Unscrambling Imperial Contradictions: Navigating Colonial Visions, Disruptive Realities, and Narrative Ruptures in The Yangtze Valley and Beyond

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Isabella Bird’s The Yangtze Valley and Beyond reflects the imperial vision of the traveler who views China as an underutilized reservoir of resources and regards Britain’s continued predominance in China as a natural given. Bird presumes the British presence in China to be a civilizing force and builds on such a premise that China’s potential can only be fully realized with Britain’s guiding hands, leaving little room for Chinese agency. Resistance is interpreted as temporary disorder, and indigenous economic activities are construed as obstructions to British prosperity rather than expressions of autonomous self-development. To maintain her imperial narrative, Bird avoids confronting the fraught history of Anglo-Chinese relations, marked by military conflicts, unequal treaties, and politico-economic coercion. However, moments of Chinese resistance prevent her text from being seamless. While Bird depicts Chinese laborers as standing reserves primed for effective use by the British, their resistance fractures her narrative, exposing the fragility of the imperial discourse. Despite her attempts to downplay foreign-native tensions, it is her own unease with the seeming limits of British influence—not British superiority—that becomes apparent in her analyses of native resistance. By zooming in on Bird’s selective framing, narrative inconsistencies, and depiction of Chinese labor and resistance, this paper examines how The Yangtze Valley and Beyond—perhaps against Bird’s intent—exposes the limits of imperial authority and presents travel as a site of contested power and unfinished negotiations.