Who the FUUUUUU is Fu Manchu?

“Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government -- which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

–The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer

2013 marked the one-hundredth year since Sax Rohmer published The Mystery of Fu Manchu, probably the most recognisable “Chinese” character in Western popular fiction. Dr Fu Manchu characterisation laid the foundations for the stereotyping of East Asian men as the ‘evil oriental genius’, notably Dr. No in the Bond series, or Ming the Merciless. However, most Chinese have never even heard of Dr Fu Manchu. The plot thickens. Today it seems hard, or even comical, for us to believe Rohmer’s character of Fu Manchu, a man with “eyes of the true cat-green”, is supposedly a Chinese person. 

What the evil Dr. Fu Manchu represents is obviously not a Chinese person, but a reflection of the West’s past fears. Around the turn of the 20th century, the West considered the East, mainly China, as a threat economically, military and morally without any basis in fact. Many of these fears were expanded in fiction, particularly in Rohmer’s novels, who was inspired by the tales of intrigue surrounding Chinatowns in the US. Rohmer never visited either of London’s two Chinatowns, but exploited the introverted nature of Chinese settlements as the perfect setting for the scheming Dr Fu Manchu. Actual Chinese migrants that arrived in the UK before the 1920s were a silent and fleeting minority. Most of them stayed only briefly and their numbers after 1920 had dwindled to a handful. Despite this, London's Chinatowns were depicted as mere outposts of a larger, underground syndicate of sin, debauchery and illegal opium dens.  Due to ignorance and misunderstanding on the side of the West, Rohmer’s stories of powerful, hidden individuals prowling the darkened streets of Chinatowns seemed plausible, caught public attention and kept the Yellow Peril fears burning.

A late 19th/early 20th century image of Chinese workers unloading shipments in London

Popular culture likes to overplay the migrant Chinese community’s links to opium, smuggling, and gambling. Such business did take place, but also played into the stereotypes of the Yellow Peril, which are predisposed to see the Chinaman as a creature of vice and debauchery, addicted to opiates and corrupting local women. These were to become core facets of Fu Manchu's character. However, up until the 1870s, taking opium was a common and accepted habit amongst Victorians. When the effects of the drug on China were publicised, the pendulum of public and medical opinion began to swing in the opposite direction. On the whole, the Chinese communities were regarded as private but untroubled places. The opium dens and gambling houses made much less of a spectacle of themselves than the public houses of the British. The early Chinese settlers remained focused on their own community, and its economy was introverted towards providing services for their compatriots.

Although discrimination against the Chinese was a problem in the UK, it never reached the heights of that in the USA or Canada, where restrictive and demeaning policies were enshrined in law. For Robert Louis Stevenson, an Englishman traveling in the USA before the turn of the twentieth century, he found the Americans’ regard for their Chinese neighbours quite shocking. Upon boarding a train, he discovered that there was a separate carriage solely for the use of the Chinese. Stevenson conjectured that the "Mongols" were despised as "enemies in that cruel and treacherous battle-field of money." Unlike Britain, the Chinese were joining white Americans in a wide variety of trades. They worked in production: making cigars, shoes, clothes, bags, brooms, matches, candles, soap, and so on. From digging irrigation channels to picking fruit, from building roads to hospitality and services, the Chinese settlers in the USA and Australia had far more freedom in their career choice. Thus, to the Peril-mongers, it would have appeared that the Chinese had designs on numerous livelihoods in Western society, and could oust their white competitors out of the trade through their cheap labour.

The original trilogy of Fu Manchu novels were released in 1913, 1916 and 1917, selling well on both sides of the Atlantic due to a widespread Western paranoia of the East. Rohmer revived the character in the 1930s, beginning a cultural presence for Fu Manchu spanning books, television, film, music and radio that continues to this day. Rohmer’s character has become part of the occidental cultural unconscious, and some would argue that fear of the East has lingered in psyche of some in the West.

However, recent studies on the life of Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu by Sir Christopher Frayling reveal a different side to Fu’s villainy. Before Rohmer made his name with the Fu Manchu series, he wrote freelance for music halls in London, composing the lyrics to comic songs for performers. He lived and worked in the theatric heart of London. Frayling proposes that Fu Machu is a product of this theatricality, and is, at least in some part, a pantomime villain. When considering the preposterousness of Fu Manchu’s appearance, and the lyrical nature of his introduction above, Fu is comparable to a wicked witch in a fairy tale. Having watched the production of the Fu Manchu Complex put on in Ovalhouse, I would have to agree. The production's over-the-top portrayal and exaggerated costumes rendered him as an object of absurdity to the point of laughter, not a fear inspiring criminal mastermind, thereby mocking the fear people held of the Chinese. 

Labelled in the novels as the ultimate evil, is there more to Fu Manchu than meets the eye? Is Fu’s character irredeemable?

For East Asians living in the West, Fu Manchu’s ‘cultural’ links can leave people feeling alienated and stereotyped. Fu is a villain, but a feminine one - he is often linked with feline adjectives and adverbs, and is even described as beautiful on some occasions. It could be argued that a certain level of this image of the Asian male continues today, with Asian male leads in Hollywood non-existent. Moreover, Fu is not physically strong and often uses assassins on his behalf. And his weapon of choice? Poisonous mushrooms and fungi. But some of Fu Manchu’s attributes are commendable. He is fiercely intelligent, frequently running rings around his nemeses Commissioner Smith and Dr Petrie. When he lays traps for his adversaries, Dr Fu leaves an escape route, if they are clever enough to find it. Fu Manchu is true to his word, and possesses humility, as he is able to compliment his enemies when he deems their actions worthy. Perhaps his longest lasting legacy is the ‘Fu Manchu moustache’, even though Rohmer always described Fu as hairless. 

That said, there is not much for Chinese to reclaim in him because Dr Fu Manchu is, in essence, a Western construct.