The Horrors of Skewed Writing

For our Global China class, we were asked to read an excerpt from a book which was simply titled "Chinese Horrors." This should have been a clear giveaway that the entire article was going to be bleak and at least somewhat biased, as it begins on such a dark note. In the beginning of the chapter, the author describes his trip to China, specifically the area of Canton, and says that he viewed atrocious acts committed to his “fellow-creatures” in the hopes of gaining some sympathy from his audience. He says that the reader does not know the “real” China unless he or she was able to witness either firsthand or through something such as the article the true corruption of the Chinese legal system of the time.

Immediately I came to the realization that he was using his limited knowledge that he had gained through briefly visiting the country to pass judgment on the people who lived there. His chapter on his experiences starts with an emotional appeal, trying to portray a semblance of feeling for the people whom he writes about. However, the rest of the article proceeds to tear the entire first paragraph to shreds, and to expose how he truly feels about the Chinese people.


He uses this emotional appeal to set the reader up to be appalled and disgusted by what he proceeds to say throughout the rest of the chapter. After he finished describing the horrors that the Chinese government officials committed upon the people who had done crimes, and the gruesome executions of pirates and murderers, he uses his imagery and blunt details to regard the Chinese people as no more than savages.


It was really difficult to read parts of the article again while knowing that he used the power of his words to coax the reader into taking a specific view, especially when they were in a period of time where most people would readily do so anyway. I found myself wondering how often we really use our words in the beginning of our argument to appeal to our listeners to agree with our point of view. How often do they notice that we do, and how often do we get away with using our opening argument to make any information that we provide seem all the more biased and damning of the other party?