199
GROWING UP IN CHINA:
LECTURE TO THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH, 14 MAY, 1993
DENIS BRAY
It is quite a challenge to compose a talk on the first 13 years of your life when there are practically no books to consult and friends from those days are scattered or gone. To the challenge is added an audience much more knowledgeable than I on the history of the area. I think I can only get away with it because nobody can check on much that I have to say. As I do not speak Putonghua or write Pinyin I am going to stick to spellings for place names used in the thirties and Cantonese for local names.
There are some references. There are three books of reference on the China Inland Mission School at Chefoo. Two are written by students who went there long before I did. They are Mrs Jean Moore and Dr. Gren Wedderburn. A full history of the school from start to finish has been written by Gordon Martin who was classics teacher when I was there and who was one of the longest serving teachers the school had. I am sure that the Methodist Missionary Society in London has copious records on the mission in Fatshan and South China.
I Was Born
I did not start life in China but in Hong Kong — at the Matilda Hospital in fact. My father was working in the Methodist Mission in Fatshan at the time, running Wah Ying School. This school was founded in 1913 near to a hospital, also run by the mission, which was founded in 1881. The hospital, now known officially as the Number One People's Hospital, but spoken of as the Chun Do Yi Yuen, or Methodist Hospital, celebrated its 111th anniversary last year. The school, now known as the Number One Middle School but spoken of still as Wah Ying, will celebrate its 90th anniversary in December this year.
January 1926 towards the end of the General Strike, when all Chinese were urged to boycott any form of service for foreigners, was accompanied by incidents of unrest in China and in Hong Kong itself. It was no time for a pregnant woman to remain in China unless it was...
199
GROWING UP IN CHINA:
LECTURE TO THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH, 14 MAY, 1993
DENIS BRAY
It is quite a challenge to compose a talk on the first 13 years of your life when there are practically no books to consult and friends from those days are scattered or gone. To the challenge is added an audience much more knowledgeable than I on the history of the area. I think I can only get away with it because nobody can check on much that I have to say. As I do not speak Potunghua or write Pinyin I am going to stick to spellings for place names used in the thirties and Cantonese for local
names.
There are some references. There are three books of reference on the China Inland Mission School at Chefoo. Two are written by students who went there long before I did. They are Mrs Jean Moore and Dr. Gren Wedderburn. A full history of the school from start to finish has been written by Gordon Martin who was classics teacher when I was there and who was one of the longest serving teachers the school had. I am sure that the Methodist Missionary Society in London has copious records on the mission in Fatshan and South China.
I Was Born
I did not start life in China but in Hong Kong — at the Matilda Hospital in fact. My father was working in the Methodist Mission in Fatshan at the time, running Wah Ying School. This school was founded in 1913 near to a hospital, also run by the mission, which was founded in 1881. The hospital, now known officially as the Number One People's Hospital, but spoken of as the Chun Do Yi Yuen, or Methodist Hospital, celebrated its 11th anniversary last year. The school, now known as the Number One Middle School but spoken of still as Wah Ying, will celebrate it 90th anniversary in December this year.
January 1926 towards the end of the General Strike, when all Chinese were urged to boycott any form of service for foreigners, was accompanied by incidents of unrest in China and in Hong Kong itself. It was no time for a pregnant woman to remain in China unless it was
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