A collection of poetry-by poet laureate of the China Treaty Ports Shamus A'Rabbit-and cartoons by Sapajou, this compilation offers a fresh perspective on the foreign experience in Old China. From A'Rabbit's sharp and hilarious portrayals of travelers in the Orient to his bouncy and rhythmic satirical wit and distaste for hypocrisy and pretension, this remarkable record paints a unique portrait of China in the colonial era.

Shamus A'Rabbitt was the pseudonym of James Aloysius Rabbitt, an American engineer who spent most of the years between World War I and World War II working in China and Japan. He worked on various harbor and dockyard development programs in China and served as commercial attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. His poetry appeared in numerous Chinese and Japanese newspapers throughout his time in the Far East. Sapajou was the pseudonym of Georgi Sapojnikoff, a refugee from the Bolshevik revolution and a political cartoonist for the North-China Daily News and the North China Herald. Sapajou was the best loved cartoonist of the old Shanghai. Born in Russia before the 1917 revolution, he served as a lieutenant in the Imperial Russian Army, was wounded and then studied drawing at the Moscow Academy of Arts. A refugee from the Bolshevik revolution, he arrived in Shanghai in 1920. He was a regular political cartoonist for the North-China Daily News and the North China Herald, and was featured as an illustrator in several popular books.