Was the Inspiration for James Bond a Lost Laowai?

Well maybe he wasn’t the only inspiration for British uberspy James Bond, but Peter Fleming certainly was one crazy laowai.

Peter Fleming was the older brother of Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming and one of the best known travel writers of 1930s England. A very rich adventure writer, the Flemings came from an important banking family and Peter was considered so “posh” that he was unable to get a job at the BBC because he had too much of an upper-crust British accent. Fleming first became famous for a book he wrote called Brazilian Adventure about his trip across Brazil to find the lost expedition of Col. Percy Fawcett.

After the success of Brazilian Adventure, Peter Fleming took two marathon trips to China on the Trans-Siberian Express. These two books, One Man’s Company and News from Tartary, became two of the most popular books on China during the 1930s. Fleming described trips that went from China’s northern border with Russia through to South China and a meeting with the Communist Party (One Man’s Company) and from Beijing to British India via Xinjian (News from Tartary).

Reading these books you get the impression that Fleming is one rugged and adventurous guy. He’s not afraid to go without modern conveniences in order to explore strange and mysterious China. At least that’s what I thought after reading One Man’s Company. While until I attended the Shanghai International Literary Festival last weekend where writer Paul French changed this impression with his talk on Fleming. Here’s some of the things French corrected for me:

• Fleming may have wrote his books as though he was traveling alone, but really he traveled with a collection of servants who carried all his trunks with garments and his alcohol and typewriter. In News from Tartary he actually had a travel companion, Ms. Ella Maillart, but she’s never mentioned in the book. We only know because Maillart wrote her own book that mentions Fleming.
• Fleming wasn’t one for local food — even though he had no sense of taste or smell. He only ever ate sausages and marmalade.
• In Maillart’s account of their travels from Beijing to Kashmir, Fleming is always rushing and doesn’t want to stop. It wasn’t because he was fascinated by the place and wanted to see more. He was rushing because he wanted to get back to England in time for hunting season!
• When Fleming interviewed Chiang Kai-shek he could only think to ask him three questions.
• Fleming felt that the Japanese would civilize Northern China with their invasion in the early 1930s.
• He also thought there was no way that the communists could ever control China.

Uh so maybe Fleming wasn’t really the rugged adventurer I thought he was. Instead I think he was a bit more of a lost laowai running across China trying to get home to England for hunting season. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out Fleming’s work. He might have been a little lost, but he knew how to write a travel story.