What would it be like to be an expatriate living and traveling in China in the middle of what was known as the roaring '20s at home in the United States? Join us to transcribe this diary typed by young scholar Benjamin March (1899-1934) from June 1925 to March 1926 describing his life in China. Events include March's marriage to the poet Dorothy Rowe (1898-1969) in Nanjing, their honeymoon in Hangzhou and Suzhou, and their subsequent life in Beijing.
What would it be like to be an expatriate living and traveling in China in the middle of what was known as the roaring '20s at home in the United States? Join us to transcribe this diary typed by young scholar Benjamin March (1899-1934) from June 1925 to March 1926 describing his life in China. Events include March's marriage to the poet Dorothy Rowe (1898-1969) in Nanjing, their honeymoon in Hangzhou and Suzhou, and their subsequent life in Beijing.
East Asian art historian, curator and lecturer, Benjamin Franklin March Jr., was born in Chicago on July 4, 1899 to Benjamin and Isabel March. He studied, lectured, and wrote in the United States and China and through his works gained respect as one of the foremost authorities on Chinese art during the 1920s and 1930s. March was East Asian art lecturer at the University of Michigan, and curator of Asian art at the Detroit Institute of Art. In the diary, March describes hikes through scenic areas in Hangzhou and Beijing; his acquaintance with scholars such as John Calvin Ferguson and Alan Priest; attending performances by Ruth St. Denis and Mei Lanfang, and his work at Yenching University. Selections from the diary along with March?s photographs were featured in
an exhibition in 2009 in Hangzhou. The diary provides an entertaining glimpse of expat life in Republican period Beijing.