[ { "id": 210564, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "152\n\nFOUND IN A PENNSYLVANIA ATTIC –\n\nLetters from China 1903-1906*\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nWhile cleaning out his mother's attic in Bala Cynwyd, Harry V. Ryder Jr.' found a bunch of letters that had been sent from Taiho. Bala Cynwyd is an affluent suburb of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; Taiho a river town in the northwestern corner of the interior province of Anhui in China.\n\n2\n\nThe letters were dated between January 1903 and April 1906. They were written to Harry's maternal grandmother, Louese Hedges Strawbridge, by Edith Rowe, who was a classmate at a \"finishing school” in Philadelphia. Both Louese and Edith were Baptists. Edith's letters reflected the high standard of private school education in eastern United States at that time. Her command of written English was more than respectable. Scenes and events were vividly described; ideas eloquently expressed; and grammar and spelling impeccable. Except for one or two words, her handwriting can be read without any difficulty. Two of the letters contain charming line-drawings, an old-fashioned practice still favoured by young students in American schools today.\n\nLouese Strawbridge was the only child of Samuel and Ann Hedges, who had come originally from Ohio. Samuel Hedges had served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war he brought his wife to Philadelphia where he became a successful horse trader.3 Bala Cynwyd is near Devon, in the heart of the Pennsylvania horse country. After graduating from the Friends School, Louese went to a “finishing school\", then was married to George Strawbridge, scion of a family that had founded and operated the prestigious department store, Strawbridge and Clothier. Louese and George had four children. Catherine was born in 1896, Helen in 1900, Janet in 1903 and Benjamin in 1907. Except for Benjamin who died in\n\n* Lecture delivered to the Society on 6 October 1986. The author is grateful to Harry and Phyllis Ryder for making available the letters and for information on Harry's grandmother and her family.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210566, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "154\n\nWEI PEH TI\n\nteachers and preachers in China. Jane Hunter, in her research on women missionaries of that era, found that women who went to China under the auspices of one of the forty-one American women's missionary boards had come from humbler background than those heading for the settlement houses at home.\" Perhaps that was why Edith had joined the China Inland Mission founded by an Englishman instead of a local Baptist mission. Philadelphia, despite being the seat of the Continental Congress that renounced king and country in 1776, had retained the British mystique. Perhaps it was this snobbish preference for things British that led Edith to the China Inland Mission, which, by that time, had established a recruitment centre in the United States. Apparently both Edith and Louese had toyed with the idea of becoming missionaries while at school. In one of the letters, Edith asked Louese, “Do you remember your desire to be a missionary? Can't you spare one of these darlings (Louese's children) and consecrate one for Foreign Service?”\n\nJ. Hudson Taylor, who had worked in China under the China Evangelization Society during the 1850s, had become concerned that Protestant missionaries were more interested in establishing hospitals and introducing educational and social changes than in spreading the Gospel. He organized the China Inland Mission in London and brought the first group of twenty-four men and women missionaries under its auspices to China in 1866. As the name indicates, work of this organization was to be concentrated in the interior provinces, away from the treaty ports. The centre of the mission was located at Shanghai, with stations in the capital of each province and sub-stations in various towns. Despite hostilities shown by the local populace during the last decades of the nineteenth century and ravages on the missionaries and Chinese Christians during the Boxer Rebellion, the work of the China Inland Mission continued. By the time Edith arrived at Taiho in March 1903, a sub-station of the Anhui Mission at Wuhu, work in the vicinity had already begun. In 1905, there were 828 missionaries working in China under the umbrella of the China Inland Mission.\"\n\nTaiho was a market town at the juncture of the Sha and the Ying Rivers in the northwestern corner of Anhui. Even the most", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210567, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "155\n\nloyal Chinese chroniclers did not claim any distinction for the town. A geography book published in Shanghai in 1931 found very little to recommend the town to its readers. The author devoted one brief paragraph to Taiho.\n\nEven the most bustling part of Taiho is unpleasant. Dust is flying everywhere. The climate is bad; with frequent and heavy rains. Local products consist mainly of silk cocoons, common sorghum, and some hemp. Transportation is dependent on the Ying River, which is silted. At the deepest point there is no more than a six or seven foot draft, barely adequate for local craft, 10\n\nThe China Inland Mission was unusual in several respects. The workers were not limited to any particular denomination or nationality. As long as one was Protestant and was comfortable with Taylor's fairly basic theology, one was eligible to be considered as a missionary with the China Inland Mission. Thus, workers came from such countries as England, Germany, Sweden and the United States. Dr. M. Searle Bates, a Rhodes scholar who had taught at the University of Nanking, found that the Mission did not publish lists of its field workers lest they showed the comparative strength of each nationality. The Mission organized no formal church or school, but sent missionaries to live among the people in interior China. From the beginning, there were women missionaries. The axiom of “letting women do women's work\" suited the social system of China. Women missionaries were to proselytize to women and children. By 1900, sixty percent of Protestant missionaries in China were women. Single women, including those unmarried and widowed, were to work alongside married missionaries.\n\nThe United States in 1900 was ready to expand in Asia. Victorious in the Spanish-American War and bulging with the Philippines, the Americans were looking to China. The value of American exports in 1870 was about $392 million. By 1900, it had increased to almost $1.4 billion. American producers, therefore, were looking for foreign markets. By then, European interests were already carving China into spheres of influence. After the Open Door Policy and the Boxer Protocol were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210568, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "156 \n\nWEI PEH T'I \n\nadopted, the Americans proceeded to exert their influence in China. It is not my intention here to suggest that Protestant missionaries in China were a part of the American scheme to wrestle for themselves a corner of the Chinese Empire. It remains true, nevertheless, that there was a surge in the number of American missionaries in China at that time, consisting of 8 to 12 percent of the total Protestant missionary force in 1900.12 \n\nAltogether seven letters were found in Mrs. Ryder's attic. Two were written in 1903, one each in 1904 and 1906, and three in 1905. It is unlikely that there were others because there appeared to be no break in the continuity of the content. Despite the small number, Edith Rowe was able to convey a great deal of information about Louise and herself, as well as life of the Chinese populace as observed by a foreign missionary in a small inland Chinese town at the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition, the letters reveal certain attitudes of foreigners in China; some were quite different from the espoused idealism that had brought them to China in the first place. \n\nThe first letter was written at Yangchow where Edith was receiving language training, together with eighteen other recruits. Most of these new missionaries were English, but there was at least one German woman. The stamps on the envelopes were in five and ten cent denominations issued by the Post Office of the Great Ch'ing Empire. Some of the envelopes carried two-cent American stamps, bearing the likeness of George Washington, with cancellation stamps indicating that they were sent from the U.S. post office in Shanghai. It was the practice of the Chinese Post Office at that time to charge recipients additional postage for letters that were considered to be overweight. On one occasion, Edith had refused to pay the postage due on a letter from Louise, and the letter had gone back to Wuhu before it was finally delivered to Edith at Taiho. Apparently, Louise had apologized in her letter for having caused Edith anxiety. Edith replied: \n\nPlease, you misunderstood my letter. I did not pay extra postage on your letter, but they charged me with it so I sent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210569, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "157\n\nthe letter back to Wuhu. I was explaining the delay in answering to you. Indeed your letters are worth the extra postage but I have never had to pay any on yours. This postage due system we have now takes a good many of the extra pennies and they are not always fair and square is why I sent your letter back.\n\nThe letters on the average took five to six weeks to travel between Taiho and Bala by land and sea not slow progress even by today's standard of speed. They went by way of Wuhu, Shanghai, San Francisco or Seattle, and Philadelphia. One letter went by way of Nagasaki; another by way of New York. It usually took overnight between Philadelphia and the post office at Bala. One envelope bore the cancellation stamps of both Shanghai in English and that of the French Concession of Shanghai in French. Another envelope showed that the post office at Bala had forgotten to change the date on the cancellation stamp, since it had the letter arriving at Bala before it was even sent out of Philadelphia.\n\nMissionaries of the China Inland Mission were to learn the Chinese language before they were sent to their assigned stations; then the local dialect as well since they were to live among the populace in the interior provinces. Their primary objective was \"to diffuse as quickly as possible a knowledge of the Gospel.\" Conversion to Christianity was not an essential part of their mission. In order to be as close to the populace as possible, lifestyle of the missionaries was \"to conform as nearly as possible to the social and living conditions of the Chinese\" around them. Until way after 1900, women missionaries of the China Inland Mission wore Chinese dresses. Edith Rowe's life at Taiho conformed to this pattern.\n\nImmediately after arrival in China, Edith went to the \"Yang-chow House\" of the mission to study Chinese. Her lessons continued at Taiho. Learning Chinese meant reading and writing the language as well as conversational Chinese. Commenting on a drawing she did of six Chinese men with pig-tails sitting on two benches listening to the Bible being read to them, Edith wrote that \"my teacher... has a very nice tail indeed,\" indicating that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210570, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "158 \n\nWEI PEH T'I \n\nshe continued taking Chinese lessons at Taiho. She took a second language examination in 1905. Mastery of the local dialect was also essential. It took Edith until 1905 to make herself understood in the northern Anhui dialect. “Last year I could not say much but this time I will have to do my share of the preaching,”20 Edith confided to Louese in her letter dated 5 January 1905. At the same time, another woman missionary, Mrs. Ferguson, “not having our pronunciation so that the women do not understand her very well,” was not very useful since she could not preach. \n\n9920 \n\nAt Taiho, the missionaries lived among the people to whom they were bringing the Gospel. These were poor people, judging by their daily fare and by their standards of hygiene. Edith described the scene in the back lane where the men of the neighbourhood ate their evening meal squatting outside their front doors. \n\nThe men do not eat with their wives, . . . The man of the house takes his bowl of rice, if he can afford it, or if not his bowl of dough strips and perhaps a bowl of salted garlic or some kind of greens. If it's the first or fifteenth of the month he will have another bowl with some stewed meat and onion etc.22 \n\nSeeing the population of the back lane thus gathered, the missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm as well as Edith, would assault them with the words of the Lord. \n\nevery day about the time they are eating their food we three stand at the back gate, sing a hymn to draw the crowd, then Mr. Malcolm steps out to preach to them. A great many of them won't come here, so we go to them.\" \n\nTheir timing might not be the most propitious way to make friends and influence their neighbours, but the missionaries were only following Hudson Taylor's directions to reach the people wherever and whenever possible. And Edith was surprised that the neighbours were so “unfriendly”,24 mumbling such things as \"the Boxers will finish them off yet\" and calling the missionaries \n\n!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210571, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "159\n\n“Foreign Devils\" as they passed.25\n\nTaiho had been a market town, although not a prosperous or thriving one at the beginning of the twentieth century. Still, there were residents who were not poverty stricken and who took baths more than once a year. Edith had observed that \"There are people in Taiho who spend more money than we do over their everyday meals, and they do not eat them on their front steps, but they do not live in our back lane.”26\n\nIn due time, Edith was invited to visit some of the better off people in Taiho. She called on the wife of an official at the latter's residence.\n\nI have been moving in the \"upper circles\"... and going to the small yamen. The lady has received me very kindly. She has nothing grand but I have been served with the best they had. Imagine making an afternoon call and having fried eggs on toasted bread served to be eaten with silver and ebony chopsticks, and tea to drink holding the saucer with the cup in it and drinking so.\n\n27\n\nThe mission quarters at Taiho, consisting of living areas for the married missionaries couple or family and Edith, as well as meeting rooms, was located in a Chinese-style compound. This was a walled-in narrow piece of land, the width of a small house, with three houses separated by open courtyards. The innermost house was a two-storeyed structure. The others were single storeyed. When Edith first arrived at Taiho, she shared the two-storeyed house with Miss Trüdinger. They boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm, with Mrs. Malcolm handling the housekeeping. After Miss Trüdinger left in 1904, Edith exchanged quarters with the Malcolms.\n\n+ +\n\nI have a little house all to myself now. At first it was very cold over here, for my floor is just a few inches above the ground and my ceiling or roof is very high and my stove is so tiny it cannot begin to heat even one room.28\n\nEdith, however, did not dwell without other living creatures.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210572, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "160\n\nWEI PEH TI\n\nhad to share the house with local fauna.\n\nI have lots of company over here in the way of rats and bats and in the summer scorpions and mosquitoes. Last summer Mrs. Malcolm killed ten scorpions over here and caught about half that many rats. The bats are here still,...29\n\nSingle women missionaries in larger communities, especially those teaching in schools, were found by Jane Hunter to be sharing quarters. They tried to furnish their residences to resemble their own homes as much as they could, some even bringing with them piano and other pieces of furniture. In comparison, Edith's quarters at Taiho were basic indeed. There were rugs in the bedrooms, which the local population duly admired, but elsewhere the floors were of cold brick.30 Chinese tiled roofs might be picturesque, but they did not serve well when it rained.\n\nI had to have the roof mended not long ago for every rain saw me placing basins and pails around. And the roof mender nearly landed through twice, much to my consternation.31\n\nEdith began to wear Chinese clothing as soon as she arrived at Yangchow. Describing this novelty, she wrote to Louese:\n\nOur Chinese clothes are very warm. You would laugh if you could see me, so we did at each other when we first put them on. Would you be interested for me to describe what I have on? We wear foreign underclothes, but try to dress as much like the natives on the outside as possible.12\n\nDespite efforts on the part of foreign missionaries to fit into the Chinese community, they remained an enigma to the local populace. The Chinese women could not understand what Edith was doing in their midst and gave their own interpretations.\n\nThey cannot understand single women away from home in a strange place. I am generally accepted as Mr. Malcolm's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210573, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "161\n\ninferior wife. I got over feeling badly about it, as it is quite right in their eyes, and much better than for me to be living alone, for then I would have a bad name.3\n\nLiving in such close proximity to married missionaries was fine, provided the people involved got along well. Edith liked the Malcolms, but she felt imposed upon by Mrs. Ferguson. The Fergusons, with three children and another on its way, came to Taiho in late 1904 to replace the Malcolms who went on extended home leave. On several occasions Edith complained about demands made on her as a single woman by Mrs. Ferguson.\n\nI am willing to spend and be spent for the people whom I came out to help, but I must confess I begrudge the time and strength spent for fellow missionaries, ... A single lady worker has a bad time living with a family as she is looked upon as general nurse and companion and seamstress.34\n\n35 but\n\nEdith felt that the Ferguson children were “dear and sweet” the nicest term she could find to describe their mother was \"very dependent\".36\n\nEdith worked with women and children at Taiho. She did not say very much about how she worked with the women in her letters, except that there were hints of meetings at the mission. She also called on the women at their home from time to time, but as very few women had leisure except during the Chinese New Year's, the women only visited the missionaries en masse on the first or second day of the year. Since Edith's letters were written to thank Louese for Christmas presents and to tell Louese what gifts she had sent to the Strawbridge children, Edith usually took pen in hand in January or February, the Chinese New Year season. The open houses, therefore, were top-most on her mind among the news she wished to tell her friend.\n\nThis has been a busy day, but nothing like yesterday. It is Chinese New Year and the people began coming before we had finished our breakfast, 7.30, and they kept it up all day. Some come to pay their respects and some say they do too,\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210574, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "162\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nbut it's more to get the tea and sweets which we provide. We began by giving each one cakes, nuts and sweets and tea, but the people came in such crowds and the things disappeared so rapidly we had to dwindle the giving down till it was tea and nothing more.\n\n37\n\nEven on such seemingly social occasions, finding so many people under the same roof, the missionaries behaved true to form. They preached.\n\nMrs. Malcolm has been better able to preach to them today, for there have not been so many and consequently more ready to stay awhile. Yesterday at one time we each had a room full and both talked at once.\n\n38\n\nBoth women missionaries held classes for the children. There were Sunday School classes, but on weekdays too since children in Taiho did not attend regular schools at the beginning of the twentieth century. Workers of the China Inland Mission concentrated on Biblical knowledge rather than a general curriculum, so Edith was teaching the children reading using stories from the Bible as texts. She did not appear to have liked the Chinese children as she repeatedly dwelt on the theme that they were so dirty. In her first letter to Louese, Edith wrote about the streets of Yangchow \"full of small boys looking like dirty rag dolls in their wadded clothes.\"**\n\nHearing from Miss Amy that Louese had given birth to another child in 1903, Edith wrote that\n\nL\n\n·\n\nhow I would like to see (your children). Little Chinese children are nice but they can't be hugged nor kissed. In the first place it would be too much of an amazement to them, and in the next some are too dirty.40\n\nAgain, describing the daughter of another missionary whom she visited, Edith told Louese that it was a pleasure to hold the eighteen month baby \"after the little yellow babies and so clean, which the yellow babies are not.“'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210575, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "163\n\nEdith and her fellow missionaries did not seem to have any higher opinion of the Chinese adults around them — excepting, of course, the Christians, who were another category altogether. Edith had found the Chinese in general noisy, quarrelsome and untrustworthy. In describing three nests of crows living in the trees above her house the first summer she was at Taiho, Edith wrote Louese:\n\nThree families (of crows) were raised over my head this summer, and there was no quiet to be enjoyed for Chinese crows are very loquacious and without number,... They are really Chinese crows for they quarrel a great deal and like to live huddled together.42\n\nThe crows raided the chicken coop and stole eggs, another characteristic Edith attributed to the Chinese. When Mr. Malcolm found a bag that was being used to hold several bats, which the Chinese women were preserving to make Chinese medicine, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that someone was taking advantage of the confusion of moving at the mission to “hide a piece of soap\" with the intention of stealing it. On another occasion, Edith told Louese that despite the fact that she was busy and sick herself, she had to help tend the Ferguson children whose mother was ill, because \"there is no one else to do it and a native cannot be trusted.”\n\nStill, in general, Edith found her work enjoyable if the monotony could be relieved once in a while. Earlier, when Edith was complaining about the bats living in her house, she was actually enjoying the episode. Apparently Mr. Malcolm had not handled the parcel with the bats well. He merely made astonished noises. Edith, with her Quaker training, was made of sterner stuff. She took the parcel back into her house, liberating the content in the process. Despite her chagrin, she recounted the story with relish. Then, in the summer of 1905, the missionaries at Taiho had a visitor with an unusual piece of equipment in his luggage. Edith told Louese:\n\nThe monotony of Taiho has been varied too by a visitor, a young man came and took some pictures for us, will send", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210576, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "164\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nYou one when I get them.45\n\nEdith managed to get away from Taiho twice during the little more than three years she was corresponding with Louese. She described her journey to a nearby station twenty-three miles away.\n\nWe could not get boats all the week and were finally forced to go by wheel-barrow to get there at all. That is the usual mode of travel and very comfortable, but fearfully slow. We put our box on for a back and then our bed, then we sit on it with our feet out over the wheel. These barrowmen are accustomed to pushing between four and five hundred pounds so we count a light-load and all the pay they get is ten cents a day. We always pay for their return trip too, making 20 cents, and a tip if they have pleased us. Wherever we go we take our bed with us, that is a cotton wadding mattress and our bedding and quite understand now the meaning of “take up thy bed and walk.”46\n\nEdith had hoped to go to Wuhu in March 1905 to attend the Provincial Conference, to see the dentist and just to get away from Taiho. It was not clear whether she ever took the trip because \"Mrs. Ferguson wants me to hasten and be back in plenty of time as she expects to be confined in June.”47 Edith had been complaining about her suffering from a very bad cold and general fatigue in this and an earlier letter. So, perhaps, instead of Wuhu, she went on a holiday in Shanghai and Chinkiang instead. As she told Louese when she wrote next, in April 1906:\n\nMy holiday was not the rest it should have been, only consisting of two weeks at Shanghai and Chinkiang. But I was a month on the way down by native boat and a month back.48\n\nShanghai and Chinkiang, and even Wuhu, represented a change from Taiho for Edith. She could be with English-speaking people who were not the Fergusons, and could relish the “custom (of using) tablecloth and knives and forks. . . (of the) extravagant (?) foreigners\" which she had missed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210577, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 184, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "165 \n\nAs time went on and Edith became more acclimatized to living in interior China, she was able to see things in native terms. Whereas she was finding comfort in the violets grown from seeds she had brought from home in 1903, by 1905 she was able to think of seasonal changes in terms of local flowers. In the last letter to Louese, she wrote that \"it is already summer, the cherry blossoms are gone and peach blossoms all but done and we have a long time of heat to look forward to.\"\n\nPerhaps Edith was feeling better about China and the Chinese. She was feeling homesick less often. She was also finding her work more enjoyable because she was getting to know the women better. She wrote that \"much of the time I am so interested in my work that I do not have time to be lonely. I am enjoying my work so much lately, as I feel that I am getting into the heart of some of the women.\"\n\nEdith was also finding her work being appreciated. One visiting missionary, a Dr. Williams, who was a physician, had been to Taiho in 1905 and had been assisted by Edith in dispensing medication.\n\nDr. Williams made general the knowledge that I dispensed a few medicines when he was here and doing medical work. So my \"medical practice\" has doubled and redoubled till I feel myself in kind of a predicament, as I know absolutely nothing about some of their ailments. And they think I ought to know it all. But I haven't killed any yet and the majority seem to get well.52\n\nThe letter dated 5 April 1906 seemed to be the last from Edith to Louese. Harry Ryder searched, but could find no more.\n\nWhy did the letters stop?\n\nExcept for a few minor complaints about her health and fatigue now and then, there was no indication that Edith had suffered illness and had to return to Philadelphia. It is true that the letters were getting shorter. The first letters were eight pages of handwriting each, and the last three only four pages. On the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210579, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "167\n\nState Department, not the missionary service in foreign lands Edith had in mind.\n\n* Kenneth S. Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China. (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 384.\n\n10 Geography of China, (Shanghai: Commercial Press 1931).\n\n11 M. Searle Bates, \"The Theology of American Missionaries in China, 1900-1950\", in John K. Fairbank ed., The Missionary Enterprise in China and America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).\n\n12 Ibid.\n\n13 Rowe letter dated 19 January 1903. The German was Miss Trüdinger, who subsequently went with Edith to Taiho in March 1903 but left for points west to be married to her \"beloved\", another missionary in early 1904. Rowe letter dated 17 February 1904.\n\n14 Rowe letter dated 5 April 1906.\n\n15 This was the letter that was mailed from Yangchow, dated 29 January 1903, which probably took a different route getting to Shanghai.\n\n16 Rowe letter dated 17 February 1904.\n\n17 Latourette, 386.\n\n18 Rowe letter dated 17 February 1904.\n\n19 Rowe letter dated 5 January 1905.\n\n20 Ibid.\n\n21 Rowe letter dated 2 March 1905.\n\n22 Rowe letter dated 1 October 1903.\n\n23 Ibid.\n\n24 Ibid.\n\n25 Ibid.\n\n26 Ibid.\n\n27 Rowe letter dated 5 April 1906.\n\n28 Rowe letter dated 17 February 1904.\n\n29 Ibid.\n\n30 Rowe letter dated 1 October 1903.\n\n31 Rowe letter dated 2 March 1905.\n\n32 Rowe letter dated 29 January 1903.\n\n33 Rowe letter dated 5 January 1905.\n\n34 Rowe letter dated 24 August 1905.\n\n35 Rowe letter dated 2 March 1905.\n\n36 Ibid.\n\n37 Rowe letter dated 17 February 1904.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210583, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "171\n\nso thankful for this place to get a start in it, and to learn some of the ways of the Chinese. But I start in to work in March when I go to my station, T'ai-ho, in the northern part of the Province of Anhui. I will be with Dr. and Mrs. Williams and Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm and Miss Trüdinger.\n\nI will be so glad to get started, although I cannot speak but the simplest sentences yet. My work partly will be with the children, which has already been begun in T'ai-ho. I can then write you a more interesting letter and will try to make the next one more legible.\n\nI send a great deal of love to Miss Amy. Will you also give my love to Florence and the others of our class as you see them. I trust this will find you well and the little one, if it has come. God has favored you Louese and I pray your little ones may give themselves to God as you have given them to Him, and may they be a joy to Him as they are to you, their earthly parents.\n\nGoodbye for the present\n\nAddress after April\n\nLovingly\n\nEDITH ROWE\n\ncare of China Inland Mission\n\nTaiho via Wuhu\n\nProv Anhuei\n\nChina\n\nIn the mean time just Shanghai, China c/o China Inland Mission, would reach me wherever I am. As I will be about a month on the journey in native boat.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210584, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "172\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\n(2)\n\nTaiho\n\nOctober 1st, 1903\n\nDear Louise:\n\nThank you for your letter. I thought one would come along in due time, you were quite excused for the delay for I knew what was occupying your thoughts at home.\n\nAmit\n\nWell!\n\nMind Wall\n\nThe above is my little home, as you asked for more sketches I thought you might be interested to see what kind of a nest I live in. In lieu of a camera I tried to make these pretty often in Mother's letters. They are very roughly done but they amuse Mother and so I venture to inflict them on my friends once in a while. If you should come here and not recognize my little abode it will be wholly my fault. You may not know what the black spots are in the tree, let me tell you they are the dwellings of three families of crows. Three families were raised over my head this summer, and there was no quiet to be enjoyed for Chinese crows are very loquacious and without number. There are very many large birds here. The boys do not disturb nests nor kill birds so they are almost tame. And in the winter thousands of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210586, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "174\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nback gate, sing a hymn to draw the crowd, then Mr. Malcolm steps out to preach to them. A great many of them won't come here, so we go to them. When they are eating their food you may think a queer time to hold a meeting, but do you know how they eat their food! And it's perhaps the only time to catch the men. The men do not eat with their wives and they do not know such a custom as tablecloth and knives and forks, except as they have heard of the extravagant foreigners. But the man of the house takes his bowl of rice, if he can afford it, or if not his bowl of dough strips and perhaps a bowl of salted garlic or some kind of greens. If it's the first or fifteenth of the month he will have another bowl with some stewed meat and onions etc. These he puts down on the ground and he sits on his front door step holding his bowl of dough strips which he pushes into his mouth with his chopsticks, stopping once in a while to take a little relish from one of the bowls on the ground. Those on the ground are public property if anyone else is eating with him, all dipping into the common bowl. Such is the life of our back lane. The women eat when their masters have finished. And perhaps our meetings disturb some of their calculations, for the men may have their bowl along with them and the housewife may not have another. However, there are people in Taiho who spend more money than we do over their everyday meals, and they do not eat them on their front steps, but they do not live in our back lane.\n\nWe think these back lane people keep very many from coming here, one man trying to frighten some women away from us said \"the Boxers will finish them all off yet!\" And several apparently friendly women invited me to drink tea with them one afternoon when I was passing. I refused as I was in a hurry, and had no sooner passed than I overheard “Foreign devil”. There seems to be an organized opposition against all of us. The city is largely Mohammedan, and they seem almost impossible to work with. \"All things are possible with God” and “to him that believeth.\" So we will continue to hope and pray. We have our little encouragements. I could write you several. The Lord has not forgotten us, nor these people. I have taken up this letter with things of not much account, if it's unprofitable. I am sorry to have taken your time. I will write next time more of my", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210588, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "176 \n\nWEI PEH T'I \n\nFeb. 17 1904 \n\nChina Inland Mission \n\nTaiho via Wuhu, China \n\nMy dear Louese: \n\nThank you very much for the beautiful calendar. It is most acceptable and I do thank you for the kind thought of me. I have been amusing myself above, trying to picture for you the pig-tails I have to look at very many mornings at Chinese prayers. A good part of the time the two Evangelists are out at work in the surrounding districts, but the other four are there, and most always, my teacher who has a very nice tail indeed. The caps are only worn in the winter and have a red button on the top. Sometimes the barber comes and he is in mourning so he wears a white button and a white cord is braided into his hair and his shoes and white. At the funeral he would wear a white gown and a white kind of labor's cap, or a piece of homespun muslin around his head. \n\nWe had a little girl here visiting us sometime ago because her mother had just died and she looked something like this, and she wears the white trousers and white on her head for some months, but the white shoes a year or more. A few scratches of my pen and you have a little idea but I am no \"artist\". \n\nThis has been a busy day, but nothing like yesterday. It is Chinese New Year and the people began coming before we had finished our breakfast, 7.30, and they kept it up all day. Some come to pay their respects and some say they do too, but it's more to get the tea and sweets which we provide. We began by giving each one cakes, nuts and sweets and tea, but the people came in such crowds and the things disappeared so rapidly we had to dwindle the giving down till it was tea and nothing more. Mrs. Malcolm has been better able to preach to them today, for there have not been so many and consequently more ready to stay awhile. Yesterday at one time we each had a room full and both talked at once. At this time the \n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210591, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "179\n\nnot to assist again in their medicine mixtures, especially if any of the ingredients are alive or have any signs of being.\n\nMiss Amy wrote me that you had had a little daughter. That is three little girls now isn't it? How I would like to see them. Little Chinese children are nice but they can't be hugged nor kissed. In the first place it would be too much of an amazement to them, and in the next some are too dirty.\n\nPlease give my love to Florence when you see her and remember me kindly to your mother. Please pray for my work, it is not easy and the Native Christians need the prayers of all God's children. I do too for I have no power of my own. It is only as He works.\n\nWith much love\n\nEDITH\n\n(4)\n\nTaiho, January 4, 1905\n\nDear Louise:\n\nThe photographs came a little time before Christmas and I do thank you for them. They are little darlings and I just wish I could hug them. I have the two pictures standing on my table and it's a real pleasure to look at them. I can see a bit of you in Janet, but not in Helen. I still have a vision of you as a Syrian woman, do you remember that evening in the Baptist Church? Herbert Cushing thought it was the prettiest picture he had ever seen. You I mean. Have you ever heard anything more of Herbert? I must inquire, for after his wife's death they said he had consumption too.\n\nIt is warmer these few days, we have been having some real cold weather but only one snow so far. Snow is to be dreaded in China for there are no pavements to walk on so the roads get in a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210593, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 200, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "181\n\nChinese New Year comes this year February 4th and that means a very busy time for us. It's the women's gad-about time, the only time that they have a free foot, some are never allowed on the street except at New Year, so they all come to pay their respects and have a look around. Last year I could not say much but this time I will have to do my share of the preaching. Please write to me when you have the time, and I shall be looking for the picture with all the babies together. With love and thanks,\n\n(5)\n\nEDITH\n\nTaiho\n\nMarch 2, 1905\n\nDear Louise:\n\nThank you very much for the dainty Christmas gift. I have really needed an indexed address book so I hope you are as pleased as I am to know that my need is supplied.\n\nI would have written before but my time has been so taken up and when evening comes, my time for writing, I am too tired to do anything but go to bed. I have even been tempted to go to bed with my clothes on. As I said to Mrs. Ferguson, all our troubles seem to have come at once, it never rains but it pours, you know.\n\nI have broken my record too, and had my first day in bed since coming to China. We are always as busy as can be receiving guests at Chinese New Year time, last year we reckoned we had a thousand the first day, but this year we did not have nearly so many and I was glad as I had the entertaining to do alone. The melting snow and consequent deep mud kept the country people away. But the city people came and some of them several times. The cookies etc. are an inducement but the Ferguson children are the special magnet for continued coming, to bring the different members of the family to see the little curiosities. Some seem quite astonished and say why they are just like our children!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210595, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "183\n\nmissionary? Can't you spare one of these darlings and consecrate one for Foreign Service? May the Lord bless you in all your guidance of these His little ones as well as yours.\n\nWith much love and please do not say you wish Edith would write so you could read it; but say something nice if you can, and write to me when you have time.\n\nLovingly\n\nEDITH\n\n(6)\n\nTaiho, via Wuhu, China August 24, 1905\n\nDear Louise:\n\nPerhaps I can buy you off from scolding me for not writing all this time to thank you for the photographs by telling you that I have sent a little parcel of dolly shoes for the children. They are exact models of children's shoes as they are worn every day and holidays and I hope they will fit some of the dollies.\n\nI appreciate your letters and very much the photos. They are the next best thing that is possible to me in the way of seeing the children. The letter enclosing them came to me while I was down south on a little holiday. The next letter came after I returned and I meant to write immediately but sickness and one thing and another kept me from letter writing. The last letter had twenty-cents due on it and I sent it back to Wuhu to be reweighed, as according to my scales it was just half an ounce. The letter came back before I had kept my intention and now I am almost ashamed to acknowledge them so late. My conscience is clear that I have done what I could although that may not have been much.\n\nMy holiday was not the rest it should have been, only consisting of two weeks at Shanghai and Chinkiang. But I was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210597, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 204, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "Taiho, April 5, 1906\n\nDear Louese:\n\nYour letter came before Christmas and I have thought to answer it as often but there have been letters that required immediate answers and I do not count as a lady of leisure, so your letter has been put aside till I do not want to do so any longer. Some one else will have to wait. I have had this little bookmark sometime ready to send to you, made by a woman here, hope you will like it although it is such a tiny love token to send.\n\n[Top margin of p 1 of letter: \"On bookmark - the Lord protects us.\"]\n\nPlease, you misunderstood my letter, I did not pay extra postage on your letter, but they charged me with it so I sent the letter back to Wuhu. I was explaining the delay in answering to you. Did you pay extra postage or duty on the shoes? Indeed your letters are worth the extra postage but I have never had to pay any on yours. This postage due system we have now takes a good many of the extra pennies and they are not always fair and square is why I sent your letter back.\n\nYes why do any of us complain? You wish your good husband and dear little family are blessed and I wish such a wonderful Heavenly Father and so many dear good friends to care for me, write to me and pray for me, what more do we want? I would like to see some of the friends sometimes and find the time long, but much of the time I am so interested in my work that I do not have time to be lonely. I am enjoying my work so much lately, as I feel that I am getting into the heart of some of the women. I have been moving in the “upper circles” too and going to the small yamen, The Lady has received me very kindly. She has nothing grand but I have been served with the best they had. Imagine making an afternoon call and having fried eggs on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210598, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 205, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "186\n\ntoasted bread served to be eaten with silver and ebony chopsticks, and tea to drink holding the saucer with the cup in it and drinking so. The finger bowl was a large wash-rag wrung out of hot water. The next time I went there was a regular feast of seven bowls and four plates, my teacher said that was paying me honour, but I objected and told the lady if she was going to so much trouble I would be afraid to come, so now it is only tea and cakes which requires practice to pick up off of the table with the silver tipped chopsticks.\n\nThe monotony of Taiho has been varied too by a visitor, a young man came and took some pictures for us, will send you one when I get them.\n\nChristmas was livelier than usual this year as we tried to make the best of it for the children. Chinese New Year was less busy than usual because snow and mud kept the immense crowds away. Classes and meetings and school go on as usual, encouragements there are, and next time I may tell you about one or two. Some of the women are coming on nicely. I go to an out station again on Monday if nothing happens to prevent, after being hindered several times lately in the starting. When I return it will be time to get ready to pay the promised visit to my Presbyterian friends at Huai Yuen. I do not like to leave my women but feel it is necessary for my health's sake and future work.\n\nIt is already summer, the cherry blossoms are gone and peach blossoms all but done and we have a long time of heat to look forward to.\n\nWith much love to you and to the children.\n\nAffectionate yours,\n\nEDITH", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 } ]