Shao Xunmei

Shao Xunmei (; Shanghainese: Zau Sinmay; 1906–1968) was a Chinese poet and publisher. He was a contributing writer for T'ien Hsia Monthly, and also was the owner of Modern Sketch. He originated from Shanghai. Jonathan Hutt wrote in Monstre Sacré: The Decadent World of Sinmay Zau that "For many, Shao was not simply inspired by the Occident but rather was of it" and that his lack of awareness of "the Chinese literary scene" distinguished him from his colleagues. On some occasions he used the name Hao Wen. Life He was born Shao Yunlong in 1906 into a wealthy Shanghainese family with its ancestral hometown in Yuyao, Zhejiang. Shao lived in the wealthiest part of Shanghai, Bubbling Well Road. His grandfather was a high-ranking official who served as governor of Taiwan and as a diplomat to Russia. His father Shao Heng married Sheng Xihui, a daughter of the tycoon Sheng Xuanhuai; Xunmei was the oldest of their six children. Shao had been tailed by tabloids since his childhood and had various girlfriends including the actress White Lotus (白蓮 Báilián) and a woman with the English name Prudence; Shao was briefly jailed after a man who was infatuated with Prudence was murdered but Shao was found to have been not guilty and released. Shao began a tour of Europe at age 17 in 1923 and continued it until 1927, going to Naples, Italy; Cambridge, England, and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris; he was educated in Cambridge and Paris. While in Europe he had relationships with women there. He finished a poetry collection towards the end of the trip and published it, titled Parade and May, in 1927. He became intrigued by the English writer Algernon Charles Swinburne and French writer Charles Baudelaire. The titles of works Fire and Flesh (火與肉 Huǒ yǔ ròu) and Flower-like Evil (花一般的罪惡 Huā yībān de zuì'è) were respectively inspired by a Swinburne poem and Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire. The latter is an updated version of the earlier Paradise and May.