My Life in China and America

My Life in China and America

By Yung Wing.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dedication
4. Preface
5. My Life in China and America
   1. I: Boyhood
   2. II: School Days
   3. III: Journey to America and First Experiences There
   4. IV: At Monson Academy
   5. V: My College Days
   6. VI: Return to China
   7. VII: Effort to Find a Position
   8. VIII: Experiences in Business
   9. IX: My First Trip to the Tea Districts
   10. X: My Visit to the Taipings
   11. XI: Reflections on the Taiping Rebellion
   12. XII: Expedition to the Taiping Tea District
   13. XIII: My Interviews with Tsang Kwoh Fan
   14. XIV: My Mission to America to Buy Machinery
   15. XV: My Second Return to China
   16. XVI: Proposal of My Educational Scheme
   17. XVII: The Chinese Educational Mission
   18. XVIII: Investigation of the Coolie Traffic in Peru
   19. XIX: End of the Educational Mission
   20. XX: Journey to Peking and Death of My Wife
   21. XXI: My Recall to China
   22. XXII: The Coup d’État of 1898
6. Appendix
   1. Commissioner Yung Wing
   2. In Yale College
   3. Taking First Steps in Life
   4. Made a Mandarin
   5. An Opportunity Seized
7. Endnotes
8. Colophon
9. Uncopyright

Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription from Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from the Internet Archive.

The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

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 reentrance 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, CT.

My Life in China and America

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