The Sand Pebbles, starring the “King of Cool” Steve McQueen, is one of the best films of the 1960s. The film focuses on the journey of a Navy Engineer by the name of Jake Holman in the year 1926 in China, a time of great political upheaval. After nearly a century of foreign domination, with countries such as Japan, America, the UK, Russia and other states slicing China up into different spheres of influence under the ‘unequal treaties’ China finds itself in a great civil war with nationalists and communists vying for influence. Meanwhile many missionaries, military men, foreign businessmen, diplomats and academics still found themselves in China.