Japan & China, 1927--Dorothy Stebbins Bowles--home movies. Reel 1

Date1927

Can Descriptions1927 Dorothy Stebbins - Round the World trip Japan and China #1 / "Empress of Asia"

Viewing NotesVancouver B.C. Harbor aboard the S.S. Empress of India: Gangplank of ship being withdrawn. People throwing paper streamers. Shot of crowd waving on the pier. The ship pulls away from the harbor. Shot of Vancouver from the ship. Very choppy ocean with waves crashing onto the deck, calmer water. A woman in a coat and scarf (Kay Wharton) on the deck with the captain. Two men and two women playing tennikoit, or deck tennis, on the ship deck. Kay with two older male passengers. Japan: Shot of a Japanese woman in a kimono sitting on a bench. A different woman with a baby strapped on her back and two children stands by a road. A young Japanese girl in front of a house playing with an umbrella. A woman with a baby strapped on her back raking. Kay pulls a rope in front of a temple. Street scenes on a small street: Man pulls a cart with hay bundles, people walk down the road, an oxen cart. [Tokyo?] Busy street full of people, women and children. Kay sits at a table by a large lake with mountains in the background. Children playing, a Japanese man walks down the road. Woods, mountains across the water (Lake Hakone?). A woman washing her hands in a ditch by the road. Houses. Street scenes. Child on the beach with a yoke. Woman on beach with children. Mount Fuji and landscape from moving train. People on a crowded bridge. [Kyoto?] City street with street car and people on bikes and in carts. River with houses close on either side. A young boy in uniform. Street scenes. Several children. People washing clothes in the canal. Shops. Kobe, Japan: Boats in the harbor. Shot from boat as it pulls away from the pier with paper streamers being held by people on the boat and on the pier. Other small boats and coastal landscape from shot from the ship. China: Chinese Junks. Flat Chinese coastline. Huts along the shore. Beijing: Rickshaws. Kay riding a donkey up to the Temple of the Sleeping Buddha. Eric Clarke (an Englishman) walking up a hill, Clarke sitting with Kay talking. Two women (Dorothy and Kay) walking around a temple. Dorothy on a terrace, petting a dog. Kay and Dorothy pointing cameras at each other filming. Kay and Clarke wave at camera. Old Chinese man carrying sticks up the hill. Mountains. Clarke talking to a Chinese man. More Chinese buildings around another temple? Camels and a camel handler. People riding donkeys. Road with camel statues along it. More stone statues. [Road outside Ming Tombs, Beijing?] Jinan Harbor: Chinese men go up a gangplank onto a ship. A Chinese boy poses for the camera. Loading supplies onto ship (S.S. Darien Maru). Shot of the harbor from the ship: boats, people on the wharf, other piers. Shanghai: Harbor. Street scenes. Horse-drawn taxis waiting. People with yokes getting on small boats, merchants by the water. Min Hunt Club for the Paper Hunt: people saddling horses. Crowds gathered to watch a horse race – westerners on the horses and running the race. Men and women get out of a car (George Hogg and Percy Cox, the men that Kay and Dorothy are staying with in Shanghai). Hogg doffs his hat and then climbs into the car. Kay runs up onto a porch. Portrait of Dorothy, turning in a circle showing her short hair (she cut it short while in Beijing). Chinese man on a terrace. Landscape from terrace. [End of reel]

Anecdotal Comments & ReflectionsDorothy bought her camera for this trip around the world. In a letter home to her mother on 10/12/1927 Dorothy wrote, "I went to an Eastman store and got instructions on how to load and run my camera and went to some bookstores to get a few books on China and Japan. Tomorrow I shall start taking pictures - gosh isn't it thrilling - I can't wait to get going." In a separate letter on 10/13/1927 she told her mother about the ship leaving port. The ship leaving is the first image on this reel. "Leaving was most exciting! A Philipino orchestra played and everyone threw paper streamers. K[ay] and I took pictures right and left - I do hope they come out. I shall send them after we get to Shanghai where we can have them developed." In a letter on 10/23/1927 Dorothy described filming some of the bad weather that they had on the ship. this segment can be seen from 00:55-1:43 in the film. "It was darn rough, even the Captain admitted it was exceptional. K[ay] and I got some pretty darn good pictures of it taken from the bridge and I want you to know we got soaking wet in the process The bow of the boat would go right under and spray came up over the top bridge where we were." source: Dorothy S. Bowles Papers, 1887-2012; Dorothy Stebbins to Ada Stebbins, Letters. October 12-23, 1927. MC 813, folder #1.4. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.