Gadfly Books
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Books by and for gadflies who wish they were polymaths.
A portrait of a russet-bearded Caucasian in Chinese mandarin garb is handed down through three generations and is hung over the Splingaerd mantle. He was known in the family as “Super Paul” and “The Belgian Marco Polo,” but no one knew exactly how Paul Splingaerd became a Chinese official or why King Leopold II of Belgium gave him a medal.
His great-granddaughter, Anne Splingaerd Megowan, was curious enough to begin a quest to know more about her ancestor. She reveals her discoveries in her fascinating book, The Belgian Mandarin: Paul Splingaerd.
About the Author
Anne Splingaerd Megowan was born in Tianjin, China, when the city was still called Tientsin. Her father, Joseph Splingaerd, is the only surviving grandson of the subject of her book, Paul Splingaerd, “The Belgian Mandarin.”
After leaving Tientsin, she lived in Hong Kong, Yokohama, and Mexico City, before settling in Los Angeles, where she now resides. Since 1994, she has been querying relatives, searching libraries, antiquarian bookstores, and Google links for information about her great grandfather. Since the clever but unlettered Paul did not leave much of a personal paper trail, it was the works and words of others, historians, missionaries, explorers, military officers, and diplomats, who had encountered the white mandarin, that have helped Anne draw back the curtain on the heretofore hidden story of the “mysterious Lin Darin.”
Anne's quest took her in 1996 to Paul's birthplace, Brussels, and more recently to China where she traced Paul's footsteps from China's eastern seacoast, through Inner Mongolia, to Gansu province in the west. [Chapter 14 discusses Paul's involvement with the construction of the first iron bridge across the venerable Yellow River at Lanzhou.]
A remarkable result of the trip to China was being reunited with her grandmother's relatives in Lanzhou after having lost touch when the Splingaerd family left the country in the late 1940's.
Over the course of his forty-one years in China, Paul assisted missionaries, explored the country with German geologist, Ferdinand von Richthofen, traded in furs in Mongolia, and became an official (mandarin) of the imperial Qing government. Paul received recognition in his native Belgium when his King, Leopold II, made him a “Chevalier de L’Ordre de la Couronne” for assistance in negotiating with Viceroy Li Hongzhang the rights to build the major Peking-Hankou railroad. Learning about the fascinating nineteenth century China Paul lived in provides an illuminating background for understanding what is happening in China’s dynamic present.
To read an excerpt, click here.
* An Imprint of SinoAmerican Books (www.sinoamericanbooks.com). ©SinoAmerican Books. All rights reserved.
The Belgian Mandarin: Paul Splingaerd
Anne Splingaerd Megowan