The first treaty ports in China were opened in 1843. Here, for nearly a century, foreign traders ruled their own settlements, administered their own laws, controlled their own police forces and ran the customs service. Despite typhoons, disease, banditry and riots, merchants and missionary families in the treaty ports led as far as possible a foreign life. In 1943 the treaty ports were returned to China and most of their inhabitants interned by the Japanese. Yet the record of their residency remains in Shanghai's solid office buildings, in Tientsin's mock Tudor facades, and in the Edwardian villas of Peitaiho and Amoy. The last inhabitants of the treaty ports are also still alive: through their reminiscences and the accounts of their predecessors Frances Wood recalls a foreign life lived in a foreign land.
- ISBN10 071956400X
- ISBN13 9780719564000
- Publish Date 11 May 2000 (first published 18 June 1998)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 24 October 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher John Murray Press
- Imprint John Murray Publishers Ltd
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 384
- Language English