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Figuring out city history of family heirlooms
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FOR French TV producer Ivan Macaux, bringing his great-grandfather’s 109 vintage figurines to Shanghai will be like a trip “home.”
“This year is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-French diplomatic relations. It would be great for these figurines to travel back to Shanghai, to the place where they were born,” the 30-year-old told Shanghai Daily.
“The figurines were made almost 77 years ago by a group of orphans in Shanghai,” said Macaux.
They were bestowed on General Jules Le Bigot, Macaux’s great-grandfather, as a gesture of gratitude for his role in saving many Chinese residents from Japanese artillery fire in the battle that broke out in Shanghai on August 13, 1937.
The Battle of Shanghai was part of China’s overall War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).
Macaux plans to exhibit the figurines, first in Paris in October, and then in Lyon in December and January.
He also hopes to put them on display in Shanghai, and is now looking for private sponsorship in order to make the exhibition happen.
As a boy, Macaux scoured his grandparents’ attic for family relics.
His “Indiana Jones” dream came true in October 2011, when he opened an old wooden trunk in the family house in Puget-sur-Argens, a small village between Nice and Marseille in southern France.
The trunk was originally where Macaux’s late grandfather and great-grandfather had stashed memorabilia and souvenirs of their careers as senior French navy officers.
The moment Macaux opened the trunk, “my eyes widened with amazement at a cluster of exotic figurines inside.”
They were exquisitely carved out of fine wood, with great attention to detail, and bore typical Chinese features.
They depict street scenes of old China. A mandarin, in full official regalia and dark glasses, is accompanied by a woman, while a peddler sells watermelons to an urchin.
“These figurines represent every walk of life in Chinese society, from elite people to coolies, monks to torturers,” Macaux said.
He counted them. There were 109 in all, invariably 10 to 12 centimeters in height. But Macaux could not trace their origins, until something caught his eye.
Consult an expert
It was a label on the trunk, written in French, that read “Orphelinat de Tu Se We, Shanghai,” — the Orphanage of Tu Se We, Shanghai. A date followed: June 23, 1938.
Curious, Macaux surmised that these figurines belonged to his great-grandfather, General Jules Le Bigot, who once served in Shanghai, but he had no idea beyond that.
“I’m a TV producer. I knew nothing about Shanghai’s history, so I decided to consult an expert,” said Macaux.
He turned to the Internet for help, sending e-mails and photographs of figurines to a dozen Chinese history experts.
A few replied, and one of the most interesting replies came from Christian Henriot, a famous French sinologist and expert on Shanghai’s history who is better known by his Chinese name An Keqiang. He teaches at the Institut d’Asie Orientale of Lyon University.
From Henriot’s e-mail, Macaux learned that the figurines might be gifts from orphans in Tu Se We — a transcription of how Tushanwan is pronounced in Shanghai Dialect.
Tushanwan was an early home of French culture in the city’s southwestern area of Xujiahui. Jesuit missionaries ran an orphanage — it was closed in 1960 — and spread Christianity, Western culture and art in the area.
The figurines were made by orphans aged between 9 and 15, who displayed what Macaux calls “unbelievable” craftsmanship for their age, according to Henriot.
Macaux said when he sent some figurines to a wood sculptor in Paris for repairs to minor damage, “he looked dazzled, and told his apprentices to come for a look.”
The next minute the sculptor remarked, “Look what little Chinese children can do and what you did!” Macaux recounted.
He and Henriot worked together to find out the story behind the discovery, with the sinologist searching old military archives for clues.
After a year and a half of research in Paris and Lyon, Henriot confirmed that these figurines were indeed gifts given to Macaux’s great-grandfather, General Le Bigot, for his role in saving the former French Concession from being shelled during Japan’s invasion of Shanghai in 1937.
“My great-grandfather arrived in Shanghai in May or June, 1937 as the commander-in-chief of the French Navy Forces in the Far East,” said Macaux.
Le Bigot’s mission was to protect what was then the French Concession area.
With tensions running ever higher as Japanese navy fleet would attack from Huangpu River at any minute, Le Bigot faced a growing challenge in putting the French area out of harm’s way.
According to Macaux, that challenge finally morphed into a debilitating crisis when Le Bigot was presented a letter from Japanese Admiral Hiroshi Hasegawa, commander of Japan’s fleet that attacked Shanghai.
In the letter, Hasegawa asked his French counterpart to move his ship Lamotte-Picquet a bit higher up the Huangpu River, so that the Japanese fleet could have a prime position to fire upon the French Concession, said Macaux.
Le Bigot didn’t yield to the Japanese request, and thus the French Concession escaped almost unscathed.
“Because of Le Bigot’s refusal to comply, a large number of Shanghai inhabitants were saved,” said Ma Jun, a historian and senior researcher with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
According to him, many Chinese fleeing the Japanese troops sought refuge in the French Concession during the war.
While Le Bigot’s primary aim was to protect French interests in Shanghai, his refusal to bow to Japanese demands shielded hundreds, if not thousands, of Shanghai residents from Japanese artillery, said Ma.
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