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Susan Blumberg-Kason, Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of The Doyenne of Old China, Post Hill Press, 2023. 275 pgs.

“Acknowledgements are also due to… Bernardine Szold Fritz… who, sometimes singly and sometimes in chorus, nagged me into writing this book.” Readers of My Country and My People, Lin Yutang’s famous book about China and its people, first published in 1935, would have read the above passage in the Author’s Preface where Bernadine’s name was mentioned. But perhaps for many, the name did not mean much. “She was not a household name in the US, and most of her famous friends did not think to repay her many kindnesses with public recognition[.]” Few people have heard about Bernadine’s connection with Lin and other preeminent Chinese writers and artists in Shanghai in the 1930s, just before the Japanese invasion.

Bernadine lived an extraordinary life, starting in 1896 in Peoria, Illinois, ending in 1982 in Los Angeles, with journeys to Chicago, New York, Paris, and of course, Shanghai, in between. She was an influential figure in the world of literature and arts, but other than appearing occasionally in the background of the writings and correspondences of her more well-known friends, she was rarely in the limelight. Until now. Susan Blumberg-Kason’s illuminating and thoroughly researched biography of Bernadine Szold Fritz presents a dazzling portrait of this intriguing, fascinating woman, and hopefully, reclaims her rightful place in history.

Bernadine’s journey to China started in 1929 when she travelled by train from Paris to Manchuria to marry Chester Fritz, a silver broker from North Dakota, who had arrived in China as early as 1917, and who would become Bernardine’s fourth husband. They had only met once before, more than six months earlier, in Shanghai, when Bernardine and her friend the American heiress Barbara Harrison embarked on a fourteen-month trip through Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Chester had courted Bernadine with a stream of telegrams, imploring Bernadine to return to Shanghai and marry him. This sounds almost like modern-day online dating. Sometimes, it does work out. In the case of Bernadine and Chester:

“They both stared at one another with no clue as to what came next, Chester with a tight-lipped smile and Bernadine speechless, perhaps for the first time in her life.”

Bernadine was a romantic at heart, and she was brave to continue to believe in and search for love after three failed marriages. It took real courage to leave Paris and start a new life in Shanghai.

Her marriage to Chester soon proved to be trying, if not an outright mistake. Chester had no tolerance for Rosemary, Bernadine’s daughter from her first marriage. During Rosemary’s one and only visit to Shanghai, Chester refused to talk to the girl. In addition, self-centred to the extreme like a very young child, Chester was not a supportive husband during Bernadine’s health crises, one of which resulting in a hasty mastectomy. How sad it was for Bernadine, or for any woman, to not be able to talk to her husband about her health problems, for fear he would weep and throw a tantrum like a baby. As Blumberg-Kason writes,

“Bernadine may have held progressive ideas when it came to politics and equality, but she was still subject to the same social and cultural constraints and expectation of her time, whether she realized it or not.”

Although Bernardine might have failed in her many efforts trying to please and appease Chester and save their marriage, she succeeded in what she did the best: bringing people together. Having written for the New Yorker, the Chicago Evening Post, the New York Daily News, and the China Critic in Shanghai, Bernadine was a seasoned writer and journalist in her own right. Having studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and being a part of Chicago’s Little Theatre, she had also been an artist. But in her own words, she had “an enthusiasm, a vitality… an exotic kind of personality that appealed to people”, and this was what she did in Shanghai. In the style of salons organised by other Jewish women of her time in Europe, most notably Gertrude Stein’s in Paris, Bernadine transformed the living room of her and Chester’s residence in the French Concession into a gathering place for domestic and international writers and artists. The salon was called the Red and Black Apartment by its regular guests, including Hu Shih (“her first Chinese friend in Shanghai”), Lin Yutang and his wife Liao Tsui-fen, the poet and publisher Sinmay Zau, members of the Soong family, Mei Lanfang, the actresses Tong (Tang) Ying and Butterfly Wu, and Daisy “the Shanghai Princess” Kwok. Her international guests included Sir Victor Sassoon, Charlie Chaplin, Claudette Colbert, Emily Hahn, the Russian Jewish composer Aaron Avshalomoff, the Mexican artists Miguel Covarrubias and his wife Rosa, and Anna May Wong. Reading this biography of Bernadine is like taking a refresher course of a Who’s Who in the 1930’s literary and art world in Shanghai. As reported in the North China Herald in October 1933, “It would have been difficult to name a nationality which was not represented at Mrs. Chester Fritz’s cocktail party[.]” Bernadine’s salon was international and inclusive.

Bernadine’s other great achievement in Shanghai was founding the International Arts Theater in 1933. Through the four years of IAT (it was forced to be closed in 1937 due to the Japanese invasion), with a mission of “promoting and encouraging a fuller knowledge of the life and arts of each other by the various nationalities to be found in Shanghai,” she produced ballets, plays, lectures (including in 1935, a “controversial debate around birth control in Shanghai, newly available over the past five years” and a “Russia night” to celebrate Soviet culture), and fine arts exhibitions. The most famous production was Lady Precious Stream. Unlike productions in the West where white actors wore yellow face to play Chinese characters, the IAT production’s entire cast were Chinese. Later Bernadine advised the Broadway production to hire Chinese actors, and Anna May Wong campaigned to play the lead role, but they both failed in their attempt.

Blumberg-Kason combines her extensive historical research and fine story-telling skills to present to the readers a woman of extreme complexity. Bernadine was limited in certain ways by her time. Her life was part of “transnational colonialism”, a term coined by the scholar Isabella Jackson, and refers to a type of authority exercised not by big, national powers but by residents—Westerners and prosperous Chinese and Japanese, in Shanghai. Because of Chester’s wealth, she lived in the French Concession, away from the Chinese city—a privileged life with many Chinese servants, and she only realised years later that “we got very spoiled in a certain way”, and “what a cruel life it was for the poor people”. She went on to say that “every decent person rejoiced when the system changed”, referring to the arrival of Communism in 1949.

Bernardine was ambivalent about her Judaism and Jewish identity. Growing up in Peoria, she felt like an outsider. Her parents sent their children to Methodist schools, hoping to impart in them good discipline. She most certainly encountered anti-Semitism in Europe of the mid-1930s, mentioning a “cruel episode” in a letter to a friend. She lamented that “when people find out you’re a Jew, they resent not having known”, whereas there was never such a requirement to declare one’s identity for being “a Catholic or Spaniard”. In Shanghai, she worked and befriended many Jews, like Aaron Avshalomoff, Dr Max Mohr—a physician and friend of D.H. Lawrence, who fled Germany to Shanghai in 1933, Sir Victor Sassoon, and Emily Hahn. On the other hand, Bernardine also worked with Nazi sympathisers and collaborators with the Japanese, perhaps because she was “politically naïve”, or “uninterested, uninformed, or knowingly turning a blind eye”. After returning to the US, Bernadine was actively involved in anti-Nazi causes, and also donated to the American League for a Free Palestine, an organisation with goals such as a “Jewish state” and “to rebuild Palestine in its historical boundaries, with the Arab population as equal partner”. I’d like to think that Bernadine was a true believer of the shared human experience, regardless of one’s nationality, background, or creed. In her words, “…if people can come together in groups, through altruistic motives—I think there is no more fascinating experiment, and if I may say so, no more exacting social discipline”.

Perhaps for readers and Bernardine herself, the biggest “controversy” in her life was her relationship with her only daughter Rosemary, and what could have become of Rosemary and her daughter and grandson, had Bernardine kept her daughter by her side instead of shuffling the girl between boarding schools and enlisting her friends as surrogate mothers. What if Bernardine had been a mother to Rosemary, which was what Rosemary needed, instead of being a friend, as Bernadine had made herself to believe? If Chester had been more tolerant of Rosemary, could Rosemary’s tragic life have been avoided? Is it fair to blame Bernardine for everything that went wrong with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson? The answer is we don’t know. Blumberg-Kason had this pungent comment about Bernardine’s achievement and being a mother:

“Bernardine’s achievements, had they been accomplished by a man, would never have been diminished by her parenting style.”

Blumberg-Kason concludes the book with this insight about Bernardine:

“She broke into acting and journalism at a time when women couldn’t vote. She had the courage to divorce when her marriage fell apart, even if it means living without financial security. She was a romantic and an arts aficionado, and adventurer and a loyal friend. She felt more content bringing talented and extraordinary people together during a time of incredible innovation and accomplishment in the arts.”

I couldn’t agree more. And for me, I will also cherish this image of this amazing woman:

“Bernadine brings her rice bowl to her mouth with one hand and her chopsticks with the other. With her signature turban and chucky earrings and necklaces, Bernadine’s wide eyes appear as hypnotic spirals.”

How to cite: Collins, X. H. “The Extraordinary Story of Bernardine Szold Fritz—A Review of Susan Blumberg-Kason’s Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of The Doyenne of Old China.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 28 Nov. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/11/28/bernardine.

X. H. Collins was born in Hechuan, Sichuan Province, China, and grew up in Kangding on the East Tibet Plateau. She has a PhD in nutrition and is a retired biology professor. She is the author of the novel Flowing Water, Falling Flowers (MWC Press, 2020), and has published short stories and essays. She now lives in Iowa with her family. For more information, visit her website and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. [All contributions by X. H. Collins.]

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