Tai-Pan

The second novel -- in both; publication and internal chronological order -- of The Asian Saga is Tai-Pan. It takes the reader to the shores of China and the founding of Hong Kong in the year 1841.

The main man behind the city founding effort is Dirk Struan. He is Tai-Pan --  'top class', the senior executive -- of The Noble House trading company. Dirk thinks the island the city is founded on provides a perfect base of operations and a sheltered harbor for his business to prosper. The novel follows his attempts to stabilize The Noble House's current top position and ensure its future in the hands of his half-brother and son against the competing Brock & Sons and trouble causing Chinese folk.

Largely unknown to Dirk, he is also supported by a Chinese secret society, later Triad, that opposes the ruling Qing dynasty. Dirk is hardly incompetent himself though -- quite the opposite in fact. How he handles people to suit his purposes reminded me of Toranaga in Shōgun. Dirk has another Shōgun character in him too: Blackthorne can be seen in the way that he provides a Westerner's view at the local culture. By the novel's start he has similarly adopted many local habits and made the people working for him to do so too.

I found it amusing that Europeans are still so unclean compared to Japanese and Chinese cultures even 240 years after Shōgun. Dirk, having now learned of better, makes his people to wipe their asses, wash their hands, and brush their teeth. Nobody seems to know why exactly they should do so but it helps. Also like the Chinese, Dirk no longer drinks plain water, only tea. Boiling is obviously the actual important part but people think tea leaves is what makes the water healthier.

It's curious how the Chinese people's lack of trust on unboiled water seems to have lasted to this day. A few weeks back there was an article in the local newspaper about Chinese tourists in Lapland. The couple in the article, although from Beijing, weren't the most typical Chinese as they had lived out of the country for years in the past. But one Chinese habit they hadn't abandoned was not drinking unboiled tap water, even here in Finland. The article didn't mention what they thought about bottled water, though.

While lacking in hygiene in Tai-Pan, in seafaring and military technology Europeans are ahead of the Chinese. China has had thousands of years of civilization over Europe, many inventions having been made there -- including black powder -- yet in 1841 they're far behind. The First Opium War has just ended in the novel with the British Royal Navy forcing the Chinese into signing a peace treaty.

There's more trouble further into the story and the fleet still situated there has to teach the Chinese manners again, ships of the line crushing all opposition anywhere near a coastline. The novel inspired me to reinstall Civilization V to conquer the world as England once more with China, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, India, and France as the AI Civs.

By 1841, marine chronometer (basically a very accurate clock that stays accurate even on a moving ship) had been invented and sailing on open seas had become considerably easier. With chronometer it became finally possible to determine a ship's longitude. Back in 1600, in Shōgun, things weren't as simple. They had to rely on a pilot's records of an already made trip, which wasn't that great if a storm pushed the ship off its course.

Getting into Tai-Pan was bit of a struggle for me. In addition to James Clavell's quick viewpoint switches, the novel was challenging to read because it introduces almost all of its numerable characters very early on. It took awhile to become familiar with them. Once that happened, however, I started really enjoying the story.

My favorite character besides Dirk Struan was his amusing painter friend Aristotle Quance. He's very similar to Dandelion from The Witcher franchise. Aristotle also pretty much saved the novel's ending which I found almost disappointing. All the work Dirk had done nearly wiped away by some dumb storm. Aristotle pulls Dirk's son, Culum, back together by simply asking him for money and making sure to call him Tai-Pan while doing so. Culum realizes that he actually does have what it takes to be the big shot of The Noble House, the Tai-Pan of tai-pans.

I don't have any remarks on the Chinese in the book -- after all, I know very little of the language. I do wonder though if the name of The Noble House should've been left untranslated to Finnish. 'Jalo Huone' carries the same meaning as far as I know but Noble House is still a proper noun. And the fifth novel of the saga is titled Noble House in Finnish too.

Before I get to Noble House, however, I will first take a trip back to Japan in Gai-Jin and then to Singapore in King Rat after it.