These were shot most likely in Weihai, China, and it couldn't have been later than 1922. My mother is the one on the left and her sister is next to her.
The men are what they called 'coolies' and I don't know if that's an epithet, term of derision, or all of the above. Men in this status did the most menial work and this was a relatively-easy task in carrying my mother and her sister around. She said when they were dressed-up, it was the job of the coolies to ensure their little feet never touched the ground.
There won't be any editorial on human rights or anything of that nature because this is from such a remote dimension. Who can really even conceive of someone whose job is to carry someone else around but you see how that went.
Surprisingly, this did not make her a racially-insensitive, intolerant woman as that wasn't even close to true and, if anything, she had a tendency to over-compensate.
I think this one is my mother and the parental units out there can take one guess at her current need.
Apparently her li'l feets were permitted to touch the ground at some point so we really don't know what to make of that aspect ... but we do love the hats!
She was the eldest so those must be miscellaneous siblings behind her and maybe Granny in the distance.
Here's a much better shot of her and maybe she was only three so that would make this 1921.
Even my mother was kind of a blondie back then. For feet which don't touch the ground much, she has sure managed to get quite a bit of mud on them.
Note: my mother was decidedly not blonde. She never had such curly hair either. I'm sure this is her because of the cast of her lips and any sibs reading this may be nodding at that one.
Here's one more to complete the series.
This does not look like one happy model but she still looks adorable, all dressed-up with her li'l parasol. Keep in mind the family is Scots so they think it's sunny even when there's a Full Moon.
(Ed: they don't get much Sun in Scotland?)
Let's put it this way: if Scotland gets any less Sun, the Scots will turn into Morlocks. They already eat haggis, they don't have that far to go.
Most of these pictures were unknown to me and perhaps Lotho has not seem them either. They're uploaded here with the same dimensions as when they came to me so you can save them by dragging them out of here to drop them on your desktop.
There are some others from when she was about ninety and they're actually quite good but I will only send those ones privately. She was extremely shy and I don't think she would much like me posting them. That's not a judgment of whomever did post them as I would not have them otherwise. It's my own judgment it would not be good to post them here.
Here's some more China trivia as the British leased territory in Weihai and this became the Weihai Garrison from 1898 to 1930. That adds another twist to how the hotels were lost, one in Weihai and one in Shanghai, since the standing explanation is my great-grandfather lost everything in the crash before the Great Depression but there may be more to the story.
There doesn't seem much reason to pursue it beyond that as the only question it answers is why didn't I end up filthy rich. I don't need any validation I am not filthy rich so there doesn't seem much play in the investigation. This one pends for the interested student.
Hopefully you have got some demented kick out of the visit to China in 1921 or so and the last legs of the British Empire. My grandfather wasn't some kind of military goombah but rather worked for Cables & Wireless so he was somewhat akin to the modern cable guys who bring it to where it never was before.
Perhaps you have seen "Gandhi" and observed what utter bastards the British were in India prior to independence. My grandfather was not associated with the Foreign Service either and had no part of that sort of behavior. China was not colonized in any case but the British had a significant presence there.
That becomes significant for yet more trivia as the foreign military presence in China was part of the defense when Japan attacked before WWII. One component of that was with General Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers, a semi-legal crew of high-talent pilots, and they caused a lot of problems for the Japanese.
That's not the trivia part, tho. Apparently there was a German presence in China at that time as well and they are said to have fought against the Japanese attack. Again, the interested student is invited to pursue that one because I don't have the citation but I do recall it was from a source which struck me as credible.
That's my family, man. We have been kicked out of the coolest places on the planet!
The men are what they called 'coolies' and I don't know if that's an epithet, term of derision, or all of the above. Men in this status did the most menial work and this was a relatively-easy task in carrying my mother and her sister around. She said when they were dressed-up, it was the job of the coolies to ensure their little feet never touched the ground.
There won't be any editorial on human rights or anything of that nature because this is from such a remote dimension. Who can really even conceive of someone whose job is to carry someone else around but you see how that went.
Surprisingly, this did not make her a racially-insensitive, intolerant woman as that wasn't even close to true and, if anything, she had a tendency to over-compensate.
I think this one is my mother and the parental units out there can take one guess at her current need.
Apparently her li'l feets were permitted to touch the ground at some point so we really don't know what to make of that aspect ... but we do love the hats!
She was the eldest so those must be miscellaneous siblings behind her and maybe Granny in the distance.
Here's a much better shot of her and maybe she was only three so that would make this 1921.
Even my mother was kind of a blondie back then. For feet which don't touch the ground much, she has sure managed to get quite a bit of mud on them.
Note: my mother was decidedly not blonde. She never had such curly hair either. I'm sure this is her because of the cast of her lips and any sibs reading this may be nodding at that one.
Here's one more to complete the series.
This does not look like one happy model but she still looks adorable, all dressed-up with her li'l parasol. Keep in mind the family is Scots so they think it's sunny even when there's a Full Moon.
(Ed: they don't get much Sun in Scotland?)
Let's put it this way: if Scotland gets any less Sun, the Scots will turn into Morlocks. They already eat haggis, they don't have that far to go.
Most of these pictures were unknown to me and perhaps Lotho has not seem them either. They're uploaded here with the same dimensions as when they came to me so you can save them by dragging them out of here to drop them on your desktop.
There are some others from when she was about ninety and they're actually quite good but I will only send those ones privately. She was extremely shy and I don't think she would much like me posting them. That's not a judgment of whomever did post them as I would not have them otherwise. It's my own judgment it would not be good to post them here.
Here's some more China trivia as the British leased territory in Weihai and this became the Weihai Garrison from 1898 to 1930. That adds another twist to how the hotels were lost, one in Weihai and one in Shanghai, since the standing explanation is my great-grandfather lost everything in the crash before the Great Depression but there may be more to the story.
There doesn't seem much reason to pursue it beyond that as the only question it answers is why didn't I end up filthy rich. I don't need any validation I am not filthy rich so there doesn't seem much play in the investigation. This one pends for the interested student.
Hopefully you have got some demented kick out of the visit to China in 1921 or so and the last legs of the British Empire. My grandfather wasn't some kind of military goombah but rather worked for Cables & Wireless so he was somewhat akin to the modern cable guys who bring it to where it never was before.
Perhaps you have seen "Gandhi" and observed what utter bastards the British were in India prior to independence. My grandfather was not associated with the Foreign Service either and had no part of that sort of behavior. China was not colonized in any case but the British had a significant presence there.
That becomes significant for yet more trivia as the foreign military presence in China was part of the defense when Japan attacked before WWII. One component of that was with General Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers, a semi-legal crew of high-talent pilots, and they caused a lot of problems for the Japanese.
That's not the trivia part, tho. Apparently there was a German presence in China at that time as well and they are said to have fought against the Japanese attack. Again, the interested student is invited to pursue that one because I don't have the citation but I do recall it was from a source which struck me as credible.
That's my family, man. We have been kicked out of the coolest places on the planet!
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