies, and
tourism drives tons of peripatetic bourgeois to "exotic" lands. Scientific missions from
European empires send scientists and officers to distant territories and missionary endeavors
increment overseas.
My proposal is to gaze away from these heavily trodden routes of global exchange and, in
turn, consider less visible circuits that run in horizontal directions, and thus avoid that
centered layout of the world self-imposed by and to the Latin America, as Montaldo points
out. I wonder, what brings a Brazilian diplomat to the South of China in 1880's? What does
this contact zones tell us about the nature of other large-scale horizontal migrations in the
nineteenth century? Regarding the rhetoric of travel: how does this traveler inscribe himself
in the broad category of "the West", when navigating towards the East? What kind of
cultural maps does he convey when portraying the world from an imperial, yet marginal,
1

"Desde su descubrimiento (y desde entonces, siempre), Amrica Latina ha debido pensar cmo insertarse en ese
mapa centrado del mundo, buscando disear su espacio a travs de mltiples estrategias, desde las militares hasta las
diplomticas y textuales; y se ha visto obligada a pensar su inclusin ya que los mapas, como formas del saber europeo,
existan antes de tener alguna forma de incluirla, ellos preceden su historia dentro de la cultura occidental". Graciela R.
Montaldo, "Nuestro Oriente es Europa" in Beatriz Gonzalez Stephan, (ed.) Cultura y tercer mundo, vol.2 Nuevas identidades y
ciudadanas. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 1996.

point of enunciation? In other words, how does the peripheral geographic provenance of a
Latin American traveler determine its spatial and cultural relations with another periphery,
say China?
Due to China's identification as a space of the faraway (the paradigm of the faraway in
general, as Haun Saussy puts it in Sinographies), the scarce connections with Latin America in
the nineteenth century (end of the Manila Galeon), and Latin America's own unstable
geographic imagination (undelimited borders etc); I argue that the Latin American writer
must incur into rhetorical negotiations when charting the distant from a distance. Distance,
understood here beyond the notion of physical extent, but rather determined subjectively by
other variables like speed, routes, and desires. In terms of travel, these variables take shape in
the conditions of displacement, the routes and the projects described by the voyager.
In the next pages I will look at the travel narrative A China e os Chins: Recordaes de Viagem
(1888) written by Henrique Carlos Ribeira Lisboa, secretary to the First Brazilian Mission to
China. Anticipating my hypothesis, I argue that Lisboa minimizes distance by approximating
China to Brazil. He brings it closer geographically by evidencing a fluid cultural and material
exchange that dates historically and is supposed to increase in the frame of imperial
diplomacy. Also, he advocates for cultural compatibility with Chinese by revealing the
familiarity of both nations. Moreover, he legitimizes his authority in the depiction of the
Chinese due to his ethnographic look. At different levels, what prevails in his narrative is the
rhetoric of approximation.
Henrique Carlos Ribeiro Lisboa, A China e os Chins: Recordaes de Viagem (1888)
Son of the Baron of Japur, Henrique Carlos Ribeiro Lisboa (1847-1920) comes from
a Brazilian aristocratic family with a long-dated diplomatic lineage. He serves in the Imperial
Navy during the Paraguayan War (1864-70) and is working as an attach at the Brazilian
delegation in Madrid when he is appointed to the Brazilian Special Mission to China in 1880.
The mission commanded by Baron Artur Silveira da Mota, Minister Eduardo Callado and

Captain Luiz Felipe de Saldanha de Gama sets sail from Toulon and arrives in Hong Kong
in 1880. After several stopovers in Canton, Macao and Shanghai, the delegation arrives in
Tientsin in June of that year and issues a preliminary agreement of friendship, trade and
navigation between the two nations2. Since the Brazilian government does not accept the
terms of that negotiation, Henrique Lisboa has to stay in Tientsin for another year until the
definite treaty is finally signed in 1881.
During this tarry in China, Lisboa takes down notes of what will later become two books: A
China e Os Chins: Recordaes de Viagem (Montevideo, 1888) and Os chins dos Tetardos (Rio de
Janeiro, 1894). Both texts address the question of Chinese immigration to Brazil. The former
does so in a narrative and descriptive way that engages in the debate of the Yellow
Question and seeks to persuade a large audience, while the latter is rather a manual for the
concrete implementation of transport, accommodation and assimilation of the potential
Asian settlers in America. A China E Os Chins... is laden with well-versed descriptions of
Chinese culture and unique anecdotes about Lisboa's meetings with Chinese officials. The
narrative is complemented with a detailed map and a selection of forty-four eloquent
etchings that reproduce pictures taken by Lisboa, an amateur photographer himself.
So far, so close
The narrative starts in medias res. Even though the vessel that takes him to China sets
sail from Marseille3, Lisboa's travel account begins with the arrival at the port of Hong Kong.
This idea of an immediate narrative access to the destination is enhanced by the statement of
the three months navigation having been a "short, comfortable and cheap journey". (p.6).
Also, travel is not mediated by foreign companies, but facilitated by the efforts of Brazilian
naval industry, whose fleet operates as far as the China Sea:
Flaunting on the edges of the helm of "Eldorado", as a guarantee of happy
travels and success on the matters that brought us to China, were the golden2

Jos Roberto Teixeira Leite. A China no Brasil: Influncias, Marcas, Ecos e Sobrevivncias Chinesas na Sociedade e na Arte
Brasileiras. Campinas, SP, Brasil: Editora da Unicamp, 1999, 81.
3
Teixeira Leite 82.

green Brazilian shields printed with the legend "The Rio Grande do Sul Steam
Navigation Company".4
It is true Lisboa's voyage takes place a few decades after the "opening of China", and
communications and transport with what used to be an isolated country have increased ever
since, even with regions beyond Europe. Yet it is somewhat striking how many familiar
elements welcome him in China, which suggest a fluid exchange between the two distant
regions. Apart from travel infrastructure, there seems to be dense human transit. Lisboa
describes an encounter with Joao Chim5, a returned immigrant that has spent eight years in
Brazil and has earned a decent fortune to go back to his native land. They exchange
memories and images of the South American prosperous nation where he intends to send
his family shortly.
Also, Lisboa runs into other Brazilian citizens. In a ship ride towards the Chinese capital, he
is surprised to recognize familiar voices on the cabin next to his:
I found myself deeply engaged in the study of Mandarin syntax when I was
surprised by the sound of a strange voice that used the harmonious language of
Camoes in expressions of pleasant compliment. Possessed by an irresistible and
excusable curiosity, I opened the door of the neighboring room occupied by
my colleague Saldanha de Gama, and I found myself face to face with Elysio
Mendes, the charming owner of the popular Gazeta de Notcias, whom,
temporarily assuming the functions of "Globe-trotter", had arrived from India,
a continent he had crossed, and was ready to come with us to Tientsin. 6

"na roda do leme do "Eldorado", ostentavam-se como que asegurando-nos feliz viagem e sucesso no objecto que nos
trouxera a China, as auri-verdes armas brasileiras rodeadas da legenda "The Rio Grande do Sul Steam Navigation
Company". Lisboa 226.
5
The name "Joao Chim" can be translated as "John Chinese", somewhat suggesting a national personification of
Brazilian/Chinese mixed population. This will be discussed later.
6
" Achava-me profundamente entretido no estudo da syntaxe mandarina quando fui sobressaltado pelo som de uma voz
estranha que usava da harmoniosa lingua de Camoes em phrases de prazenteira congratulao. Possuido de irresistvel e
desculpavel cuirosidade, abri a porta do quarto visinho occupado pelo meo collega Saldanha de Gama, e achei-me face a
face com o Elysio Mendes, o sympathico propietario da popular Gazeta de Noticias, o qual, assumindo interinamente as
activas funcoes de "Globe-trotter", chegava da India, cujo continente atravessara, e dispunha-se a acompanhar-nos at
Tientsin." Lisboa 226

Apart from other diplomats (colleagues) we learn that there are journalists that go from
Brazil to Asia to write about travel. This note is revealing of the development of the
publishing industry of tourism (there is a term for long distance traveler now: "globe
trotter") and the public interest in Brazil of areas of the world like India or China.
The reference to Camoes and the pleasant familiarity of the language in distant regions of
the world can be read as a reformulation of the geographic imagination of the Portuguese
Empire from a Brazilian standpoint. The situation mentioned in the quote replicates a
central scene in Lus Vaz de Camoes' The Lusiads, the Portuguese epic poem about Vasco da
Gama's opening of the maritime route to India in the sixteenth century. In this scene, Vasco
da Gama arrives at Calicut after an arduous journey. Once he steps foot on the coast, he
encounters Monaide, a Hispanic moor with whom he can communicate, because he speaks
Spanish. This is a moment of reckoning for Vasco, for his prowess of inaugurating a route
from Europe to the East is minimized by the acknowledgement of the presence of other
Iberians in India. I contend that Lisboa reproduces this scene, but in a positive vein: this
encounter does not disappoint a heroic explorer in the quest for personal fame, but rather,
delights a diplomatic delegate in the celebration of large-scale global mobility. Furthermore,
rather than the West and the East, incarnated in Portugal and India, this encounter is about
Brazil and China, two marginal empires. As article 17 of the Treaty reads, the ultimate goal
of the Mission is to have the agreement signed by "his Majesty the Emperor of Brazil and
His Majesty the Emperor of China7.
Marginal imperialism
I would like to reflect upon the specific nature of the Brazilian Empire and its foreign
policy in order to place it in the global context of European neo-imperialist expansion of the
late nineteenth century, and thus assess its geographic imagination vis a vis other marginal
areas of the world.

Lisboa 389.

A useful term to read Brazilian's singular imperialism could be that of "marginal imperialism",
as coined by Taiwanese sociologist Ding Tzan Lii. Thinking about the case of Hong Kong in
the frame of the world-systems theory, he claims that "marginal imperialism occurs when a
marginal power in the third-world has created an empire and become imperialist itself. Thus,
it becomes an interesting question to ask if the new type of imperialism in the periphery is
the same kind as the old one in the core, or if it represents a different category from the old
one? Does a colonized empire create a rupture in the development of capitalism, or does it
just continue to reproduce or even deepen capitalist expansion? In a word, does marginal
imperialism represent different stage in the history of the global expansion of capitalism?"8.
In the case of Brazil, there is no such thing as development of capitalism (or rupture with it)
with the settlement of the Portuguese crown in Brazil or the subsequent consolidation of the
Brazilian Empire. Rather, the Empire is based on a slavery driven agricultural economy. As
opposed to the capitalist and geographically exhausted empires of Europe seeking raw
materials overseas, the Brazilian empire possesses an immense territory (which still needs to
delimit and control) laden with natural resources, but lacks human capital to exploit it. In
this respect, the South American Empire does not privilege territorial expansion, but rather,
promotes the overseas importation of human resources to fill its insufficiently populated
land. In other words, rather than expanding towards China, the Brazilian Empire seeks to
approximate China to it.
"The Yellow Question"
The introduction of Asian workforce in Brazil, either in the form of indentured labor
or in the form of free immigration, occupies a central role in Brazilian politics since the early
nineteenth century. Yet, due to the belatedness of abolition (1888) and the pressure of the
powerful planter class, the coolie trade does not develop in Brazil as it does in other parts of
Hispanic America, mainly Peru and Cuba. There are indeed exercises to introduce Chinese
8

Ding-Tzann Lii. "A Colonized Empire: Reflexions on the Expansion of Hong Kong Films in Asian Countries" in
Kuan-Hsing Chen; Hsiu-Ling Kuo, Hans Hang Hsu Ming-Chu (Eds) Trajectories : Inter-Asia cultural studies (London; New
York : Routledge, 1998) 110-111.

laborers to Brazil during the reign of King Dom Joao (1808-1822) in order to promote tea as
a commodity export, but these fail. Of the several hundred Chinese that are brought in 1810,
around 1830 only few remain working at the tea plantations of the Royal Botanical Gardens,
as evidenced in Johan Mortiz Rugendas' painting (see Fig 2) and in Charles Darwin's
complaints in about the "insignificant tea bushes that scarcely possessed tea flavor" 9. Other
initiatives like the creation of Sociedade Importadora de Trabalhadores Asiaticos or the Imperial
order of 1854 to transport six thousand Chinese laborers to Brazil through the Boston-based
firm Sampson and Tappan do not progress either10.

Fig 2. "Plantation chinoise de th dans le Jardim botanique de Rio de Janeiro". From Johan Moritz Rugendas,
Malerische Reise in Brasilien von Moritz Rugendas (Paris: Engelman, 1835). (Source: Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de
Janeiro)

Yet, nineteenth century policy makers argue heatedly during decades over whether and how
Chinese laborers might fit into Brazilian society, and numerous treaties on the cultural and
physical concerns of "The Yellow Question" are published. Enemies of Asian immigration,
often influenced by social Darwinism, state the cultural and racial inferiority of the Chinese
to that of the European -their ultimate desired immigration. The fear of the "Mongolization
of the nation", a term sometimes used by Brazilian opponents of Chinese immigration
9

Lesser, Jeffrey. Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 1999, p16.
10
For an in-depth analysis of the initiatives to bring Chinese to Brazil in the nineteenth century, see the abovementioned
article by Jeffrey Lesser. Also Dezem, Rogrio. Matizes do "Amarelo": A Gnese Dos Discursos Sobre Os Orientais no Brasil
(1878 -1908). 4 Vol. So Paulo, SP, Brasil: Associao Editorial Humanitas, 2005.

conveys, in fact, a terrifying image of hoards of Asians swarming into exotic enclaves in
every Brazilian city, replete with endemic diseases, opium, pigtails and pagan religions 11. This
fear, known as the "Yellow Peril", is not limited to Brazil, but extends all along the continent.
Erika Lee notes that common stereotypes and sensationalist rhetoric about the Chinese
circulate freely during this time throughout South and North America, where the fear takes
the shape of anti-migratory laws, eg. the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 12.
Considering Brazilian circumstances, a more pragmatic argument against the acquisition of
Asian workers is the doom to virtual enslavement. Already in 1869, Rui Barbosa denounces
Chinese labor as "a new slavery, as vile, as immoral, and as disastrous as African slavery." 13
Abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco raises similar complaints. Chinese labor, he claims, "would
cause the prolongation of the sad moral level which characterizes Brazilian labor and would
mean the continuation of slavery"14.
Indentured labor vs. free immigration
It must be taken into account that Lisboa's sojourn in China (1880) takes place a few
years after the coolie trade is officially terminated (1874) 15, and thus, the importation of
Chinese indentured labor is no longer an option for the Mission. Lisboa himself is very
critical of the coolie trade and dedicates sorrowful lines to the sad destiny of the coolies sent
to America:
Other ruins that cause even more impression are those barracks where, until
1874, stocked the miserable coolies destined to exportation to Cuba or Peru.
How many tears, how much blood did these unfortunate victims of hateful
speculation not spill? Victims of business whose profit was divided among the
11

Conrad, Robert. "The Planter Class and the Debate Over Chinese Immigration to Brazil, 1850- 1893." International
Migration Review 9.1 (1975), 49.
12
Lee, Erika. "Orientalisms in the Americas: A Hemispheric Approach to Asian American History." Journal of Asian
American Studies 8.3 (2005): 243.
13
Cited by Osorio Duque-Estrada, A aboliao (esboo histrico), 1831-1888 (Rio de Janeiro, 1918) p50-51.
14
O Abolicionista, January 1, 1881; Nabuco, "Imigracao Chinesa". 60
15
The Chinese government begins to enforce its prohibition against contract emigration, and by the early 1874, the
foreign enclaves of Hong Kong and Macau severely restrict or proscribe such emigration. Meagher 127.

insensitive governors of Portugal and the avid recruiters who, with fallacious
information, seduced the future martyrs of Cuban farms, or the Canary
Island's guano from the backlands of remote provinces?16
In this quote, Lisboa judges the Portuguese opportunism in the recruitment of uninformed
Chinese to be trafficked to the Americas. The critique of European imperialism is recurrent
in the text; earlier in the narrative he denounces "the arrogance with which the great powers
of Europe employ in their relations with the weak"17, in reference to a British captain who
fails to provide help to a Chinese sailor in need. But he makes it clear that the responsibility
of the fatal destiny of the innocent Chinese also lies on the recruiters, the fortune-seekers
from South America. In the last chapter of the narrative entitled "Chinese emigration",
Lisboa reviews the years of the coolie trade in Hispanic America. Mostly quoting an editorial
from 1883 in the Correo Paulistano, he highlights the abuses perpetuated against the
involuntary emigrants and the diplomatic complications that the trade eventually provoked
to the Cuban and Peruvian government.
Lisboa situates the Brazilian Empire's migratory plan neither in the form of European
imperialism nor of Hispanic-American clandestine business. The trip is planned in the
context of imperial diplomacy; the mission's aim is to sign an agreement of friendship, trade
and navigation between the two Empires, and later contemplate the question of free
immigration.
Two are the aims I have in mind when submitting this work to the judgment
of the public. One is simply to offer the impressions of somebody who has
visited the curious Middle Kingdom and tried to consciously study the
character and customs of its peoples. The other is to participate, within my
limitations and in conformity to my convictions, in the resolution of the

16

"Outras ruinas que ainda causam mais triste impressao sao os barraoes onde, at 1874, eram armazenados os infelizes
culis destinados exportaao para Cuba e o Peru. Quantas lgrimas, quanto sangue nao verteram ahi essas desgraadas
victimas da odiosa especulaao, em cujos lucros participavam desde os insensveis gobernantes de Portugal ate os avidos
recrutadores que, com fallaciosas informaoes, iam seduzir nos confins de remotas provncias os futuros martyres das
fazendas de Cuba ou do guano das Ilhas Canarias? 119.
17
Lisboa 46.

arduous problem that has kept Brazilian society in permanent crisis for a few
years: "The transformation of labor"18.
Lisboa writes under the awareness of a reading public divided in matters of immigration. The
"conscious study of characters and customs of the Chinese", as quoted above, is a challenge
in his narrative since his ultimate aim is to seduce the Brazilian audience about the qualities
of the Chinese as potential citizens rather than mere cheap workforce. As a resolute
advocate of free Chinese immigration to Brazil, Lisboa engages in the debate of the "Yellow
Question" by responding to the racially loaded ideas of the Chinese that have been
circulating after the experience of the coolie trade; he situates his text in a network of
discourses (other travel narratives, the press, parliamentary debates) about China. His
rhetoric is persuasive and intends to revise and refute preconceived notions of the Chinese.
Firstly, Lisboa points out particular aspects of Chinese culture that usually appall voyagers
and occupy scandalous lines in their travel narratives (eating dogs, foot binding). He nuances
those claims and traces parallelisms with equivalent aspects of Western culture as a way of
making them familiar:
It is true that there is a particular breed of dogs in China that attracts the
appetite of some people, just like frogs and some reptiles in Europe. Yet, the
level of consumption of these quadrupeds is far from the proportions
suggested by some writers. This happens only in cases of extreme misery or
rare circumstances like the siege of Paris, where the inhabitants were forced to
resort without scruples to any kind of nourishment19.

18

"Dous so os fins que tenho em vista ao submetter esta obra ao juizo do publico. Um confiar, simplesmente as
impresses de quem visitou o curioso Imperio do Meio e procurou estudar conscienciosamente o carter e os costumes
dos seus habitantes. O outro concorrer, na medida das minhas foras e de conformidade com as minhas convices,
para a resoluo do arduo problema que, h alguns annos, conserva em crise permanente a sociedade brasileira: "A
transformao do trabalho". Lisboa 3
19
" certo que na China existe uma classe especial de cachorrinhos que encontram apreciadores, como na Europa os ha
para as rs e varios reptis, mas est longe o consumo d'aquelles e outros quadrupedes das propores que lhe do alguns
escriptores, salvo por extrema misria o circumstancias excepxionaes como as que, durante o sitio de Paris obrigam os
seos habitantes a recorrer sem escrupulo a toda classe de alimentao". Lisboa 56.

Fashion is a tyrant in China as much as in Paris (...) the usually exaggerated

pressure of coquetries (corset) demands elegant European ladies to have a thin
waist, an ideal as artificial as the shrunken feet of some Chinese women20.
This comparison produces an effect of estrangement; by forcing the reader to take distance
from recognizable habits like eating frogs (a sophisticated French dish, "cuisses de
grenouilles") and wearing a corset, and equating them to alleged radical Otherness. Western
culture, in these quotes, is condensed in the idea of Europe, and more specifically, in Paris.
This city works as a synechdoque of modernity. The reference to the siege of Paris reminds
of the recent historical events of the Franco Prussian War (1870); the note on Parisian
fashion places it as the cultural and stylish center of the world.
Also, Lisboa highlights characteristics of the Chinese that have gained significant notoriety
with the increase of Chinese migration to the Americas, and pose a threat to the manners
and morals of the anxious local populations. The Chinese, their detractors held, lied, smoked
opium, gambled, and engaged in prostitution or the enslavement of women. The totality of
the argument involved a distinction of culture and the ancient and unbridgeable gulf
between Western Christian civilization and Eastern barbarism 21 . Lisboa, instead, tries to
bridge these two cultural antagonisms. In reference to gambling, Lisboa acknowledges it as a
generalized vice in China, but also in Europe. He notes that the decadent leisure center of
the island of Macau is a "shame only paralleled by the Monaco Casino, in the Franco-Italian
border" 22 . As regards opium addiction he recurs to a similar discursive operation of
diminishing the eccentricity of the Other by providing an equivalent from his culture.:
Opium is less common in China than alcoholic beverages in the West, and
chronic drunkards are, among some European races, more numerous than

20

"A moda uma tyranna tanto em Paris como em Pekim: corset and foot binding: (effect of the corset) pressao quasi
sempre exagerada pela coqueteria, que exige nas elegantes europeas uma cintura fina, nao menos articifial fo que a
reducao do tamanho dos pes nas chinas. Lisboa 124.
21
Gary Y. Okihiro, The Columbia guide to Asian American History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001) 75.
22
"uma vergonha que s encontra parallelo na permanencia do casino de Monaco nas fronteiras da Frana e Italia".
Lisboa 118.

those in China who reach the state of bestiality that leads to the abuse of that
drug23.
Because the opening of China to the West follows their defeat in the Opium War, it is no
wonder that the Chinese gain an infamous reputation in the West as addicts of this substance:
"A pair of small group of men, poorly or well attired, sprawled on an opium coach became
the recognizable image of the "Chinese" opium smokers -or more broadly, of "Chinese" tout
court- that Westerners liked to photograph (Fig 3 and 4)24. In Brazil, this is used as a strong
argument against their potential for working at the plantation fields. At the Agricultural
Congress of 1878 in Rio de Janeiro, a detractor claims of the Chinese: "Weak and lazy,
exhausted by the depravation of customs and habits developed since the cradle, physically and
morally narcotized by opium, they will never cope with the arduous and miserable coffee labor"25.
This prevalent image gains space in the printed press. Fig 5 illustrates a satirical graphic
representation of the Chinese adaptation to labor in Brazil. The first drawing on the bottom
shows a Chinese man lying under the shade of a typical Asian umbrella, and a vast and
untouched plantation in the background. The caption ironically reads: "As farmers, they are
zealous and active towards any task". Also, on the drawing in the top right corner of the
page, there is a Chinese man lying on top of a cliff. The smoke of his opium pipe contrasts
the steam coming from the train, suggesting the dichotomies stagnation/progress,
tradition/modernity. The caption reads: "All nations have progressed: only those that
consider progress a cliff have been stagnated for thousand years.

23

"O pio ainda est menos generalizado na China do que as bebidas alcoholicas no Occidente, e os brios inverterados
sao, entre algumas raas europas, muito mas numerosos do que os que chegam, na China, ao estado de bestialidade a
que conduz o abuso d'aquella droga." Lisboa 23.
24
Brook, Timothy, and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, eds. Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000. 8
25
Congreso Agrcola. Fac-similar edition of the Annals of the Agricultural Congress of 1878 in Rio de Janeiro. Fundaao
Casa Rui Barbosa, 1988, 130. (Quoted from Dezem, Rogrio. Matizes do "Amarelo": A Gnese Dos Discursos Sobre Os
Orientais no Brasil (1878 -1908). So Paulo, SP, Brasil: Associao Editorial Humanitas, 2005 75.

Fig 3. An opium den in Guangzhou as depicted by Thomas Allom in his China, in a Series of Views (1843), vol.
3, preceding p.54. Source: Brook, Timothy, and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, eds. Opium Regimes: China, Britain,
and Japan, 1839-1952. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000

Fig 4. An opium den in China, photograph by John Thompson, late 19th century. Source: John Thompson.
Illustrations of China and its people, 1873-1874.

Lisboa recurs too to the visual discourse to provide more positive images of Chinese labor.
An amateur photographer himself, Lisboa takes pictures of his sojourn in China, which are
later transformed into forty-four etchings, so as to alleviate the printing costs of A China e os

Chins. Figs. 6 and 7 present scenes of Chinese at work in mining pits and in a rural context.
In the latter, a harmonious group of peasants of all ages stand in the foreground; and a nicely
kept house lies in the background. These farmers stare with interest to a man of more urban
attributes (glasses, he is holding a book

Fig. 5 "O chim e sua adaptaao ao trabalho no Brasil". Revista Illustrada n.154, 1879 (Source: Dezem, Rogrio.
Matizes do "Amarelo": A Gnese Dos Discursos Sobre Os Orientais no Brasil (1878 -1908). 4 Vol. So Paulo, SP,
Brasil: Associao Editorial Humanitas, 2005)

Fig 6. Lisboa, Henrique Carlos Ribeiro. A China e Os Chins, Recordaes de Viagem. Montevideo: Typographia a
vapor de A. Godel, 1888.

Fig 7. Lisboa, A China e Os Chins

Types of Chinese
When refuting common stereotypes of the Chinese, Lisboa tackles the validity of the
claims, but also, the legitimacy of the observations. For him, the generalized aversion to the
Chinese is based on the poverty in the examination of the travelers and the
misinterpretations of commentators. Throughout the narrative, he disregards the opinion of

"young tourists" (p.69) and "travelers who move in masses through China making light
remarks with the only purpose of entertaining their audiences" (p.292). For him, mere travel
to China is no longer enough to legitimize the views on that culture, because since the
opening of China and with the development of tourism, anybody can claim to be an
eyewitness of that culture. For Lisboa, apart from travel, long-term residency and cultural
immersion are necessary to becoming an authority in the subject:
"the arguments of some travelers who crossed this vast Empire in a rush, can
be contrasted to that opinion of serious writers, who, investing many years of
residency and laborious research draw entirely opposite conclusions from the
same facts."26
He states that Westerners only interact with Chinese businessmen, equally greedy and
opportunist in any place of the world. Also, they are only exposed to the Chinese who live in
the treaty ports, and thus, are more "degenerate". Lisboa denounces the reductionist
approach of commentators who, lacking precise observation, project an orientalist gaze of
China, a common gesture of the late nineteenth century, as Said argues in Orientalism. Lisboa
writes:
Intellectual features and moral physiognomies are confused, and from this
mixture emerges an imaginary product, a true creation of reason -that
resembles nothing-, which is praised or criticized arbitrarily. It is given the
name of Asian or Oriental (or Chinese), and this dispenses with studying it in
detail. This is a precious faculty granted by generic denominations to those
who pay little attention to exact ideas and, when judging things, do not take
pains to look deep into them27.
Lisboa shows that he takes pains to study carefully: he claims to learn Mandarin, travel
extensively and establish direct contact with Chinese from different social spheres. These
first-hand observations are complemented with ethnographic studies of protestant
missionaries (Padre Huc). He opens the section dedicated to "Race, character and costumes"
with the categorical claim that the classification of all the inhabitants of China into the
26
27

Lisboa 63.
Lisboa 284.

"Mongolian race" is a crass error. This, he adds, is one of the many ethnic groups that
populate China. Due to the diversity of the terrain, and the autonomy of each region, all
these ethnic groups differ significantly from each other. The Hakka, he argues, are the ones
most fit to work the Brazilian soil, due to the similarities of their terrain.
Lisboa provides a visual representation of Chinese ethnic groups (see Fig.8). The plate
entitled "Types of inhabitants of China", presents upper torso portraits taken in profile
where the classification is organized by the sitter's nation of origin. The layout suggests a
comparative study, since more than one torso in each plate allows for the easy contrast of
the different national types, leading the observers eyes to absorb a number of portraits at
once. Also, ornamentation, hairstyle and facial expression convey the complexity of the
anthropological material in question. With the clear aim of retorting racial misrepresentations
of the Chinese, Lisboa uses photography for ethnographic purposes.
This image is symptomatic of the role of photography in the scientific discourse at end of
the nineteenth century. The concerns about physiognomy of race, typologies, and genes are
carefully studied through this new medium, which allows immediate and analogical
representation. Like naturalist artists, Lisboa uses these images as one element of a larger
discursive network whose purpose is to articulate objects of knowledge with the aim of
mapping all aspects of the natural/ethnographic world.

Types of inhabitants of China participates in the large network of discourses about race in
Brazil. Usually portrayed in the form of caricature, the Chinese are presented here in the
light of science and studies of physiognomy. Yet, I argue that the rhetorical implications of
this visual genre of are not entirely celebratory, and Lisboas good-willed use of this visual
genre has problematic effects. These images resemble emerging end-of-the-century
criminological and positivist images produced within much more tightly defined institutional
settings like, for example, the police headquarters or prisons. The association of a "model
immigrant", as Lisboa puts in insistently throughout the narrative, with these threatening
subjects is not resolved in the text.
Also, it is worthy of note that this plate contrasts similar popular images of the time that
have as their object not the Chinese, but the African slave. I am thinking of Jean Baptiste
Debret's Escravas negras de diferentes naes (Black Female Slaves of Different
Nations), or his Cabeas de negros de diferentes naes (Heads of Black Males From
Different Nations), as well as Johannes Rugendas drawings Mozambique or Benguela,
Angola, Congo, Monjolo (Fig 9). These paintings, among other, had been commissioned by
the Brazilian Empire to study the landscapes and cultures of Brazil in the middle of the
century. Yet, they gain a larger circulation in the last stages of the empire thanks to the
development of photography, especially the cartes-de-visite. According to Natalia Brizuela,
the works of the two most exemplary and also most commented on nineteenth century
Naturalist painters include a number of renditions dedicated to the figure of the slave that
could be situated as distinct models for many of Christiano Juniors cartes-de-visite about types
of slaves, both the types organized according to labor series as well as organized according to
nation of origin28. She notes how this kind of representations of the African slaves gains
visibility: even the collection typos de pretos made and sold in Brazil in the mid 1860s
followed, although strangely, if not perversely, the European trend, for they were sold as,
precisely, a tourists or a travelers souvenir, very appropriate for whom leaves for Europe.
28

Natalia Brizuela. "Souvenirs of race: Christiano Juniors cartes-de-visite" (Unpublished???) Conference delivered at
Universidad de San Andrs, October 2006. 9.

Once again, the scientific and pedagogical aspirations of the plate "types of Chinese" fail to
achieve its good-willed ethnographic aims. This image is inevitable linked to slavery, or the
desire for it, since the object of study of Debret and Rugendas are not free workers but
transplanted Africans subjected to slave labor.