1922: Going out to wed and climb

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.