[Illustration: Portrait; Very truly yours
Yung Wing]
MY LIFE IN CHINA
AND AMERICA
BY
YUNG WING, A.B., LL.D. (YALE)
COMMISSIONER OF THE CHINESE EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION,
ASSOCIATE CHINESE MINISTER IN WASHINGTON,
EXPECTANT TAO-TAI OF KIANG SU
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_Published November, 1909._
TO
MY DEVOTED SONS
MORRISON BROWN
AND
BARTLETT GOLDEN YUNG
THESE REMINISCENCES
ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
PREFACE
The first five chapters of this book give an account of my early
education, previous to going to America, where it was continued, first
at Monson Academy, in Monson, Massachusetts, and later, at Yale College.
The sixth chapter begins with my reëntrance into the Chinese world,
after an absence of eight years. Would it not be strange, if an
Occidental education, continually exemplified by an Occidental
civilization, had not wrought upon an Oriental such a metamorphosis in
his inward nature as to make him feel and act as though he were a being
coming from a different world, when he confronted one so diametrically
different? This was precisely my case, and yet neither my patriotism nor
the love of my fellow-countrymen had been weakened. On the contrary,
they had increased in strength from sympathy. Hence, the succeeding
chapters of my book will be found to be devoted to the working out of my
educational scheme, as an expression of my undying love for China, and
as the most feasible method to my mind, of reformation and regeneration
for her.
With the sudden ending of the Educational Commission, and the recall of
the one hundred and twenty students who formed the vanguard of the
pioneers of modern education in China, my educational work was brought
to a close.
Of the survivors of these students of 1872, a few by dint of hard,
persistent industry, have at last come forth to stand in the front ranks
of the leading statesmen of China, and it is through them that the
original Chinese Educational Commission has been revived, though in a
modified form, so that now, Chinese students are seen flocking to
America and Europe from even the distant shores of Sinim for a
scientific education.
November, 1909,
16 Atwood St., Hartford, Conn.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BOYHOOD 1
II. SCHOOL DAYS 13
III. JOURNEY TO AMERICA AND FIRST EXPERIENCES THERE 21
IV. AT MONSON ACADEMY 27
V. MY COLLEGE DAYS 34
VI. RETURN TO CHINA 42
VII. EFFORT TO FIND A POSITION 58
VIII. EXPERIENCES IN BUSINESS 67
IX. MY FIRST TRIP TO THE TEA DISTRICTS 79
X. MY VISIT TO THE TAIPINGS 96
XI. REFLECTIONS ON THE TAIPING REBELLION 113
XII. EXPEDITION TO THE TAIPING TEA DISTRICT 123
XIII. MY INTERVIEWS WITH TSANG KWOH FAN 137
XIV. MY MISSION TO AMERICA TO BUY MACHINERY 154
XV. MY SECOND RETURN TO CHINA 160
XVI. PROPOSAL OF MY EDUCATIONAL SCHEME 170
XVII. THE CHINESE EDUCATIONAL MISSION 180
XVIII. INVESTIGATION OF THE COOLIE TRAFFIC IN PERU 191
XIX. END OF THE EDUCATIONAL MISSION 197
XX. JOURNEY TO PEKING AND DEATH MY WIFE 216
XXI. MY RECALL TO CHINA 224
XXII. THE COUP D’ETAT OF 1898 239
APPENDIX 247
INDEX 275
MY LIFE IN CHINA AND AMERICA
CHAPTER I
BOYHOOD
I was born on the 17th of November, 1828, in the village of Nam Ping
(South Screen) which is about four miles southwest of the Portuguese
Colony of Macao, and is situated on Pedro Island lying west of Macao,
from which it is separated by a channel of half a mile wide.
I was one of a family of four children. A brother was the eldest, a
sister came next, I was the third, and another brother was the fourth
and the youngest of the group. I am the only survivor of them all.
As early as 1834, an English lady, Mrs. Gutzlaff, wife of the Rev.
Charles Gutzlaff, a missionary to China, came to Macao and, under the
auspices of the Ladies’ Association in London for the promotion of
female education in India and the East, immediately took up the work of
her mission by starting a girls’ school for Chinese girls, which was
soon followed by the opening of a school for boys also.
Mrs. Gutzlaff’s comprador or factotum happened to come from the village
I did and was, in fact, my father’s friend and neighbor. It was through
him that my parents heard about Mrs. Gutzlaff’s school and it was
doubtless through his influence and means that my father got me admitted
into the school. It has always been a mystery to me why my parents
should take it into their heads to put me into a foreign school, instead
of a regular orthodox Confucian school, where my brother much older than
myself was placed. Most assuredly such a step would have been more in
play with Chinese public sentiment, taste, and the wants of the country
at large, than to allow me to attend an English school; moreover, a
Chinese cult is the only avenue in China that leads to political
preferment, influence, power and wealth. I can only account for the
departure thus taken on the theory that as foreign intercourse with
China was just beginning to grow, my parents, anticipating that it might
soon assume the proportions of a tidal wave, thought it worth while to
take time by the forelock and put one of their sons to learning English
that he might become one of the advanced interpreters and have a more
advantageous position from which to make his way into the business and
diplomatic world. This I take to be the chief aim that influenced my
parents to put me into Mrs. Gutzlaff’s Mission School. As to what other
results or sequences it has eventually brought about in my subsequent
life, they were entirely left to Him who has control of all our devising
and planning, as they are governed by a complete system of divine laws
of antecedents and consequents, or of cause and effect.
In 1835, when I was barely seven years of age, my father took me to
Macao. Upon reaching the school, I was brought before Mrs. Gutzlaff. She
was the first English lady I had ever seen. On my untutored and
unsophisticated mind she made a deep impression. If my memory serves me
right, she was somewhat tall and well-built. She had prominent features
which were strong and assertive; her eyes were of clear blue lustre,
somewhat deep set. She had thin lips, supported by a square chin,--both
indicative of firmness and authority. She had flaxen hair and eyebrows
somewhat heavy. Her features taken collectively indicated great
determination and will power.
As she came forward to welcome me in her long and full flowing white
dress (the interview took place in the summer), surmounted by two large
globe sleeves which were fashionable at the time and which lent her an
exaggerated appearance, I remember most vividly I was no less puzzled
than stunned. I actually trembled all over with fear at her imposing
proportions--having never in my life seen such a peculiar and odd
fashion. I clung to my father in fear. Her kindly expression and
sympathetic smiles found little appreciative response at the outset, as
I stood half dazed at her personality and my new environment. For
really, a new world had dawned on me. After a time, when my homesickness
was over and the novelty of my surroundings began gradually to wear
away, she completely won me over through her kindness and sympathy. I
began to look upon her more like a mother. She seemed to take a special
interest in me; I suppose, because I was young and helpless, and away
from my parents, besides being the youngest pupil in the school. She
kept me among her girl pupils and did not allow me to mingle with what
few boys there were at the time.
There is one escapade that I can never forget! It happened during the
first year in the school, and was an attempt on my part to run away. I
was shut up in the third story of the house, which had a wide open
terrace on the top,--the only place where the girls and myself played
and found recreation. We were not allowed to go out of doors to play in
the streets. The boy pupils had their quarters on the ground floor and
had full liberty to go out for exercise. I used to envy them their
freedom and smuggled down stairs to mingle with them in their sports
after school hours. I felt ill at ease to be shut up with the girls all
alone way up in the third story. I wanted to see something of the
outside world. I occasionally stole down stairs and ventured out to the
wharves around which were clustered a number of small ferry boats which
had a peculiar fascination to my young fancy. To gain my freedom, I
planned to run away. The girls were all much older than I was, and a few
sympathized with me in my wild scheme; doubtless, from the same
restlessness of being too closely cooped up. I told them of my plan. Six
of the older ones fell in with me in the idea. I was to slip out of the
house alone, go down to the wharf and engage a covered boat to take us
all in.
The next morning after our morning meal, and while Mrs. Gutzlaff was
off taking her breakfast, we stole out unbeknown to any one and crowded
into the boat and started off in hot haste for the opposite shore of
Pedro Island. I was to take the whole party to my home and from there
the girls were to disperse to their respective villages. We were half
way across the channel when, to my great consternation, I saw a boat
chasing us, making fast time and gaining on us all the while. No promise
of additional pay was of any avail, because our two oars against their
four made it impossible for us to win out; so our boatmen gave up the
race at the waving of handkerchiefs in the other boat and the whole
party was captured. Then came the punishment. We were marched through
the whole school and placed in a row, standing on a long narrow school
table placed at one end of the school room facing all the pupils in
front of us. I was placed in the center of the row, with a tall foolscap
mounted on my head, having three girls on the right and three on the
left. I had pinned on my breast a large square placard bearing the
inscription, “Head of the Runaways;” there we stood for a whole hour
till school was dismissed. I never felt so humiliated in my life as I
did when I was undergoing that ordeal. I felt completely crestfallen.
Some of the mischievous fellows would extract a little fun out of this
display by taking furtive glances and making wry faces at us. Mrs.
Gutzlaff, in order to aggravate our punishment, had ordered ginger snaps
and oranges to be distributed among the other pupils right before us.
Mrs. Gutzlaff’s school, started in September, 1835, was originally for
girls only. Pending the organization and opening of the so-called
“Morrison Education Society School,” in the interval between 1835 and
1839, a department for boys was temporarily incorporated into her
school, and part of the subscription fund belonging to the M. E. S.
School was devoted to the maintenance of this one.
This accounts for my entrance into Mrs. Gutzlaff’s School, as one of
only two boys first admitted. Her school being thus enlarged and
modified temporarily, Mrs. Gutzlaff’s two nieces--the Misses Parkes,
sisters to Mr. Harry Parkes who was afterwards knighted, by reason of
the conspicuous part he played in the second Opium War, in 1864, of
which he was in fact the originator--came out to China as assistants in
the school. I was fortunately placed under their instruction for a short
time.
Afterwards the boys’ school under Mrs. Gutzlaff and her two nieces, the
Misses Parkes, was broken up; that event parted our ways in life in
divergent directions. Mrs. Gutzlaff went over to the United States with
three blind girls,--Laura, Lucy and Jessie. The Misses Parkes were
married to missionaries, one to Dr. William Lockhart, a medical
missionary; the other to a Rev. Mr. MacClatchy, also a missionary. They
labored long in China, under the auspices of the London Missionary
Society. The three blind girls whom Mrs. Gutzlaff took with her were
taught by me to read on raised letters till they could read from the
Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress.
On my return to my home village I resumed my Chinese studies.
In the fall of 1840, while the Opium War was still going on, my father
died, leaving four children on my mother’s hands without means of
support.
Fortunately, three of us were old enough to lend a helping hand. My
brother was engaged in fishing, my sister helped in housework, and I
took to hawking candy through my own village and the neighboring one. I
took hold of the business in good earnest, rising at three o’clock
every morning, and I did not come home until six o’clock in the
evening. My daily earnings netted twenty-five cents, which I turned over
to my mother, and with the help given by my brother, who was the main
stay of the family, we managed to keep the wolf away from our door. I
was engaged in hawking candy for about five months, and when winter was
over, when no candy was made, I changed my occupation and went into the
rice fields to glean rice after the reapers. My sister usually
accompanied me in such excursions. But unlike Ruth of old, I had no Boaz
to help me out when I was short in my gleaning. But my knowledge of
English came to my rescue. My sister told the head reaper that I could
speak, read and write English. This awakened the curiosity of the
reaper. He beckoned me to him and asked me whether I wouldn’t talk some
“Red Hair Men” talk to him. He said he never heard of such talk in his
life. I felt bashful and diffident at first, but my sister encouraged me
and said “the reaper may give you a large bundle of rice sheaf to take
home.” This was said as a kind of prompter. The reaper was shrewd enough
to take it up, and told me that if I would talk, he would give me a
bundle heavier than I could carry. So I began and repeated the alphabet
to him. All the reapers as well as the gleaners stood in vacant silence,
with mouths wide open, grinning with evident delight. A few minutes
after my maiden speech was delivered in the paddy field with water and
mud almost knee deep, I was rewarded with several sheaves, and I had to
hurry away in order to get two other boys to carry what my sister and I
could not lug. Thus I came home loaded with joy and sheaves of golden
rice to my mother, little dreaming that my smattering knowledge of
English would serve me such a turn so early in my career. I was then
about twelve years old. Even Ruth with her six measures of corn did not
fare any better than I did.
Soon after the gleaning days, all too few, were over, a neighbor of mine
who was a printer in the printing office of a Roman Catholic priest
happened to be home from Macao on a vacation. He spoke to my mother
about the priest wanting to hire a boy in his office who knew enough
English to read the numerals correctly, so as to be able to fold and
prepare the papers for the binders. My mother said I could do the work.
So I was introduced to the priest and a bargain was struck. I returned
home to report myself, and a few days later I was in Macao and entered
upon my duty as a folder on a salary of $4.50 a month. My board and
lodging came to $1.50--the balance of $3.00 was punctually sent to my
mother every month. I did not get rich quickly in this employment, for I
had been there but four months when a call for me to quit work came from
a quarter I least expected. It had more the sound of heaven in it. It
came from a Dr. Benjamin Hobson, a medical missionary in Macao whose
hospital was not more than a mile from the printer’s office. He sent
word that he wanted to see me; that he had been hunting for me for
months. I knew Dr. Hobson well, for I saw him a number of times at Mrs.
Gutzlaff’s. So I called on him. At the outset, I thought he was going to
take me in to make a doctor of me, but no, he said he had a promise to
fulfill. Mrs. Gutzlaff’s last message to him, before she embarked for
America with the three blind girls, was to be sure to find out where I
was and to put me into the Morrison Education Society School as soon as
it was opened for pupils.
“This is what I wanted to see you for,” said Dr. Hobson. “Before you
leave your employment and after you get the consent of your mother to
let you go to the Morrison School, I would like to have you come to the
hospital and stay with me for a short time so that I may become better
acquainted with you, before I take you to the Morrison School, which is
already opened for pupils, and introduce you to the teacher.”
At the end of the interview, I went home to see my mother who, after
some reluctance, gave her consent. I returned to Macao, bade farewell to
the priest who, though reticent and reserved, not having said a word to
me during all the four months I was in his employ, yet did not find
fault with me in my work. I went over to the hospital. Dr. Hobson
immediately set me to work with the mortar and pestle, preparing
materials for ointments and pills. I used to carry a tray and accompany
him in his rounds to visit the patients, in the benevolent work of
alleviating their pains and sufferings. I was with him about a couple of
months in the hospital work, at the end of which time he took me one day
and introduced me to the Rev. Samuel Robins Brown, the teacher of the
Morrison Education Society School.