A new book, “Her Lotus Year”, tells the story of Wallis Simpson in China in the roaring twenties. Wallis, the American divorcee for whom a king renounced his throne, was maligned unfairly by the British Establishment because of the time she spent in the supposed fleshpots of the Far East. She was accused of prostitution, opium addiction, pornographic modelling, love affairs with married men, lesbianism, sexual menages a trois, exotic massage techniques to encourage ejaculation and her supposed way learned in a Chinese brothel of pleasuring men with the “Shanghai Grip” . The latter was said to be the reason Edward VIII was obsessed with her.
“Her Lotus Year” is by Paul French, who specialises in books set in China, notably “Midnight in Peking”. We got our copy of his latest book from Bookazine*.
Wallis’s time in the Far East was vastly different from the tawdry imaginings of the envious in London. In 1924, Wallis Warfield Spencer, 28, boarded a US Navy transport sailing to Hong Kong. She hoped to save her marriage to Navy pilot Earl “Win” Spencer, who was an abusive drunk with a temper. It didn’t work, because of Spencer’s alcoholic nastiness, and she left him. “Her Lotus Year” tells what happened to Wallis next.
She travelled to Shanghai, which was, indeed, roaring. Wallis found she could mix easily in sophisticated international company. During her year-long stay, including spells in Peking, she would “develop a lifelong appreciation of traditional Chinese style and aesthetics,” French writes, “developing the exquisite taste for which she became renowned”. She made lifelong friends and enjoyed a genuine love affair.
In was a time of political turmoil in China, the revolution of Dr Sun Yat-sen, violent struggles for power among the warlords. The country was close to civil war. Wallis stayed safe in the international settlements, mixing with a sophisticated set far more interesting than the drab US naval base society she had known previously. Wallis wrote in her memoir, “The Heart Has Its Reasons”: “What was without doubt the most delightful, the most carefree, the most lyrical interval of my youth — the nearest thing to a lotus-eater’s dream that a young woman brought up the ‘right’ way could expect to know.”
Wallis was nothing like London set imagined feverishly. She was a woman of courage, elegance and sophistication, perhaps marred by fierce ambition, who may have acted for the US Government undertaking diplomatic missions in a China that was chaotic at the time.
In 1937 the Simpsons divorced, and after abdicating his crown, the king paid Wallis the greatest compliment possible — he gave up a throne and an empire for her. She became the Duchess of Windsor and wrote, ” In later years I was to reflect upon how much I missed China.”
Wallis was to outlive the former king. The Duke of Windsor died in 1972 at 77. Wallis died in Paris in 1986 at 89. The couple are buried together at the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore, Windsor. One of her biographers said of Wallis, ” She experienced the ultimate fairy tale, becoming the adored favourite of the most glamorous bachelor of his time. The idyll went wrong when, ignoring her pleas, he threw up his position to spend the rest of his life with her.” Wallis is said to have summed up her life,” You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.”
*Bookazine is the largest chain of book shops in Hong Kong with stores at Landmark, Lyndhurst Terrace, IFC, Festival Walk, Tai Kwun (central police station), Kowloon Tong and Repulse Bay. Nearly forty years old it is owned and run by the Mirchandani family. Shonee Mirchandani is the management chief. Bestsellers now on offer at Bookazine include “Screens That Eat Children”, “The Pharoah’s Pitch”, “The Vibrant Hong Kong Table”, “Big Bites Boundaries”, “The Global Citizen” and “The Great Port Cities of Asia in History”.
Bookazine will give BUZZ readers 20% the book reviewed above using promocode lotus20 until the end of the year.
“Her Lotus Years” by Paul French: St. Martin’s Press (2024) ISBN-10: 1250287472 ISBN-13: 978-1250287472
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