Old China Photos and Texts

Amoy Junk, Waard, 1922

2011-08-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Ahoy from Amoy!

I'm working on another historical book about Amoy, and have run into a dead end trying to find a copy of the Popular Mechanics December 1922 edition. Does anyone have an idea where I can get it, other than the low quality scan at Google Books? I'd love to get either the original page or a high resolution scan of page 823 (I do have the original photo from which the page was made, but need the sketches in it--a scan of the entire page).

The China Review, Volume 3, tells the story of how Waard prepared to cross the Pacific in his Amoy junk. It turned out to be quite a challenge for him, his son, and his Chinese wife and crew.

Fortunately he did have a Chinese wife, who knew the junk, and brought her through typhoons so severe that they lost the rudder not once but twice! But Waard said that only an Amoy junk could have made the crossing. The waters off Amoy (now Xiamen) have long been notorious for their dangerous currents--even though Amoy harbor itself has for at least 500 years been prized as a great port and safe haven.

Read the China Review article, the December 1922 Popular Mechanics article, and after that, read "The House with Red Sails," a novel by Leone Adelson based on the family's life upon the junk named Amoy (I like its dozen or so pencil sketches).

Click these images for larger views of the China Review article, and the illustration in Popular Mechanics.

Enjoy Amoy!
Dr. Bill
Bill Brown
Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com

Xiamen University Music Concert 1920s

2011-08-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

Xiamen's (Amoy's) tiny "Gulangyu Islet" (formerly Kulongsoo, Kolongsoo, etc.) is well known as the Isle of Music, with more pianos per capita (1 in 5 families have a piano) than anywhere else in China. Eleanor Doty, wife of an American Amoy missionary Elihu Doty, had the first piano in the 1850s, according to the memoirs of Mary Doty, who was 6 at the time.

The Amoy Mission built China's first Protestant Church (Xinjie Church), and many not only became Christians but also musicians--especially pianists, because of their use in worship.The small island of Xiamen has produced several hundred well known Chinese musicians, including Yin Chengzong, whom the New York Times said was the best Chinese pianist on the planet (and who was famous for saving pianos from destruction during the Cultural Revolution by rolling one out into Tiananmen Square and playing revolutionary music; who could destroy a politically correct instrument!).

In the 1920s, a British resident of Gulangyu attended a music concert at the newly built Xiamen University, (厦门大学，then known as Amoy University),which was built in 1921 by the Henry Ford of Asia, Tan Kah Kee (陈嘉庚，who invested over USD 100 million in education--over 1 billion in today's dollars). She wrote about this concert in her fascinating account of foreign life in Amoy, "A Race of Green Ginger." (I've never figured out what the title means). Below is her delightful account of this concert.

Amoy University Music Concert, 1920s
Anne-Averil Mackenzie, "A Race of Green Ginger":

'Let me ask the Lim Boon Kengs if we may bring you to the concert at the University. There are going to be celebrated musicians, playing the classical table lute.'

....'I do not like the Chinese,' she said stubbornly.

'You don't know them.'

....She really was impossible. I meant to go, but, all the hardness gone from her face, she was playing Debussy, which I could never resist, and ... How I wished that, like the Lims' daughter Ena, she could enjoy the music of both Europe and Asia. Ena, who told me of her love of the Chinese flute, 'especially when it is played at the dead of night'; Ena, then a quiet, but never anonymous girl in the shadow of her formidable mother, who was to win distinction at the Royal Academy of Music in London, sing the classics of both East and West, write poetry in the style and manner of her forebears and, prevented by circumstances from living in Amoy, to campaign as competendy as her mother for the social services in Singapore, and to send her son to Cambridge.

Ena inherits the tradition of the integrated life and the zest for all aspects of it, which is so salient a characteristic of the educated Chinese. It struck us vividly then that this wholeness of life was still largely taken for granted; the universality of man held to be right and normal, not suspect and phenomenal as we of the West, who have lost it, regard versatility. In China, music's complexity of cosmological connotations persisted longer than in the West. For the West, too, shared the intuitive sense ofoverriding unity until scientific method began taking man and the world apart and developing the pieces. The harmony of the spheres, the association of times, seasons, planets, the ideas of humoral pathology, were not merely the fanciful conceits of poets and doctors steeped in magic, but the intuitive apprehension of an underlying truth, which losing, he who loses is lost.

Media:val schoolmen, such as Aleuin, in his Disputation with his pupil (Charlemagne's son), uses defmitions that would have had a familiar ring to a Chinese scholar.

'What is writing?' asks the younger Pepin. 'The guardian of history,' Aleuin replies. 'What is speech?' 'The revealer of the soul.' 'What are the stars?' 'Pictures on the roof of the heavens, guides to sailors.' 'what is the sun?' 'The splendour of the sky, the divider of the hours.' Had Aleuin been given the latest scientific answer from Greenwich, he would not have been greatly affected, because it was their effect on man, their value as symbols with which he was concerned. The knowledge of phenomenal origin and cause was of far less importance.

In China, music had been inextricably woven into the whole pattern of life. The notes of its pentatonic scale were male and female, were each related to the compass, the planets, the elements; to substances and colours. Do was North, Mercury, wood, black, and each aspect was reversible because it was not a substitute. Music not only had the powers that the West knew through Orpheus, but was held by the Chinese to be essential to the world's equilibrium. Through his musical harmonies or disharmonies, man was responsible for the balance of the earth. The welfare of the empire depended on the correctness of the pitches and scales that he made. But it was in man's heart that music was born, and 'it is the heart that works the miracles, the great heart that in music finds its voice and form'. Music, the ancient Chinese believed, affected government and government affected music. Fourteen centuries before Christ, the psychological and therapeutic value of music was not only recognized but accepted as part of the apparatus of rule, as it was later in classical Greece. The Emperor Wu who lived in the ftrst century
B.C. created an imperial office ofMusic, with special departments
A Race of Green Ginger
for the composition of the various kinds necessary, not to enter
tainment, but to ritual and to rule.
Had 1 known all this at the time, had 1 then been convinced,
as 1 am now, that the pursuit, preservation and correlation of all
forms ofharmony is ofvital importance to me and to humanity,
perhaps I could have learned more from Jeanne; carried her with
me out of Kulangsu to explore broad fields of limitless promise.
As it was, we went without her to the University concert.
Amoy University looked quiet and purposeful in the grey afternoon.

The large plain blocks were lifted from monotony by the upcurved, green-tiled roofs, an excellent blend of Eastern and Western idioms. Its situation, between the granite rocks and the sea, had an austere dignity. It was hard to associate the place and the quietly animated students, drifting about the still raw quadrangle and gardens, with riots and rabbles; with histrionics perhaps, but not with hysterics.

Yet, all over China, it was the students who supplied the most ardent and fanatical agitators, as well as the political spearheads of revolution.

There were a lot of Chinese visitors, also Mr. Peck, the Roots and, striding among them, magnificently tall and fair, the Viking -Mrs. Chen. Was she ever homesick? I could have imagined her fmding some kinship with the Tartar tribes ofthe Mongolian steppes, but the very name Iceland, and all it symbolized for me, seemed impossible to reconcile with this subtropical country and its dark, fine-boned people.

In one of the smaller halls we gathered to hear the se players. The first performer already sat behind the table which bore his instrument, a kind of psaltery, and was there a single orchid in a vase-or am I in another picture? He wore grey brocaded silk beneath his short black satin jacket and bent gravely over the silk strings.

'1 hope,' he eyed us solemnly, 'you, my honoured audience, will not emulate the Emperor Huang Ti who, you will remember, was so deeply moved by the Lady Su's playing of the se that he forthwith ordered the number of strings to be halved in order that he might suffer less.'

The audience was delighted.

'What are they laughing at? What did he say? Do tell me.' I, who had not been able to follow him, pestered Mrs. Lim. She told me, and added that the Emperor Huang Ti had lived a legendary four thousand five hundred years ago.

From the frrst, the music was between the player and his se. He seemed to be privately communing with the strings. Then I had the sensation that he and the se were one, and that their utterances were too subtle for me to understand. As ofhis mother, Talleyrand could have said of the man-se: 'Elle ne parlait que par nuances . .. jamais elle n'a dit un bon mot: c'etait queIque chose de trop exprimee.' Its idiom was entirely strange, too baffling for immediate enjoyment, but it left us both with an aftermath in memory as strong and elusive as the aroma of Chinese tea on the palate.

In China, from legendary times, music was written for poetry and poetry written to be sung. Both spoke a language I could not understand, using age-old symbols, classic repetitions and allusions to which I had not been educated to respond either intellectually or emotionally. Yet this delicate, esoteric-seeming music, the Chinese told me, had been considered so potent as to be dangerous to the virtue of young women, so that the female performers were usually hetaira-like courtesans. Balinese and Javanese music I can easily accept as emotionally and erotically stimulating, but I have never heard any Chinese chamber music that I felt to be anything but cerebral. Perhaps for the Chinese, too, it had a delayed effect, for the Chinese, in spite of a culture based on the male-female concept-the Yin and Yang-and of a hearty sexuality, are one of the most sexually decorous people in the world. No open display of sexual emotion is tolerated. The twentieth-century girl entertainers, who were'still a feature of Chinese banquets, were trained to charm but not seduce, and each one appeared to sing and to pour wine accompanied by her elderly woman attendant. Harris, a guest one night of some Chinese merchants, had committed an unforgivable social error by pinching the buttocks, and generally treating as a prostitute, the highly respectable girl who had poured his wine-behaviour so barbarous in the eyes of his hosts that he had never been invited to another Chinese feast.

Listening to the se players, the power ofChinese music seemed to me to be by association rather than direct appeal to the senses.

Association played a great part in the life of all Chinese. One might say that on all levels, the Chinese were classically educated, as Cyril and I had observed that morning, standing in the audience at the open-air theatre of the city god's temple.

The rich elaborate dresses shone magnificently above the bare brown shoulders, the sweat-soaked shirts of the onlookers. The crowd was packed tight below the stage; sugar-cane sellers, hot dumpling and bean-cake sellers, vendors of brilliant raspberrypink and lime-green cordials generously flecked with dead flies. The crowd was held like meat in brawn, by a thick, cloying smell of sweat, frying and cheap tobacco; glazed over by the brazen assault of the sun, of the cymbals, drums, clappers and clarionets.

There had been no performance since the New Year Festival, and the troupe was playing The Monkey King (part of all repertoires) to an appreciative and certainly chiefly illiterate crowd, who, according to our Chinese companion, never missed a point. Each gesture, each movement, was symbolic, and tradition has trained the audience to interpret it. From dress, ornaments and paint, they recognize a character's profession, his goodness or badness. Even his walk and his sleep revealed his role to the onlookers. They had no need for scenery or properties; a switch was enough for a mounted man, gestures completely to furnish the stage. The audience had seen and heard it all before, they condemned the same villains, applauded the same featherdecorated patriots, laughed at the same buffoons, as generations of their ancestors had done.

But rigid as was the interpretation, it did not prevent the Monkey King himself that morning, when he saw us taking photographs, from shouting at us from the edge of the stage to take a photograph of him, and to pose there, with tossing beard and, we were told, broad comment, which sent the audience into paroxysms of laughter. He carried a fan, but the audience knew that he also had about him the peaches of Immortality which he had been stealing for centuries.

As we returned from the concert that evening, the players were still acting with undiminished gusto, the raucous band still lustily tearing the air with horrible discords. The children who had been sitting on the garden walls were still there, the seats for patrons on the stage were still occupied.

'At least: I said, half-stunned by the din, 'we now know there's something better than that. There was something fascinating about the table lutes.'

'I prefer Lee's p'i-p'a every time: declared Cyril. 'Perhaps,' I replied, 'because it's got only just the right number ofstrings for playing to your emotional capacity.'

CHAPTER VII ......

Bill Brown Xiamen University www.amoymagic.com

Kushan Temple

2011-07-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

I noticed online that an eBay seller, who has some great Amoy postcards, had a postcard of a temple in "Kushan, Amoy." Unfortunately, Kushan is not near Amoy. It is a few miles East of Fuzhou (福州formerly Foochow or Fuhchau ). Kushan is the old spelling of Gushan 鼓山 or "Drum Mountain," and is famous for its large, sprawling temple, which among other things has some Buddhist sutras written in blood (I take it ink was expensive?). They also have great vegetarian food.

Click the photo below to view a larger version of it (it is the same as Mr. Lim Yap's photo, except it has two monks in it, and was taken by Ms. Jean Nienhuis, a missionary nurse at Hope Hospital and Wilhelmina Hospital on Gulangyu (Kulongsu), in Xiamen (Amoy).

100 years, foreigners escaped the deadly heat of Fujian (with good reason it was called "White Man's Graveyard") by heading to Kushan, which was relatively cool because of its higher altitude. I have dozens of old photos from the 1920s and 1930s of foreign missionaries enjoying their summers in their Kushan stone cottages, playing tennis, repairing roofs after typhoons--and hunting tigers! Until the 1950s, all of Fujian province was home to the beautiful but deadly Amoy tiger. Considered the "father of all tigers," virtually all Amoy tigers were man-eaters because the Chinese had killed almost all of the larger game (with the exception of domesticated animals.

Click Here to read more about Amoy Tigers. While you're at it, Click Here to read about Amoy Vampires as well! (True story of Chinese vampires--the deadliest creature on the planet!中国吸血鬼). Of course, even more dangerous are Amoy's Darwinian Drivers!

... Enjoy Amoy!

Bill Brown Xiamen University www.amoymagic.com

Bill Brown Xiamen University www.amoymagic.com

British Secretary's Wife's Ricksha

2011-07-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

The British Secretary’s Wife’s Ricksha
Lockhart, R.H. Bruce, “Return to Malaya,” G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1936

This sounds almost too funny to be true. I just imagine her reaction when she learned the truth....
Bill B. www.amoymagic.com

At that time the brightest star in the diplomatic firmament of the Chinese capital was the wife of a British secretary. She was a daughter of an ancient and aristocratic family, and a beautiful and high-spirited woman whose independence of action was sometimes a little trying to a Minister who had risen to his exalted position from the ranks of the Consular Service.

Above all she was artistic, with a passionate interest in the treasures of Chinese art. It was her artistic sense that led her astray. One day she returned to her house in raptures over a new purchase. It took the form of a beautifully lacquered ricksha. It had a Chinese "puller" with the torso of a Greek athlete. But its chief glory was two lanterns, borne by two picturesquely-dressed bearers and decorated on the one side with an idyllic moonlit scene featuring a pagoda, a bridge, a river and a garden, and on the other side with exquisitely painted Chinese symbols* This brilliant turn-out was not bought as a museum-piece. It was intended to add lustre to the glories of British diplomacy, and in order to give greater effect to the lanterns and the lantern-bearers it was used mostly at night. And the arrival of its owner reclining gracefully on a background of red lacquer and preceded by her lantern-bearers was, indeed, an impressive sight well calculated to drive the iron of envy into the heart of every other diplomat's wife in Peking.

The last person to see it was the British Minister, a sound Chinese scholar, who encountered it one evening as he was entering the compound of the French Legation. The next morning he sent for his Oriental Secretary, then Mr. Barton and now Sir Sydney Barton, who was British Minister to Abyssinia during the recent Italo-Abyssinian war. "Barton," said the Minister, "have you seen Lady X's rickisha?" The Oriental Secretary nodded. The Minister hesitated, debating the difficulties of an intervention which should properly have been undertaken by himself. "Well," he continued, "I think you'd better go and see her and explain things."

Soon the Oriental Secretary was facing his colleague's wife fortified behind a tea-table.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but His Excellency thinks that you ought to give up using your rickisha."

The secretary's wife sat up. She foresaw a social battle, and was at her most formidable best in such encounters.

"I do not see what my rickisha has to do with the Minister. Surely I can use any kind of vehicle I like?"

"Yes, I agree," said the Oriental Secretary with diplomatic suavity, "but it's not a question of a rickisha or a carriage, but of the kind of rickisha. Yours is not at all suitable for the wife of a diplomatist."

"That again is my business and not the Minister's. As long as I behave myself, I do not see what right he has to dictate to me in a personal matter like this."

"But there's the lettering on those lanterns. Do you know what it means?"

"No, and I don't care. But you can tell me if you wish."

"Well," said the Oriental Secretary, "the lettering on the one lantern means I belong to the First Class Order of Prostitutes,' and on the other 'My Price is Five Yen.' "
Bill Brown, Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com

Seeking Margaret Alice Fraser Roxburgh

2010-01-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown
At 03:07 PM 1/3/2010, you wrote:
If you can help this man find information about his relative who was in Quanzhou (Chinchew, Ch'uan chow-- Marco Polo's Zaytun], please contact me! Thanks. Bill

Hi

I saw your website and am very interested in learning more about the
mission during the above period.

A relative of mine, Margaret Alice Fraser Roxburgh (1891-1968) was a
missionary in Quanzhou [ Chinchew] between these years. She travelled out with her
father, John Robert Roxburgh (1863-1934), who was an Elder and Session
Clerk of St. Columba's Church, Cambridge. On his return, he is recorded
briefly in the minutes of the church as having visited two churches in
the region. He seems to have been there for six months. She remained as
a teacher in the girls' school, I think, until her return in 1934. It is
not clear whether it was the troubled times in Quanzhou or her father's
death in February that prompted her return to England.

I would be grateful for any information you have about her time in
Quanzhou. The only definite photo of her has been lost by the University
of Cambridge, although she may be in some held by the School of Oriental
and African Studies, London.

Thank you and best wishes

Nick R.

Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com

Carl Schmuser in Amoy

2009-10-05T05:21:00.000-07:00

Over recent months, several descendants of Colonial Amoy foreigners (such as the Joselands, Talmages, etc.), have found relatives through this blog, and now I've received a note from Derek Schmuser , who is seeking info on his ancestors in Amoy. Please contact him if you have any info (several descendants. And, as I've mentioned earlier, I could greatly use any old photos or info on Amoy that you have.

Bill Brown

Letter from Derek

In 1911, my grandfather, CARL SCHMÜSER, was working for the Chinese Imperial Customs Service. His office was at the Custom House on or next to Chung Shan Lu, Amoy.

He lived at the Customs Quarters (accommodation for officers) on Gulangyu islet. His house may have been on Zhong Hua Lu near to the Masonic Hall which was at 5 Zhong Wah Road.

This is a postcard dated 25^th March 1911 on which (lower right) the site of the residence is marked with an X.

My mother, Elisabeth Herta Emma SCHMUSER (1911-1986), is registered as having been born in Amoy on the 8th August 1911. I expect that, although there would have been other available sites, it is possible that she was born at the Hope Hospital on Gulangyu.

I am writing to ask if anyone might know whether birth records still exist for the Hope Hospital from that period and where I might be able to look for them.

Derek Greenland

derekgreenland@hotmail.com

Bill Brown
Xiamen University

www.amoymagic.com

View of the Capture of Amoy, by Crawford

2009-05-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

I just came across a great hand colored engraving by Crawford entitled, "View of the Capture of Amoy." I'd love to use it in the book I'm working on, "Old Amoy in Foreigner's Eyes," 《老外看老厦门》， but the few sources I've seen want a fortune for permission to use it. If anyone has a copy that I could have a scan of, I'd really appreciate it--and, of course, will imprint your name on it, and acknowledge you in the book as supplying the image.

Thanks!

Bill

www.amoymagic.com

James Hyslop -- Amoy Medical Pioneer

2009-04-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I was delighted to hear today from Stephen Due, Editor of the Australian Medical Pioneers Index, Barwon Health Library Service. He is seeking information on Dr. James Hyslop, who served in Amoy from 1848 to 1851.

Hyslop, like many missionaries and doctors, was from Scotland, so it is no wonder that he stayed on in Amoy after he decided to pursue private practice. Many from Scotland called Amoy the Scotland of China. But ill health moved Hyslop to visit Australia, leaving his wife in China. He was shipwrecked off the Great Barrier Reef on 17 April, 1852, while enroute from Sydney to Manila, and killed by aboriginals.

Read more on the Australian Medical Pioneers Index site, and please share any information you have (especially photos) with us, or with Mr. Due.

Dr. James Hyslop Bio (from Wylie's "Memorial of Protestant Missionaries," Pp.191,192:

CXXII. JAMES HYSLOP studied medicine, and graduated as M. B. in Scotland. He was married to Miss James, and practised his profession for a time in his native land. Being accepted by the London Missionary Society, he was appointed a medical missionary to China, and left Portsmouth with Mrs. Hyslop, a child and sister, in the Ferozepore, on the 19th of March, 1848, accompanied by the Revs. Dr. Legge, B. Kay and W. Young with their wives, and the Revs. J. Edkins and T. Gilfillan, arriving at Hongkong on July 22nd.
He reached Amoy on December 5th, and resumed in part the medical operations which had been suspended by the departure of Drs. Hepburn and Cumming. He sustained that duty till 1851, when he retired from the missionary service, but still continued to reside in Amoy in private practice.
In 1853 he left for Australia, and was wrecked on that coast, when he fell into the hands of the natives, by whom he was massacred.

See Scottish Medical Secretaries

www.amoymagic.com

In Memoriam--Mrs. Frank P. Joseland

2009-03-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ..The Amoy Mission.
by Sadler, Rev. J., in Chinese Recorder, Vol. 40, 1909, pp. 45-46

OUR beloved friend and fellow-worker, Mrs. Frank P. Joseland, has been translated to the higher service. We are bowed in spirit for the stricken husband and children, as well as for ourselves, our schools, the Chinese Christians and for all who knew her kindness and care.

The loss is deeply felt both in Amoy and Chiang-chiu and in the districts inland. Mrs. Joseland has been connected with the L. M. S. for twenty years. She has proved a valued teacher, wife, mother, and friend. Her experience of human life was considerable, and she knew how to say the "word in season" to those who were in trouble.

Coming from a well-known ministerial family in England (her father being a Congregational minister for long years, still hale and hearty at seventy-eight years of age), and having received a valuable training in the Milton Congregational College for Girls at Gravesend, she was eminently fitted to do good service in teaching. She improved her powers and endeared herself to the schools of boys, girls, and women, where she regularly taught. Her efforts were carried on even in spite of physical suffering and with much self-denial.

She was born forty-five years ago at Barnard Castle in Durham, when her father was minister there, and lived at Haverill, Honiton, and Devizes, at which places her father had pastoral charge. She was married to Mr. Joseland in the Union Church, Hongkong, by the Rev. G. H. Bondfield, in November, 1888, and so has had just twenty years of married life and mutual service with her husband, with two furloughs in the home land.

So far as the L. M. S. in Amoy itself was concerned, Mrs. Joseland was the only married lady in the Mission, and was thus the more valued, especially as she was given to hospitality- and exercised a gracious influence over those who needed a friend. Hence her loss will be most keenly felt. Her elder brother, the Rev. C. E. Darwent, M.A., of the Union Church, Shanghai, is famous as an example of the ability of the family. To him, also, the news of his sister's early death is truly bitter. There are four children—two elder boys, nineteen and seventeen years old, and two other children, a girl of thirteen and a boy of eight, at home at school. All these have now the burden of being motherless to bear, while yet young. May God give them the needed strength to endure.

The saddest and most tragic feature of the unexpected loss was the fact that the afflicted husband was travelling in a distant part of the very extensive inland region under his charge, where neither letters nor messengers could reach him in time. Thus our brother, who left his wife in good health in October, returned at the end of November to her not only dead, but buried.

The illness began with dysentery on November 8th, but it yielded to remedies, and nothing was feared till the 20th, when more serious symptoms intervened, and Mrs. Joseland passed peacefully away on Tuesday, November 24th. She was buried the day after in the Community Cemetery on Kulangsu, followed to the grave by the largest number of people, both foreigners and Chinese, ever seen at a funeral in Amoy. A number of foreign gentlemen carried the coffin from the Mortuary Chapel to the grave. The Rev. J. Macgowan read the service in English, and the Rev. J. Sadler addressed the Chinese assembled and offered prayer. Suitable hymns were sung in both languages, ''Jesus, Lover of my Soul", and ''There is a Happy Land". Thus, amidst grief and pain, the note of Resurrection Joy was struck, and our hearts followed our sainted sister to her heaventy home.

Her work lives after her, and the memory of her gracious, kindly presence is enshrined in the hearts of hundreds of those who knew her. For to know^ her was to love her. "She, being dead, yet speaketh."

Other Joseland Pages
Frank Joseland Describes Amoy Area

Inquiries about Joselands

The Amoy Mission Project

www.amoymagic.com

Talmage Memorial by Kip

2009-03-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
From Chinese Recorder, Vol. 23, November, 1892, pp. 530...
In Memoriam--A Veteran Gone Home
by Leonard W. Kip of the Amoy Mission

When Dr. Talmage, three years ago, bade good-by to the friends at Amoy, he was also taking leave of the place where so many years of his useful life had been passed. It is forty-five years ago last August since he landed for the first time in Amoy. That was the day of small things.

The converts might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Thus it was that he bore his share, and a large part it was, in the building up of the Church, from the early beginning to the present organized Churches represented in the Tai-hoey, or native Presbytery.

While he loved preaching, into which he threw himself with all his heart and soul, he also greatly enjoyed work in his study. By this he prepared to do a great and lasting work in the instruction and training of preachers and pastors for the growing needs of the Church. When the time came, 30 years ago, to organize a native Presbytery, he took a prominent part in this preparatory step towards the ordaining and installing two native pastors over the 1st and 2nd Churches of Amoy.

The native Christians always found in him a sympathizing and kind helper, and responded by an ever increasing respect and love. Nor was this feeling confined to the natives, bat shared in by his fellow missionaries, as well as the foreign community.

Some may remember him as present at the first missionary conference at Shanghai in 1877. The general esteem in which he was held was testified by choosing him as one of the presiding officers. In this position he contributed much to the successful carrying on of the conference.

As years passed by, and his strength began to fail, he gradually left the care of the country work to the junior members of the mission. This allowed him to devote himself more carefully to theological instruction and literary work. So it came to pass that he was unknown by face to the more distant Churches.
Ten years ago he made a tour of these at the Chinese New Year season. He travelled by easy stages and met the different Churches on appointed days.

Everywhere he created a profound impression by his venerable appearance and his instruction and earnest words to the brethren and sisters w ho bad gathered to see and hear him. Since then he has never been forgotten by these Churches. Enquiries as to his condition were constantly made up to the present time, when all heard with sorrow that he had been taken away. Many inquiries were also made as to whether he would again return to China, but we have been compelled to give a discouraging answer. It was evident that his work in China was done, but not /or China. For sometime before he left, he had been engaged on a dictionary of the characters in the Chinese Bible, with the character sound and meaning given in the Romanized Colloquial.

After his return to his native country he continued to revise and perfect it, while he had strength to do so. But at last the pen was laid down. Now there only remained the waiting for the end of his earthly life and the beginning of the better life above.

And so he passed away, just as he had completed his 73rd year, on Friday,
Aug. 19th, 1892.

Thirty-one years ago he welcomed me to his Chinese home. I may be permitted to look back on those years of brotherly intercourse and communion with emotions of pleasure, as well as gratitude to God, who has so graciously given me so kind and helpful a fellow-laborer. And it is fitting that one who has so long companied with him should write these few and imperfect words of memorial.

His will be an honored name in the Chinese Church History that is yet to be written. A better memorial still will be the Church, whose foundation he helped to lay on the one foundation—Jesus Christ. He lived to see the little one become a thousand. But what is this in comparison to the Church of Jesus that is yet to fill the land. To help in this work were his best efforts given, and so he will assuredly join in the song of rejoicing in heaven and on earth, when this whole region shall have turned from idols to serve the living and true God.

Leonard W. Kip. October, 15, 1892.

www.amoymagic.com

China, AncientTeacher

2009-03-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Just came across this insightful piece by John Nevius in the Chinese Recorder (Vol. 23, Nov. 1892), about why China, the ancient Teacher, had such a hard time becoming a pupil.

China a Teacher. -- From time immemorial China has been the recognized teacher of all the nations around her and the pupil of none. She may well be excused for claiming a respect which for centuries all her neighbors have accorded to her. In this respect she stands in striking contrast to Japan. Japan is accustomed to take the place of learner, having largely derived her literary culture and even her language from China. This accounts for the rapidity with which she has received foreign ideas and institutions. China would fain continue in the belief that there is no knowledge worth knowing which she does not already possess. This vis inertia which resists change and progress, is all the greater, because her immense population is, and has been for ages, homogeneous in race and culture. It is not strange that China clings tenaciously to institutions which have stood the test of millenniums and given to her such a marvelous degree of national prosperity. Can we wonder that she listens with suspicion to any suggestion of change, especially that she should regard with apprehension a new teaching confessedly exclusive and revolutionary? Serious as the obstacles above presented are, it should be added, by way of encouragement, that the Chinese are by no means unimpressible. They are as enthusiastic as any race to receive truth when apprehended. In fact, there are as many Christians in China at the present time as in Japan, and probably as many more who are heartily in favor of adopting Western sciences and arts. The fact that Japan is undergoing a rapid and complete transformation, while China as a whole is yet unmoved, though due partly, no doubt, to difference of race, is to be referred, I believe, principally to the tenfold resistance of a tenfold greater population, and also to the peculiar historical precedents and traditions alluded to above.
Dr. John L. Nevius. Chinese Recorder, Vol. 23, Nov. 1892, Pp. 513,514

www.amoymagic.com

John Lloyd--Unsung Father of Amoy Dictionary

2009-03-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ... Amoy Mission
Although Carstairs Douglas is famous for his Amoy Dictionary (Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy),he wrote in his preface that he based it on the manuscript of Rev. John Lloyd, of the American Presbyterian Mission of Amoy. Little is known of Lloyd, other than that he came to Xiamen in December, 1844, and died here just four years later, on December 5th, 1848. But it was Lloyd's brief two years of labor that made possible much of the work that followed. Douglas wrote in the Dictionary preface, "When I arrived at Amoy in 1855 I copied it for iny own use, adding the additional words in Doty's Manual,* and have been constantly enlarging and re-arranging the collection of words and phrases ever since [14 years!] A few years after copying Lloyd's Vocabulary I collated the manuscript dictionary written by the Rev. Alexander Stronach of the London Missionary Society...."

On the 6th of December Rev. John Lloyd, of the American Presbyterian mission, died of typhus fever after an illness of two weeks. Mr. Talmage makes this record of him:

"Dec. 8, 1848. Rev. John Lloyd was born in the State of Pennsylvania on the first of Oct., 1813, which made him thirty-five years, two months, and five days at the time of his death. He was a man of fine abilities. His mind was well stored with useful knowledge and was well disciplined. He was most laborious in study, very careful to improve his time. He was mastering the language with rapidity. His vocabulary was not so large as that of some of the other brethren, but he had a very large number of words and phrases at his command, and was pronounced by the Chinese to speak the language more accurately than any other foreigner in the place. They even said of him that it could not be inferred simply from his voice, unless his face was seen, that he was a foreigner. He was a man of warm heart, very strong in his friendship, very kind in his disposition, and a universal favorite among the Chinese. I never knew a man that improved more by close intimacy. His modesty, which may be called his great fault, was such that it was necessary to become well acquainted with him before he could be properly appreciated. But it has pleased the Master of the harvest to call him from the field just as he became fully qualified to be an efficient laborer. What a lesson this, that we must not overestimate our importance in the work to which God has called us. He can do without us. It seems necessary that He should give the Church lesson upon lesson that she may not forget her dependence upon Him."

American Presbyterian Board of Amoy
* Doty: Arrived in Amoy in 1844, had two wives die here, and died within 4 days of reaching shore when he returned to the U.S. in 1864 to visit his family. Read the Memoirs of Mary Doty,his daughter, who was born here in Gulangyu in 1851 and lived here until 1859.
www.amoymagic.com

Frank Joseland Describes Amoy Area

2009-03-08T23:26:00.000-07:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
“A word about the country reached from the “door” of Amoy may not be amiss, as some people seem to fancy china is one great flat plain. I venture to call the Fokien province, the “Wales” or “Scotland” of China, so diversified is it as to natural scenery. Mountains several thousand feet high are found all over the province with fertile valleys in between, well watered by good rivers. In most parts the soil is rich, yielding good crops of rice, barley, wheat, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, tobacco, as well as great varieties of vegetables. Fruit trees aboundoranges, limes, bananas, plantains, pineapples, pumaloes, mangoes, loquats, carambolas, and many other kinds with local names that have no counterpart in English. Forests of pine and fir are found on the hills; the wide-spreading banyan and the elegant bamboo on the plains among the towns and villages. Coal and iron are met with as well as many other precious metals, but this store of Heaven-provided gifts is only very partially worked owing to the firm hold that superstition has upon the people. Tea, paper, lumber, articles made from bamboo, are the principal products....
Joseland, Rev. Frank P. , in Gaunt, 1899

Gaunt, Rev. L.H., Ed., “The Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, Vol. VIII – No. 85 New Series,” London, 1899

www.amoymagic.com

Frank & Annie Joseland -- Amoy Congregational Union

2009-03-07T22:50:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Re: Frank and Annie Joseland, Amoy Mission (if you have info on them, or old photos of Amoy, please share them with us!).

Letter from R. Dixon (response follows):
March 7, 2008: Hi Dr Bill, My great great grandfather was a missionary in Amoy for about 20 years, (I think he left in 1901). Have you ever heard of the Congregational Union? I thought that your website may have some info on his work, but couldnt find anything. I was planning a trip to Amoy this year to trace the past, but there just isnt any info available! My great great grandmother died there also, but I believe that the grave site was destroyed by the Chinese in a protest of some kind in the 1930's. Any info you have about the Congregational Union would be much appreciated. His name was Rev. Frank P Joseland. Kind Regards R. Dixon.

My response:
Hi Robbie,

So nice to hear from you! Sorry that I don't have anything about Joseland yet. I do this in my spare time, and it is slow going. Only a few days ago I received some photos from a Russian Orthodox Priest in Hong Kong. Amazing what all went on here.

I will ad more info when I can, but in the meantime... the Congregational Union was formed about 1870 from a dozen churches or so of the London Missionary Society in the Amoy Mission. There are numerous accounts of this, though not much that I've found directly about the Joselands. Read about the Union in Philip Wilson Pitcher's "In and About Amoy." Also see The Chronicles of the London Missionary Society, 1901, which has Frank Joseland's article, "The Amoy Congregational Union." The 1902 issue has an article about the Amoy Congregational Union, by Una Long, of the Van Riebeeck Society

Frank is also mentioned in The Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, 1896, and 1903. "Christian Faith and Life" (1906) has more information on this.

Also try, "A Century of Protestant Missions in China (1807-1907) for info on the Union (though none on Frank, I think).

I know that there are numerous mentions of Frank Joseland (and his wife Annie) in the "Chinese Recorder," which you can find probably in a library there? There are a few dozen references to Frank and Annie Joseland in Kathleen Lodwick 's Index of the Chinese Recorder. And David Cheung, in "Christianity in Modern China," references Frank's article about the Amoy work," (I'd love to have a copy of it if you ever come across it!).

Kenneth Scott Latourette's "A History of Christian Missions in China" mentions briefly the Union.

Since I'm in China, I do not have access to these. I'd love to have a digital copy of the Chinese Recorder. Someday...

If you have any information about them that you could share, and that I could upload (especially old photos of the Joselands, and Amoy), I'd really appreciate it. The more we have online, and that people share, the more likely others can find what they're looking for as well, and contribute to preserving the Amoy Mission's rich legacy.

Best wishes with your research.

Bill

REPLY to my E-mail:

Hi,

I found some more basic information:

Ordained Sep 14 1887 at Congregational Church, Angel St., Worcester
Sailed Oct 31 1887 and arrived at Amoy Jan 5 1888
Married Nov 7 1888 at Union Church Hong Kong, Annie Lucy Darwent, Church member of Congregational Church Devizes who sailed to England Sep 22 1888
In 1891 he removed to Chiang Chiu taking the place of Mr Ross
Mrs Joseland died at Amoy Nov 24 1908
Dec 1913 Mr Joseland retired, leaving Amoy and settled in Melbourne Australia

I found a lot of info located at the School of Oriental and African Studies library in London - a lot of articles he wrote, and what looks like a book: Ting-Chiu : the story of a Chinese "forward movement" / by Frank P. Joseland, of the London Mission, Amoy, South China. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate in Australia yet. I'll keep looking around in Australia. Would there be anything in Xiamen Universities library?

Answer: no! There is almost nothing in Xiamen about any of this; everything was destroyed by Japanese, Cultural Revolution, etc. That's why I have to get everything from abroad.... So, again, if anyone out there has information and photos they can share, I'd really appreciate it . And read more at the Amoy Mission pages:

http://www.amoymagic.com/Amoymission1.htm
www.amoymagic.com

Fukien Anti-Cobweb Society

2009-02-24T01:32:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I have a copy of the delightful “Fukien Arts and Industries," put out by the Anti-Cobweb Society in Fuzhou (Foochow) in 1933. The book included essays on Fujian's tea, silk, paper, lacquer, oil, lumber and bamboo industries, Chinese porcelain, etc. And I just learned a little more about the Anti-Cobweb Society from "A Race of Green Ginger", written by Mrs. Mackenzie-Grieves, who lived on Gulangyu in the 1920s:

Before we met its members, we agreed that the Anti-Cobweb Society sounded awful. 'It's to clear away the cobwebs in our minds', an Anti-Cobweb explained, and we shuddered. But we were wrong. A handful of unusual Americans and English, they believed that to know, or to try to know China in all her aspects, was an essential prerequisite of any form of good relations with the Chinese. They felt that it was more important to learn before they taught, to know before they condemned or offered alternatives. Their lot cast in Fukien, with its strange pockets of old paganism-Fukien, nearly always the last of the provinces to be subdued and recolonized by a new dynasty, the province about which the Chinese themselves hardly bothered to know the Anti-Cobwebs set themselves to learn about it.

The people of the deep Fukien valleys were not uncivilized in the same sense that the nomad tribes of China's northwestern territories were warlike and nomadic, with a history linked to Genghis Khan and the hordes who could scour Persia, and who range over tracts of Chinese history as great as their own Gobi desert; their dealings with the unknown were not through shamans and an explicit occultism. Their villages, behind the mountain barriers, still held their own dark, ancient magic, paid placating service to the haunting spirits in rites whose symbolism was long forgotten. Who had told the Hakkas to ransom their houses with blood, like the Jews in Egypt? Was it one of the wandering Jews who found the way to China? Was it one of the Nestorians, whose fellows found such favour with the Great Khan that he appointed one as Commissioner for Christian Affairs, and despatched another to Paris to visit Philip the Fair? They do not know. But neither they nor the scholars know whence they and their dog-headed prince came. Some say they are of aboriginal stock, others, that they are descendants of Chinese soldiers and aboriginal women ofa tribe called Ikia, yet a third theory is that they were pioneer emigrants from the north. Who was the Snake King of Chonghupan who, in some lost age, saved the region from drought and has been honoured ever since? Who were the Constables of Hell, whose memory the people of Fu-ch'ing [Fuqing, in Putian] celebrate by a procession of blood dripping devotees? It is all a long way from the rationally ordered, severely disciplined Confucian rites.

All these things and a great many more the Anti-Cobwebs pondered and discussed. In spring and autumn, they traveled as much as possible-most of them were missionaries-in the winter evenings they met to exchange the fruits of their researches, gathered mainly by patient observation, listening and questioning.

They were admirably frank. 'We try to get at the truth-the true facts,' one told us. 'Of course, we aren't impartial. We're biased by our religion and our Western culture, but we try not to be.' 'I suppose,' said another, 'we unconsciously distribute our mental and moral emphasis according to the standards we were brought up by.'

We talked about the old and the new learning.

The Fukienese, like all Chinese, revered learning and thirsted for knowledge, if not for themselves, then for their children. 'You can still find scholars' signboards on plenty of houses,' one of the American Anti-Cobwebs told us. 'Third degree, in crossroad hamlets, and Han-lin even in country villages.'

There was in the city, he said, still a school for advanced classical studies, taught by ten elderly Han-lin graduates, and in spite of the troubles, the ferment of revolutionary ideas and of educational reform, it was well attended. As he talked, I saw the ten old scholars, like the Eight Immortals in the carvers' shops, assured in their Confucian calm, expounding probably to the last generation of reverent ears the ethic which had been the life-study of their counterparts for over one thousand five hundred years. They must have belonged to the age when examination candidates were immured incommunicado for days, while they laboured at their Eight-legged essays on a classic Confucian theme. Had anyone of them revolted in his heart against his soul's destruction, against counting into rigid uniformity his words, sentences and paragraphs? Did any of them long to contradict the exacting shade of Chu Hsi [Zhu Xi; lived in Wuyi Mtn. for a time]? Or did they, and the thousands like them bred by centuries of conformity, submit to desiccation, like the smoke-seasoning of the wooden Immortals?

It was not until 1912 that the hundreds of hive-like State examination cells in Foochow were demolished. But the mentality bred by the Eight-legged Essay has died hard, and Mao Tze-tung still needs to-and does-warn his people against it. For five hundred years the historical and philosophical works
and the Confucian commentaries of the Fukienese scholar had been the standard texts for the civil service examinations all over China. He was as famous as Mencius, second only to the great Kung himself. In Fukien he was ever-present: below his image in the temples, incense smouldered, and, far from the towns, handfuls of field-flowers withered at his dusty feet.
Mackenzie-Grieves, 1959, "A Race of Green Ginger," pp. 129-131

Anti-Cobweb Society, “Fukien Arts and Industries: Papers by Members of the Anti-Cobweb Society, Foochow, Fukien, China,” Christian Herald Industrial Press, Foochow 1933.

Links:

http://www.amoymagic.com/Fuzhou1.htm
www.amoymagic.com

Amoy International Settlement--in 1988?

2009-02-23T19:22:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
International Settlements, such as that on our own Gulangyu Islet a century ago, were indeed self-governed foreign enclaves, where both foreigners and rich Chinese could live above the Chinese law. But the idea for these settlements came from the Chinese, not the foreigners! (though we did carry it much further than the Chinese intended). Even when our family arrived in Xiamen in 1988, foreigners were not allowed to live with Chinese. We were housed in the "Holiday Village", which was anything but a holiday, and was chained and padlocked every night from 11 PM to 7 AM--from the outside (for our safety, we were told). I asked what happened in case of fire and was told that they'd unlock it. Chinese visitors had to sign in, and often were later questioned as to why they'd visited the foreign enclave.

As far as we know, our family was the first in Xiamen to be allowed to live in "Chinese" housing. But happily, today it is the norm! Foreign teachers at Xiamen University are given a housing allowance and allowed to rent any place they desire; some foreigners even purchase apartments or villas. The only requirement is that they register their address with the local police (the same requirement made of Chinese).

What a change from 20 years ago--or 80 years ago, when Ann Mackenzie-Grieves wrote about international settlements in her book "A Race of Green Ginger" (she lived on Gulangyu in the 1920s):

To hear the students one would have thought that the foreign settlements had been a wicked invention of the Western traders and imperialists. Actually, since the Portuguese began trading with the southern Chinese in the sixteenth century, Chinese relationship with the foreigners had been entirely governed by China's own system of administrative responsibility. The foreigners proved far easier to control in a settlement of their own, under their own headman, who, like a Chinese civil governor, could be held entirely responsible for their behaviour. During the next two centuries the arrangement worked well. There were times when both Chinese and Westerners behaved badly: unlettered Manchu successors of the Ming scholar-officials were arbitrary and obstinate; hectoring British traders abused privileges, flouted the custom and courtesy so vital to Chinese relationships; tough sea-captains resorted to violence. On the whole, however, it was to the advantage of both sides to abide by the rules. But the immunity of extra-territoriality accorded to the foreigners in their own enclaves began to be extended to, and claimed by, Chinese living in the concessions and, with the increasing corruption and misgovernment of nineteenth-century China, Chinese ships found it safer to sail under foreign flags. Smugglers, both foreign and local, sailed profitably under any flag they could buy, and strengthened their alliance with the pirates….
Mackenzie-Grieves, 1959, pp. 101,102.

www.amoymagic.com

History of Photography in China (Terry Bennett)

2009-02-23T05:05:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown
Mr. Terry Bennett, author of Photography in Japan 1853-1912, has kindly provided 3 excellent photos for my upcoming book, "Old Xiamen in Foreigners' Eyes", (Laowai Kan Lao Xiamen 老外看老厦门). I am also happy to learn that in April, 2009, we will have a unique chance to step back in time with Mr. Bennett's new History of Photography in China 1842-1860 (London: Bernard Quaritch Limited). He will also publish further volumes covering photography to the end of the Qing Dynasty.

If the 5-star ratings of Mr. Bennett's book on Photography in Japan are a clue, the China book should be a goldmine of thorough scholarship and never-before-seen photographs. I can't wait!

It is amazing that Mr. Bennett could even find China photos dating from 1842, given that the daguerreotype process was not perfected until 1839. But fortunately for posterity, only five days after the process was patented in Britain, the French government, which had given Daguerre a pension instead of a patent, announced that this fascinating new medium was a "free gift to the world"--and the world seized it with a passion. Foreigners fascinated with the Celestial Kingdom packed their photographic gear and boarded the slow boats to China, and now Mr. Bennett will share with us just what they discovered.

I just went online to Amazon to pre-order a copy, but it is not listed yet. So don't forget--April (just six weeks away), buy a copy of History of Photography in China 1842-1860.
Xiamen University .... www.amoymagic.com

Ancient Chinese Poetry

2009-02-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
In 1899, Miss Archibald Little rather humorously compared the modern drinking songs of England--"Drink, puppies, drink!" with Chinese songs dating back 2500 years. Nice translations, too--but anyone know who W.A.P.M. was?

Adieu to the Old Year
(Chinese Drinking Song, 500 B.C.)
The voice of the cricket is heard in the hall;
The leaves of the forest are withered and sere;
My spirits they droop at those chirruping notes
So thoughtlessly sounding the knell of the year.
Yet why should we sigh at the change of a date,
When life’s flowing on in a full steady tide?
Come, let us be merry with those that we love;
For pleasure I measure there’s no one to chide.”
Translated by W.A.P.M.

Ms. Archibald Little wrote, “But this Chinese drinking song, which could without exciting any special comment appear upon a New Year’s card of to-day, was published in the Chinese Book of Odes 500 B.C. Twelve centuries later we find a decidedly prettier sentiment and finer touch in Li-tao-po, one of China’s favorite poets A.D. 720….

"This is an attempt to render the best-known ode of China’s favourite bard, A.D. 720:"

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight.
(8th century A.D.)
Here are flowers, and here is wine;
But where’s a friend with me to join
Hand to hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?
Rather than to drink alone,
I’ll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
To grace the hour and the place.
Lo! She answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be,
I ween, a merry company.
The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up;
And when I dance, my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.
Yet though the moon declines to tipple,
She dances in yon shining ripple;
And when I sing, my festive song
The echoes of the moon prolong.
Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather;
For you, my boon companions dear,
Come only when the sky is clear.”
Translated by W.A.P.M.

"The fancy if not the sentiment of this song is so pretty, that it is hard to see how the nation that produced it can be rebuked for want of sentiment by the nation [England] that to this day sings, “Drink, puppies, drink.” Indeed, I think this Chinese drinking-song dating from the eighth century A.D. the very prettiest I have ever met with in any literature. It has three if not four of such graceful conceits as would alone make the success of a modern bard…."

Little, Archibald, Mrs. "Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them," Hutchinson and Company, London, 1899
www.amoymagic.com

Love & Marriage in Old China

2009-02-17T01:45:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
When our son Shannon married Miki on Jan. 1st in Xiamen's Xinjie Church (China's oldest), he faced numerous traditions he (or we) never dreamed of--but it was nothing like an Amoy marriage of 100 years ago! Dr. John Macgowan, of the Amoy Mission, and one of my favorite authors (I have 7 of his massive tomes) wrote in 1907 in Sidelights on Chinese Life:

With us it is an accepted axiom that to secure the happiness of the married couple, there must be love and there must be a thorough acquaintance with each other. The Chinese hold that all that is Platonic nonsense…They declare that neither of those two things are requisite, and they point to China, where marriage is the rule in social life, and where a Divorce Court does not exist in all the length and breadth of the land, as a convincing evidence that love at least is not at all a requisite for marriage. The young man and his wife then begin their married life without any knowledge of each other. They have never seen each other, and they have never dared to inquire from their parents what their future partners were like. To have done so would have filled the hearts of their fathers and mothers with a shame so intense as to be absolutely unspeakable.

Their first look into the faces of each other, after the bride has been carried with noise of music and firing of crackers in the crimson chair into the home of her husband, must be one in which is concentrated the agony and passion of two hearts, trying to read their fate for the years that are to come, from what a bashful glance at each other's faces can tell them. If either of them is disappointed, the wave of despair that flashes through the heart is hidden behind those sphinx-like faces, and no quivering of the lips and no glance of the coal-black eyes betrays the secret that has sprung up within them.

They are both conscious that their marriage is a settled fact and that there is no possibility of its ever being annulled, and so with the heroic patience that the Chinese often show in ordinary life, they both determine to make the best of things, knowing that in time love will grow, and tender affection for each other will ripen amid the trials and disciplines of life through which they will have to pass together.

The years go by, and without daring to show by word or look to the rest of the world that they love each other, the deepest and the purest affection has sprung up in their hearts. The Chinese language is full of tender epithets and phrases full of poetry to express the emotions of love, but the husband and wife may never use any of these excepting behind closed doors where none can hear them but themselves.
Macgowan, "Sidelights on Chinese Life", 1907

Bibliography: http://www.amoymagic.com/AMbibliography.htm
www.amoymagic.com

Amoy Foreign Cemetery Photos

2009-02-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I'm still scrambling to find photos of the Amoy Foreign Cemetery, and just received a promising e-mail from Marilou in Holland. Visit Marilou's Zaiton China Webshop; it offers many interesting books, including a few of my own (but don't hold that against her).

From Marilou:

"I will ask some friend here (he is from Xiamen) about photos of the cemetery.

"One of our more famous writers/poets in Holland, Slauerhoff, visted Amoy for longer time in the 1920's-'30's if I remember well. He was a doctor on a shippingline (Batavia(Djakarta)-Japan). He wrote an short story about Gulangyu, title: Spring-Island (Het Lente-eiland) . I dont think there is an English translation available. I am not sure if he also took photos himself . I can have a look on internet later. This book now is republished just last year, and illustrated with photos, however by a contemporary (Dutch) photographer."
met vriendelijke groet,
Marilou den Outer/ Geledraak.nl
-----------------------------------------
Yellow Dragon Productions Holland
Touchdown Center, #002
Leidsevaart 594
2014 HT Haarlem
SPONSORS van Geledraak.nl: VNC Asia Travel, Finnair

www.amoymagic.com

Last Foreign Tombstone on Gulangyu!

2009-02-17T00:32:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

I sent Mr. David Oakley in Taiwan a photo (taken by local photographer Mr. Bai Hua; click image for larger photo) of the only foreign tombstone still on Gulangyu (Kulongsoo) Island. It was discovered about two years ago. Not surprisingly, the resourceful Mr. Oakley identified the man quickly. Thanks, David, for this and much other assistance you've given over the years. Mr. Oakley's letter is below:

From Mr. Oakley:
"The Mohammeddan Tombstone. The name seems to be recorded in the British Consular records of deaths as Hormusjee Jamasjee Nandershaw (see attachment) and he presumably worked or was a partner in Nandershaw & Co. of Amoy. Unfortunately I only have the listing for 1859 for that company. With all those 'jee' endings you can be almost certain that he was a Parsee merchant.

"Thus, the 1855 date that I gave you would be correct, it seems."

www.amoymagic.com

Alvin and Sue Ostrum, Amoy

2009-02-17T00:27:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
My reply to a query:
Thanks so much for your letter, and offer to provide a few photos. I would be very happy to use any old photos of Amoy (especially the ) , and of course would acknowledge their source, and provide you a copy of the book (hopefully out this summer).

Regarding Alvin Ostrum, I'm sorry but so far I've nothing more than the Pitcher info, and a reference to him in a book that I can't find at the moment.

I do know that Harvard University's Baker Library, Graduate School of Business, which I visited a couple years ago, has the John Howard Nichol's Collection, 1856-1905. He was a China trader in the 1960s, and his collection has correspondence with missionaries, including some letters from Alvin and Sue Ostrum. Unfortunately I did not know about those letters at the time, so did not get to see them.

Alvin Ostrum is also listed in the Historical Directory of the Reformed Church of America, 1628-2000, but it is only a brief reference, ending with his death in Kohala, Hawaii, Feb. 27, 1898.

You probably already have the New York Times June 22, 1878 announcement of the 19 June marriage of Rev. Daniel Rapalje and the Ostrum's oldest daughter, Alice, in Troy, New York. Rapalje was also a Reformed Church missionary in Amoy.

I will post Alvin Ostrum's name and this info on the blog, and if anyone replied I'll let you know (a lady asked last week about an ancestor, and within a few days we had a reply from a man in Taiwan who apparently has a good deal of information (though as far as I know has yet to divulge any!).

Best regards,

Bill
www.amoymagic.com

Cummings in Amoy?

2009-02-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Jim Cummings had an ancestor who was in Amoy perhaps 80 or 100 years ago--a missionary, I think. If anyone has any info or photos of a Ms. Cummings in Amoy, I'd appreciate your sharing it. She left behind the photo to the right (click it for a larger image); otherwise, we can't find out anything about her.

Below the photo is an article by a Miss Gordon-Cumming.

Excerpt from "The Explosion at Amoy," in St. James’ Gazette, by Miss Gordon-Cumming. 1888, pp. 314-316 Littell’s Living Age, Feb. 4, 1888

"The excellence of the fish supply must strike the most casual observer. Both river and sea fish, salt and fresh, are conspicuous by their abundance, as is also the supply of bamboo oysters, so called because they are artificially bred on this coast, where bamboo oyster-fields are prepared more carefully than any hop-field or vineyard. Holes are bored in old oyster shells, which are then stuck into pieces of split bamboo about two feet in length. These are planted close together on sand flats between high and low water-mark, where strong tidal currents are said to bring the oyster spat. Certainly, the said spat is soon found adhering to the old shells, which in due time are covered with tiny oysters. The bamboos are then transplanted and set several inches apart; and within six months from the date when they were first planted they yield a crop of well-grown oysters ready for the market. Nor are even the shells wasted; for though Chinamen have learned to appreciate the luxury of transparent glass, a large number of oyster-shells are still scraped down till they are so thin as to be translucent, when, neatly fitted together (like the diamond panes in the casements of our ancestors), they form the ornamental windows in the inner courts of rich men’s houses."
www.amoymagic.com

Chinese Tenacity

2009-02-11T18:29:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Westerners have long admired Chinese' tenacity and fixedness of purpose, as MacGowan wrote in Sidelights on Chinese Life (1907, pp. 112-114):

CHAPTER VI THE ADAPTABILITY AND TENACITY OF PURPOSE OF
THE CHINESE

THE strength of the Chinaman lies in his power to adapt himself to the circumstances in which he may be situated. Place him in a northern climate where the sun's rays have lost their fire, and where the snow falls thickly and the ice lays its wintry hand upon the forces of nature, and he will thrive as though he had descended from an ancestry that had always lived in a frozen region. Transport him to the torrid zone, where the sun is a great ball of molten flame, where the air is as hot as though it had crossed a volcano, and where the one thought is how to get cool in this intolerable maddening heat, and he will move about with an ease and a comfort just as if a sultry climate was the very thing that his system demanded.

He is so cosmopolitan in his nature that it seems to be a matter of indifference where he may be or what his environment. He will travel along lofty peaks, where the snows of successive winters lie unmelted, or he will sleep in a grass hut where the fever-bearing mosquitoes will feast upon him the livelong night to the sound of their own music, and he will emerge from it next morning with a face that shows that the clouds of anopheles have left him a victor on the field. He will descend into the sultry tin mines of Siam, and at night he will stretch himself on the hard, uneven ground, with a clod for his pillow, and he will rise as refreshed as though he had slept on a bed of down.

You meet the Chinaman everywhere under the most varied circumstances, and he seems natural in every one of them. He walks about in an easy, unsurprised way, a first-class passenger in a crack mail steamer, or he curls himself up in a native river boat, in a space where no human being but himself could live an hour, and he sleeps a dreamless sleep the livelong night in a fetid atmosphere that would give an Occidental typhoid, from which he would perhaps never recover. Whatever the social condition of the Chinaman may be, whether merchant, or coolie, or artisan, one becomes conscious that behind those harsh and unaesthetic features there is a strength of physique and a latent power of endurance that seems to make him independent of climate, and impervious to microbes, germs, bacteria, and all the other scientific scourges that seem to exist for the destruction of all human life excepting the Chinese.

One advantage the Celestial has over the Occidental is what may be called his absence of nerves. The rush and race and competition of the West have never yet touched the East. The Orient is sober and measured, and never in a hurry. An Englishman, were all other signs wanting, could easily be distinguished, as he walks along the road, by his rapid stride, the jerky movements of his arms, and the nervous poise of his head, all so different from the unemotional crowd around him, who seem to think that they have an eternity before them in which to finish their walk, and so they need not hurry.

There is no doubt but that this absence of nerves is a very important factor in enabling the Chinaman to adapt himself so readily to the circumstances in which he may be placed. Take the matter of pain. He bears it with the composure of a saint. The heroic never seems to come out so grandly in him, as when he is bearing some awful suffering that only a martyr could endure. I have seen a man come into a hospital with an abscess that must have been giving him torture. His face was drawn, and its yellow hue had turned to a slightly livid colour, but there were no other signs that he was in agony. The surgeon drove his knife deep into the inflamed mass, but only the word "ai Ya," uttered with a prolonged emphasis, and the twisting up of the muscles of one side of his face, showed that he was conscious of any pain. An Occidental of the same class would most probably have howled, and perhaps a couple of assistants would have been required to hold him whilst the doctor was operating.

It is this same absence of nerves that enables the Chinese to bear suffering of any kind with a patience and fortitude that is perfectly Spartan. He will live from one year's end to another on food that seems utterly inadequate for human use; he will slave at the severest toil, with no Sunday to break its wearisome monotony, and no change to give the mind rest ; and he will go on with the duties of life with a sturdy tread and with a meditative mystic look on his face, that reminds one of those images of Buddha that one sees so frequently in the Chinese monasteries or temples.

The staying power of the Chinese seems unlimited. The strong, square frames with which nature has endowed them are models of strength.
www.amoymagic.com

Gulangyu Foreign Cemetery Epitaphs (1857)

2009-02-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
The only foreign tombstone still remaining on Gǔlàngyǔ is of an Indian from Bombay. The rest were destroyed in the 1950s when Xiamen residents buried the Amoy foreign cemetery in protest of Britain's invasion of the Suez. Fortunately, Giles’ “A Short History of Koolangsu” (1878) records a few of the inscriptions for us:

“The following inscriptions will be found quite close to the residence of Dr. Manson:--”

"Here lieth the body of Captain Stephen Baker, who was late Commander of ye SUCCESS who Departed this life October Yeare 18, Anno Domini 1700. Aged 49 Years."

"Here lieth the body of John Duffield, Son of Henry Duffield, Commander of ye TRUMBULL Ob. Sep. 6 Anno Et. XIIL annos Dom. 1698.

"Sepultura De Domingo FANGII INAN Y otros dos Indios de Philipinas que falleeie-Ron en Oct. ano de 1759."

"Sacred to the memory of Augustus Percival Greene, F.R.A.S. Lieut. of H.M.S. "Plover" who died on board that vessel on Dec. 2, 1844. Aged 26 years 9 months 3 days."

"This Monument was erected in memory of those who perished In the British schooner "Pearl" Lost in the Typhoon off Chapel Island On the night of the 12th June 1866."

"In memory of Richard A. Breck Late a master in the U.S. navy who on Sep. 22, 1874, was drowned while bathing. Aged 26. Erected by his brother Officers of the U.S.S. "Yantic""

I will add more epitaphs when I have time. For now, here is a description of the Amoy Foreign Cemetery written by Smith, in "Consular Cities" (1857):

Indelible monuments of the recent foreign occupation remained in the crowded British cemetery, in which lay the unfortunate sufferers who fell victims to the insalubrity of the spot. This cemetery was situated at the eastern side of the island, near the landing-place, and had many elegant grave-stones, erected by the sympathy of surviving comrades. Near the northern village, screened from view by a little assemblage of trees, was situated the burial-ground of the missionaries. The unhealthiness of the climate had been severely felt by this class of the Lord’s laborers, who followed in the train of earthly conquerors, to extend the bloodless conquests of their divine Savior. During the last thirteen months, out of twenty-five members of the missionary families, eighteen had been removed by various providential events. Three missionaries had permanently left, either from the failure of their own health, or of that of their families. Two wives of missionaries had set out for their native land, on account of ill health, one of whom died on the voyage; while two others had been suddenly summoned from the scenes of their missionary work to higher employment in a better world. Two children had died, and nine others had been sent to Europe or America.

Six missionaries now remained, one of whom was married; so that there were in all seven laborers on the field. In this little retired spot of ground were interred the bodies of three female missionaries, Mrs. Boone, Mrs. Doty, and Mrs. Pohlman, with the two children of the last. They left America in the vigor of youth, to consecrate their lives to the missionary work; but were cut down, one after another, by premature death...

Note: Pohlman left Amoy for Hong Kong on December 19th, 1838, embarked the Omega schooner to return on Jan. 2nd., 1849, and pn January 5th the ship struck Breaker's Point (aptly named), and Pohlman and several others drowned when the boat they were taking to shore capsized.

Amoy Foreign Cemetery (on Gulangyu)

2009-02-07T01:59:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Ms. Jean Walton, Secretary of the New Jersey Postal History Society, wanted someone to check out some tombstones in the Gulangyu Foreign Cemtery (also called the Amoy Foreign Cemetery). Some of the Gulangyu Foreign Cemetery epitaphs dated to the 1700s). But that won't be easy because the Chinese buried the cemetery, and over top of it built the Xiamen Music Hall. Here's the story:

Some bad news about the Kulangsu (Koolangsu, Kulangsoo) Foreigners' Cemetery. All foreigners, except for Japanese, were buried in the foreigners' cemetery on the slopes of Huangyan road, but in the late 1957 when Britain invaded Egypt, the "masses rose up against the British imperialists who were trying to revive the empire upon which the sun never set and buried the cemetery." (Or that's what the Chinese history books say).

Perhaps burying the cemetery in which foreigners' was buried was a way of ensuring the twice-buried foreign devils stayed buried! (I've heard of burying the hatchet but burying the cemetery to boot goes a bit far).

In 1978, the government built the Xiamen Music Hall on the site of the buried cemetery. At least the dearly departed foreign devils can now enjoy some good Western and Chinese classical music as it is played above them in the 3 Million Yuan oval concert hall (begun in 1984 and finished in 1987).

There are now no foreign tombstones, but the Chinese cemetery is fascinating (on the West of Gulangyu Islet--near the 7th Day Adventist Building).

The Foreign cemetery had graves of foreigners from the 1700s to the 1900s, including members of the Amoy Mission such as David Abeel and Elihu Doty, etc.

See: Gulangyu Foreign Cemetery Epitaphs

Related Page: The Fuh-chau Cemetery (also written Fuchau, Foochow, etc.).
www.amoymagic.com

Amoy Foreign Cemetery (Help!)

2009-02-07T01:46:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I received a very welcome e-mail from Ms. Marguerite L., with a couple photos of the Amoy Foreign Cemetery, which was on Gulangyu Islet, and had stones dating back to the 1600s. Sadly, in the 1950s, in protest against Britain's invasion of the Suez, the local Chinese buried the foreign cemetery. The beautiful sculptures were offered to anyone who would haul them off, for any purpose. Today, the locals regret it deeply, but the stones are beyond recovery (lest we be too indignant, remember that during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese destroyed their own heritage as well, so at least they were fair in their destruction! Besides, we foreigners did a good bit of destruction ourselves...)

Ms. Marguerite is looking for more information about the cemetery. I will send her what I have (inscriptions I've found in old letters and books, and a couple photos). I too would really appreciate any photos or info that you have. If you can help, please write! And below is Marguerite's letter....

Hello Dr. Bill,

I am doing some genealogy and was quite sad to find that the Amoy Cemetery had been destroyed in the1950's.

I'm sending along a photograph of my great grandfather Robert John Hastings Senior's headstone who was buried in Amoy. He resided in Anping, Formosa, starting around 1861, ran Wright & Co. in his later years. I think you may be able to glean more information for other people from the photograph of his headstone as other graves are quite visible. Do you know if anyone would have a record of who was buried in that cemetery?

My great grandmother, Yuna Huang Hastings (may) have been buried there in 1895 as well.

My other great grandfather was the first headmaster of the Diocesan Boys School and Orphanage in Hong Kong (c 1870's). He was also very involved with the Free Mason's in Hong Kong and (somewhere?) I have it recorded, he held positions in Amoy as well. His name was William Monarch Burnside Arthur. ]Note from Bill: our tiny Gulangyu Islet had two freemasonry chapters).

WMB's son Harry Walter Arthur, (my grandfather) worked for, then owned Bain & Co. he also stood in as the Vice Consul in Anping when needed. Harry and the rest of the Arthur, Hastings family immigrated to Vancouver Island, Canada in 1912. Where I now reside in Victoria.

If you have any information in regards to the cemetery or where I could email to receive information I would greatly appreciate it.

I do know that my forefathers used to go to Amoy quite often. Something that is precious to me is a small amount of lace edging that was passed on to me, the lace is bundled and pinned with the price and marked Amoy. Just as if it had been purchased yesterday!

Another thing that was passed to me was a book 'Sketches from Formosa' written by the Rev. William Campbell who was a dear family friend of the Hastings' and the Arthur's. This book has given me much insight into what life was like in those very early days. Hundreds of photographs were taken by my family of their days in China so I have an extensive visual collection, which makes me very grateful.

When I was a child of course Amoy and Anping were such distant, exotic places, and here I am now traveling in seconds with my fingers!

Thank you for reading my rather rambling email. I do hope you may be able to offer me some information and look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Marguerite

Read more about the Cemetery in "Discover Gulangyu"

www.amoymagic.com

Thomas Meichen of Amoy>

2009-01-19T01:56:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I received this e-mail from Roger Clark, who was browsing the Amoy Mission for info on his great grandfather, Thomas Meichen, who was born in Amoy on 24 May 1849, and in 1875 married one of his shipmate's younger sisters--"a country girl from distant Cornwall," Clarke noted in a second e-mail. If anyone has any information, please contact me. Thanks! Bill

Dear Dr. Brown,

I found your e-mail address while researching the history of the Amoy mission & have been reading with interest your your edited version online.

My own interest in Amoy goes back to 1849 when my great-grandfather (Thomas Meichen) was born there. He eventually joined he Royal Navy where his record gives his birth date as 24 May 1849. He is also described on his record as "(Chinaman)".

I am guessing that his father was English, Irish, or American & that the name Meichen originated with his mother. It's possible that his father was also called Thomas. All pure speculation.

I wonder whether you know of any records of that time (1849) that would help clarify any of this? If he was illegitimate, I assume there would be no record of his birth. Any suggestions or ideas would be most welcome.

I appreciate your time & interest.

Sincerely,

Roger Clark

www.amoymagic.com

Tung Wen Institute of Amoy

2009-01-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
I was delighted to receive a letter from Mr. David Weed, whose grandfather, Charles J. Weed, ran the Tung Wen Institute [Tongwen Shuyuan, 同文书院) in Amoy for about 20 years, until his retirement to Southern California in 1920. Mr. Weed is hoping to find more information about Tung Wen (and perhaps his grandfather as well?). Tung Wen was built on Kulangsu (Gulangyu Islet). To read more about Gulangyu's pioneering education, click here.

If you have anything, please contact Mr. Weed at wdweed @ gmail.com (I have separated the @ from the wdweed and the gmail.com to avoid it being used by spammers). Also please send copies to me as well at amoybill @ gmail.com Thanks!

Many retirees in Xiamen, including well known historian Hong Buren,studied at Tung Wen in their youth. It was started by Amoy's U.S. Consul Mr. Burlingame Johnson--one of the most enlightened of a long line of interesting American consuls in China.

I hope to upload a few pages of photos and info about Tung Wen when I can obtain them from Mr. Weed--or you!

Below is some information kindly provided by Mr. Weed (I have a little information from old books as well that I will collate and upload):

Enjoy Amoy!

Bill

Here is an excerpt from a 1903 paper on foreign schools:

TUNG WEN INSTITUTE

Mr. CHARLES J. WEED, A.B., Superintendent.

,OSCAR GORRELL, A.B. English and History.

,J. CHARLES RATHBUX. Mathematics and Science.

22 native male teachers, 33 boarders, and 307 day students, allmale. 318 are in the Grammar Course and 22 in the AdvancedCourse.

The Tung Wen Institute was founded in 1898 by Mr. A.Burlingame Johnson, United States Consul at Amoy, and six wealthy Chinese merchants Yap Ching-tee, Tan Ah-soon, Khoo Jeow,

Poh Luk-kuan, Khoo Chin-siong, and Tan Poh-hak.

The Tung Wen Institute is a school organized and conductedwith three principal objects : to provide opportunity for Chineseboys to get a thorough knowledge of the English language, to givethem a sound business education, and to provide elemental instruction in mathematics and the sciences. Religious teaching of allkinds is prohibited, but a respectful toleration of all the variousbeliefs is insisted upon.

Great care is exercised in the selection of teachers ; not only tohave them well equipped mentally but also morally. Particularattention is given to conversation, composition, and grammar, andthe results of the work in these branches are pointed to with pride.

BUILDING.

The building, erected in 1902, affords accommodation for six hundred day pupils, t\vo hundred boarders, and a limited number of beds. The location is high and healthful, and easily accessible

from both the city and the harbor.

Tung Wen Institute (from Pitcher)
Below is an excerpt about the Tung Wen Institute from "In and about Amoy," by Reverend Philip Wilson Pitcher, 1912 (this was the 2nd edition, with much more info and more photos).

Education Work Not Connected with Missions (pp. 242,243)

The Tung- Wen Institute was first established on Kolongsu about 1898 in a native house, and
then some three or four years after moved over to Amoy to occupy its new and commodious building erected in 1902. While this is not a missionary institution, nor in anywise connected with Missions, yet to make the history of foreign educational work in this port more complete, it may be inserted here.

The founder of this Institute was Mr. A. Burlingame Johnson, then U. S. Consul at Amoy.
He enlisted the cooperation and support of a number of wealthy Chinese gentlemen, from whom a Board of Trustees was chosen and by whom the Institute has ever since been successfully conducted. By constitutional authority the resident U. S. Consul is made President of the Board, and the Commissioner of Customs Vice President.

Speaking of educational work in the Annual Trade Report of Amoy for 1909 the Commissioner
uses these significant words : " The forward educational movement, which has made so much headway all over China, has at this port been continued with greater impetus than before. All the educational establishments report large increase in students; and the wealthy class continue to cooperate handsomely in this great work by giving large sums to the various institutions."

In this connection it should be mentioned that the natives of this port who reside in the Straits,
Manila, and elsewhere, are manifesting the keenest interest in these educational matters. A Chinese pastor has just returned (1910) from Manila bringing a handsome contribution, in cash and promises, of $10,000 Mex. for such work. Nor does this by any means exhaust the list of similar gifts from the same sources ; others have been helped in the same way by these patriotic citizens living abroad.

Links: The Amoy Mission : more info about education and mission work in early Xiamen.

"Fifty Years in Amoy: the Story of the Amoy Mission" (Philip Wilson Pitcher, 1893); the entire books is scanned and online. Enjoy
www.amoymagic.com

The Bartow China Connection

2008-12-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Lloyd Harris, of First Presbyterian Church of Bartow, Florida (where I went to high school), is an historian on the side, and has found some fascinating connections with our little town of Bartow and the Orient, including some connections with the King of Siam (played by Yul Brynner in The King and I). Below are excerpts from Lloyd's e-mails. If you have more material or photos, please share it with us! Bill.

Click Here for 1st Presbyterian Church of Bartow Historical Page (great photos!)
Note: Photos on this page were provided to Mr. Lloyd Harris by Mr. Jan van der Wal (Almelo, Netherlands)

Letter from Lloyd Harris, 17 July 2003:
Hi Bill,
Cypress knee howdy's from Imperial Polk County to ya'll and all in the Great Land of Chin.
Sue's web site is GREAT!!!!!!!

First Presbyterian Church of Bartow is building a web site. Alex is putting it together since he's worked on one or two at school. I am working on the history and as I was going through records dating back to 1882 I found a Charlotte Ann Torrey, wife of Ambassador to King of Siam. She transferred her membership from Episcopal Church in Hong Kong back in 1885 to FPCB, He daughter Elena transferred membership from First Presbyterian Church of Bangkok at the same time. I did further research and found out that her husband was a J.W. Torrey founder of the American Trading Company along with a guy named Harris (no near relation as I can tell) in Hong Kong.

I know Hong Kong was British at the time. This Mrs. Torrey was Charlotte Ann nee Mills and Elena was their first child. Torrey later swings a deal with a Sultan in Borneo and succeeds in establishing American trading influence in the region and by 1864 is appointed Rajah in the area now known as Sabah. He names his city on some River Elena (I don't have my notes nearby and am typing this from memory) He was actually a Vice Consul to the King of Siam (Same one as Yul Brynner , etc., etc., etc.) I believe his name was Mongkut. Torrey, his wife Charlotte and two children return to Massachusetts, USA in 1884 due to his being sick. Within a few months J.W. Torrey dies and the wife and children come to Bartow. They lived here for the rest of their lives and married into the Varn family.

Anyhow I thought it interesting to note a Bartow-China connection. I didn't check into what the American Trading Company dealt in as to goods or services and would presume unfortunately opium etc.. He also was editor of two different newspapers in Hong Kong from mid 1850s to 1860s. Just before Torrey died he received an appointment as an advisor to the King Chulalangkorn (boy king in "King & I" who instituted reforms. Torrey was never able to reply due to death.

From Lloyd Harris, 13 Sept. 2007:

...Our church has a Chinese connection from the 1860's-1880's. You can look up some of the story on line by searching out the American Trading Company in Hong Kong, William Torrey, Thomas Harris. One of the early members of First Presbyterian of Bartow was Charlotte Torrey the wife of William an ambassador to the king of Siam (the son of Yul Brynner in the movie Anna & the King) at the time Pres Grant visited the orient. William Torrey, Thomas Harris and a Chinese national chartered a trading company based in Hong Kong. Torrey was later granted a title equal to a king in his own right over the northern end of Borneo. They were apparently making money and at the same time advancing trade ventures for the US throughout the region. In the early 1880s Torrey returned to the US and died, his widow and daughter moved to Bartow around 1887 and were members of the church. Charlotte]s transfer was from a church in Hong Kong and was noted in the minutes of the church and in addition it was noted she was the wife of the former ambassador to Siam. Her granddaughter was Charlotte Varn and elderly lady who worked for the newspaper in Bartow. She wrote the Society column and lived on Broadway. I am writing this from memory and will send you details if your interested later.

It would be interesting to know what business they actually were involved in at Hong Kong. (tea, opium, etc..) In addition if the church Charlotte belonged to is still in existence.

www.amoymagic.com

Caroline Adriance--1st RCA Female Missionary in Amoy

2008-12-16T04:26:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

MISS CAROLINE ADRIANCE, 1861-'64.
(First single woman to serve directly under the RCA) (adapted from Pitcher Wilson Pitcher, "The Story of the Amoy Mission," 1893)

Two miles south of Auburn, N. Y., at the outlet of Owasco Lake, stands the Sand Beach Church (Owasco Outlet Church, Classis of Montgomery), Rev. Chas. Maar, pastor. Though perhaps unknown to many of the members of the Reformed churches, yet, on account of the number of missionaries, whose names are enrolled on her records, and who have gone out from her walls to publish the message of salvation unto the nations sitting in darkness, is worthy of better acquaintance and wider reputation.

It was in this church that Miss Adriance received both her spiritual and missionary education.
In 1851, Rev. S. R. Brown, D. D., who had been a foreign missionary at Canton, China, under the auspices of the Morrison Educational Society, and in charge of the Morrison Memorial School at Canton, became pastor of the Sand Beach Church.

It was under Dr. Brown's instruction, we may assume, that Miss Adriance received her missionary enthusiasm, and by whom was awakened the desire to go and tell the glad tidings off salvation to the souls perishing in the darkness of heathenism.

Dr. Brown's life was fired with the spirit, of missions, and the flame flowed with such brightness that it touched and fired the lives of members of his little flock at Owasco Outlet.

In 1852 a Ladies' Foreign Missionary Society was organized in this church, and Miss Adriance was one of the charter members—and a very active and consecrated one. It was in this school that she for seven years was, unconsciously, perchance, fitting herself both for the Macedonian call and for usefulness on the foreign field.

But a few years go by before that call comes to the pastor and to his child of faith alike. Japan had been opened and was ready for the Lord’s harvesters to enter and begin the seed-sowing in the fallow soil.

So when the call came in 1859 from the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed (Dutch} Church to Dr. Brown to go and represent that denomination in the "Land of the Rising Sun,''' he was ready to respond most heartily to the summons.

Others had at the same time received the summons, and with the same spirit of gladness obeyed the call. And thus it came to pass that it was that, instead of one or two, quite a company set out at that time from that church.

There were, besides Dr. and Mrs. Brown, Rev. Guido Verbeck, D. D., and wife, Miss Mary E. Kidder (now Mrs. E. R. Miller, of North Japan Mission), and Miss Adriance. Some of them were already, and others of them became, members of this church before their departure.

Dr. Verbeck was a graduate of the Auburn Theological Seminary, and while at Auburn became a member of this church.. Mrs. Verbeck was a member. Miss Kidder was teaching at Owasco Outlet in Dr. Brown's school, and she thus became attached to this church. Hence, it was that at that time when this little company set forth for the Orient on the ship Surprise, from New York, in the spring of 1859, they were all members of the Sand Beach Church, at Owasco Outlet, N. Y.
This little memoir has to do, however, with Miss Adriance.

Caroline Adriance, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Humphrey Adriance, was born in Scipio, N. Y., October 29th, 1824. When about four years old she met with the greatest loss which can come to a child in the death of her mother, so the care of her in childhood devolved upon others, who could not feel toward her as mother.
There was nothing remarkable about her childhood, and the only record of those early years is that she was obedient and affectionate, and grew up to be useful and helpful; yet, there is a beautiful history written in those lines that friends may well cherish.

At about the age of sixteen, during a revival that occurred in the neighborhood, she was one among others at that time to decide to accept Christ as her Saviour. Soon after she made a public profession of her faith by uniting with the sand Beach Church, where she remained a consistent member until she received the call to go unto the heathen.

Miss Adriance was a volunteer. The Board was not in the position to send her at that time, so she went out at her own expense. And not only that, but before she left New York she made her wiIl and bequeathed all her earthly possessions to the Board of Foreign Missions, which amounted, at the time of her decease, to $2,500 or more.

Miss Adriance's friends were very solicitous about her going alone, and on account thereof she received no small portion of discouragement from them to enter upon what seemed a most hazardous enterprise.

That she made no mistake, and that her life was full of joy in her work, we have ample testimony in a letter (April 8th, 1861,) of hers to a cousin now living in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. In the letter, she writes:

"I recollect well the anxiety you felt on my account because I was single and alone, with no protector, and I presume you have often wished to know how your poor lone cousin was getting along. Could you have been permitted to have looked into my home in Japan you would have seen me surrounded with blessings far more than you could have imagined. I will not attempt, nor do I wish to make you think that it was no trial to leave brothers, sisters and friends to whom I was strongly attached; the dear little church of which I was a member; my own native land, which none could love more than I. Can any one think that it was not a trial, and a severe one, too, to be separated from all these with little expectation of ever seeing them again? But, strong as are ties which are (for a season, at least,) severed, I do not regret the course I have taken, and I am not sorry I am in Japan. I trust I am where the Father would have me, and that He has something for me to do in this far off land."

Her chosen lot was with the laborers at Yokohama, Japan, but finding that she could not pursue the work she had set out to do among the women of Japan, withdrew from the field and joined the Mission at Amoy some time in 186l.

Here also she was only permitted to labor for three brief years, when death cut off her life of usefulness March 5th, 1864; yet, during that time, by her beautiful Christian character and unsparing devotion, she endeared herself to all with whom and for whom she had labored.

Loving hands laid her to rest in the little hallowed cemetery on Kolongsu, where others of the Amoy Mission lie sleeping their calm and peaceful slumbers.

Over her grave, in that far off land, stands a modest little monument, with best of inspirations that one might wish for at life’s close: "She hath done what she could."

www.amoymagic.com

Chinese Farmers (1911)

2008-12-08T01:17:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

King, F. H. , D. Sc., “Farmers of Forty Centuries, or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan,” University of Wisconsin, 1911

Note: This is a fascinating book, though too and involved for the casual reader. I have extracted sections that I found interesting. Bill.

We are to consider some of the practices of a virile race of some five hundred millions of people who have an unimpaired inheritance moving with the momentum acquired through four thousand years; a people morally and intellectually strong, mechanically capable, who are awakening to a utilization of all the possibilities which science and invention during recent years have brought to western nations; and a people who have long dearly loved peace but who can and will fight in self defense if compelled to do so.

We had long desired to stand face to face with Chinese and Japanese farmers; to walk through their fields and to learn by seeing some of their methods, appliances and practices which centuries of stress and experience have led these oldest farmers in the world to adopt. We desired to learn how it is possible, after twenty and perhaps thirty or even forty centuries, for their soils to be made to produce sufficiently for the maintenance of such dense populations as are living now in these three countries. We have now had this opportunity and almost every day we were instructed, surprised and amazed at the conditions and practices which confronted us whichever way we turned; instructed in the ways and extent to which these nations for centuries have been and are conserving and utilizing their natural resources, surprised at the magnitude of the returns they are getting from their fields, and amazed at the amount of efficient human labor cheerfully given for a daily wage of five cents and their food, or for fifteen cents, United States currency, without food.

WATER
To anyone who studies the agricultural methods of the Far East in the field it is evident that these people, centuries ago, came to appreciate the value of water in crop production as no other nations have. They have adapted conditions to crops and crops to conditions until with rice they have a cereal which permits the most intense fertilization and at the same time the ensuring of maximum yields against both drought and flood. With the practice of western nations in all humid climates, no matter how completely and highly we fertilize, in more years than not yields are reduced by a deficiency or an excess of water.

It is difficult to convey, by word or map, an adequate conception of the magnitude of the systems of canalization which contribute primarily to rice culture. A conservative estimate would place the miles of canals in China at fully 200,000 and there are probably more miles of canal in China, Korea and Japan than there are miles of railroad in the United States. China alone has as many acres in rice each year as the United States has in wheat and her annual product is more than double and probably threefold our annual wheat crop, and yet the whole of the rice area produces at least one and sometimes two other crops each year.

…Thus we find in the Far East…that these people have with rare wisdom combined both irrigation and dry farming methods to an extent and with an intensity far beyond anything our people have ever dreamed, in order that they might maintain their dense populations.

…Almost every foot of land is made to contribute material for food, fuel or fabric. Everything which can be made edible serves as food for man or domestic animals. Whatever cannot be eaten or worn is used for fuel. The wastes of the body, of fuel and of fabric worn beyond other use are taken back to the field…

Everywhere we went in China, about all of the very old and large cities, the proportion of grave land to cultivated fields is very large. In the vicinity of Canton Christian college, on Honam island, more than fifty per cent of the land was given over to graves and in many places they were so close that one could step from one to another.

VI
SOME CUSTOMS OF THE COMMON PEOPLE

Everywhere we went in China, the laboring people appeared generally happy and contented if they have something to do, and showed clearly that they were well nourished.
The industrial classes are thoroughly organized, having had their guilds or labor unions for centuries and it is not at all uncommon for a laborer who is known to have violated the rules of his guild to be summarily dealt with or even to disappear without questions being asked. In going among the people, away from the lines of tourist travel, one gets the impression that everybody is busy or is in the harness ready to be busy.

BEGGARS
Tramps of our hobo type have few opportunities here and we doubt if one exists in either of these countries. There are people physically disabled who are asking alms and there are organized charities to help them, but in proportion to the total population these appear to be fewer than in America or Europe. The gathering of unfortunates and habitual beggars about public places frequented by people of leisure and means naturally leads tourists to a wrong judgment regarding the extent of these social conditions. Nowhere among these densely crowded people, either Chinese, Japanese or Korean, did we see one intoxicated, but among Americans and Europeans many instances were observed. All classes and both sexes use tobacco and the British-American Tobacco Company does a business in China amounting to millions of dollars annually.

VII
THE FUEL PROBLEM, BUILDING AND TEXTILE MATERIALS
With forty centuries of such inheritance coursing in the veins of four hundred millions of people, in a country possessed of such marvelous wealth of coal and water power, of forest and of agricultural possibilities, there should be a future speedily blossoming and ripening into all that is highest and best for such a nation. If they will retain their economies and their industry and use their energies to develop, direct and utilize the power in their streams and in their coal fields along the lines which science has now made possible to them, at the same time walking in paths of peace and virtue, there is little worth while which may not come to such a people.

… This marvelous heritage of economy, industry and thrift, bred of the stress of centuries, must not be permitted to lose virility through contact with western wasteful practices, now exalted to seeming virtues through the dazzling brilliancy of mechanical achievements. More and more must labor be dignified in all homes alike, and economy, industry and thrift become inherited impulses compelling and satisfying.

VIII TRAMPS AFIELD
Another equally, or even more, laborious practice followed by the Chinese farmers in this province is the periodic exchange of soil between mulberry orchards and the rice fields, their experience being that soil long used in the mulberry orchards improves the rice, while soil from the rice fields is very helpful when applied to the mulberry orchards. We saw many instances, when traveling by boat-train between Shanghai, Kashing and Hangchow, of soil being carried from rice fields and either stacked on the banks or dropped into the canal. Such soil was oftenest taken from narrow trenches leading through the fields, laying them off in beds. It is our judgment that the soil thrown into the canals undergoes important changes, perhaps through the absorption of soluble plant food substances such as lime, phosphoric acid and potash withdrawn from the water, or through some growth or fermentation, which, in the judgment of the farmer, makes the large labor involved in this procedure worth while. The stacking of soil along the banks was probably in preparation for its removal by boat to some of the mulberry orchards.

IX
THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE

OPIUM and TOBACCO
Chinese history states that the plow was invented by Shennung, who lived 2737-2697 B. C. and "taught the art of agriculture and the medical use of herbs". He is honored as the "God of Agriculture and Medicine."

Opium is no longer used openly in China, unless it be permitted to some well along in years with the habit confirmed, and the growing of the poppy is prohibited. The penalties for violating the law are heavy and enforcement is said to be rigid and effective. For the first violation a fine is imposed. If convicted of a second violation the fine is heavier with imprisonment added to help the victim acquire self control, and a third conviction may bring the death penalty. The eradication of the opium scourge must prove a great blessing to China. But with the passing of this most
formidable evil, for whose infliction upon China England was largely responsible, it is a great misfortune that through the pitiless efforts of the British-American Tobacco Company her people are rapidly becoming addicted to the western tobacco habit, selfish beyond excuse, filthy beyond measure, and unsanitary in its polluting and oxygen destroying effect upon the air all are compelled to breathe. It has already become a greater and more inexcusable burden upon mankind than opium ever was.

China, with her already overtaxed fields, can ill afford to give over an acre to the cultivation of this crop and she should prohibit the growing of tobacco as she has that of the poppy. Let her take the wise step now when she readily may, for all civilized nations will ultimately be compelled to adopt such a measure. The United States in 1902 had more than a million acres growing tobacco, and harvested 821,000,000 pounds of leaf. This leaf depleted those soils to the extent of more than twenty eight million pounds of nitrogen, twenty-nine million pounds of potassium and nearly two and a half million pounds of phosphorus, all so irrecoverably lost that even China, with her remarkable skill in saving and her infinite patience with little things, could not recover them for her soils. On a like area of field might as readily be grown twenty million bushels of wheat and if the twelve hundred million pounds of grain were all exported it would deplete the soil less than the tobacco crop in everything but phosphorus, and in this about the same. Used at home, China would return it all to one or another field. The home consumption of tobacco in the United States averaged seven pounds per capita in 1902. A like consumption for China's four hundred millions would call for 2800 million pounds of leaf. If she grew it on her fields two million acres would not suffice. Her soils would be proportionately depleted and she would be short forty million bushels of wheat; but if China continues to import her tobacco the vast sum expended can neither fertilize her fields nor feed, clothe or educate her people, yet a like sum expended in the importation of wheat would feed her hungry and enrich her soils.

In the matter of conservation of national resources here is one of the greatest opportunities open to all civilized nations. What might not be done in the United States with a fund of $57,000,000 annually, the market price of the raw tobacco leaf, and the land, the labor and the capital expended in getting the product to the men who puff, breathe and perspire the noxious product into the air everyone must breathe, and who bespatter the streets, sidewalks, the floor of every public place and conveyance, and befoul the million spittoons, smoking rooms and smoking cars, all unnecessary and should be uncalled for, but whose installation and upkeep the non-user as well as the user is forced to pay, and this in a country of, for and by the people. This costly, filthy, selfish tobacco habit should be outgrown. Let it begin in every new home, where the mother helps the father in refusing to set the example, and let its indulgence be absolutely prohibited to everyone while in public school and to all in educational institutions.

XI
ORIENTALS CROWD BOTH TIME AND SPACE
Time is a function of every life process, as it is of every physical, chemical and mental reaction, and the husbandman is compelled to shape his operations so as to conform with the time requirements of his crops. The oriental farmer is a time economizer beyond any other. He utilizes the first and last minute and all that are between. The foreigner accuses the Chinaman of being always "long on time", never in a fret, never in a hurry. And why should he be when he leads time by the forelock, and uses all there is?

XII
RICE CULTURE IN THE ORIENT
If the United States is to endure; if we shall project our history even through four or five thousand years… and if that history shall be written in continuous peace, free from periods of wide-spread famine or pestilence, this nation must orient itself; it must square its practices with a conservation of resources which can make endurance possible…

XIII SILK CULTURE
Another of the great and in some ways one of the most remarkable industries of the Orient is that of silk production, and its manufacture into the most exquisite and beautiful fabrics in the world. Remarkable for its magnitude; for having had its birthplace apparently in oldest China, at least 2600 years B. C.; for having been founded on the domestication of a wild insect of the woods; and for having lived through more than four thousand years, expanding until a $1,000,000 cargo of the product has been laid down on our western coast at one time and rushed by special fast express to New York City for the Christmas trade.

According to the observations of Count Dandola, the worms which contribute to this vast earning are so small that some 700,000 of them weigh at hatching only one pound, but they grow very rapidly, shed their skins four times, weighing 15 pounds at the time of the first moult, 94 pounds at the second, 400 pounds at the third, 1628 pounds at the fourth moulting and when mature have come to weigh nearly five tons--9500 pounds. But in making this growth during about thirty-six days, according to Paton, the 700,000 worms have eaten 105 pounds by the time of the first moult; 315 pounds by the second; 1050 pounds by the third; 3150 pounds by the fourth, and in the final period, before spinning, 19,215 pounds, thus consuming in all nearly twelve tons of mulberry leaves in producing nearly five tons of live weight, or at the rate of two and a half pounds of green leaf to one pound of growth.

According to Paton, the cocoons from the 700,000 worms would weigh between 1400 and 2100 pounds and these, according to the observations of Hosie in the province of Szechwan, would yield about one-twelfth their weight of raw silk. On this basis the one pound of worms hatched from the eggs would yield between 116 and 175 pounds of raw silk, worth, at the Japanese export price for 1907, between $550 and $832, and 164 pounds of green mulberry leaves would be required to produce a pound of silk.

A Chinese banker in Chekiang province, with whom we talked, stated that the young worms which would hatch from the eggs spread on a sheet of paper twelve by eighteen inches would consume, in coming to maturity, 2660 pounds of mulberry leaves and would spin 21.6 pounds of silk. This is at the rate of 123 pounds of leaves to one pound of silk. The Japanese crop for 1907, 26,072,000 pounds, produced on 957,560 acres, is a mean yield of 27.23 pounds of raw silk per acre of mulberries, and this would require a mean yield of 4465 pounds of green mulberry leaves per acre, at the rate of 164 pounds per pound of silk.

XIV THE TEA INDUSTRY

The cultivation of tea in China and Japan is another of the great industries of these nations, taking rank with that of sericulture, if not above it, in the important part it plays in the welfare of the people.
www.amoymagic.com

My Library

2008-12-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Some have asked what books I use. Below is a partial list of my library (over recent years, I've collected hundreds of books, mainly from online bookstores through www.abebooks.com or www.addall.com). I'll complete this short bibliography when I have time.

Abend, Hallett, “Treaty Ports,” Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc, New York, 1944

Allom, Thomas and Wright, the Reverend G.N., “China in a Series of Views, Displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits of that Ancient Empire,” Fisher, London and Paris, 1843.

“Greetings from Amoy; Amoy Mission, 1842-1907,” Pamphlet by Reformed Church of America.

“Asia Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies,”; Supplementary Intelligence, Vol. XXVI, July to December 1828, London, 1828

Ball, Benjamin Lincoln, “Rambles in Eastern Asia: Including China and Manila, During Several Years Residence,” James French and Company, Boston, 1856

Band, Edward, “Working His Purpose Out: The History of the English Presbyterian Mission,” Presbyterian Church of England, London, 1948

Barbour, George F., “China and the Missions at Amoy, with Notice of the Opium Trade,” William P. Kennedy, Edinburgh, 1855.

Bax, Captain B.W., R.N, “The Eastern Seas; Being a Narrative of the ‘Dwarf’ in China, Japan, and Formosa,” John Murray, London, 1875

Beach, Harlan P., “Dawn on the Hills of T’ang, or, Missions in China,” Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” New York, 1905

Bedloe, Edward, M.D., U.S. Consul, reporting in “Weekly Abstract of Sanitary Reports,” Supervising Surgeon-General M.H,S., Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893

Bedloe, Edward, M.D., U.S. Consul in Amoy, :”Public Health Reports, Vol. 2, January 1, 1881

Beltman, Henry, “90 Years with Uncle Henry,” Robert Schuller Ministries, Garden Grove, California, 1984

Bishop, Mrs. J.F., “Chinese Pictures; Notes on Photographs Made in China,” Cassell and Company Limited, London, 1900

Blakeslee, George H., Editor, “China and the Far East: Clark University Lectures,” Thomay Y. Crowell and Co., New York, 1910

Bonar, Rev. Andrew A., “MEMOIR of the Life and Brief Ministry of REV. DAVID SANDEMAN,” JAMES NISBET & Co., LONDON, 1861.

Breck, Samuel, “Descendants of Aaron and Mary (Church) Magoun, of Pembroke, Massachusetts, Third Edition,” Washington, D.C., 1891 p. 21

Breuer, Hans, “Columbus was Chinese, Discoveries and Inventions of the Far East,” Herder and Herder, New York, 1972

Brown, C. Campbell, “China in Legend and Story,” Fleming H. Revell Company, NY, 1907

Caldwell, George W., M.D., “Oriental Rambles,” Published by G.W. Caldwell, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., 1906.

Clarke, Basil, “Chinese Science and the West,” Nile & MacKenzie, Ltd. London, 1980.

Close, Upton, “In the Land of the Laughing Buddha; the Adventures of an American Barbarian in China,” G.P. Putnam and Sons, New York & London, 1924.

Coffin, George, A Pioneer Voyage to California and Round the World, 1849 to 1852” Gorham B. Coffin, Illinois, June, 1908.

Cope, Captain, "A New History of the East-Indies: With Brief Observations on the Religion, Customs, Manners and Trade of the Inhabitants...", M. Cooper, London, 1754.

Corwin, Edward Tanjore, D.D. “A Manual of the Reformed Church in America (Formerly Reformed Dutch Church), 1628-1902, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1902.

Cressy-Marcks, Violet, “Journey into China,” E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1942

Gordon-Cumming, Miss, “The Explosion at Amoy,” St. James’ Gazette, in Littell’s Living Age, Feb. 4, 1888, pp. 314-316

Curtis, Benjamin Robbins, “Dottings Round the Circle,” James R. Osgood and Company, Boston, 1876

Darley, Mary, “Cameos of a Chinese City,” [Jian ‘Ou] Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, Missionary Society, 27 Chancery Lane, London, 1917

Darley, Mary, “The Light of the Morning,” Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, Missionary Society, 27 Chancery Lane, London, 1903

Davis, Rev. J.A., “The Young Mandarin; a Story of Chinese Life” Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, Boston and Chicago, 1896

Dean, William, “The China Mission: Embracing a History of the Various Missions of All Denominations Among the Chinese, with Biographical Sketches of Deceased Missionaries,” Sheldon & Co., New York, 1859

De Jong, Gerald F., “The Reformed Church in China 1842-1951,” Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Michigan, 1992

Denby, Hon. Charles, LL.D., [Thirteen Years United States Minister to China], “China and Her People: Being the Observations, Reminiscences, and Conclusions of an American Diplomat, Vol. II, L.C. Page and Company, Boston, 1906

Dennis, Rev. James S., “Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions,” Vol. III, Fleming H. Revell Company, NY, 1906

Dobell, Peter, “Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia, with a Narrative of a Residence in China, Vol. II, London, 1830. Dobell: Counselor of the Court of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia” pp.309, 310

Dukes, Edwin Joshua, “Everyday Life in China; or, Scenes Along River and Road in Fuh-Kien,” London Missionary Society’s Edition, The Religious Tract Society, 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul’s Churchyard; and 164, Piccadilly, 1885

Duryea, Rev. William Rankin Duryea, D.D., “The Amoy Mission,” Excerpted from “A Manual of the Missions of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America,” by Sangster, Mrs. Margaret E., Ed.; Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, New York, 1877, pp.170-209

Edkins, Joseph, D.D., “Introduction to the Study of the Chinese Characters,” Trubner and Company, London, 1875

Edkins, Jane Rowbotham Stobbs, “Chinese Scenes and People: With Notices of Christian Missions and Missionary Life in a Series of Letters from Various Parts of China,” James Nisbit and Company, London, 1863

English Presbyterian Messenger, Vol 1. 1st May 1845 to 31st December 1847, Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster-Row, London, 1847

Eve, Paul F. M.D. and Garvin, I.P. M.D. “The Southern Medical and Surgical Journal Vol. 1 - 1845 New Series,” P.C. Guieu Publisher, Augusta, Jan. 1845

Fisher, Lena Leonard, “The River Dragon’s Bride,” Abingdon Press, New York, 1922

Ford, John D., “An American Cruiser in the East, Travels and Studies in the Far East,” 2nd Edition, With an Account of the Battle of Manila, April 30, 1898, A.S. Barnes and Company, New York, 1898 Note: Ford was First Engineer of the Pacific Station, United States Navy.

Foster, John W., “American Diplomacy in the Orient,” 1903.

Franck, Harry A., “Roving Through Southern China,” The Century Co., New York, 1925.

Fullerton, W.Y., andWilson, C.E., “New China—A Story of Modern Travel,” Morgan and Scott, Ltd., (Office of the Christian), 12 Paternoster Buildings, London, 1910.

Gamewell, Mary Ninde, “New Life Currents in China,” Interchurch Press, New York, 1919

Gaunt, Rev. L.H., Ed., “The Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, Vol. VIII – No. 85 New Series,” London, 1899

Giles, Herbert Allen, L.L.D., “China and the Chinese,” Columbia University Press, New York, 1902

Gillespie, Rev. William, “The Land of Sinim, or, China and Chinese Missions,” Myles Macphail, London, 1854 [Gillespie was “For seven years agent of the London Missionary Society at Hong-Kong and Canton, and now minister of the United Presbyterian Church, Shiels, Aberdeen.”]

Graves, Rev. Rosewell Hobart, “Forty Years in China,” R.H. Woodward Company, Baltimore, 1895.

Griffis, William Elliot Griffis, D.D., L.H.D., “Hepburn of Japan, and His Wife and Helpmates; a Life Story of Toil for Christ,” Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1913

Gutzlaff, Karl F. A., “Journal of Three Voyages Along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832, and 1833,” Frederick Westley and A.H. Davis, London, 1834.

Gutzlaff, Charles, Rev. by Rev. Andrew Reed, D.D., “China Opened; or, A Display of the Topography, History, Customs, Manners, Arts, Manufactures, Commerce, Literature, Religion, Jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire,” Vol. II Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1838.

Haffner, Christopher, “Amoy—The Port and the Lodge,” The Corinthian Lodge of Amoy, No. 1806 EC, Hong Kong, 1997

Hart, Robert, “These from the Land of Sinim: Essays on the Chinese Questions,” Chapman and Hall, London, 1901.

Hewlett, Sir Meyrick, “Forty Years in China,” Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1943.

Hobson, John M.,”The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization,” Cambridge University Press, U.K., 2004.

Holkeboer, Tena, “God’s Bridge, or the Story of Jin-Gi,” Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, 1944

Hollister, Mary Brewster, “Lady Fourth Daughter of China,” The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1932

Hughes, George, [Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs at Amoy] “Amoy and Surrounding Districts,” De Souza and Company, Hong Kong, 1872

Hurlbut, Floy, “The Fukienese: a Study in Human Geography,” Doctoral dissertation for University of Nebraska, 1939

Johnston, Rev. James., “China and Formosa; The Story of a Successful Mission,” Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld. London, 1898

Johnston, Meta and Lena, Jin Ko-Niu—A Brief Sketch of the Life of Jessie M. Johnston For Eighteen Years W.M.A. Missionary in Amoy, China, T. French Downie 21 Warwick Lane, London, E.C. 1907

Joseland, Rev. Frank P. “Our Missionary Districts, Amoy and Chiang-Chiu”, in Gaunt, 1899.

Keith, Marian, “The Black Bearded Barbarian: The Life of George Leslie Mackay of Formosa,” The Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, The Young People’s Forward Movement Department, Toronto, 1912.

Kesson, John (of the British Museum),“The Cross and the Dragon, or, The Fortunes of Christianity in China, with Notices of the Christian Missions and Missionaries, and some Accounts of the Chinese Secret Societies,”Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1854.pp.195-197

King, F. H. , D. Sc., “Farmers of Forty Centuries, or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan,” University of Wisconsin, 1911

King, John W., Master, R.N.,The China Pilot, Comprising the Coasts of China, Korea, and Tartary; The Sea of Japan, Gulfs of Tartary and Amur, and Sea of Okhotsk; and the …” 3rd Edition, Hydrographic Office, Admiralty, London, 1861.

Knollys, Major Henry, “English Life in China,” Smith, Elder & Company, London, 1885

Kwantes, Helen, “She has done a Beautiful Thing for me; Portraits of Christian Women in Asia.” OMF Books.

LaMotte, Ellen N., “Peking Dust,” The Century Company, New York, 1919.

Lawrence, James B., U.S.M.C. “China and Japan, and a Voyage Thither: An Account of a Cruise in the Waters of the East Indies, China and Japan,” Press of Case, Lockwood & Brainard, Hartford, Connecticut, 1870.

Lawrence, Una Roberts, “Lottie Moon,” Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Nashville, 1927

Lewis, Elizabeth Foreman,”Portraits from a Chinese Scroll,” the John C. Winston Company, Chicago, 1938

Lin, Yutang, “My Country and My People,” Foreign Language and Teaching Press, Beijing, 1998.

Little, Archibald, Mrs. “Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them,” Hutchinson & Co., London, 1899

Lockhart, William, The Medical Missionary in China: A Narrative of Twenty Years' Experience, Hurst and Blackett, Publishers, Spottiswoode and Company, London, 1861

Lowrie, Rev. Walter M., “Memoirs,” Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, New York, 1850.

Lu, C.C., of Ningpo, China “China and England: a Lecture Delivered at Sheffield University,” Sheffield Independent Press, Sheffield, U.K., 1904

MacCauley, Hastings, Kathay, A Cruise in the China Seas, 1852, p.142

MacCauley, Hastings, Life Among the Chinese, Carlton and Porter, New York, 1861.

Macgowan, John, “How England Saved China,” T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1913.

Macgowan, John, “Beside the Bamboo,” London Missionary Society, 16 New Bridge Street, London, 1914.

Macgowan, Rev. John, “Christ or Confucius, Which?, or, The Story of the Amoy Mission,” London Missionary Society, 14 Blomfield Street, E.C.; John Snow & Co., 2 Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, E.C. 1895

Macgowan, Rev. John, “Lights and Shadows of Chinese Life,” North China Daily News & Herald Ltd., Shanghai, 1909

Macgowan, Rev. John, “Men and Manners of Modern China,” T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1912. use, 43 Gerrard Street, W. 1907

Macgowan, Rev. John, “Pictures of Southern China,” The Religious Tract Society, London, 1897

Macgowan, Rev. John, “Sidelights on Chinese Life,” Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Limited, Dryden H

Macguire, Theophane, C.P., “Hunan Harvest, Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1946.

Maclay, Rev. R. S., “Life Among the Chinese: With Characteristic Sketches and incidents of Missionary Operations and Prospects in China,” Carlton & Porter, New York, 1861.

Manson-Bahr, Sir Philip, “Patrick Manson, The Father of Tropical Medicine,” Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., Edinburgh, 1962

Martin, Robert Montgomery, China; political, commercial, and social; in an official report to her Majesty's Government, Vol. II, James Madden, London, 1847

Matheson, Donald, Esq., “Narrative of the Mission to China of the English Presbyterian Church, with Remarks on the Social Life and Religious Ideas of the Chinese, by the Rev. James MacGowan (London Missionary Society of Amoy), and Notes on Climate, Health and Outfit, By John Carnegie, Esq., M.D. of Amoy”, James Nisbet and Company, London, 1866.

Matheson, Mrs., Ed., Memorials of Hugh M. Matheson [1921-1898] Edited by his wife with a prefatory note by the Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, M.A., D.D. Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1899

Mathews, Basil, and Southon, Arthur E., “Torchbearers in China, Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada,” New York, 1924

Mayers, Wm. Fred, and Dennys, N.B., “The Treaty Ports of China and Japan,” Trubner & Company, London, 1867

Menpes, Mortimer, and Blake, Sir Arthur Henry, “China,” Adam and Charles Black, London, 1909.

“Messenger and Missionary Record of the Presbyterian Church in England,” London, 1875

Methodist Episcopal Church Missionary Society, “The Gospel in All Lands Illustrated,” Eugene R. Smith, Publisher, New York, Jan.-June, 1881

Michie, Alexander, “The Englishman in China During the Victorian Period, as Illustrated by the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan, Vol. I”, William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1900

Millard, Thomas E., “Our Eastern Question: America’s Contact with the Orient and the Trend of Relations with China and Japan,” The Century Company, NY, 1916

Murray, Lieutenant Alexander,[18th Royal Irish] “Doings in China—Being the Personal Narrative of an Officer Engaged in the Late Chinese Expedition, From the Recapture of Chusan in 1841 to the Peace in Nankin in 1842.” Richard Bentley, London, 1843

Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1852, A Journal of Papers on Subjects Connected with Maritime Affairs, Notes on a Voyage to China in Her Majesty’s Late Screw Steamer Reynard.—P. Cracroft, Commander. Simpkin, Marshall and Co., Ltd. pp. 429, 525, 579

Needham, Joseph, “Science in Traditional China,” Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1981.

Neill, Desmond, “Elegant Flower—First Steps in China,” John Murray, Albemarle St., London, 1956

Nevius, Helen S.C., “Our Life in China,” Robert Carter and Brothers, New York, 1869. P. 473, 474

Ng, Chin-Keong, “Trade and Society—The Amoy Network on the China Coast 1683-1735,” Singapore University Press, Singapore, 1983

Pinkerton, J., “A General Collection of Voyages and Travels, digested by J. Pinkerton,” 1811

Pitcher, Philip Wilson, “Fifty Years in Amoy, a History of the Amoy Mission,” Reformed Church of America Board of Publication, NY, 1893

Regnault, Elias, and Doane, Augustus Sidney, "The Criminal History of the English Government: From the First Massacre of the Irish, to the Poisoning of the Chinese," translated from the French, J.S. Redfield, New York, 1843

Richard, Timothy, “Forty Five Years in China; Reminiscences,” Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1916

Ross, Frank, Jr., “Oracle Bones, Stars, and Wheelbarrows, Ancient Chinese Science and Technology,” Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1982

Sadler, J., “Chinese Customs and Superstitions, or, What They do at Amoy,” China Review, XXII, No. 6, pp. 755-8

Sale, George, and others, “The Modern Part of an Universal History: From the Earliest Account of Time,” VOL. VIII, Compiled from Original Writers, Printed for Richardson, S., et al., London, 1759.

Sangster, Mrs. Margaret E., Ed.; “A Manual of the Missions of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America,” Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, New York, 1877, pp.170-209

Scott, Roderick, “Fukien Christian University,” United Board for Christian Colleges in China, NY, 1954, p.97

Shore, Hon. Henry Noel, R.N., “The Flight of the Lapwing, A Naval Officer’s Jottings in China, Formosa and Japan,” Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1881

Smith, D. Warres, “European Settlements in the Far East,” Sampson, Low, Marston & Company, London, 1900

Smith, George, A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China, on behalf of the Church Missionary Society, in the Years 1844, 1845, 1846,” Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, 1857.

Sirr, Henry Charles, “China and the Chinese: Their Religion, Character, Customs, and Manufacturers; the Evils Arising from the Opium Trade,” Vol. I, Wm. S. Orr and Company, London 1849

Spencer, Cornelia “Made in China,” Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1958

Stock, Eugene, The History of the Church Missionary Society; its Environment, its Men and its Work, Vol. III,” Church Missionary Society, London, 1890.

Talman, Rose H., “Our China Years, 1916-1930,” unpublished notes, provided by Sarah Koeppe.

Temple, Robert, “The Genius of China; 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention,” Prion Books Limited, London, 1998.

Teresi, Dick, “Lost Discoveries, The Ancient Roots of Modern Science—from the Babylonians to the Maya,” Simon & Schuster, New York, 2002.

Timothy, Richard, “Forty-Five Years in China—Reminiscences by Timothy Richard, D.D., Litt.D.,” Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1916

Warnshuis, Rev. A.L., M.A., “A Brief Sketch of the Life and Work of Dr. John A. Otte,” Amoy Mission, China , 1911

Watson, Alfred T., “Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, Vol. V, July to Dec. 1897”, Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1907

Webb, John, “The Antiquity of China, Or An Historical Essay Endeavoring a Probability that the language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language spoken through the whole world before the Confusion of Babel. Wherein the Customes and Manners of ye Chineans are presented, and ancient and modern Authors consulted. With a large Map of the Countrey,” Obadiah Blagrave, &c., London, 1678

Werner, E.T.C., “Myths & Legends of China,” George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London, 1922.

White, Francis Sellon, “A History of Inventions and Discoveries,” C. & J. Rivington, London, 1827

Williams, Dwight, Mrs., “A Year in China, and a Narrative of Capture and Imprisonment, when Homeward Bound, on Board the Rebel Pirate Florida; with an Introductory Note by William Cullen Bryant,” Hurd and Houghton, New York, 1864.
[Williams was the Commissioner of Customs at Swatow, employed by the Chinese].

Williams, Edward Thomas, “China—Yesterday and Today,” George G. Harrap & co., Ltd., London, 1923

Williamson, Rev. G.R., “Memoir of the Rev. David Abeel, D.D.” Robert Carter, New York, 1848

Related Books

Henslow, Geoffrey T., “Ye Sundial Booke”, W. and G. Foyle, London, 1935 (1st edition 1914). The 1914 edition is downloadable from Internet Archives.

Hyatt, Alfred H, “A Book of Sundial Mottoes,” Philip Wellby, London,1903

Leadbetter, Charles, "Mechanick Dialling: or, the New Art of Shadows : freed from the many Obscurities, Superfluities and Errors of Former Writers upon this Subject . . , To which are added a choice Collection of Mottos in Latin and English . . . “At the Black Swan,London,1737
www.amoymagic.com

Fire Jumping in Xiamen China

2008-12-07T21:13:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Otte letter from China, written on Kulangsu in October 1901, published in Hope College Anchor, December 1901.

“I have long thought of writing you some description of a very peculiar sport I witnessed not long ago. Apropos of the many college games entered into nowadays is one Chinese sport I do not think Hope College venturesome ones would care to try , nor the most liberal among the faculty to encourage. I refer to jumping over the fire.

On the fifteenth day of the first Chinese month (generally about the middle of February) the “Feast of Lanterns” is observed. On the evening of this day you may see all over the city small bonfires, bright, cracking, and evidently pretty hot. There are little groups of men and boys standing near. Our party went a little to one side to watch with interest. After their prolonged staring at us, one after another gained courage, and then made a dash, a spring through the air, and safely landed on the other side, would come down a living figure, wiping the perspiration and dust from off his heated face. This is kept up for several hours, the waning fire being constantly replenished. Strange to say, but few accidents occur, and long after midnight you may hear the sounds of revelry

The more dignified among the Chinese worthies indulge in other sports, such as archery. How old-fashioned that sounds to us, and yet it is still practiced, and prize examinations are held every year at the famous annual examination periods.

There is, however, much for the Chinese to learn in the way of genuine beneficial bodily exercise, and his phlegmatic temperament might be improved were he stimulated more by some of our Western ideas…

But the longer I live in China the more I am impressed with the fact that the Chinese are not only a peculiar, but an interesting people, if viewed from the right standpoint. And I believe I am about as interested in their great antiquity as in anything else.

www.amoymagic.com

Tobacco--China's First Opium

2008-12-07T20:58:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Today the headline was that Barack Obama lied about his smoking habit. It is ironic that he should have to hide his habit--and that we now criticize China for having more smokers than America has people. America, after all, is largely responsible for China's smoking addiction today. Chinese emperors fought the use of tobacco almost as energetically (and futilely) as they did the opium trade a century later, as we see from excerpts in Blakeslee below:

Blakeslee, George H., Editor, “China and the Far East: Clark University Lectures,” Thomay Y. Crowell and Co., New York, 1910.

p. 157
The rise of the opium-smoking habit in China seems to have followed the introduction of tobacco smoking to that Empire. The tobacco plant had been transplanted by the Spaniards to the Philippine Islands. From here it appears to have been introduced by way of Formosa to Amoy and its neighborhood, in the Province of Fukien. This was towards the end of the Ming Dynasty (1620). 1628-44 were the years of the last Ming Emperor. During this reign the habit of tobacco smoking tended to spread throughout the eastern portion of the Empire. The result was a prohibitory Edict against it. But in vain; the habit could not be checked by law.

The Manchus followed the Mings and in the year 1641 an Edict was again published which prohibited the smoking of tobacco.

The prohibitory Edicts issued by the last Ming and first Manchu seem to have been just as ineffectual against tobacco smoking as were the later Manchu Edicts against opium smoking. During the seventeenth century the spread of the tobacco habit was as rapid and as difficult to control by Edict as the spread of the opium-smoking habit in the nineteenth century. The prohibitory Edicts emanated from Emperors who it cannot be gainsaid were moved by a deep paternal interest in their people. The common sense of the better classes and the propriety of the Confucian mind were shocked by both practices.

In 1729 the Chinese Government found itself face to face with a rapidly spreading and alarming vice. Native opium was being diverted from medicinal uses to pander to an evil. The opium poppy began to flourish all over China, while imports of the Indian drug began to move upward. Alarmed, in 1729, the Emperor issued an Edict prohibiting the sale of opium and the opening of opium divans. The penalties imposed on those who disobeyed were severe, the most important being on the sellers of the drug. In 1730 another Edict was aimed at the practice amongst the Chinese colonists in Formosa.

Since these Edicts were promulgated, it may be said in truth that the ruling authorities of China have steadfastly regarded opium smoking as a crime.

1782 letter of Thomas Fizhugh in China to Mr. Gregory in London: “The importation of opium to China is forbidden under very severe penalties; the opium on seizure is burnt, the vessel in which it is brought to port is confiscated, and the Chinese in whose possession it is found for sale is punishable with death….”

King, in 1911, warned China, and the West, against tobacco.

IX

THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE

OPIUM and TOBACCO

Opium is no longer used openly in China...it is a great misfortune that through the pitiless efforts of the British-American Tobacco Company her people are rapidly becoming addicted to the western tobacco habit, selfish beyond excuse, filthy beyond measure, and unsanitary in its polluting and oxygen destroying effect upon the air all are compelled to breathe. It has already become a greater and more inexcusable burden upon mankind than opium ever was.

China, with her already overtaxed fields, can ill afford to give over an acre to the cultivation of this crop and she should prohibit the growing of tobacco as she has that of the poppy. Let her take the wise step now when she readily may, for all civilized nations will ultimately be compelled to adopt such a measure. The United States in 1902 had more than a million acres growing tobacco, and harvested 821,000,000 pounds of leaf. This leaf depleted those soils to the extent of more than twenty eight million pounds of nitrogen, twenty-nine million pounds of potassium and nearly two and a half million pounds of phosphorus, all so irrecoverably lost that even China, with her remarkable skill in saving and her infinite patience with little things, could not recover them for her soils. On a like area of field might as readily be grown twenty million bushels of wheat and if the twelve hundred million pounds of grain were all exported it would deplete the soil less than the tobacco crop in everything but phosphorus, and in this about the same. Used at home, China would return it all to one or another field. The home consumption of tobacco in the United States averaged seven pounds per capita in 1902. A like consumption for China's four hundred millions would call for 2800 million pounds of leaf. If she grew it on her fields two million acres would not suffice. Her soils would be proportionately depleted and she would be short forty million bushels of wheat; but if China continues to import her tobacco the vast sum expended can neither fertilize her fields nor feed, clothe or educate her people, yet a like sum expended in the importation of wheat would feed her hungry and enrich her soils.

In the matter of conservation of national resources here is one of the greatest opportunities open to all civilized nations. What might not be done in the United States with a fund of $57,000,000 annually, the market price of the raw tobacco leaf, and the land, the labor and the capital expended in getting the product to the men who puff, breathe and perspire the noxious product into the air everyone must breathe, and who bespatter the streets, sidewalks, the floor of every public place and conveyance, and befoul the million spittoons, smoking rooms and smoking cars, all unnecessary and should be uncalled for, but whose installation and upkeep the non-user as well as the user is forced to pay, and this in a country of, for and by the people. This costly, filthy, selfish tobacco habit should be outgrown. Let it begin in every new home, where the mother helps the father in refusing to set the example, and let its indulgence be absolutely prohibited to everyone while in public school and to all in educational institutions.

King, F. H. , D. Sc., “Farmers of Forty Centuries, or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan,” University of Wisconsin, 1911

www.amoymagic.com

Golf on Gulanyu in 1897

2008-12-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown .... Xiamen University

Watson, Alfred T., “Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, Vol. V, July to Dec. 1897”, Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1907

A Foursome at Amoy By Surgeon T.T. Jeans, R.N.

The news of the match quickly spread through the Club, and the fact that any strangers should be confident of beating the Amoy fellows on their own links seemed to afford considerable amusement. Men uttered mysterious hints about the difficulties of the links, and in answer to our requests for information, they would say 'Bunkers? oh, the usual kind of bunkers. Greens? Greens? did you say? Oh I the usual kind of greens,' and nothing more could we extract. …

'They can't be much worse than the Malta links or the moats at Haslar,' I told Reggy reassuringly… After the race week we took o ne of Jardine's steamers for Amoy, Hardly had the Customs people boarded us before Rusby bounced on board and took us to Kulung-su Island-the foreign settlement.

Next morning we walked out to the links, passing through the small Chinese village, in which we saw a man in stocks outside his own shop-a punishment, probably, for having given short weight. As we were climbing a steep incline covered with stubbly grass and strewn with boulders, I saw Calderson throw down his bag of clubs and take a look round. 'What's the matter-done up already?' I asked him jokingly. 'No,' he answered, diffidently, ‘only we've got there.' ‘Got there I' I exclaimed; 'got where?' But it was unnecessary to ask, for he was already kneeling down and scraping a little dry sand into a heap and trying to make a tee. I looked round, and dotted in among huge boulders-planked down among innumerable concrete native graves-were several familiar red flags hanging limply in the morning calm. There was not a space of clear turf within sight, and what the greens were like we could conjecture only too well.

I caught Reggy's eye; we both looked sadly at each other, and then at our numerous drivers and brasseys, both recognising simultaneously that they were practically useless here.

The first green was on the near side of a wall which apparently separated two large graveyards, and was the only spot not covered with graves or stones. • Never saw anything like this before,' whispered Reggy, and I noticed that the other two were smiling at our astonishment.

There is a little hotel close by much favoured by American missionaries, and sending our coats, &c. in there, we began playing.

Calderson drove off with an iron; the hole was not more than eighty yards away, and his ball dropped dead about two yards the other side of the flag. 'That's just the place,' said Rusby, screwing his face into a comical expression of half apology, half satisfaction. 'Don't you fellows get away to the right, or you'll lose your ball.' I followed, and, using my driving cleek, of course managed to cut the ball, and away down the hill it went. Reggy gave me a look of inexpressible scorn, and trudged after it, his long legs being very useful in negotiating graves and tombs. He called me plaintively a minute later, so down I scrambled after him, to find that he had discovered the ball nestling up to an inscription stone, and had lofted it into a dead bush about two yards away-the only vegetation, dead or alive, for thirty yards. I hit blindly at it with a very heavy iron, and away it went, falling not two feet from the hole in a tuft of thick grass. 'I once got out of Haslar Moat in half an hour with that club,' I remarked, when I had seen the ball dead. Reggy was dumb founded; so was I, but climbed up with a reproachful look at him. Rusby followed, but did not hole out, and we finally halved that hole in four. A putter was quite useless on that, or, as it turned out, on any of the greens; so we followed our opponents' example and used either an iron or niblick, the latter being probably the more effective.

From the next tee we could see the flag on the shoulder of a hill about one hundred and twenty yards away, and Rusby, with a cleek, landed on the near side of the slope, clear of all obstacles.

‘Just in the right space,' he said, waiting for it to stop rolling, and with that same half-pitying air which he had shown before. ‘Don't go past it, whatever you do.' Now Reggy imagines that if he is good at anything it is at judging a drive, and nothing will prevent him from using a driver. I knew perfectly well that the distance was not long enough, and, though I advised• him in the most diplomatic manner, his favourite driver circled round his head, and away spun the ball over the hill, out of sight. 'You won't find that ball again,' the others said sympathetically; and we didn't, though Reggie insisted on us all spending a futile ten minutes searching for it.

The third green is on the edge of a cliff, the further edge overhanging the sea. Fortunately for us, Calderson did not loft his stroke sufficiently, and the ball had so much pace on after touching the ground that it rolled over the cliff, despite the ridiculous contortions of little Rusby, who was following its flight with his eyeglass tucked into his eye and his whole body bent back, as if he could thus arrest its course. Luckily we holed out in nine, making timid little approach shots, and finally taking five on the green, so unaccustomed were we to their peculiarities. Score: one all.

The fourth is the long hole-right out of sight over a sloping shoulder of rock, the hole itself being on the top of a mound surrounded by nearly vertical sand-bunkers. Our directing mark was a large boulder, and Reggy drove so carefully that he struck it, the ball rebounding and rolling downhill into a mass of loose rocks. Needless to say, we lost that, as well as the next-a short hole, situated on a very sloping green, only to be approached by dropping the ball on a small plateau immediately above it-a feat I did not accomplish, but sent it bounding downhill to the right.
'I do wish you wouldn't use that idiotic iron,' Reggy muttered. 'If you'd only stick to your driver, we might have a chance.' We did that hole in sixteen. Score: two down.

The sixth is the short hole, and Rusby implored us tragically not to go to the right, or we should lose our ball in a cow-yard about three hundred feet below. 'Follow me,' he said kindly, and sent his ball spinning down, right out of sight. 'Just as I told you,' he said, not the least perturbed. 'We'll give you that hole; if you don't get in the same place.' Reggy didn't, and the score was one down.

As we climbed up the rocks to the next tee, they tried to cheer us. I First few holes a bit tricky, if you're not accustomed to them; but you'll make up for it at the next two-ripping good holes-more your style. Eh! Calders?' 'Rather,' Calderson agreed, 'awful sporting holes.' They were. The tee was on the turf-covered top of a big rock; the green on the side of a hill, the slope of which was covered with mandarins' graves. Between the two were three paddy fields, a ditch, a road-along which numerous coolies were tramping-another ditch, and a sandpit scooped out from the hill.

‘Drive right past the hole, and keep to the left,' was the advice Calderson gave us, as his ball, hitting the side of the hill, trickled gently down on to the green. I followed, and, though going again to the right, saw to my great relief that I had gone past the sand. A little dangerous,' Rusby muttered; and, even as he spoke, the ball came rolling down nearer and nearer to the danger. A grave arrested its course for a moment, but it ran down the side, and, gaining impetus, rolled over the edge.

Reggy, consigning golf, and my golf in particular, to other climes, trudged after it. 'You'd better go too, old chap,' Rusby said; 'it's rather an awkward bit:

When I reached the ball, Reggy had just driven it further into the sand. He turned red in the face with fury in his eyes, his remarks not being fit for print. 'What price the moat at Haslar?' he said sarca.stically, when we had played ten and given up the hole. I was too much annoyed to answer. By good fortune we won the ninth, and the score for the first round was two down.

A waiter from the hotel now brought us drinks, and also found three boys to carry our bags, so we started the second round in better spirits. We lost the first, but won the next two. At the fourth I made a very lucky drive, laying my ball dead close to the green, and, Reggy clearing a patch of sand, we won that hole, standing six all. Reggy lost the next by his persistence in using a driver and through excitement, and I lost the cow-yard one by again badly cutting my ball for the fourth time that morning. Score: two down and three to play. Rusby, leading off across the valley, drove into the road, and hit one of two inoffensive coolies carrying a pig. A good drive of Reggy's won us that hole.

The match was now very exciting. Coming back over the road I got in a fair drive, and, Reggy following by a lucky niblick shot from the corner of a grave, we won that hole.
Score: eight all and one to play.

The last hole is a short cleek or iron shot downhill, but a good lie off the green is impossible. My shot landed on a big boulder, and disappeared among some graves. As luck would have it, Calderson topped his ball, and it went among a large heap of stones, my caddy, a fat boy, who took great interest in the game, giving a grunt of satisfaction. .After a long search our ball was found in an open grave among crumbling bones. We shouted for instructions, and removed it, counting one, and played our third on to the green. 'Not so bad,' said Reggy; ‘they're up in the rocks.' Even as he spoke there came a shout of 'Fore!' and we saw Rusby's fat little figure climb rapidly to the top of a rock, screwing his glass into his eye as he followed with swaying figure the flight of his ball. Plump! it came, not two feet from the hole. Calderson, never so cool as when everything depends upon his stroke, holed out with his next, and on the match.

We had a rattling good time at the Amoy races, where we made up for our previous ill-fortune. Afterwards, at Hong Kong, if any of the fellows chaffed us at the result of our Amoy game, Reggy would burst out with, 'If those infernal Chinese would mend their ancestors' graves, instead of fooling round joss-houses and worshipping them, we should have won.' And he still considers that he has a. real grievance against the whole race.

www.amoymagic.com

Xiamen's Beauty in 1860

2008-11-26T00:07:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

In 1860, Miss Jane Edkin letters home went on at such great length about the beauties of Amoy (now called Xiamen) that she was accused of mixing religion and nature! I think you'll enjoy her descriptions.

TO HER BROTHER SIMON.
From AMOY, 20th April 1860.
HERE we are at Amoy. A passage of ten days in the "Palmerston" brought us, if not rapidly, at least safely.

I think I feel better for it already, though the heat is very great. We anchored outside, on a beautiful moonlight evening. The scenery all round was enchanting. Noble hills of rocky brown overhung the entrance, crowned by pagodas, etc. Rocky islands, the abode of wild fowl, encircled us. The sun poured his last mellow rays o'er the delightful scene as we entered, and my heart bounded with joy at the sight. Stretching on each side, peak above peak, and peak beyond that, were high rocky hills. The sunlight gave a golden tinge to their brown grassy covering, and a warmer tint to their rocky sides. At their foot a beautiful sandy beach, smooth and glittering, extended for some distance. It was a most charming scene, and one that filled the heart. I cried with joy almost to see home hills again, for so they seemed to me.

The noise of the dropping anchor, and the hearty song of the men, did not interrupt me as my thoughts went home to dearly loved Scotland. It was especially pleasant to come up on deck after tea in the soft moonlight, when all was still, save the silent tread of the watch whenever the helm was deserted, and the white sails furled, and gaze up through the tall masts and rigging to the fair heaven so beautifully blue and sparkling. The dark hills on each side, and the soft gurgle of the waters as they gently passed by, added to the impressiveness of the scene. Mr. Edkins and I sat a long time delighting in it, and felt its strangeness and beauty heightened still more as the lightning's vivid flash frequently lighted up the dark hills for a moment.

Next morning early, Mr. Edkins called me to look at the opening bay as we entered it. I was busy packing, so I had only glimpses here and there, but these were striking. High rocks, of all sorts and sizes, line one side of the bay, many of them grown over with moss. Some of them have long weird-like inscriptions, and some seemed tottering, ready to fall.

Nestling under them was the little town of Amoy, before which we cast anchor about nine A.M. We proceeded direct to the Rev. John Stronach's, where we are now staying….

…after dinner, we had a boat-excursion, in company with Mr. J. Stronach, his sister, and young Miss Stronach.

This recalled the olden time in Stromness harbour. "We rowed and talked agreeably, though my enthusiasm about the hills…Through many an opening in the rocky hills we saw temples hid among trees, looking so picturesque, built out on jutting rocks. I wish I had my young strength again, to climb at will those mountain rocks and wild romantic paths, all in a state of nature, untouched by the rude hand, shall I call it, of cultivation…

In the afternoon, Jessie, her father, Mr. Edkins, and I, went over to Kolangsu, a lovely island about half a mile's run across. We landed, climbed the beach, and reached abroad graveled walk arched with trees, then we entered a garden where roses, mignonette, and many other exquisite flowers, bloomed beautifully. The rocks were on either side like a wall to it, but their bare exterior was clothed with honeysuckle and green creepers. From that we passed into another, and then, by some steps, reached a little hill. By a path that wound round it we gained the top of one height, from which we had an interesting view of Amoy. Her navy of junks, her small fishing-boats, all lay close together in a sheltered corner, while the English ships lay outside. The houses are poor, both those of the merchants and missionaries, in comparison with those at Shanghai; but from Kolangsu all looked pretty. We descended, and by paddy-fields of fresh green we reached another hill, which we slowly climbed, and the view to the other side of the island was most captivating. The broad sea, broken here and there by islets, and bounded by magnificent hills, all bursting as it did on us without expecting it, had a powerful effect. I forgot my weariness, and gazed long on this noble prospect. Hills and sea give a higher idea of the beauty of nature than any artificial cultivation, however rich. "The everlasting hills," and the ever-changing sea," are to me the noblest works o nature. But the beauties round our feet were not to be overlooked.

A broad, wide-spreading banian tree, with its thick foliage, stood proudly queen of the scene; while a lovely tangled path, damp and cool, led us on where we wished to go,—to the resting-place of the dead. In a beautiful nook, under the sheltering wing of the dark rocks, and on a pleasant acclivity, lay the graves of those missionaries who had lived and died for Christ…

3. TO HER MOTHER-IK LAW. from AMOY, 18th May 1860.
It is nearly three weeks since we came to Amoy. We have been much benefited by its health-giving sea breezes. The scenery around greatly interests me. What with its rocks, mountains, beautiful islands, and blue sea sparkling, dashing, and foaming in all its fresh beauty around the town, I am exceedingly taken with it. … We have Chinese chapels. It was a sweet Sabbath morning when I first went to ours. For a considerable time before going, I had been seated in a low chair in our room, with a book before me; my head and heart were somehow not with it, but were drinking in the attractive beauties of the scene that presented itself from the wide open window. High, noble craggy hills, with mossy brown, still retained the warm glow of the soft embrace of the morning. A misty beauty hung around, though the sky was blue and unclouded. The little islands rejoiced in the fair morning, and the very sea murmured a lullaby of peace. Oh, the peaceful Sabbath morn.

How the heart rises and glows with love and joy, especially when all nature calls upon you to rejoice. Would that the pleasurable feeling that steals over the heart at such times could be retained.

My husband has taken part repeatedly in the work of the Mission, but being here for the benefit of our health, we have kept moving about, sight-seeing, rowing in small boats, picnicking, calling, etc. He has had great enjoyment in wandering among the old temples, deciphering the more than half-worn characters on many an aged rock, etc.

…This is a bright sunshiny morning after the rain, and everything looks fresh and lovely. I don't know how it is, but a familiar sound keeps ringing in my ears, it seems so applicable this bright May morning— "
Birds are singing,
Bells are ringing,
May is bringing
Gifts to man."
With best love to yourself, Ebenezer, Kate, and John, your very affectionate JEANIE.

4. TO MISS EDKINS, SHANGHAI, June 1860.
I HAVE been greatly remiss in writing, but when I plead sickness for excuse, you will, I know, forgive me freely. Yet sickness won't do for a full apology, as I have only been on the sick list for a week or so, but then an endless succession of changes and visitors these several weeks past has put all idea of quiet letter- writing enjoyment out of the question. I had a letter nearly finished for you when we were at Amoy, but it is now of such an old date, that I won't send it, although I shall give you some of the particulars in this…

…First of all, we enjoyed Amoy, and the scenery, and the mission work unspeakably. It is, to my taste, a delightful place, being perfectly surrounded with what I call Scotland's heathery hills. Oh, the flood of beauty tinting those hills when the sun slowly sinks to rest,—when lingeringly it leaves them, and casts its glowing mantle tenderly o'er their rugged rocky sides, softening them to melting beauty.

We spent one lovely afternoon over at Kolangsu, a small island near Amoy, where, from an eminence, we had a most interesting view of the town, its complete little harbour, navy of junks, etc.; and where, from another, we had a view of a broad expanse of water, intersected by sweet islets, calm and unruffled, dashing softly on the sandy beach, while the background of mountains was truly majestic, raising as they did their rugged tops to the fair sky, and winning the soft shadows from the untroubled clouds of blue that ever and again passed swiftly over them. …

By the way, your brother says I blend the beauties of nature almost into religion in my description in some letters. I doubt if he is right in saying this. Don't you think, if gazing on beautiful scenery stirs the soul, and raises it to admiration, it must naturally rise to nature's God before the full idea of grandeur and glory settles on the soul?
But I fear I am now mystifying both you and myself….

5. TO HER MOTHER. June 1860.
WE are safely back again from Amoy, by way of Hong Kong, after enjoying our trip exceedingly, and being much benefited by it.

Source: Edkins, Jane Rowbotham Stobb,s Chinese Scenes and People: With Notices of Christian Missions and Missionary Life in a Series of Letters from Various Parts of China, James Nisbit and Company, London, 1863
www.amoymagic.com

A 19th Century Master of Guanxi

2008-11-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown .... Xiamen University

Adapted from John MacGowan Sidelights on Chinese Life, 1907 p. 119-122

A man, for example, comes in to see you. He is common looking, with a face hardened and battered by toil. His clothes, which are shabby and well worn, consist of the ordinary blue cotton cloth that in its dull and dingy colour helps to give a mean and uninteresting look to the wearer. If the nation would but depart from the eternal tradition that has come steadily down the ages in regard to its clothing and would take some hints from nature, whose varied moods make her look so charming, how different would these unaesthetic people appear from what they do now! … you ask him with as much politeness as your poor opinion of him will permit you, what he wants with you.

In a hesitating, nervous kind of way, he informs you that he has ventured to come and ask a favour of you. It is a very important one, he says, and as he knows no one that is so kind as you are or who has so much influence as you have, he has taken the liberty to address himself to you and he hopes that you will not refuse his request.

You find as he tells his story that he wants you to use your good offices to get his son into employment in a responsible firm in the town. You are startled, for you do not know any one in the said firm, and moreover you have no knowledge of the young man either as to his character or abilities. You try and impress upon the father that it is impossible for you to help him in the matter, because you really have no influence with any one responsible in the house of business to which he refers, and that therefore he had better apply to some one else who has the ability to help him.

The man in a weak kind of way appears to agree with you, expresses his appreciation of your kindness in so pleasantly listening to him, and bids you good-bye, and any one not acquainted with the Chinese character would certainly come to the conclusion that the whole incident was at an end and nothing more would be heard of it.

Tomorrow morning you are engaged, say, in writing when the same man is ushered into your room by your "boy," and he in a timid, hesitating way expresses a wish to say a few words to you. In his hand he carries a fowl, with its legs tied and its head hanging down, and as this is the usual way in which such animals are carried in China, it seems to recognize the universal custom and to utter no protest against the indignity to which it is exposed.

Without referring to it, he lays it down in a corner of the room, and proceeds to make his request for his son in precisely the same language that he had done the previous day. Your statement then that you had no influence in the firm mentioned was considered by him to be a pleasant and refined way of showing your displeasure that a present had not been made you, and so to-day he is atoning for this by bringing you the fowl that lies fluttering on the ground.

You try and make him understand that you really cannot help him, that you would do so if you could, and you insist upon his taking away his present, as you absolutely refuse to accept it. He agrees with all you say, expresses his admiration at your disinterested and generous conduct, is quite sure that you cannot help him, and finally leaves you holding the fowl which you have forced upon him in his hand, and declaring that he is afraid you are angry with him since you refuse his gift, which he declares he knows is too small to be accepted by a person of your position and character. You happen to go out half-an-hour after and you see the identical fowl lying in the yard struggling to get free, and with a look of pain and misery in consequence of its legs having been tied so tight and because of the cramped position in which it has been compelled to lie so long.

You call the "boy" and you ask him why the man has not taken the fowl away, as you had positively refused to accept it. "Oh! it would never do," he replies with an anxious look that pushes its way through its permanent sphinx-like veneer, "for the man to take back the trifling present that he has made you. He would have lost 'face,’ for people would say that you were angry with him for making you such an insignificant gift that you could not possibly receive it."

Next morning the man once more appears, but this time accompanied by a person well known to you. After a few complimentary remarks, the newcomer introduces the man, and begs of you to use your influence to get his son the employment about which he has already spoken to you. You state the case fully to him and explain that it is quite a mistake to imagine that you can assist him in the way he wishes. Both men listen with the most wrapt attention to what you say, and by smiles and vigorous nods of the head seem to believe in every word you speak. By and by they leave, and you feel convinced that the incident is at an end, and that you will hear nothing more of it.

In the afternoon of the same day, the man turns up once more, with a smiling countenance and a look of supreme satisfaction upon it. He holds a letter in his hand which he delivers to you with the air of a man who is delivering a pleasant ultimatum that will settle the whole question in a manner satisfactory to all. It is from an Englishman who has been approached on the subject, and he asks me to do what I can to get the old fellow's son into a firm where he has been told I have some influence.

You are getting annoyed by this time, not simply because all your protestations have not been believed, but because you see that the dogged persistence that lies rooted in the Chinese character will not allow the matter to drop until you have either given him a piece of your mind, more forcible than polite, or taken some plan to carry out his wishes. After a few minutes' consideration, you remember that an acquaintance of your own has business relationships with the firm in question, so you at once write a note to him and request him as a great favour to exert himself to introduce the son of the bearer to the manager of a certain business house with which he is intimately concerned. Having sealed it up, you hand it over to the man, and direct him to take it to your friend, who may possibly be able to assist him in procuring the employment he wishes for his son.

The very next day, he once more appears, but this time with two fowls, a small basket of oranges and a tiny box of tea, and also with the most profuse thanks for getting his son that situation. You tell him that you have had nothing to do with that, and that if he is inclined to make presents, he had better take them to the friend who has really engineered the business. If the Chinese could only see the humour there is in a wink, there is no doubt but that he would express his feelings by one just now, but as he has never been taught the subtle part that the eye can take in conveying a joke, he simply smiles prodigiously, clasps his own hands instead of yours and leaves you with a profusion of the most elegant and polite phrases, such as the great Sage of China penned more than two thousand years ago for the guidance of people in contingencies such as this.

It must be perfectly understood that the man never believed from the very first that you could not have got that situation for his son, if you had been so disposed, and the fact that you procured it for him at last proved that. Your writing the letter and sending it to a friend were but little subtle by-plays to save your "face." Acting like that is something inexpressibly dear to the Chinese, who are always posing before each other, and exhausting their histrionic powers to produce certain effects that shall redound to their credit. The one thing that was really to be admired in this Chinaman was the tenacity of purpose that caused him never to falter until he had gained the object that he had in his mind.

This distinguishing virtue in the Chinaman has unquestionably been a very large factor in the building up of their Empire, and yet on the other hand it is just as true that it has been one of the most powerful forces in preventing its progress and development.

The very persistence of character that made the Yellow race build the Great Wall of China and extend their conquests from their original home on the banks of the Yellow River, until the whole of the vast extent of territory embraced within the eighteen provinces has been subdued by them, has made them cling to old traditions and customs with a tenacity that has stayed the progress of new ideas, and has prevented them from adopting new methods that would have benefited both the people and the Empire.

www.amoymagic.com

A "Sick Man of Asia" Speaks His Mind in England

2008-11-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Lu, C.C., of Ningpo, China “China and England: a Lecture Delivered at Sheffield University,” Sheffield Independent Press, Sheffield, U.K., 1904

Short bio: Studied in Japan and England. Mother, with Mrs. Archibald Little, organized the Anti-Foot-Binding Society in Shanghai and Ningpo. Father, formerly the general officer of a steamer, was then the general manager of China’s greatest colliery.

Seldom if ever have I enjoyed such pleasure as I feel at being privileged to speak, imperfect as it may be, on my native country before such an audience. But being a world-despised Chinaman, I could not help feeling when I cast my eyes upon myself how unworthy I am for such a great honour. Nevertheless I am unwilling not to make use of this great chance and say something which I hope may lead us to understand each other more and better.

Since I came to this country, I have found that most of the people here in England have a very poor idea of the Chinese, in other words, you think we are barbarians or uncivilized people. China has been dubbed "The sick man of the Far East," "The Sleeping Lion," "The Tottery Empire," and other names more or less picturesque and complimentary have been bestowed upon her.

With some people, it is the conviction that China has only a historical interest, that her glory is of the past that the leopard may change its spots, but China remains for ever in her ruts ; the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow. But while this gloomy picture of the state of affairs might have been partly true of China in the time past, it is no longer true now. The sick man is rapidly convalescent, the sleeping lion is awake, and the hoary and tottery empire has had new blood injected into her system. China is moving and she is moving with a rapidity difficult for one who has not personally witnessed the wonderful changes to understand and realise.

Repeated defeats at the hands of the foreign Powers soon convinced our people of the futility of matching bows and arrows against modern guns and explosives, whilst our wooden junks went down before the onslaught of armoured cruisers and battleships like wheat before the scythe….

In passing, I may say that all the books written by the foreign authors on China as she is are mostly out of date, with the exception of a very few published in recent years. These books have only a historical value now, and can no longer be regarded as guides or indexes of the situation in the Far East. The changes that have taken place are kaleidoscopic in rapidity and mysterious in character, so that even a native of the land, unless he is a keen observer, gets bewildered and is left behind in the swiftly moving onward progress of my country.

Lu, C.C., of Ningpo, China “China and England: a Lecture Delivered at Sheffield University,” Sheffield Independent Press, Sheffield, U.K., 1904

As you know, not many years ago, your Indian traders sent opium to our country. We observed that the use of the drug was destroying the health and morals of our people, and therefore we prohibited it. But to please your traders your Government made our action an excuse for war. Was this calculated to impress us with a sense of the justice and fair play of the British Nation? We submitted because we had to, we were not a military Power. "The Chinese believe in right," said Sir Robert Hart honestly, “so firmly that they scorn to think it requires to be supported or enforced by might." Yes, it is we, who do not accept it, that practise the Gospel of Peace; it is you who accept it who trample it under foot. And, irony of ironies, it is the nation of Christendom who have to come to us to teach us by sword and fire that right in this world is powerless unless it be supported by might! You have posed as civilized people dealing with barbarians, and this has been your conduct. First you compelled us to receive your missionaries, and when they provoked our people by their ignorant zeal to rise against them you made this an excuse for new depredations, till we not unnaturally have come to believe that the Cross is the pioneer of the sword, and that the only use you have for your religion is as a weapon of war. O, my dear brethren! let me cry out and tell you! "Christianity is a doctrine which is not only for you to believe, to listen to, to read on Sunday in church, but to act according to it at any time and everywhere!"

Listen to my uncle, Dr. Suvong's words. He wrote me and said:"My dear nephew The first thing for a man is to be good, the second is to do good, and then the good God in heaven will reward here and hereafter." These words which I have heard from the East are the true doctrine of Christ, and though we do not preach it, yet we perform it as our duty.

www.amoymagic.com

Chinese Children in Old Amoy

2008-11-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

Bill Brown .... Xiamen University

From John Macgowan, Sidelights on Chinese Life, 1907 p. 44, 50
THERE is no nation that is fonder of children than the Chinese. They have a perfect passion for them, and it is very rarely that a family can be found without one or more of them in it. If there are none born into it, arrangements are made to supply that deficiency by buying some for the Chinese seem to have a perfect dread of a childless home. If a man has the means, he will buy several sons, who are treated as though they were his own, and, when they grow up, they will inherit his property, and have all the privileges that are given to those that were born in the family….

The early years of a child seem on the whole to be happy ones. In the swarms of children that one sees almost anywhere, one gets the impression that on the whole they thoroughly enjoy themselves. They run about and romp and dance and gambol very much as a similar number of English children would do on the village green, or in the streets and lanes of a home city.

The Chinese are far from being a gloomy race of people. Their hearts are full of fun and vigorous life, and this is seen in the sturdy urchins that race about with each other and that fill the air with their merry sounds of childish laughter.

With very young children this is all the more remarkable since so little is provided for their amusement. Such things as pictures or story-books or toys in the large and profuse sense with which our nurseries are supplied in England, do not exist in this land. Childhood is left very much to its own resources to find out the means of passing the time pleasantly. It is pathetic to watch how, with the fewest and simplest materials, the little ones will pass the day, with apparently perfect contentment. The method most popular, because it involves no expense, is the making of mud pies, and the building of miniature houses with broken pieces of tiles that can be picked up from the streets.

EDUCATION
Macgowan, Sidelights on Chinese Life, 1907, pp. 56, 57

At about eight preparations are made for the lad to go to school. Terms are made with the school-master of the nearest school, a certain number of books splashed and dotted over with mysterious-looking hieroglyphics are bought, and one morning at early dawn, just as the pale grey light begins to colour the landscape, the little fellow finds his way along the silent road to the school-house. Here for six or seven years he will spend the best part of his days in the study of books that contain the ideals of the nation.

They are the driest of dry books, and were really written for scholarly men, and for men of thought, whose thinking powers were considerably developed. There is not a single story in their pages. No child or woman's voice is heard from beginning to end, and no laughter, and no sob of pain, or any touch of the finer qualities of the human heart.

The boy begins at eight not with "Jack and Jill," or the “House that Jack built," or with any nursery rhyme that would appeal to a child's imagination, but with the solemn statements on high ethical questions that some of the greatest thinkers and teachers of China have produced. Some idea of the style of the books that these little urchins have to grind at, may be gathered from the fact that the first book that is put into the hands of that eight-year-old scholar is called The Three Words Classic, from the fact that each sentence is made up of three words rhythmically set. It is about as crabbed and as profound a piece of writing as exists in the whole language. Its first sentence makes a dogmatic statement which has not been generally accepted in China, viz. "Man by nature is originally good." Just imagine a boy of ten, accustomed till to-day to run as wild as a climbing plant, that creeps up trees, or over ruined walls, or down the side of a precipice, brought face to face with a statement like this, instead of the conventional one, " My dog," or "'His cat," that confronts the English lad as he first enters the domain of learning.

Try and conceive the wear and tear upon a child's spirit in having for years to shout and scream out at the top of his voice, as Chinese scholars do, such profound teaching as the above, and you will then have caught a glimpse of the steep and precipitous way along which these eight-year scholars have to travel in their pursuit after knowledge. A more dreary system of education, where imagination and humour, and poetry and romance, and all the finer emotions of the soul are rigorously excluded, it would be impossible to conceive than that which every Chinese scholar has to go through in every school throughout the Empire to-day.
www.amoymagic.com

U.S. Consul in Amoy, Edward Bedloe, on Cemeteries

2008-11-24T06:04:00.001-08:00

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Ancient Amoy Cemeteries
Bedloe, Edward, M.D., U.S. Consul, reporting in “Weekly Abstract of Sanitary Reports,” Supervising Surgeon-General M.H,S., Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893

January 1, 1881 Public health reports (1881(, v, 2, 1887; U.S. Consul Edward Bedloe, M.D., reported,

The city [Amoy] is built on the edge of a mountainous island and is exceedingly old. Inscriptions on ancient tombs run back as far as the beginning of the Christian era, and coins found in accidentally discovered graves date to dynasties from 500 to 1000 B.C.

During all this period the hillsides of the city have been used as burying grounds. As the population increases, the houses encroached upon the cemetery land until finally the two became hopelessly intermixed.

The United States consulate is regarded as a very superior locality, but it is surrounded by over a hundred tombs. A score of the large blocks of granite used in and about it are old tombstones. On the hill immediately behind the residence of F. Malcampo, esq., the graves touch one another at every point and form a solid white surface of rock, brick, porcelain, and cement, covering more than a million square feet. Near the lam-paw-do Joss-house [Nanputuo Temple] 30,000 bodies are said to have been buried vertically to save space. They lie or stand in a plot of land of as many square feet. Amoy proper and its suburbs have a living population of about one million, and a dead one of four and a half times as many.

The city is a relic of the past. It is walled the same as it was in the time of Confucius.

Note: Amoy wasn’t walled until 2000 years after Confucius' death. And I doubt Amoy has any graves that old. But other than that.... Bedloe had some fascinating points.

www.amoymagic.com

"Everyday Life in China", by Dukes 1885

2008-10-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

I have well over 100 0ld books on China, but Dukes' "Everyday Life in China" is one of my favorite because of the dozens of quaint woodcuts--though I think people weren't too hip on copyright back then. Either he stole some, or others stole his, because I've seen a couple in other books, without reference to their origin. The same goes for photos; I've seen several old black and white photographs of Amoy, or the Amoy Mission, reproduced in several books, and rarely with reference to who took the photos.

Below are a few of the woodcuts. When I have time I'll upload the entire book, text and illustrations, onto the Amoy Mi ssion section of our Amoy Magic website.

Dukes, Edwin Joshua, “Everyday Life in China; or, Scenes Along River and Road in Fuh-Kien,” London Missionary Society’s Edition, The Religious Tract Society, 56, Paternoster Row; 65, St. Paul’s Churchyard; and 164, Piccadilly, 1885

Bill Brown X iamen Univers i ty www.amoymagic.com

Constance Anderson in Foochow

2008-09-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

John and Jennifer Anderson will be visiting Xiamen and Fuzhou from October 1st to 30th,2008, to learn more about his roots (he was born in Hope Hospital, Xiamen).

Here is a description (written by Jennifer) of Connie's work. If anyone has more info on Constance, please send it to me, and I will forward it to the Andersons (photos are welcome too).

Constance Anderson

An English Medical Missionary in Fuzhou (1925-1936)
(provided by Jennifer Anderson)

Constance Mary Hopkinson (Sister Hopkinson or Miss Hopkinson), was

born at Tunbridge Wells, England, in 1895. She was a missionary nurse

in Fuzhou between 1925 and 1936 with the CMS (Church Missionary

Society). The information presented here is from her diaries

supplemented by family tradition.

She worked mainly at a hospital called Cha-Cang, which also had the

name Christâ€™s Hospital. It was not far from the North Gate. Her

supervisor at the Hospital was Miss Margaret Baldwin, who had been a

missionary nurse in Fuzhou since 1901. The CMS had a number of

hospitals, Dragon Hill Hospital, one near the South Gate, and another

on the island of Nantai, which is where many of the foreign

missionaries were located. The CMS ran a number of schools on Nantai

as well as the Anglo-Chinese Girlsâ€™ School, also near the South Gate.

The Cha-Cang Hospital treated both paying and nonpaying patients and

also trained nurses. It consisted of separate hospital buildings for

men and women, a tuberculosis ward, and an out-patient department.

There was a chapel and houses for the hospital staff, including the

nurses, to live in. These buildings were all in a gated compound.

Nearby was a school for Blind children. Outside the West Gate there

was a leper settlement where the missionaries visited and provided

some care.

Cha-Cang Hospital was looted on January 16, 1927. Therefore we do not

have the diaries for Connieâ€™s first two years in China. After the

period of unrest in late December of 1926 and early 1927 the

missionaries left the city and did not return until 1928. During this

time the hospital at Cha-Cang was run by the Chinese staff alone.

When Miss Baldwin returned she worked on rebuilding the missionary

work as well as completing the building of new hospital buildings

that was not quite finished in early 1927. Because of these events

most of the information we have about Connieâ€™s work in Fuzhou is

from 1930-1934.

In this period at Cha-Cang she worked with Dr Nga, Dr Ding and Dr

Lau, and two nursing sisters, Sister Chai and Sister Lau. Among the

missionaries at the hospital Sister Giles, Dr Matthews and Dr Callum,

as well as Dr Webster, and later Miss Webster who did nursing work.

Student nurses were trained there, and Miss Hopkinson mentions

teaching and conducting examinations, as well as graduation

ceremonies. She also mentioned two Chinese Pastors, Pastor Do and

Pastor Uong with whom the missionaries at Cha-Cang worked closely.

Most of the years that Constance Hopkinson was in China, she went to

the mountain resort of Kuliang for a summer holiday, along with

missionaries from other parts of China. There, in August 1936, she

met Peter Anderson, from the English Presbyterian Mission in Amoy/ Kulangsu. They were married Nov 10, 1936 in British Episcopal Church

on Nantai Island and she went to live on Kulangsu with him.

Link: The Amoy Mission

19th Century Chinese Dogs

2008-09-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

In "Off the Wall" today, I wrote "Why Chinese Dogs are Shy." I'm not the first to write about Chinese dogs. Here are comments about Chinese dogs from the 1880s and 1890s.

Shore, 1881, Flight of the Lapwing, pp. 34, 35
"The only members of the community who showed any resentment to our advances were the dogs, wretched mangy brutes, which infest all Chinese dwellings, and arrant cowards. They seem to have an instinctive dread of Europeans, and scent them a long way off; one has only to bend down as if for a stone and the curs are off like the wind."

Davis, Rev. J.A., “The Young Mandarin; a Story of Chinese Life” Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, Boston and Chicago, 1896 p. 147,148

"The street dog, however, if stories regarding him are true, is the genius and fool in the Chinese animal world. Though born pretty, his hard life makes him a homely brute before a year passes; and he continues to grow more and more ugly in looks while life lasts. Fortunately, for other reasons, too, he is not long-lived. His color in early days may be black or white, yellow or brown; in a year or two it changes to the standard - shaded dirt. His hair, that in youth gives him the appearance of a wolf or coyote, is sacrificed in battles, and scars appear instead. Peaceable by nature, he is born for war, and fights for his living. If he have a master, he learns the fact rather through kicks and blows than caresses and kindness. Owned or ownerless, he must find his own food or prove himself unworthy a place among the living. Of course some receive better treatment at the hands of masters; the description applies to the vast majority.

"The dog of the street is not an unmixed evil, for he is the city scavenger. He never deserts his post unless driven away; never shirks his duty; never goes on a strike; always hungry, usually starving, he allows no food to waste, nothing eatable to decay. Without him epidemics might be far more common than now; yet his only reward comes in kicks and curses. It is said, in some places, the writer has reason to believe with truth, that the street dogs have a government of their own, and each brute knows his place and keeps it. Certainly it was almost impossible to coax, very difficult to force, a dog beyond certain limits in the city of Amoy years ago. And woe to the dog out of his beat! He must run, fight, or die; occasionally one was compelled to do each in turn. If forced a few blocks from home the brutes, bold enough before, became cowardly, and made desperate efforts to return."

Click Here for "Why Chinese Dogs are Shy"

Carstairs Douglas has roots!

2008-09-15T14:38:00.001-07:00

Carstairs Douglas, an early member of the Amoy Mission, was a fascinating character, and I have uploaded ten pages of info about him on www.Amoymagic.com. But it appears he was not the only high achiever in his family, based on a couple of recent e-mails from a lady in the U.K., who has said she would be happy to help anyone researching the Douglas family. Below are her e-mails.
Enjoy Amoy!
Dr. Bill
Carstairs Douglas Pages

September 14, 2008

I stumbled upon your website whilst researching my husband's family tree. Thankyou so much for posting all the information about Carstairs Douglas. It was a genealogists dream!

Carstairs was my husband's great great uncle; his whole family contained many men of the church. One of Carstairs' older brothers was george Cunninghame Monteath Douglas who was a hebraist and Reverend Principal of the Free Church Glasgow and his father was the Reverend at Kilbarchan, Scotland.

Thanks again,

Jean

September 16, 2008

Ref email 15/9/08, no I am not the Jean who contacted in 2003; I hadn't started the research into my husband's tree then. We don't have any more info on Carstairs Douglas, just what we have from you. However, if you go to St Brycedale's Church, Kirkcaldy website, you will see a photo of a stained glass window that is purported to be of him.

I have a large and comprehensive tree about his family though, and have essentially traced his mother's side of the family all the way back to the 17th century, with a fairly definite link to the Earls of Glencairn. His grandmother Ann Cunningham was an heiress who married the Rev John Monteath of Houston, Scotland. On the Douglas side, his.father the Reverend Robert Douglas of Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, was directly descended from the Lairds of Barloch near Glasgow. These family members were steeped in the transformation that led to the Scottish Free Church. Furthermore, I have almost postively traced these Barloch Douglases to the Earls of Dalkeith.

In other words, Carstairs was born into a family which had some pretty impressive family roots in terms of the various doings of history. His own siblings, educated as he was at the Manse in Kilbarchan by his parents, all were high achievers. The eldest, Dr James Douglas, then John Monteath Douglas 'the Witty Laird of Barloch' parliamentary Whig candidate and author of works on Bimetallism, Robert Douglas (my husband' great grandfather) engineer and founder of Douglas and Grant Engineering, Kirkcaldy (one of his steam driven rice milling machines is still in use up the Irowaddy Delta in Burma!), George Cunningham Monteath Douglas, Reverend Principal of the Scottish Free Church College Glasgow (went to university at the age of 11; photo available from the National Portrait Gallery) and finally, Campbell Douglas the architect ( Carnegie Libray Ayr, amongst other things.)

I would be happy to supply information to anyone who might be researching the family.

Sincerely, Jean

No American Devils...Japanese, maybe.

2008-09-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

When in remote areas Chinese sometimes accost me and demand, "Who are you?"
I answer, "I'm an American devil." Almost (but not always!) this disarms them, and they laugh, and protest, "No! No! American friends, not devils!" But very many add, after a thoughtful pause, "Japanese devils, though."

Many of my elderly Chinese neighbors still remember the horrific experiences of the Japanese occupation of Amoy in 1938 and afterwards, but Fujian's encounters with the Japanese go back much further. In remote areas of Zhangzhou province, Lindun town for example, I've found the ruins of city walls built almost 400 years ago to protect villagers from the "pygmy bandits" (their derogatory term for Japanese invaders--still used in a plaque today in Quanzhou's Maritime Museum!). Oddly, another wall ran down the middle of Lindun town because the town had two factions that feuded each other--except when the Japanese came, at which point they united to fight off the pygmy bandits.

100 years ago the Japanese were taking Manchuria, Taiwan and other parts of China, and at the same time working overtime with the propaganda to convince Western nations that they had only peacable intents. We'd have probably not been taken by surprise at Pearl Harbor if we had paid attention to people like Millard, who way back in 1916 warned the U.S. and Europe that the Japanese had infiltrated Western peace organizations to encourage pacifism. It's sobering. Even today, I think we should seek peace, not war, but I suspect even now some of those crying "Peace!" really mean "Piece!" (as in, "I want a piece of Georgia, or Kosovo, or....).

This photo is from Millard, 1916 (p. 205) the caption says it all.

Fortunately, China's youth today seem to have forgiven Japan. They love frequenting Japanese restaurants, listening to Japanese pop stars, watching Japanese movies. And families like the Sabayashis from Japan have lived for years in China, teaching Japanese language and culture, and helping bridge the gaps of fear and mistrust. Hopefully, one of these days Japanese devils will go the way of American devils.

Enjoy Amoy!

Dr. Bill Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com

Ancient Chinese IRS

2008-09-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

As I work on the book "Old Amoy in Foreigners' Eyes", using old texts and photos from my home library (Click here for a partial list), I come across some fascinating insights. This passage from one of MacGowan's books was about the ancient system of taxes, which was not overly oppressive, and the tactics of tax collectors--which were oppressive indeed. Read on to learn about the ANCIENT CHINESE INFERNAL REVENUE SERVICE!
Bill Brown Magic Xiamen--Guide to Xiamen and Fujian

Reverend John MacGowan, Lights and Shadows of Chinese Life, North China Daily News and Herald Limited, Shanghai 1909

FEW TAXES p. 3
With the exception of the dues collected at the various custom houses throughout the country, the only direct tax imposed by the Imperial Government is the land tax. Taxes for education, for the army and navy, for the defence of the Empire, as well as rates for the police, the poor, etc., are absolutely unknown. The civil list in China is a very model of simplicity, and gives the executive very little anxiety, for there are automatic systems that have been in existence from the earliest times that provide for the salaries and expenses of public servants in a manner highly satisfactory to everyone, excepting to the long-suffering masses from whom the money is extracted.

LAND TAX
The land tax… is a fixed one and was settled in A.D. 1644, when the present dynasty came into power. The land registers were then revised, and the amount that every man’s farm or holding had to pay was fixed by the imperial authorities. This seems to have been done in a very fair and generous spirit. The Government which affects to be a paternal one showed in this case, at least, great anxiety that this tax should not be an oppressive one….

As lands vary greatly in fertility, there was no uniformity in the levying of these taxes…in all cases due care has been taken that the farmers shall not be unduly distressed.

The Ancient Chinese IRS
Now whilst the land tax is in itself a very moderate one, the method of its collection renders it very oppressive, and certainly at all times it is more or less a source of trouble and vexation. The Government has entrusted the collection of it to a body of men that are notoriously of ill-repute, and who fro the very nature of the case must be dishonest. Not only have they no salaries, but they have actually to purchase their positions. The only privilege they demand in return for this outlay of their money is a free hand to get as much out of the people, by guile, by ruse, or by cunning, as they can; only they must be careful that everything they do must have an appearance of legality. Law, and ancient custom, and hoary traditions are sacred in the eyes of the Chinese, but there are a thousand-and-one ways by which these may be evaded, while the semblance of respect for them is still maintained.

A free-handed system like this exactly suits the genius of the Chinese, who prefer oblique methods to direct ones. It opens out a boundless field, where money can be gained more easily than by settled salaries….

Children of China (1937)

2008-09-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

This delightful little volume by Stella M. Rudy was published in 1937 by Rand McNally, and is one of my favorites. The left pages are text, and the right pages are full-sized accompanying photos.

Below is a bit of the text, and some of the 30+ photos.

View more texts and photos on the Amoy Mission Project or Amoymagic.com

Enjoy Amoy!

Dr. Bill

Children of China

The fertile land of China-sometimes called the Flowery Kingdom-
is the home of one of the oldest nations in the world.

For centuries the Chinese people lived in peace, protected on the east by the ocean; on the south and southwest by high mountains and on the west by still higher mountams, great deserts. and high wide plains. Only the northern side was open to the attack of wild tribes, and there the Chmese built their Great Wall.

The Yangtze River which flows across central China is one of the great rivers of the world. The Yellow River in the north, and the West River in the south, are also important. The Grand Canal connects Hangchow and Tientjin. Three of China's greatest cities Shanghai, Canton, and Nankmg-are river ports. Beiping. an inland city, is the gateway for trade with northern Asia.

In northern China the winter are cold and the summers are hot; in southern China the climate is moist and warm.

Long, long ago there was a great and powerful gIant, called Chung Kuo, who knew how to do a great many wonderful things. But he made the mistake of thinking that he knew everything there was to learn, and he was not willing to share his ecrets with others. He shut himself in his house, locked the door, and went to sleep. Chung Ktuo~ means China, or the Middle Kingdom.

At last the great sleeping giant, Chung Kwo, began to stir. He unlocked his doors and looked around. Then he made a discovery. There were other countrie and other people as wise as he!

And when people of other countries peeped into this mysterious land they made discoveries. too. They found that long before the kings of other countries knew anything about silk the Chinese people were wearing gorgeous silk robes. They discovered that the Chinese people were eating out of beautiful porcelain dishes when people of other lands were using dishes of coarse clay. They learned that long before the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there were great cities and towns in China, the Middle Kingdom.

A GLIMPSE INTO CHINA

When one friend meets another in China, he bows and shakes his own hand instead of his friend's. Chinese family names come first instead of last. To read a book, the Chinese begin at the back and read from right to left, and from top to bottom.

Chinese people wear fur on the inside of their coats instead of on the outside. Mourners wear white instead of black, and brides wear red instead of white. The bride goes to the home of the groom for the wedding instead of being married at her home. The Chinese push their needles away from them instead of toward them when they sew, and do the same with a knife when peeling fruit or vegetables.

In China, fruit is eaten at the beginning of the meal and soup near the end. Chinese people do not think it impolite to make a noise when eating soup or sipping tea.

It would seem to us like a topsy-turvy land, but to the Chinese it is our ways that are strange.

WRITING PROM RIGHT TO LEPT
There are more people in China than in any other country -- one-fourth of all the people in the world. They live in big walled cities with narrow streets, in villages far back in the mountains, along rIvers. on boats, and in caves. The Chinese have yellow kin, straight black hair, and bright black. almond-haped eyes. The people of the south are smaller than those of the north. There are so many different languages spoken in China that it is difficult for people from different parts of the country to understand one another. The people of northern and central China speak the Mandarin language, the official language of China. Those of the south speak Cantonese. a gay and musical language.

The Chinese people are wise, patient, and industrious. They have gIven the world many things--paper, tea, silk, lacquer ware, fine porcelain. umbrellas, carved jade, fine needlework, gunpowder, and the compass. They wore silk gowns, carried umbrellas, shot off firecrackers, and printed books hundreds of years before Columbus discovered America.

Jessie M. Johnston

2008-09-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Jessie Johnston was a young single missionary in Amoy for 18 years, and immediately after her death her family published a book about her life and work. Click Here to read the entire text of "Jin Ko-Niu--A Brief Sketch of the Life of Jessie M. Johnston For Eighteen Years W.M.A. Missionary in Amoy, China" (the title is almost longer than the book!), by her sisters Meta and Lena with a preface by her mother. (published by T. French Downie, London, 1907).

It's an interesting tale (though the Victorian language gets to me a bit), but I prize the little book because of the photos, which I've scanned and will upload as I get time. My favorite is entitled, "Sixty-five pupils in Amoy School who all became teachers." Missionary schools in Amoy (now Xiamen) played a very important role in the development of modern Chinese education--particularly education for women. Read more about Amoy's Pioneer Educators in "Discover Gulangyu's".

Speaking of pioneering education--our Xiamen University MBA Center gave out China's first MBA Degrees! (we beat Nankai University by 6 days; when I arrived in 1988, MBA was not popular, to say the least--creeping capitalist thinking and all that; now its the hottest subject in China).
Enjoy Amoy!

Peter and Connie Anderson -- Fuzhou and Amoy

2008-09-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Peter Anderson, a missionary in Amoy (on Gulangyu, or Kulongsoo), married Constance of the English Presbyterian Mission, in Fiuzhou (Foochow). They were married in the beautiful old stone church on Nantai island--my favorite church in Fujian (right out of Celtic legend).

The Andersons had a big part in the Amoy Mission's relief work for refugees on Gulangyu Islet in 1938 and 1939, as I learned from their son, John Anderson, who was born in Hope Hospital. John only spent 18 months in Amoy, but in October 2008 he and his wife will return to Xiamen for a month to trace their Fujian roots, and find some of the old places his mother wrote about.

Sue and I met John and Jennifer (his wife) in their home in Mountain View, California, and they were kind enough to allow me to scan many of their photos, which I will upload as I have time. Please note that all of these photos belong to the Andersons; anyone using them without permission will be shot (with slow bullets). Seriously.... please contact me if you'd like any of the texts or photos, and I'll pass the word on to the Anderson.,

Enjoy Amoy! Dr. Bill

Old China in Foreigners' Eyes (photos and text)

2008-09-05T09:58:00.001-07:00

I have hundreds of old books on China, and thousands of old photos, which I hope to upload. The photos are fascinating, the articles and books are insightful (often humorous as well).
Check our website, www.amoymagic.com for more info and photos about the Amoy Mission.

Enjoy Amoy!

Dr. Bill