Peach Blossom, from a classic collection of poetry from the Zhou dynasty
Peach's bud bud
Bright bright its flowers (beauty)
This one goes to wed
Suitable its place and family.
Peach's bud bud
Has size its fruit
This one goes to wed
Suitable its family and place.
Peach's bud bud
Its leaves abundant abundant
This one goes to wed
Suitable its family people.
1922 - age 21
About the YMCA, I've already told a lot. This year, the national YMCA had a summer conference in July at Lu Mountain's Lily of the Valley. They invited all the YMCAs from every school to attend. My school selected me and Li Cuenguang as representatives to go. From Hankou, we rode a boat to Jioujiang and then we arrived at Lily of the Valley. There's a bus that goes from the bottom of Lu Mountain to the top. The road was very precarious. There were several thousand steps up. They named the steps Strong Man Stairs. If you could walk up the stairs, you would be called a Strong Man. For those who couldn't make it, there was a chair lift (carried by people) to ride but it was quite expensive. Li Cuenguang and I were young and strong and in order to save money, we tried to walk up the Strong Man Stairs. It was very hard to stay on the path. We arrived at our destination nearly at evening. At the Lily of the Valley site, the national YMCA had built many facilities: dormitories, classrooms, dining hall, kitchen, bathroom, and an auditorium. The capacity was several hundred persons. When all the representatives from the different parts of the country registered, they were assigned rooms. Every day, we gathered together to sing hymns, read the bible, pray, and listen to sermons. Besides these, we were divided into small groups. The leaders of all these small groups were quite famous people. Every small group had discussion and Q&A. The group I participated in, our leader, Zhao Zihuan, was a good theologian. At that time, I had a lot of questions about the resurrection and the end of the world. All my questions received good answers from him. As for Li Cuenguang, he joined another small group led by Mr Ma. Li Cuenguang told Mr Ma his life story. When we had free time, Li Cuenguang and I toured around Lily of the Valley and Guling peak. The board of the summer conference specially arranged for us to visit a place called Mountain Range Fountain. After breakfast, we were split up into groups to climb the mountain. There was a small path up Lu Mountain. Not long after we started, all of a sudden there was a rain shower, everyone got wet. By the time we arrived, it was midday. Some board members from Wuchang, two Americans--Song Ruhai and Zhu Erdeng--brought bread and canned sardines for everybody's lunch. Because we were very tired and hungry, when we ate this lunch, it was unforgettably delicious. This was the first time I ate canned food from a foreign country.
After the summer conference, I came down the mountain and returned home for the rest of summer vacation. I reported everything that happened to all my relatives and neighbors. My family has been staying at Qu Hill. Most of my Qu family's houses faced south. Everybody, when they open their door, see Lu Mountain. It has been this way for several generations. But very few people went up Lu Mountain and probably none had seen Lu Mountain's true face. After summer break, I returned to school and took classes and also reported to our school's YMCA what had taken place at the conference. From then on, my school and Wuchang's YMCA had more frequent contact. The Wuchang YMCA put on lots of activities like speeches and performances; they invited the surrounding schools to join. There was a famous person Ling Daoyang, his speech was about the relationship between forest and land preservation. Another person Mr Han talked about the balance between physics and gymnastics, they set up wires like in the circus and put some wheels on the wire for people to ride across. The most interesting thing was a national YMCA board member, a woman named Wang. She was very talented and she came to the school to give a speech about the harm of smoking and drinking. She gave this speech at our school chapel Red Way Church. During her speech, one of our faculty Mr Tan emceed. He used a beautiful introduction, like an elaborate poem. Everybody thought it was very funny and that he wanted to make a good impression with her.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Traveler's song
West River Moon (Traveling at Night on Yellow Sand Way) a song by Song dynasty poet Xin Qiji
Moon light several branches startling magpie,
Soft breeze mid night buzzing cicada.
Rice flower fragrance midst talk of abundant year,
Hear frog sounds an orchestra.
Seven or eight dots of stars out in the sky,
One or two drops of rain before the mountain.
Old time straw hut village by the woods,
Road winds a bridge over a stream suddenly see.
Moon light several branches startling magpie,
Soft breeze mid night buzzing cicada.
Rice flower fragrance midst talk of abundant year,
Hear frog sounds an orchestra.
Seven or eight dots of stars out in the sky,
One or two drops of rain before the mountain.
Old time straw hut village by the woods,
Road winds a bridge over a stream suddenly see.
Sunday, July 08, 2018
1921: Little rain, lots of activity
Misting Rain by Song dynasty poet Yang Wanli
Rain comes thin thin and sparse sparse,
Not much, but not nothing.*
Like an envious poet with a mountain in his eyes:**
To block ten-thousand ranges by a curtain of pearls.
*this line is a specific description of how not heavy the rain is
**the poet wants to see the mountain
1921 - age 20
There was a Young Men's Christian Association at my school. YMCA is focused on cities and started in England with more than a hundred year's of history. In the US and Canada, there are many associations. They called themselves North America YMCA. The NAYMCA established China YMCA with headquarters in Shanghai on Museum Street. The Executive Director was Yu Rizhang. Mr Yu was quite well known in China. The association's function was twofold: YMCA in schools, and YMCA in cities. The YMCAs in schools were set in bigger missionary schools. The city YMCAs were in big cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Tianjing, Beijing, Wuchang, Hankou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, etc. The school YMCA was the first line of their work. The YMCA in our school had already been established for quite a few years. Every Christian student in our school was called a basic member. The rest of the students were called general members. The YMCA had several workers and one chief worker. The workers were elected from the basic members. They advocated four principles: moral character, academic excellence, physical education, and teamwork. This year, I was elected chief worker. As for academic excellence, I invited professor Cen Si to give a talk. Most of the people in our school had knowledge limited to within the church. Mr Cen was from Huangpi, and came from a long line of scholars who donated lots of money to schools. His family established a university in Wuchang and they educated many students and had a very good reputation in China. The reason I invited him to talk was to let everyone in the school have something new and interesting to hear and see. Deep inside, I wanted to let all the foreign faculty and staff see what an excellent scholar he was, and see how good we Chinese people were. I didn't ask anyone to go between, I wrote a letter inviting him to the YMCA myself. He replied very quickly and arrived punctually at our school as he said. The content of his speech showed outstanding worldview, his words were so appropriate, his gestures and manner were very at ease. Everybody was so impressed, especially those foreign faculty and staff. From then on, they would never say there are no cultured people in China.
My school was located in Wuchang, outside Bingyang Gate. Around the area, in the olden days, there were lots of farms. And most farmers were very conservative, and seldom heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. There were quite a few very fervent people in our school who wanted to evangelize. We formed a special evangelical team. I joined them. We used Sunday, our day off school, to go to several of the farms to hold meetings. Every time we arrived in a place, the classmates who sang well would sing hymns very loudly to attract attention. After people gathered, we would start to preach. Usually we would say: people are full of suffering and worry. Most suffering and worry came from sin. Once people sin, they cannot save themselves, only by trusting Jesus can your sins be forgiven and you have new life. Then you can throw off the burdens of suffering and worry and exchange them for peace and joy. It was simple preaching, but if not empowered by the Holy Spirit, it was hard for people to accept. These farmers also couldn't understand our dialect and it was hard from them to accept new things, and our team wasn't a well established group. Since we didn't go regularly, it wasn't very effective.
There was an upperclassman two years ahead of me named Chen Yenshou, from Hanyang, who was quite capable and had graduated from our school this spring. He was appointed by the Methodist Church to be the principal of the elementary school in Hangkou. Mr Chen and I were very good friends. He and I talked about our summer plans: he wanted to open a tutoring class in English and math. ... So I became an English and math tutor over the summer. Everyone advanced very well and everyone was very happy, this was my first experience as a teacher. The elementary school was called Bridge Opening. In this neighborhood, the Methodist Church established a school for the blind. They accepted several tens of students. Besides using Braille, they also learned crafts. The blind people made all kinds of craft products, very well made. The blind people lived at the school because they knew the area and were very familiar with the surroundings and moved around freely without canes. When visitors came, they could guide them around their factory. There was also a church for prayer meetings and bible study. One time, I went and joined their service as a Christian friend. When we studied the bible, we used the regular printed bible, and they used their Braille. There was a power failure and we couldn't read but the blind people could. In that instance, the seeing people were not as well off as the blind people. Our school Hongdao chapel invited a graduate from the school of the blind to serve as our pianist. At the start of every service, the leader would say, we're going to sing hymn number such and such. This pianist didn't need the book and would just start playing, having memorized all hundred such of the hymns in the book very accurately and better than sighted players. This is my eye witness account.
Every afternoon, we all went to the school field for exercise or sports. Quite a few track athletes trained. To encourage physical activity, every year our school held a competition. This year, our PE teacher Mr Dong, who was trained in Shanghai and had recently graduated, built up the competition with more activities. Because he wanted to promote competition, it required more manpower and money. Every student was either competing or volunteering, no one was left out doing nothing. One of the interesting jobs was to entertain visitors. Because of this big event, there were lots of important officials from the government, as well as parents and friends, and a girls school in Hanyang joined. According to the Methodist Church, in their bylaws, they stipulated single sex education. But the boys school and girls school did not communicate; the exception was this competition when we invited them as a sister school. Besides track and ballgames, these girls toured our dorms, dining rooms, and classrooms. Because of the guests, we paid special attention to cleaning and decorating. These girls, when they came to our school, wore makeup and dressed nicely. Even though the girls and boys did not mingle often, but since we had mutual relatives and friends, and our teachers made introductions, many couples got married between the two schools. One of the main activities for introduction was this competition.
Most of the students in our school came from elementary schools established by the church and had been educated in the Western style since childhood. Most of the students hadn't studied Chinese very well. Our school invited retired people who had tested into the imperial court to tutor us in Chinese. These old folks dressed in their customary clothing and knew nothing of the modern education practices. We saw these Chinese teachers as artifacts. Because the church established the school, our focus was on English, math, and science and paid little attention to Chinese literature. But several of my classmates were well educated in Chinese because of their family backgrounds. Four of my classmates [names and hometowns] and I often got together to read poems and sonnets, reciting them and writing replies. Because we were all young, we had lots of fun doing this. In these days, I joined them a lot and tried to write lots of poetry. It's too bad most of our poems were lost. I remember one poem that I put in my poetry volume:
Night Moon Spontaneously Written
As usual, the same pretty moon,
But tonight: circling, doubting.
Heedless of the lonesome person sleeping alone,
The late flower's shadow reflection moves across the window.
Rain comes thin thin and sparse sparse,
Not much, but not nothing.*
Like an envious poet with a mountain in his eyes:**
To block ten-thousand ranges by a curtain of pearls.
*this line is a specific description of how not heavy the rain is
**the poet wants to see the mountain
1921 - age 20
There was a Young Men's Christian Association at my school. YMCA is focused on cities and started in England with more than a hundred year's of history. In the US and Canada, there are many associations. They called themselves North America YMCA. The NAYMCA established China YMCA with headquarters in Shanghai on Museum Street. The Executive Director was Yu Rizhang. Mr Yu was quite well known in China. The association's function was twofold: YMCA in schools, and YMCA in cities. The YMCAs in schools were set in bigger missionary schools. The city YMCAs were in big cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Tianjing, Beijing, Wuchang, Hankou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, etc. The school YMCA was the first line of their work. The YMCA in our school had already been established for quite a few years. Every Christian student in our school was called a basic member. The rest of the students were called general members. The YMCA had several workers and one chief worker. The workers were elected from the basic members. They advocated four principles: moral character, academic excellence, physical education, and teamwork. This year, I was elected chief worker. As for academic excellence, I invited professor Cen Si to give a talk. Most of the people in our school had knowledge limited to within the church. Mr Cen was from Huangpi, and came from a long line of scholars who donated lots of money to schools. His family established a university in Wuchang and they educated many students and had a very good reputation in China. The reason I invited him to talk was to let everyone in the school have something new and interesting to hear and see. Deep inside, I wanted to let all the foreign faculty and staff see what an excellent scholar he was, and see how good we Chinese people were. I didn't ask anyone to go between, I wrote a letter inviting him to the YMCA myself. He replied very quickly and arrived punctually at our school as he said. The content of his speech showed outstanding worldview, his words were so appropriate, his gestures and manner were very at ease. Everybody was so impressed, especially those foreign faculty and staff. From then on, they would never say there are no cultured people in China.
My school was located in Wuchang, outside Bingyang Gate. Around the area, in the olden days, there were lots of farms. And most farmers were very conservative, and seldom heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. There were quite a few very fervent people in our school who wanted to evangelize. We formed a special evangelical team. I joined them. We used Sunday, our day off school, to go to several of the farms to hold meetings. Every time we arrived in a place, the classmates who sang well would sing hymns very loudly to attract attention. After people gathered, we would start to preach. Usually we would say: people are full of suffering and worry. Most suffering and worry came from sin. Once people sin, they cannot save themselves, only by trusting Jesus can your sins be forgiven and you have new life. Then you can throw off the burdens of suffering and worry and exchange them for peace and joy. It was simple preaching, but if not empowered by the Holy Spirit, it was hard for people to accept. These farmers also couldn't understand our dialect and it was hard from them to accept new things, and our team wasn't a well established group. Since we didn't go regularly, it wasn't very effective.
There was an upperclassman two years ahead of me named Chen Yenshou, from Hanyang, who was quite capable and had graduated from our school this spring. He was appointed by the Methodist Church to be the principal of the elementary school in Hangkou. Mr Chen and I were very good friends. He and I talked about our summer plans: he wanted to open a tutoring class in English and math. ... So I became an English and math tutor over the summer. Everyone advanced very well and everyone was very happy, this was my first experience as a teacher. The elementary school was called Bridge Opening. In this neighborhood, the Methodist Church established a school for the blind. They accepted several tens of students. Besides using Braille, they also learned crafts. The blind people made all kinds of craft products, very well made. The blind people lived at the school because they knew the area and were very familiar with the surroundings and moved around freely without canes. When visitors came, they could guide them around their factory. There was also a church for prayer meetings and bible study. One time, I went and joined their service as a Christian friend. When we studied the bible, we used the regular printed bible, and they used their Braille. There was a power failure and we couldn't read but the blind people could. In that instance, the seeing people were not as well off as the blind people. Our school Hongdao chapel invited a graduate from the school of the blind to serve as our pianist. At the start of every service, the leader would say, we're going to sing hymn number such and such. This pianist didn't need the book and would just start playing, having memorized all hundred such of the hymns in the book very accurately and better than sighted players. This is my eye witness account.
Every afternoon, we all went to the school field for exercise or sports. Quite a few track athletes trained. To encourage physical activity, every year our school held a competition. This year, our PE teacher Mr Dong, who was trained in Shanghai and had recently graduated, built up the competition with more activities. Because he wanted to promote competition, it required more manpower and money. Every student was either competing or volunteering, no one was left out doing nothing. One of the interesting jobs was to entertain visitors. Because of this big event, there were lots of important officials from the government, as well as parents and friends, and a girls school in Hanyang joined. According to the Methodist Church, in their bylaws, they stipulated single sex education. But the boys school and girls school did not communicate; the exception was this competition when we invited them as a sister school. Besides track and ballgames, these girls toured our dorms, dining rooms, and classrooms. Because of the guests, we paid special attention to cleaning and decorating. These girls, when they came to our school, wore makeup and dressed nicely. Even though the girls and boys did not mingle often, but since we had mutual relatives and friends, and our teachers made introductions, many couples got married between the two schools. One of the main activities for introduction was this competition.
Most of the students in our school came from elementary schools established by the church and had been educated in the Western style since childhood. Most of the students hadn't studied Chinese very well. Our school invited retired people who had tested into the imperial court to tutor us in Chinese. These old folks dressed in their customary clothing and knew nothing of the modern education practices. We saw these Chinese teachers as artifacts. Because the church established the school, our focus was on English, math, and science and paid little attention to Chinese literature. But several of my classmates were well educated in Chinese because of their family backgrounds. Four of my classmates [names and hometowns] and I often got together to read poems and sonnets, reciting them and writing replies. Because we were all young, we had lots of fun doing this. In these days, I joined them a lot and tried to write lots of poetry. It's too bad most of our poems were lost. I remember one poem that I put in my poetry volume:
Night Moon Spontaneously Written
As usual, the same pretty moon,
But tonight: circling, doubting.
Heedless of the lonesome person sleeping alone,
The late flower's shadow reflection moves across the window.
Sunday, July 01, 2018
1920: West Lake and up from the waters of baptism
On (West) Lake Starting to Rain by Su Dongbuo
Water bright, high mark, sunny, exceptionally nice.
Mountain colors, empty mist, rain, also remarkable.
If one compares West Lake to West Maiden:
Lightly done or heavily touched, always think, beautiful.
1920 - age 19
After my baptism, my spiritual life was renewed. For the past few years, the scripture I read and the sermons I listened to all came alive to me. I really believed Jesus Christ was incarnate as a human being with the omnipotent character of God. And, while on the earth, preached, baptized, healed sickness, cast out demons, and performed miracles, and was crucified and bled on the cross, he forgave all the sins of the human race, and resurrected and ascended to heaven. He manifested the righteousness, love, and glory of God. The pastors of the school knew of my diligent study of the Bible and they knew I did real well on the final exam of Scripture. They knew I already had a lot of teaching and studying of scripture (I received top prize in Bible). But before I was baptized, they didn't take these honors seriously, they viewed me as a Gentile. Now, after baptism, they were overjoyed at my past knowledge in Scripture. So they made me study more of the life changing Scripture and encouraged me to preach from the pulpit, as training. Sometimes, they sent me to smaller services to preach and to smaller schools for Sunday services and evangelical meetings. And there was a place called Thousand Families Street where they sent me the most often. This was the beginning of my volunteer preaching.
This year, I was in the first year of senior high. Our bible class was on Genesis. The teacher was a reverend from England, named Peng Sou. This person was well educated in theology but his attitude was quite condescending. We kept him at arm's length. After Principal Di's return, his attitude improved and most the students laughed behind his back about the change. Teacher Peng had outstanding explanations of Genesis and most the students benefited from his lectures.
This year, of all the classes, the one most deserving of memory was geometry, taught by teacher Li Pingsan. Teacher Li was an excellent scholar. Strict on studies but he treated people very well. His only hobby was playing the piano. Otherwise, he didn't have any diversions. There was some rumor that his English was extraordinarily good. Among the school, there were lots of English faculty and staff, but in front of Teacher Li, no one dared to goof off, even though he taught geometry. Geometry focuses on logical analysis using the theories already proved to solve other problems. I especially liked this kind of exercise and usually was praised by Teacher Li. My classmate Shong, from Hangkou, was very handsome and knew how to sing and act. Classmate Shong was poor in math and science, he couldn't make out geometry at all. I tutored him a lot but he still couldn't make the grade. I let him copy my homework, which he would do while saying, "How did you figure this out?"
In physical education, besides tennis, I joined the hockey team. Hockey was a popular sport in England, about as popular as soccer. The position set up was almost the same as soccer: five forwards, three midfielders, two defense and one goalkeeper. Besides the basic skills practice, the most important thing was teamwork. The main difference was instead of using your feet, you use the stick. I played midfield. I was good at hockey and was elected varsity team captain. I usually led our team in playing against another high school in Hangkou. Sometimes we played against teams from English warships. There was a school wide competition, my team played a demo.
[My mom comments that among his contemporaries, her father was quite good at many sports, however his children were not. But, when she was in college, all the science and engineering girls had PE together. Since many athletes couldn't get into Tai Da, she was often surprised that she was faster than many of her peers.]
Water bright, high mark, sunny, exceptionally nice.
Mountain colors, empty mist, rain, also remarkable.
If one compares West Lake to West Maiden:
Lightly done or heavily touched, always think, beautiful.
1920 - age 19
After my baptism, my spiritual life was renewed. For the past few years, the scripture I read and the sermons I listened to all came alive to me. I really believed Jesus Christ was incarnate as a human being with the omnipotent character of God. And, while on the earth, preached, baptized, healed sickness, cast out demons, and performed miracles, and was crucified and bled on the cross, he forgave all the sins of the human race, and resurrected and ascended to heaven. He manifested the righteousness, love, and glory of God. The pastors of the school knew of my diligent study of the Bible and they knew I did real well on the final exam of Scripture. They knew I already had a lot of teaching and studying of scripture (I received top prize in Bible). But before I was baptized, they didn't take these honors seriously, they viewed me as a Gentile. Now, after baptism, they were overjoyed at my past knowledge in Scripture. So they made me study more of the life changing Scripture and encouraged me to preach from the pulpit, as training. Sometimes, they sent me to smaller services to preach and to smaller schools for Sunday services and evangelical meetings. And there was a place called Thousand Families Street where they sent me the most often. This was the beginning of my volunteer preaching.
This year, I was in the first year of senior high. Our bible class was on Genesis. The teacher was a reverend from England, named Peng Sou. This person was well educated in theology but his attitude was quite condescending. We kept him at arm's length. After Principal Di's return, his attitude improved and most the students laughed behind his back about the change. Teacher Peng had outstanding explanations of Genesis and most the students benefited from his lectures.
This year, of all the classes, the one most deserving of memory was geometry, taught by teacher Li Pingsan. Teacher Li was an excellent scholar. Strict on studies but he treated people very well. His only hobby was playing the piano. Otherwise, he didn't have any diversions. There was some rumor that his English was extraordinarily good. Among the school, there were lots of English faculty and staff, but in front of Teacher Li, no one dared to goof off, even though he taught geometry. Geometry focuses on logical analysis using the theories already proved to solve other problems. I especially liked this kind of exercise and usually was praised by Teacher Li. My classmate Shong, from Hangkou, was very handsome and knew how to sing and act. Classmate Shong was poor in math and science, he couldn't make out geometry at all. I tutored him a lot but he still couldn't make the grade. I let him copy my homework, which he would do while saying, "How did you figure this out?"
In physical education, besides tennis, I joined the hockey team. Hockey was a popular sport in England, about as popular as soccer. The position set up was almost the same as soccer: five forwards, three midfielders, two defense and one goalkeeper. Besides the basic skills practice, the most important thing was teamwork. The main difference was instead of using your feet, you use the stick. I played midfield. I was good at hockey and was elected varsity team captain. I usually led our team in playing against another high school in Hangkou. Sometimes we played against teams from English warships. There was a school wide competition, my team played a demo.
[My mom comments that among his contemporaries, her father was quite good at many sports, however his children were not. But, when she was in college, all the science and engineering girls had PE together. Since many athletes couldn't get into Tai Da, she was often surprised that she was faster than many of her peers.]
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