Chiang Yee: the Silent Traveller from the East 9780813546933, 2009020396

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Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East 

Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East  A Cultural Biography

Da Zheng foreword by arthur c. danto

ru tg e r s u n i ve r s i t y p r e s s n e w b ru n s w i c k , n e w j e r s e y, a n d l o n d o n

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zheng, Da, 1953– Chiang Yee : the silent traveller from the East, a cultural biography / Da Zheng. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–4693–3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Chiang, Yee, 1903–1977. 2. Chinese American authors—Biography. 3. Chinese American artists—Biography. 4. Chinese—United States—Biography. 5. Chinese—England—Biography. 6. Asian diaspora. 7. Chinese in Literature. 8. China—In literature 9. Exiles’ writings, English—History and criticism. 10. Travelers’ writings, English—History and criticism. I. Title. CT1828.C5273Z47 2010 920.0092951073—dc22 2009020396 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2010 by Da Zheng All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America Typesetting: Jack Donner, BookType Frontispiece: Chiang-Yee in England. Courtesy of Deh-I Hsiung.

To my family

CONTENTS

Foreword: Chiang Yee as I Knew Him, by Arthur C. Danto Preface xiii Acknowledgments xxiii A Note on Romanization xxvii 1

Chinese Childhood

1

2

Revolutionary Era

17

3

Civil Servant

4

No Longer in Need of a Bench

5

“Another C. Y.”

6

“The Thing Has Come at Last”

7

“My Own World”

8

Oxford Years

9

“My English Christmas”

ix

31 48

65 83

99

109

10

To America

11

Americanized

12

“Invisible Pains”

13

Home

14

Family and Love

225

15

China Revisited

239

16

Homeward Bound

130

147 170 190

208

252

Notes 267 Primary Sources 295 Writings by Chiang Yee 297 Index 301 Illustrations appear between pages 134 and 135. vii

FOR EWOR D chiang yee as i knew him Arthur C. Danto

Chiang Yee—poet, painter, scholar, and exile—was a literary presence in the West during and after World War II, when, as “The Silent Traveller,” he wrote and illustrated a number of popular books, initially about picturesque sites in England, but ultimately about many of the great cities of the West as seen by a cultivated Chinese stranger, struck by objects and practices that the natives took for granted. The illustrations alone assured him a certain reputation—it was as though he painted western motifs without changing the style that identified the artist as Chinese. This even brought him to the attention of the great art historian Ernst Gombrich, who saw in these orientalesque sketches support for one of his major theses: that a painter “tends to see what he paints rather than to paint what he sees.” There was a similar charm in the prose in which he wrote his travel books, which were marked by a gentle curiosity and a wry humor; and he was pleased to describe, at his own expense, his struggles with the various cultures he encountered. One of his favorite anecdotes concerned seeing two newspapers, each describing an important fire on its front page. One said that a building had burned down, the other that the same building had burned up. How could it be both? How could one learn a language in which burning up and burning down meant the same thing? Or was there a difference between them? I can still hear him laughing at his own joke. In addition to the Silent Traveller books, Chiang Yee published several books on aspects of Chinese culture, including some memoirs of his early life. On the jacket of one, he depicted three stages in his growing up, marked by differences in his haircut. The book described a form of life that was vanishing from the face of the earth. The China in which he came of age was kept alive only in the memoirs of an exile like himself. For reasons personal as well as political, however, he remained in exile more than forty years, during which time China itself changed, convulsively and profoundly, so the China he embodied and which he wrote and lectured about was becoming a very different country than the one he had left. ix

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He had no illusions though, and when, at last, he was able to return, he greatly approved of the changes that had taken place. China was no longer exploited by “foreign devils,” for one thing. But the changes were such that he would have to learn about them as the Silent Traveller—as though his absence was like the long sleep of Rip Van Winkle. The China that welcomed him was one he would have to learn about, just as he had had to learn about London, Paris, or New York. In the end, one might say, he was a man whose books allowed others to learn who he was through the questions he asked; he was by nature a traveler whose character was made up of the places he had been. Through it all, he remained Chinese and would ultimately have to learn what that meant in both China and the West. The family compound he was born into, for example, in which men and women lived roles that seemed immemorial, feels closer to a fairyland than to real life as lived in China today. While he took notes, drew sketches, and made friends abroad, foreigners and generalissimos were tearing his native world to pieces yet were uncertain what political models to use; this eventually gave rise to something both capitalist and communist at the same time. Thus, Chiang Yee became a unique subject for a major biography, since so large a part of the world he knew and wrote about has to be recovered and fitted together with a new China that he himself had to piece together when he returned to it as an honored son. The two stages of his life must be united into the single vivid person that Chiang Yee was—a man of many parts, including the character we know as The Silent Traveller, and whom the Chinese barely know at all (or are just beginning to know about). However, the Silent Traveller is a character he invented for himself. Chiang Yee was both more and less than the Silent Traveller. We all must remember that the Silent Traveller itself is a mask he wore that enabled him to survive under skies very different from those under which he was born. I just referred to him as “Yee,” which was the name his friends knew and called him by. I got to know him sometime in the very early 1960s. He had attended a lecture I gave at Columbia, where we both taught, on what a philosophy of art might look like that would take account of what was happening in the most advanced artistic circles in New York. As it happened, I had developed a certain passion for Oriental thought, especially Zen Buddhism, as it was presented in a famous seminar by Dr. D. T. Suzuki, and attended by a number of avant-garde artists, such as John Cage, Philip Guston, Agnes Martin, and others, who were developing new ideas of “experimental composition”—to use the title of Cage’s course at the New School—though most of my work was based on analytical philosophy, and especially on the philosophy of science as it was being developed by N. R. Hanson, who was applying certain ideas of Wittgenstein’s to the understanding of scientific theory. I had developed a great taste for Chinese and Japanese drawing and painting, and I had been participating in the general education courses in Asiatic thought that were organized by Ted de Bary for Columbia College. The evening after my lecture, Yee expressed to my friend, Andre Racz, who chaired Columbia’s small department in painting and sculpture, his interest in meeting me. Andre immediately phoned to invite

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me over. I of course knew about Yee, though the only book of his I had read was Chinese Calligraphy. We became instant friends. In a way, he became part of my family. I always explained that he was my children’s Chinese uncle, since Yee attended Thanksgiving meals and many other family events with us. He had a great love for children. I cherish the memory of when he built snowmen with my girls in Riverside Park or of when he went with us to the Thanksgiving parade and we talked about which animals we would want to be reincarnated as. Yee wanted to be reborn as a horse, which I think tells a lot about him as a person. I think it demonstrates his simplicity of character. He once told me how he had been allowed to spend nights at the London Zoo drawing pandas. It is part of his simplicity that he prided himself on introducing the panda as a subject into Chinese painting. Yee once made a scroll for me that consisted of the first fourteen chapters of the Tao te Ching. To me, it was an immense gift because it was an immense task. Once one embarks on such task, one has to finish it—it has to be done, as he used to say “in one go.” He sent it to Hong Kong to be mounted. In the inscription—or so he told me since I cannot read Chinese—he refers to us as brothers, I have several pieces of Yee’s calligraphy, in which he transcribed poetry from the great tradition. What sort of painter he was is difficult to say, but I think I know what kind of painter he thought he was. I was a guest at one of Yee’s Chinese dinner parties with James Johnson Sweeney, the first director of the Guggenheim Museum. Yee was, as always, a gracious and generous host, always on the lookout for new Chinese restaurants on the Upper West Side, and he loved to see his guests relish their food. He always warned us that the cook would come out with his knife if we failed to eat everything before us. Afterward, we went to Yee’s apartment to see some paintings he owned by the irresistible Chinese artist, Qi Baishi, who painted insects, plants, small animals, and fish with great clarity and intensity. He lived to be ninety-six, and the Chinese greatly admired him because he married a very young woman late in life. There were a dozen paintings wrapped in a roll, and Yee had written “Ten paintings by Qi Baishi—never been seen by anyone.” They were characteristic of the artist and a treat to see—it was clear that unwrapping them was intended as a tribute to Sweeney. It was certainly a privilege for the rest of us as well. However, Yee stared and stared, kneeling over the paintings spread across the floor. Finally, he slapped his forehead in a gesture of self-punishment, and cried out, “I have a mediocre mind!” Qi Baishi was a far simpler person than Yee. It was not in any sense Yee’s fault that he was not born a different artist; he was a cosmopolitan man—a man of the world. He was interested in politics and literature. He knew the history of art and had traveled widely. But that evening, seeing him perform that gesture of disgrace and regret, expressing without question that he saw himself a lesser artist than the artist we were studying together, I realized that I hardly knew him. I knew Yee as a civilized and cultivated man with a wonderful laugh and a pointed sense of humor. I knew him better than I knew either Chiang Yee or the Silent Traveller. His whole personage, though, was far more complex and darker than the person I knew.

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Da Zheng has achieved a far fuller portrait of Chiang Yee than I would have believed possible. I think the sense of self-disappointment that Yee palpably felt that evening, looking at those paintings by Qi Baishi, expressed a larger dissatisfaction. As a family man, as a lover, and as a political functionary, Yee must have felt that his life fell short of the success his talents demanded. What I do know is that he found a sense of personal fulfillment in the new China, when he at last was able to return and realize his success as a cultural ambassador during very dark times. He kept alive the values of a great civilization. What he brought back to China was a reality easily enough lost, as the example of the Cultural Revolution demonstrates. Yet there was something more; he also brought back a sense that the turbulent history of his native land was in certain ways necessary. One Sunday afternoon, after his return from his first visit to China, my wife and I arranged a gathering of some of Yee’s friends in our apartment in New York. We wanted to hear from the Silent Traveller himself how he felt about the new China. We had heard—everybody had heard—alarming things. Tourism had not truly begun yet. What was it like? Yee walked back and forth. He looked triumphant. He leaned toward us and said, as though the “silence” in the name he gave himself had a meaning no one had guessed, “Nobody knows who I am!! Nobody!”. He then revealed his secret self. “I am a REVOLUTIONARY!!!!” he said, exultantly. He had lived to see things no one dared to hope for. He was one of the figures who kept a certain truth about China alive when neither it nor anyone else knew where it was headed.

PREFACE

From a slope at the foot of the west side of Lu Mountain, one can see the Donglin Temple and the Thousand-Buddha Pagoda not far in the distance against a broad sweep of mountains. Beyond these mountains is the Yangtze River, and Jiujiang is nudged in between. The cemetery on this slope, according to geomancers, is blessed with felicitous fortune. Within this cemetery stand two tombstones, side by side, of the brothers Chiang Ji and Chiang Yee. Beside them is a large memorial tablet commemorating the life of the latter. Chiang Yee was born on May 19, 1903, twenty-six days after his wife Zeng Yun, and he passed away on October 17, 1977, twenty-two days after her. The two were first cousins, joined by a conjugal bond even before birth. Yee left China in 1933—he first lived in England and then moved to America—by himself and did not return to his home country until 1975. His life journey ended where it began—it was a circle, a perfect full circle, as though predestined. These miraculous coincidences are mysterious and intriguing. Indeed, as Yee himself acknowledged in the 1960s, “Life is a riddle.”1 My encounter with the Silent Traveller was a pure coincidence. It happened in the Boston living room of an American friend in 1986. On the coffee table was a hardcover book which caught my attention instantly. Its dust jacket depicted a color painting of Park Street Station in a prominent central position, and the English title was handwritten across the top with a brush pen, its strokes floating gracefully: The Silent Traveller in Boston. What surprised me was the Chinese title of that book, again handwritten with a brush, but in red, running vertically down the right. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the author’s name: Chiang Yee. Yes, I knew him. Several years earlier, my friend Qianshen Bai acquired a copy of Chinese Calligraphy by Chiang Yee, which he then enthusiastically recommended to me. The book cover has an attractive design, and its contents include numerous pictures and drawings as illustrations, many of which are distinctly ingenious. xiii

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For example, when Yee introduces the theory of dynamic equilibrium in structural composition of Chinese calligraphy, he emphasizes that balance is achieved through asymmetrical arrangement. He draws two pairs of birds resting on a tree for comparison. The birds in one drawing, which are rendered identically, appear static; the birds in the other drawing, with only slight variations in posture from each other, seem lively and pleasing to the eye. Likewise, as Yee explains, for characters which consist of two identical parts, such as 朋 peng (“friend”) or 林 lin (“forest”), one should always consciously include variations of length, width, height, or even ink color in order to achieve vividness and balance. Yee’s approach to Chinese calligraphy is entirely different from the traditional method. He transforms this art form, which has always been mysterious and profound, into an exciting subject. Through Chinese calligraphy, Yee draws comparisons between the East and West. He draws out similarities between Chinese calligraphy and other art forms, such as poetry, music, sculpture, architecture, and dance. He tells the reader how he gained inspiration, pleasure, and an understanding of calligraphy by watching a Russian ballerina perform in a London theater. I joined Qianshen and a few others in co-translating the book Chinese Calligraphy. My sister, who was working in a publishing company that specialized in Chinese art, edited and released the Chinese edition of the book. At the time, the Cultural Revolution had recently ended, and there was a thirst for knowledge in all fields, calligraphy included. The book received a warm reception, made the general public aware of new possibilities in the appreciation of calligraphy, and pushed for a modern aesthetic interpretation and study of traditional art in China. However, it was in Boston where I discovered that the talented author of Chinese Calligraphy was also a successful travel writer, best known for his twelve Silent Traveller books published between the 1930s and 1970s. Later, as I looked into Yee’s life and accomplishments, I became intrigued with this understudied Asian American artist, writer, and poet. He was the original translator of “Coca-Cola,” and his brilliant rendition has become the best-known translation among Chinese speakers around the world. He was the first artist to depict pandas in a Chinese painting style. He was the first Chinese to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard University in 1956. Most importantly, he emerged as one of the most prolific and successful Chinese writers in the English language, even though he had barely any knowledge of the language when he arrived in London in 1933. The history of Chiang Yee, I soon realized, is not simply about an individual’s extraordinary accomplishments. His transcultural and transnational experiences were so extensive that reading the story of his life is like watching all of China change, transform, develop, and interact with the West. It is like setting out on a journey to revisit twentieth-century China and the history of modern Chinese in the world. Home, a basic structure in human life, is an ordinary yet sacred entity in individual life and social connections. It is the site of roots which provide identity, and it serves as the perpetual source of comfort and consolation. When physically away from home in a foreign country—as an immigrant,

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exile, expatriate, or tourist—one invariably refers to home with deep affection and emotion. Though the concept of “home” is unsettled and broad, it generally consists of three separate layers of meaning. First, home is the basic habitat for a human group, and it is defined by kinship, such as parents, grandparents, siblings, the spouse, children, and cousins. The second layer is the hometown—village, town, or city—where dozens or thousands of families coexist. The specific geographical location draws people together like a magnet, and confers on them some homogenous geographical and regional identities. The third layer is the homeland: the motherland which provides national and cultural identity. Chinese are traditionally accustomed to living with their immediate or extended families in one village for many generations. Those who travel or live elsewhere usually yearn to return home or to be buried at home, like falling leaves clinging to roots. This is why classical stories by Su Wu (140–60 b.c.), Wang Zhaojun (52–20 b.c.), and Cai Yan (a.d. 177–?), who were in banishment or captivity thousands of miles away from their homeland, are unusually poignant. Nevertheless, the third category of “home” has grown especially prominent in modern times, against the backdrop of ever increasing transnational experiences such as global traveling, migration, and immigration. “Home,” in this sense, endows cultural and national identities. As all three layers overlap and intermingle in certain cases, “home” is therefore a most disturbing, challenging, difficult, and heart-wrenching concept. These layers of meaning associated with “home” correspond to Chiang Yee’s experience. Brought up in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, near Lu Mountain, he lived a secluded life within the family compound. The 1911 revolution, and the subsequent turmoil, forced his family to evacuate to the mountains for a year, and Yee thus had his first taste of country life and befriended nature. About ten years later, he left his hometown to study in Nanjing, participate in the Northern Expedition, and serve as county magistrate in three counties before returning to his hometown as county magistrate. This return, however, led to another departure in 1933: one from his homeland to the West. Each of these three departures marked critical steps in his life: the departures from his home and hometown were a farewell to his Confucian upbringing and marked the genesis of a new sociopolitical consciousness; the third departure, much longer in both time and distance, was self-exile. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Yee deliberately opted to separate himself from a homeland afflicted with corruption, war, and upheaval. Chiang Yee never publicly labeled himself as an exile. The only time he alluded to it was in China Revisited, when he discussed the difficulties involved with his decision to leave China: “Only experienced political exiles can understand what I went through.”2 If overseas travel is an adventure and an encounter with different cultures, it often makes the return home, a concluding part of the journey, more sweet and inviting. However, for Chiang Yee, this final component was merely a tantalizing possibility, always beyond reach, and it existed only in his imagination and through his writing.

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It is interesting to cite the case of Erich Auerbach, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Europe, who wrote his much-admired literary criticism, Mimesis, during his years in Istanbul during World War II. In the epilogue to the book, he briefly mentions the extreme adversity he encountered as a literary scholar in his research, particularly the lack of “a rich and specialized library.”3 Truly, Auerbach was far removed from his European home, where his literary, cultural, religious, and social upbringing were completed. He was in exile in Turkey, a country which, to quote Edward Said, “stood for the ultimate alienation from and opposition to Europe,” and he was thus in a “form of exile from Europe.” Paradoxically, it was this very shortage of literary resources and this sterile environment that generated a fierce battle in the literary exile, who wrestled between the need for creativity and a desire for home, an energy that turned out to be conducive to the undertaking and accomplishment of his monumental work.4 Theodor Adorno, a German-Jewish refugee during World War II, observed the exilic writers’ adverse conditions as a modern phenomenon: the expropriation of the writer’s language, the estrangement from culture and place that “nourish his knowledge,” and the residence in a new, “incomprehensible” world are all factors that cause the exile’s “mutilations.” Hence: “Dwelling, in the proper sense, is now impossible.”5 This is precisely what Chiang Yee went through after he left for the West. Over the course of his four decades overseas, he suffered a permanent “loss” of his home: his family compound, idyllically described in his memoir A Chinese Childhood, was ransacked and burned to the ground by the invading Japanese army in 1938; his family scattered and many died; his homeland, desecrated by foreign invasion, was subsequently scarred by civil war and then taken over by a new government, a permutation that rendered him literally “a single fellow without a nation.”6 Interestingly, this displacement created a critical distance from home and allowed him to develop a new consciousness, affecting a recognition of—as well as resistance to—cultural tradition, which is, in Edward Said’s term, “possessing possession.”7 Home, traditionally a point of departure and final destiny of any journey, was thus transformed into an infinite source of inspiration for creativity. Even though his physical “home” was lost forever like a broken mirror, to borrow Salman Rushdie’s metaphor, and its fragments were irretrievably lost, it stays with the writer as a memory, a faithful companion, an oasis for yearning, and a destination of the imaginary journey.8 Travel writing is a loosely defined body of literature that often involves shifting borders with multiple crossings from one form into another.9 Neither fiction nor scientifically precise, this genre becomes an optimal space for a writer to create his or her unique form, depending on what kind of writer he or she is or wants to be. Xu Xiake’s posthumously published The Travel Writing is a classic of this genre in China. The tradition continued through the late nineteenth century and expanded to explorations of foreign nations, geography, and cultures. Travel writing, in fact, became a powerful and influential genre of literature in China during that time. Government officials, diplomats, journalists, and students related their experiences in Europe, the United States, or Japan after their return. Examples include

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Wang Tao’s Manyou suilu [A traveler’s notes] (1877), Kang Youwei’s Ouzhou shiyi guo youji [Travel in eleven countries in Europe] (1906), Wu Tingfang’s Meiguo shicha ji [America: Through the spectacles of an Oriental diplomat] (1915), Xu Zhimo’s Zaibie Kangqiao [Saying good-bye to Cambridge again] (1928), and Zhu Ziqing’s Ouyou Zaji [Miscellaneous notes from the trip to Europe] (1935). Chiang Yee must have been aware of some of these publications in China, but they were almost certainly not his models when he began to explore travel writing in England during the mid-1930s. His potential audience primarily consisted of English-language reading Europeans. He was forced to abandon his mother tongue for a new language that he struggled to master. In addition, the literary market in which he ventured, competed, and eventually survived was unfamiliar, unpredictable, suspicious, and occasionally hostile. Nevertheless, travel writing provided a unique opportunity for him to reconstruct an imaginary home away from home. It was the space where he could exert and contest his Chinese cultural identity. His Silent Traveller books, with their distinctive cover designs, were easily identifiable among other books in the bookstore. At the time, and indeed even today, very few writers were simultaneously accomplished artists who contributed to and designed their own book covers, let alone in a Chinese painting style that included Chinese calligraphy. Most of his travel books have colored illustrations, line drawings, and poems executed in Chinese calligraphy with an English translation. Embellished with a dazzling array of intricate Chinese and Western elements, Yee’s travel writing is an artistic invention and representation. He describes cultural encounters unique to his situation: a Chinese with a flat face and wide nose strolling along the Thames in London, on a broad boulevard in Paris, in Times Square in New York City, or on Beacon Hill in Boston. His writing combines Western and Chinese styles and reenacts and co-presents the interactions and reconciliation of different cultures, in both form and content, which manifest the connections between the author and his home in the East. “An Oriental in Union Square,” a colored plate in The Silent Traveller in San Francisco, portrays a panda rambling peacefully and leisurely among dozens of pigeons in the midst of colorful outdoor plants, flowers, and pedestrians, with tall office buildings in the background. The giant panda is Chiang Yee’s favorite animal, and his infatuation with the panda earned him the nickname “The Panda Man.” The panda in this particular painting may very well represent the artist himself. What should be noted is the illogicality of the painting: that is, the presence of a panda in Union Square when there were not even pandas in the United States in the 1960s. Illogicality, however, is a common phenomenon in Chinese art, which emphasizes the representation of poetic truth of nature. It often seems to ignore common sense by rearranging reality. For example, bamboo, orchids, pines, and plums are often placed side by side, even though they grow at different seasons. The apparently illogical elements in the painting—especially the transformation of Chiang Yee into a panda in Union Square in the 1960s—are unusually fascinating; more fascinating is Yee’s creative imagination which enables him to assert his Chinese identity in such an artistic way.

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Another distinctive and significant feature of his travel writing is his comparative approach. Unlike many of the existing travel writings about China or the West, his greatest interest, as he repeatedly claimed, was to offer a counter-narrative and to pursue “the principle of finding similarities among all people.”10 Therefore. he often introduces various cultural aspects of China while writing about his experience in the West. A keen and curious observer, he discovers meaning in “ordinary phenomena” in the West and is often able to present a counterpart in Chinese culture. He helps readers reevaluate themselves and their own culture within a broader world context. In The Silent Traveller in New York, for example, Yee expresses a sincere admiration of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s masterpiece the Statue of Liberty, which he humorously names “a piece of Occidental inscrutability” because Bartholdi was the first person in the world to proclaim a faith in liberty in such a colossal size. Nevertheless, Yee quickly points out an affinity between the statue and the ancient colossal sculptures of Buddha in China’s Yungang and Dunhuang caves. He indicates that, according to ancient Chinese philosophy, there is always an appreciation for freedom and liberty, even though the word “liberty” was never used. After making this comparison, he shifts unexpectedly to the importance of liberty in the modern world: “In modern life its meaning has become more and more obscured. I do not refer to politics, which I cannot pretend to understand; what I deplore is that we human beings seem to have lost the sense of liberty in our daily life. We ‘tighten our belt’ to order; we follow every fashion; we listen to what we are told; we are bound by convention.”11 With such shifts, Yee is able to move from the political implications of the term “liberty” to a modern fundamental humanistic dilemma, raising an issue that transcends religious, cultural, economic, and political divisions, and thus paradoxically unifies people all over the world. Such shifts enable him to introduce the East to the West by highlighting commonalities and to negotiate for recognition, acceptance, and success. He introduces common elements in literature, art, life, food, marriage, and philosophical beliefs. After describing beautiful and beloved flowers in America, he reveals that most of these flowers, including peonies, oranges, roses, and lemons, originated in China. Through this connection, he emphasizes a shared love of nature and the common features of humanity, an understanding that may lead to deep and mutual appreciation. It is important to note that he never ignores or eliminates diversity, and he never attempts to homogenize ethnic, religious, national, or individual identities. Instead, he advocates “provinciality” and “local color,” preservation of humanity, and the role of human beings in the modern world. A deep yearning for home is another important feature of his writing. This feature distinguishes Yee from most other travel writers and makes his books poetical. The following is a poem from The Silent Traveller in New York: I come to this strange place as a guest; At the arrival of spring I feel like returning home.

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The tassel-like branches of the willows in the Park Cling around me during our meeting.12 The poem displays two contrasting strains of emotions: familiarity and alienation, and comfort and loneliness in a “strange place.” It also carries an extraordinarily tranquil tone floating over the poet’s volcanic emotions; yet it is precisely this tranquility that reveals the hidden torrents of the poet’s emotional responses. Despite the graceful shape and sentimental willow branches that are seemingly welcoming and friendly, New York City is a “strange place” and not home to the poet. The word “like” (若 ruo in Chinese, meaning “as if ”) highlights this in-between state, between truth and dream and between reality and imagination. Despite the similarity and familiarity he has observed in natural elements in the West, there is usually “enough dissimilarity” to remind him that he “was far from home.13 The first line in this poem is almost literally a copy of another famous classical poem in China, but the phrase “strange place,” used to refer to a strange country, brings about an entirely different meaning from that in traditional Chinese poems, in which the phrase generally refers to an unfamiliar part of the native country. Steeped in ethnic elements, this poem resonates with, yet differs from, Chinese classical expressions. Through Yee’s writings run deep currents of nostalgia for home, for the family, and for a past no longer retrievable. The pain of displacement, separation, and irreparable loss fuse into a melancholic undertone of grief and nostalgia, which then manifests through Yee’s use of, and seemingly idiosyncratic fascination with, natural images such as willows, the moon, mountains, flowers, or waterfalls. For example, it becames a ritual for Yee to enjoy himself in the moonlit night, meditating, conversing, and forming a companionship with the moon. On the Moon Festival, he composed a poem while he was in California, the beginning of which is as follows: Up in the sky there is only one full moon; But I have seen her two faces. The one I saw at Jiujiang and Red Cliff is my old love; This one over the Golden Gate Bay is a new love for me.14

The moon, according to the poet, appears “charming and enchanting to look at” in both China and America. He seems to be willing to reconcile this by recognizing and honoring both faces, as his “old love” and “new love” respectively. The poet thus begins to feel “at home” in the familiarity of dislocation and even in the familiarity of grief and homesickness. His “poignant nostalgia” for home seems to have been effectively assuaged.15 After a brief comment on human history and the changes in California, the poem ends with the following: The remaining year of my life can hardly find me back home; Jiujiang and the Golden Gate share my lingering affection equally.16

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The tone, calm and resolved, leaves one wondering whether the reconciliation was genuine. The English version has in fact altered much of what is conveyed through the original Chinese counterpart. Take for example yusheng heri ke huanxiang (“During the rest of my life which day can I return home?”). The Chinese version is an interrogation: demanding, compromising, and provocative. There is a subtle trace of nearly desperate agitation and hysteria, invoking an image so ghastly different from his generally amiable, contented, congenial image in the Western reader’s mind. While the English version softens the biting edges of his suppressed emotions and helps Yee retain his composure, the Chinese version allows him to release and reveal his true feelings. Yee continues to wrestle with such dichotomies, and his travel writing takes on rich contrasting features between English and Chinese, between reality and dreams, and between language and evocation. Despite his significant success in England and America between the 1930s and 1970s, Yee never received the critical attention he deserved. The first serious study of his work was conducted by Esther Tzu-Chiu Liu in her 1976 dissertation “Literature as Painting—A Study of the Travel Books of Chiang Yee.” However, the scope of Asian American studies began to broaden during the 1990s, expanding from a focus on sociopolitical history to include transnational connections and contexts. This shift led to a surging interest in Chiang Yee and his literary and artistic accomplishments. Ronald W. Janoff completed his dissertation in 2002 with a distinctly new approach: “Encountering Chiang Yee: A Western Insider Reading Response to Eastern Outsider Travel Writing.” There have been a number of critical studies on Yee’s travel writing, poems, and artwork, and the China Institute in New York organized a symposium in October 2007, celebrating his remarkable accomplishments and significant role as a twentieth-century cultural interpreter. All these scholarly efforts to revisit and rediscover Chiang Yee generated considerable interest with the public. In addition to Chinese Calligraphy, which continues to enjoy its popularity as the standard text for college-level calligraphy classes in North America, four of his travel books—London, Oxford, Edinburgh, and Lakeland—are back in print and popular. Most significantly, Yee’s works have finally been introduced to the Chinese-language world, especially to his home country of China. In 1982, his art was exhibited in Beijing for the first time, and that was followed by the publication of Collections of Chiang Yee Poems (1983) and the Chinese translations of Chinpao at the Zoo (1985), Chinese Calligraphy (1986), and A Chinese Childhood (2005). In addition, there are two edited volumes of his works, Hai-wai chizi Jiang Yi [Overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (1992) and Wuzhou liuhen [A world traveler] (2007). Chinese translations of his London, Oxford, Edinburgh, and Lakeland books were recently published in Taiwan and China, so Chinese readers are finally able to appreciate his travel books. This renewed interest leads us to consider why Yee is still popular and relevant to us today and what is the meaning and significance of his accomplishments?

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In 1946, soon after the end of World War II, philosopher F.S.C. Northrop published The Meeting of East and West: An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding. To Northrop, the world was unfortunately replete with ideological conflicts that needed to be confronted and resolved, and the “most important” one was “the meeting of East and West.” 17 Success in resolving ideological conflicts and finding world peace greatly depends on a solid understanding of differing ideologies and consequent reconciliation or adjustment. In his book, Northrop stresses that, different as they are, East and West are not mutually exclusive; they can be complementary since they deal with the same subject from different perspectives: “Each . . . needs the other.” 18 Northrop suggests a shift to the Oriental standpoint when viewing the experiences of Oriental cultural forces and practices. Without such a shift, Westerners utilizing—limited by—Western theoretical frames and cultural assumptions will never be able to understand the East. 19 Likewise, Van Wyck Brooks made a similar assertion in 1954, calling for the attention of the American public to “the general counsel” of Chiang Yee and “Chinese wisdom,” which he identified as “sanity.” He believed that Yee’s deep sense of appreciation of life was a most valuable gift. “He . . . kindles in others the appreciative feeling that alone perhaps can keep the world at peace.” 20 In that sense, Yee’s artwork and travel writings, which deliberately circumvented ideological or politically adversarial conditions during the Cold War, facilitated a shift for Westerners to the “Oriental Standpoint” and promoted a better understanding between the East and the West. Yee was a cultural interpreter, explaining and expounding cultural issues such as ethnicity, history, and material practices in the West, where such issues were often misconstrued or misunderstood. In an age when there was an urgent need for a world order and a solution to ideological conflicts, his belief and practice adequately proved that religion, literature, and art formed an essential base for the construction of the world order.21 Half a century later, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Yee is more relevant than ever. As we grow increasingly transnational, and as we discuss cultural interactions, clashes, identities, displacement, languages, and re-presentations, home is a central issue that we can never shy away from. Yee’s life experience is, in its essence, representative of many of us who left home to search for freedom and happiness. His writing speaks to everyone, regardless of nationality, religion, race, ethnicity, political belief, or individual experiences. It was his belief that “there is no fundamental difference between any of the human races in the world.” 22 With a profound interest in humanism and a deep trust in humanity, his long experience of emotional pain never swayed or darkened his vision of the future. He firmly believed in a bright future. He believed that art was “an international language which, unlike a spoken language, can be understood by all peoples.”23 “There is no difference between the West and East in the appreciation of beauty and the longing for artistic expression.” 24 With his artwork and writings, he generated hope, joy, and

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tolerance in the audience, and he called for equality and mutual appreciation in cultural relations among all peoples and civilizations. In a world plagued by war, violence, ethnic cleansing, religious intolerance, social divisions, and racial discrimination, reading his works today may compel us to reflect on the meaning and beauty of humanity. It will certainly alert us to the commonalities between the East and West, and it will enlighten us about the need to construct a common ground for a harmonious world of peace, respect, and prosperity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing this book was like embarking on a long journey, which has taken me to various places and introduced me to numerous friends, both old and new. Though it is a most rewarding personal and academic experience, I find myself deep in debt, owing so much to so many. I am most grateful to the Chiang Yee family. Chien-fei and Chiao-wen of Connecticut were the first that I met for this project. Over the years, they and their family have been consistently patient, encouraging, and understanding. Words are not adequate to express my heartfelt gratitude to their sincere and warm support, without which this book would not have been possible. Chien-kuo and Barbara of Jersey Island kindly invited me for a short stay, during which I conducted interviews and met with their children. Xiaoyan and Tan Jusheng welcomed me like an old friend, answering questions and providing the related information. It was a pleasure to meet with their children and listen to their memories. My several visits to Jianlan and Liu Naichong in Beijing were memorable. Both of them were published writers, yet they were very modest and kind. I feel terribly sorry that Chien-kuo, Jianlan, and Tan Jusheng did not live to see this book. I was very fortunate to have acquainted Innes Herdan through this writing project. An accomplished writer and translator, she was humble, unpretentious, and understanding. Our meetings were few but extremely inspiring. She urged me to complete the manuscript and promised to give me her feedback. Regrettably, she passed away right before its completion. I want to thank her children, Catherine, Andrew, and Bernard, who offered assistance at various stages of this project. Many of Chiang Yee’s friends and colleagues, both in the United States and abroad, shared with me their stories and collections. Their enthusiasm, advice, and assistance were deeply appreciated. I owe special thanks to Deh-I Hsiung. Through her, I was introduced to Deh-ni and Deh-ta, and acquainted with Grace Lau and Rita Keene Lester. I want to express my gratitude to the following xxiii

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individuals: David Hawkes of Oxford; Tsun-jen Liu of Canberra; Professor and Mrs. Hong-lit Lo of Hong Kong; Pat Bois; James Cahill; K. York and Noelle Chynn; David and Margaret Hsieh; Yiau-min Huang; Daniel Kwok; Paul Szto; Wan-go and Virginia Weng; Jean Miao-chen Yang and Thomas Yang; Bernard Yen; Mr. and Mrs. Chih-peng Yin; and Yee’s Columbia colleagues William Theodore de Bary, Arthur Danto, Chih-Tsing Hsia, Miwa Kai, and Richard Kuhns. I am immensely grateful to Paul Andrews. He devoted ten years to the research and writing of a Chiang Yee biography, and he generously shared the unpublished manuscript and findings with me as soon as he learned of my project. Ling Fengzhang, a local historian in Jiujiang, welcomed me and gave me genuine support with information and material. Richard and Pauline Jones, current owner of Chiang Yee’s former habitat at 28 Southmoor Road in Oxford, gave me a tour of the house and told me histories of the neighborhood. The following friends expressed their interest and offered invaluable assistance in various ways during my research: Qianshen Bai, Gordon Chang, Phoebe Chang, Greg Drake, Ruth Hsiao, Bernadette Li, and Frances Wood. I also owe thanks to Peter Kiang, Shirley Lim, and Donald E. Pease, whose affirmation of my work was very meaningful to me. Participation at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2004 was an honor. I want to thank the organizer, Catherine Lockerbie, and Sean Costello of Mercat Press for the invitation. Thanks also to Yong He, who organized a symposium in memory of Chiang Yee at the China Institute in New York in 2007; and Shyling Lee and Phil Ma of Chinese Language School of Greater Hartford, Connecticut. I express deep gratitude to my friends in the field of Asian American Studies: Wei Li, Zong Li, Huping Ling, Jinqi Ling, Haiming Liu, Zuoyue Wang, Fenggang Yang, Philip Yang, Xiaohuang Yin, Xiaojian Zhao, and Min Zhou. These accomplished and energetic scholars opened my eyes to issues and questions in transnational and global contexts. Thanks especially to Jinqi Ling, a literary scholar whose shrewd and acute critical sensitivity I admire. During my research at libraries and archive centers, many librarians offered invaluable assistance. My gratitude goes to the following: Hugh Baker, Rose Ford, and Rosemary Seton at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London; Lesley A. Hall at the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine; Vada Hart at Local Studies, Finsbury Library; Neil Somerville and Michael Websell at the BBC Written Archives Center; William Alspaugh at the University of Chicago; Charity Galbreath at the Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum; Peter Drummey, Nicholas Graham, Elaine Grublin, and Carolle Morini at the Massachusetts Historical Society; Carol Leadenham and Anotol Shmelev at the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University; Stephen Nonack, Stanley Cushing, and Sally Pierce at the Boston Athenaeum; Victoria Rowe at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University; Nancy Shawcross at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania; and librarians at the Freer Gallery, Harvard-Yenching Library, the University of

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Iowa, and Henry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. At Suffolk University, library staff, especially Kathi Maio, have answered my questions and requests with admirable patience and efficiency. The following colleagues at Suffolk have read parts of my book, offered advice, or provided assistance: Nina Allen, Robert Allison, Peter Caputo, James Carroll, Carol Dine, Marilyn Jurich, George Kalogeris, Fred Marchant, Bette Mandl, Anthony Merzlak, Quentin Miller, Hilary Nanda, Gerald Richman, and Marjorie Salvodon. My heartfelt thanks go to Suffolk University for the trust and support over the years which have enabled me to concentrate on researching and writing this book. My colleague Eileen Feldman is the first reader of the entire manuscript, and she has offered meticulous comments, suggestions, and corrections. She has been extremely generous, patient, and encouraging. To her, my deepest appreciation! I want to thank Kendra Boileau, former editor at Rutgers University Press, for expressing interest in this project. Leslie Mitchner, who took over as my editor, has been unusually efficient, professional, and understanding. It has been a true pleasure to have her guidance in going through the publishing process. I owe a special thanks to Jamie Greene, who deserves much credit for copyediting the manuscript. His expertise, knowledge, and patience have greatly improved its quality. All remaining errors are mine. Parts of this book have appeared in my previous publications: “Home Construction: Chinese Poetry and American Landscape in Chiang Yee’s Travel Writings,” The Journeys 1:1–2 (2000): 59–85; “Chinese Painting and Cultural Interpretation: Chiang Yee’s Travel Writing during the Cold War Era,” Prospects 26 (2001): 477–504; “Double Perspective: The Silent Traveller in the Lake District,” Mosaic 31.1 (2003): 161–178; “Writing of Home and Home of Writing,” Comparative American Studies 1:4 (2003): 485–505; “The Traveling of Art and the Art of Traveling: Chiang Yee’s Painting and Chinese Cultural Tradition,” Studies in the Literary Imagination 37:1 (Spring 2004): 169–190; “Motherland and Chinese Diaspora,” Chinese America: History and Perspective (2007): 207–212. I am very grateful to Arthur C. Danto, a philosopher and art critic, who prepared a foreword to this book despite his busy schedule. Finally, thanks to my family for their perennial tolerance. Over the last ten years, my repeated references to Chiang Yee have become a regular component of our conversations. They have generously indulged my “obsession.” Indeed, no one deserves more gratitude and appreciation than my wife Min and our son Leon for their unwavering support, interest, and trust.

A N O T E O N R O M A N I Z AT I O N

This book uses the pinyin system of Romanization for Chinese names of people from Mainland China and Taiwan, with a few exceptions, such as Chiang Kaishek, Sun Yat-sen, and Tseng Shih-yu. It uses the Wade-Giles Romanization system for other Chinese individuals in order to conform to the original spelling of their names. The pinyin system is used for place names in China. Peking and Kiu-kiang, for example, will be Beijing and Jiujiang. A few place names, such as the Yangtze River, are kept unchanged. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s own renditions.

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Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East 

chapter 1



Chinese Childhood

In Huangmei County, Hubei Province, there used to be a “Chiang Village” where approximately several hundred households lived, all sharing the same family name of Chiang. According to the family’s clan book, these were descendants of Chiang Xu, who served Emperor Ai during the Han dynasty as the governor of Yan State. After Emperor Ai’s death in 1 b.c., a new regime was initiated with a dramatically reorganized bureaucracy. Chiang, a man of high integrity and honesty, did not approve of imperial politics. He chose to retire instead and moved to Duling, not far from the capital city of Chang’an, to enjoy the peace of a secluded life. Within the bamboo grove in front of his house, he created three footpaths, two of which were intended for his dear friends Qiu Zhong and Yang Zhong, both famous hermits of the time, and the third was reserved for himself when he occasionally went out to visit friends. To avoid future political entanglements, Chiang decided to become a farmer and encouraged his children to do the same. For his descendants, he set down an admonition which consisted of four characters: “Benevolence,” “Righteousness,” “Sincerity,” and “Endurance.”1 During the late Song Dynasty (960–1276), an epidemic spread throughout the region. One of Chiang Xu’s descendants moved south and settled in what later evolved to be the Chiang Village. Over the next few centuries, the family grew to include several hundred individuals. They lived a relatively peaceful life as farmers; none of them achieved fame or distinction. One member of the forty-seventh generation, who in the seventeenth century obtained a position in the government office of the royal kiln in Jingdezhen City, moved south across the Yangtze River to settle on the banks of Poyang Lake. The city, best known for its porcelain products, was nearly one hundred miles to the east of Jiujiang, a small town on the south bank of the river, with Lu Mountain and Poyang Lake nearby. Generations later, legend tells of a thief who sneaked into the village, cut a hole in the wall of a house, and crawled in. The family in that house had four sons who were young, strong, and well trained in the martial arts. 1

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They caught the thief and pummeled him with heavy punches. It soon became clear that the thief had made a serious blunder: his intended target was actually the wealthy family of Chiang Hsien-chen in the next but identical house. The uproar, occurring at midnight, woke up and frightened Hsien-chen, who had accumulated some wealth through his successful farming. His fear hastened him to flee westward with his family to Jiujiang.2 At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Jiujiang house had evolved into a spacious walled compound which included a total of forty-two rooms. Hsienchen had died, leaving behind four sons: Chih-kao, Chih-hou, Chih-sheng, and Chih-hsien. Except for Chih-sheng, all the sons were married and resided with their families in the compound. Along its central axis were three halls, each with a front courtyard and flanked by suites of four large rooms. A rear garden was situated behind the third hall. The ancestral shrine was located within the third hall where “The Hall of Three Footpaths” was auspiciously inscribed by a master calligrapher. Facing the front gate was another compound that also belonged to the family. These two compounds were originally one, but had since been divided to create a hallway. In one corner were Chih-sheng’s bedrooms and a courtyard, and in another was the family school. Between these two corners stood a high stone wall, engraved with landscapes and scenes from the classical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Precisely in the middle of the wall was a beautifully engraved character fu, meaning “happiness,” so that everyone would “face happiness” when stepping out of the main gate. The rear of the compound was a huge garden with a pond and trees. On May 19, 1903, a baby boy was born to the family of Chiang Ho-an. He was the third child of the family and the sixteenth in his generation. The baby was named Yee, which means “ancient wine vessel” or “cardinal principle.” As was the custom, he was also given a school name: Chung-ya. Chung means “the secondborn male,” and ya means “elegance.” In China, it was not uncommon for cousins to become engaged to each other even before their birth. Yee’s mother, Cai Hsiang-lin, who came from a large wealthy family in the region, happened to get pregnant at almost the same time as one of her younger sisters. The two families agreed that, if the children turned out to be a boy and a girl, they should marry each other. Yee was thus welcomed as a double blessing: as a boy to his own family and as a wish fulfillment for the older generation. His girl cousin, Zeng Yun, had been born several weeks earlier, on April 23, and their destined nuptials were now affirmed. Many years later, in his memoir, A Chinese Childhood, Yee made the following statement: I am not very fond of the word “fate.” We Chinese are too frequently called “fatalists.” We believe, it is true, that there are things in life which cannot be striven for, but we believe also, as much as others, that the rest of life is mostly

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struggle. At the risk, however, of being dubbed a fatalist myself, I must confess that I feel deeply the force of fate.3

While stressing the need for self-realization and creativity, Yee marveled at the mysterious “force of fate” and the coexistence of dual contradictory elements in our lives: assertion and resignation. Indeed, Yee’s life, which had been designed and imposed upon him even before his birth, consisted largely of yearnings for freedom and self-determination; yet at the very end, his life story seemed to only prove that “fate” was inescapable after all. Yee was born prematurely and was very skinny throughout childhood. His mother became paralyzed after the labor, and she was confined to bed until her death, when Yee was not yet five years old. His only distinct memory of his mother was how she caught him and slapped his face when he tried to escape from her during his routine morning hair plaiting. He would recall this incident later in life with deep regret; his disobedience as a child continued to weigh on him. He longed to demonstrate his gratitude and show genuine appreciation for his mother’s care and suffering. Sadly, however, she passed away so early in his life that he did not even have a clear memory of what she looked like.4 Yee’s paternal grandmother and older sister looked after him for the majority of his childhood. His grandmother, “kind, sensible, and fair-minded,” was particularly dear to him.5 However, the absence of true maternal love was the cause of eternal regret and pain. At an early age, Yee had already tasted the bitter loneliness caused by the lack of a mother’s warm and unconditional protection. This was the case even at home in the family compound, for he often saw, with heartache, his cousins run to their parents to be comforted and patted. As a “shy, uncomplaining, somewhat discouraged child, standing aloof from these scenes of companionship,” he sometimes had a sulky disposition, staying in his room neither talking nor eating. He instead chose to read and write—it was as though the literary world had become a timeless haven for him. This behavior soon led to his nickname “Sulky Boy.”6 The early environment in which Yee grew up was conducive to his interest in natural and artistic beauty. His grandfather, father, and older brother influenced him in their own unique ways. Grandfather Chih-kao, a kind and pleasant person, had a passion for birds. He had a lark and two song thrushes which he took to a small wooded area near Rouge Hill every morning. Yee often accompanied his grandfather on these excursions. With a dragon-headed cane in one hand, Grandfather would walk slowly, telling his Baobao (his nickname for Yee, meaning “Treasure”) wonderful stories about birds. When they reached the wooded area, Grandfather met with other fellow bird-lovers. Their birds then joined with scores of others, chirping tunefully in cages suspended on trees. It was irresistibly enchanting. While Grandfather conversed with his friends, Yee typically played with some young friends nearby or picked wildflowers in the charming natural surroundings.

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This childhood experience initiated his lifelong interest in birds and other creatures. The chrysanthemum, known for its lofty and unyielding nature (its flowers blossom despite frost and cold), was the other great passion of Grandfather’s life. Every autumn, new specimens of the flower were added to his garden. This poem by Zhu Yuanzhang was a personal favorite of Yee’s grandfather: While a hundred flowers blossom, I do not. If I burst into bloom, they are afraid to show themselves. Tussling with the west wind all night before the doorstep, The great mass of chrysanthemums waves its golden armour.7

Like many of his contemporaries, Grandfather deemed it a national disgrace to be ruled by Manchus, an “outside” minority tribe thought to be less culturally advanced than the Han, or ethnic Chinese. A historian and learned man, he refused to seek any official position in the Manchu government. His chief concern was to tend to his own business and live the life of a hermit. He missed the Ming Dynasty regime (1368–1644), which had been defeated by the Manchu army in the seventeenth century. He wore Ming-style clothing and gathered his hair on the top of his head instead of in a Manchu-mandated pigtail known as a queue. He strictly forbade any discussion of Manchus in the house. Emotionally attached to the Ming Dynasty, he praised Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of that dynasty, and admired the expression of valor in Zhu’s poem through the metaphor of chrysanthemums. Through Grandfather, Yee learned the story of Qianlong (1711–1799), a Manchu emperor but of pure Han Chinese blood. It was said that his mother, the wife of Emperor Yongzheng, coveting a son to inherit the throne, switched her own newborn Manchu daughter with the son of a court minister who was a Han Chinese. While this story about Qianlong’s identity had been secret, his remarkable accomplishments during his sixty-year reign were legendary. The story caught Yee’s fancy, and it was probably his first exposure to intricate ethnic relationships and the distinct, yet artificial, divisions created by ethnicity. From then on, he read many books and stories about Qianlong. Yee’s father, Ho-an, was an artist. In a society where the principle of primogeniture was a dominating family tradition, Ho-an, as the eldest of his generation, could have played a pivotal role in the financial issues and family decisions of the household. However, he was an artist by nature and preferred to live quietly, free from business or financial matters. He rarely mingled with other family members, even though he “possessed great charm of manner and an excellent gift of storytelling,” and his presence at family gatherings was always appreciated.8 He was a well-known portrait painter and usually spent most of each morning painting in his small studio. On the walls were several paintings by renowned artists and, occasionally, some of his own. Brushes and paints lay about the studio; along the walls were shelves piled with colorful sketches and books of bird and flower paint-

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ings. Known as a portrait painter, Ho-an could hardly refuse to paint portraits when asked. However, he did it simply as a necessity of life, for deep in his heart was a passion for flower and bird paintings.9 Father’s studio appeared so inviting! Yee loved to sneak in and indulge himself by admiring the paintings. He would walk slowly, imagining the oriole twittering on the branch and the flowers smiling at him, or he would flip through the many books on the shelves. The tranquil colors and lines of the artwork stimulated his curiosity, transcending the confines of the house and celebrating the infinite freedom and celestial beauty of nature. This environment cultivated in him “a passion for painting and for art in general.”10 In the studio, he witnessed Father’s genuine expression of love and sorrow in mourning the loss of his wife Hsiang-lin. During her illness, Ho-an attended to her with utmost tenderness and care; her premature death was an irreparable loss. For years afterward, Ho-an often stared at her portrait and heaved deep sighs. Painting, then, became a means of seeking comfort and peace; his use of colors and evocation of natural beauty became his conduit to express love and grief. Yee’s older brother, Ji, had chosen his own school name, Da-chuan (meaning “Big Stream”), hoping that “his literary thought would flow through his mind as water flows in a stream.”11 Though he loved art, Ji never drew. His literary talent soon won recognition, and he became a reputable poet at the young age of fifteen. Ten years Yee’s senior, Ji was considered a literary genius in the region, and his siblings and relatives respected him as if he were a sage. Deeply immersed in his love of literature, he appeared eccentric to other members of the family and acquired the nickname of “Madman.” This name was not at all derogatory, however. Rather, it was a compliment because many ancient Chinese poets and artists, such as Li Bai and Zhang Xu, often behaved in a peculiar, eccentric manner. Eccentricity, which was indicative of talent, was generally tolerated and even secretly admired. Ji’s literary circle was “a group of madmen.” They often held meetings in his study, wrote poems, listened to the tutor comment on their poetry, or discussed literature. Ho-an was very supportive of his son, as was Ji’s grandmother, who would prepare melon seeds, egg cakes, dried lychees, and tea for the group. At the time, Yee was too young to understand the subject and content of their discussions, yet he found himself fascinated with Ji and his friends. One day, Yee peeked through a crack in the door and saw his brother and others listening to the tutor commenting on their poems. It was very noisy and the room was a mess; the floor was littered with melon seed shells and books were scattered on the tables. He did not understand what was being said, but it was strangely captivating. He admired his older brother and resolved to be a good poet and someday join their discussions. Though he never had such a chance, he himself later acquired the same nickname of “Madman.” At age five, Yee was taken to visit the family school. He saw the older children chanting and reciting classics. To him, the melodious sound was enchanting, and the Chinese characters were not entirely strange as he had already mastered a

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considerable number of them with the help of his sister. The following year, he was sent to the school and his formal education began. Since the Chiang family was a big clan, nearly all the school’s students were clan members. The teacher, Mr. Zhou, was a learned Confucian scholar. Zhou had a long connection with the Chiang clan: his father was Ho-an’s teacher, and his own son would later teach Yee’s children. He was, therefore, well respected in the family. Traditionally, Confucianism was the basis of education; so, following this tradition, Zhou taught the children how to read the classics and write essays. Their education began with the Trimetrical Classic, the first primer all students were expected to memorize without necessarily understanding its meaning. They then moved on to study “The Four Books” (Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, and Discourses of Mencius) and “The Five Classics” (Book of Poetry, Book of History, Book of Changes, Book of Rites, and Spring and Autumn Annals), which were canonical works of Confucian thought. Students were required to read and recite these books without a single mistake before the teacher took over to explain the text, passage by passage. After that, they would study annotations by earlier reputed Confucian scholars. In addition, calligraphy was a required daily practice. Zhou, whose students gave him the nickname of “Old Beard,” was serious and very strict. In fact, the family appreciated his strict rules as they literally subscribed to the maxim, “spare the rod and spoil the child.” It was the custom that, on the first day a child went to school, his parents would prepare a rod wrapped in red paper for the teacher to use. Yee’s father followed this custom, but, fortunately, the rod was not often used since Zhou had his own unique method of punishment. When a student proved mischievous or lazy, he would be ordered to kneel in the courtyard, balancing an ink stone full of water on his head, for at least half an hour. In the center of the Chiang family’s ancestral shrine was a red tablet painted with five golden characters: “Heaven,” “Earth,” “Emperor,” “Parents,” and “Teacher.” Zhou was thus treated with great respect and entrusted with the education of the children. Indeed, Zhou lived with the Chiang family. He gave lessons every day except for the month of the Spring Festival when he went to his native district to visit his own family.12 Major holidays in China, such as the Spring Festival, the Lantern Festival, and the Moon Festival, were so joyous that they left unforgettable memories in Yee’s mind. The Spring Festival, for example, celebrated Chinese New Year and always started a few weeks early with preparation of preserved vegetables and meats. The house would be thoroughly dusted and cleaned, and Ji, a poet and calligrapher, composed spring couplets and wrote them with a Chinese brush on red paper to be pasted on the doors of all the rooms. Yee’s father would replace the paintings in the halls with others depicting spring flowers to presage prosperity and happiness in the new year. Ancestor worship has always been a central part of the New Year celebration in China. On New Year’s Eve, a square table would be set—with ceremonial dishes,

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wine, rice, and incense—in front of the family shrine in the third hall. All male family members—and those of the women who wanted to participate—would be called on to kneel down, pay respect to the ancestors, and pray for protection. During the ritual, which lasted about half an hour, one of them would beat a bronze bell on the table. This honorable task was bestowed on Yee, a “patient boy,” when he was six years old. Following the ceremony was a sumptuous feast, the most joyful moment of the year when everyone was happy, joking together, and the strict hierarchical order was temporarily suspended. After dinner, everyone except the young children would gather in the central hall and listen to the family elder present the family history as recorded in the multivolume clan book.13 According to the family tradition, children were not allowed to set foot outside the house before age ten. The social upheaval and economic instability of the nation was shielded from those within the compound walls, and Yee thus enjoyed a nearly ideal childhood with his cousins and extended family. He studied the classics and learned to behave according to traditional Confucian standards. One of the family servants, Li Ma-ma, had been with the family for over forty years. At a young age, she had lost her husband and been invited to live with the Chiang family. She was a most diligent and faithful servant, noted for her loyalty as a virtuous widow. She never spoke to men, not even to the male members of the Chiang family. One day, when she went to a store to buy paints for Yee’s father, the shopkeeper inadvertently touched her hand as he delivered the items. Utterly distressed, she dropped the items and ran home in tears. She was seen as an exemplification of “wifely virtue” and became the “most often-quoted person” in the family. No one in the family ever viewed the incident as ridiculous. No one in the family ever questioned whether her widowhood was truly a form of love. No one in the family ever pointed out the hypocrisy and inequality of society’s double standards since a man could remarry while a woman had no choice but to remain a widow for the rest of her life. Li Ma-ma died in 1910 at the age of seventy-eight, on the eve of the social and cultural revolution which dethroned the emperor, swept away the Manchu government, and brought an end to the Chinese monarchy that had lasted for more than two thousand years. Indeed, the preceding century was a chapter full of wars and upheaval in the history of China. The British, with advanced military technology and tactics, defeated China in the Opium War and forced the Manchu government to sign the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), marking the beginning of a long series of unequal treaties that would last through the twentieth century. The Manchu government had to pay war indemnities and open five Chinese ports—Canton (Guangzhou), Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai—to the British for residence and trade. Hong Kong was “to be possessed in perpetuity” by the British and ruled as they “shall see fit.”14 The supplementary treaty, signed the following year, offered the “authorization of extraterritoriality to permit the British consuls to try their own subjects” and included the “most favored nation” clause, by which “in the future any concession that the Chinese government granted to a third power would be simultaneously and automatically extended to Britain as well.”15 The Treaty

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of Tianjin (1858) and the Treaty of Beijing (1860) furthered China’s cession of territories, paying indemnities and offering business privileges to Britain, France, the United States, Russia, and Germany, among others, in China. With the Treaty of Tianjin, ten new ports were opened, four of which were on the Yangtze River: Jiujiang, Hankou, Nanjing, and Zhenjiang. The Sino-Japanese War in 1894 brought disgrace to the nation, which was shocked to realize that its neighboring country Japan, after the Meiji Restoration, had grown to be a superior power on both land and sea. With the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), China was forced to cede the Liaodong peninsula, Taiwan, and the Pescadores Islands to Japan, pay an indemnity of two hundred million ounces of silver, and authorize Japan to operate factories in China. With the establishment of “spheres of influence” by Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan, China lost its sovereign autonomy and became what Dr. Sun Yat-sen called “a subcolony,” a status even lower than a colony since it had to recognize and serve a group of foreign masters.16 In June 1898, supported by the Confucian scholar Kang Youwei, Emperor Guangxu, who sensed its urgent need, started broad-scale reform in the areas of education, economy, military, and finance. However, the reforms, which lasted one hundred days, was crushed in its infancy by the Empress Dowager Cixi. Also in 1898, the Yihetuan (“Boxers”) began to emerge as an anti-Christian, anti-foreign, nationalistic force in northwest Shandong Province. They attacked Chinese Christian converts and Christian missionaries. On June 17, 1900, Westerners seized the forts at Dagu in Tianjin; in response to that aggressive act, the Boxers killed the German minister and laid siege to the foreign legation areas in Beijing. In August, a foreign expeditionary column of about twenty thousand troops from Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary jointly crushed the rebellion. The Boxer Protocol, a formal peace treaty, was signed in September 1901.17 Intense oppositions on racial, nationalistic, and practical grounds also manifested in the written word. Zou Rong, an eighteen-year-old student, published The Revolutionary Army (1903), which called for nationalism by rejecting the Manchu yoke and regaining control of China’s own destiny. Yan Fu, who studied naval technology and Western legal systems in England, introduced modern ideas to China through his translations, such as Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Zhou Shuren, under the pseudonym Lu Xun, began to express support for new revolutionary cultural causes through his writings.18 Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who had attempted reform in his early years, turned against the Manchu government after China was defeated by Japan in 1895. Proficient in English, he organized and headed the Revolutionary League in 1905, sought support from overseas, and made as many as ten attempts to overthrow the government. The last failed attempt was an armed uprising in Guangzhou during April 1911, which resulted in the execution of seventy-two members.

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Six months later, on October 9, some of Sun’s Revolutionary League members accidentally exploded a bomb in a basement while preparing explosives in Wuchang. The incident led to a police investigation and the arrest of the revolutionaries the next day. Due to this unexpected development, the Revolutionary League decided to start an uprising immediately. They seized control of an army camp in Wuchang and successfully took over the province. In less than two months, much of the nation joined the uprising and declared independence from the central government of the Qing Dynasty. On January 1, 1912, Sun Yatsen became provisional president of the Republic of China. On February 12, a Manchu decree of abdication was proclaimed, and Yuan Shi-kai was inaugurated as president in March. During the decade prior to the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, the economy in Jiangxi Province, like that in other parts of the country, was on the brink of collapse. Jiangxi was plagued with floods for several consecutive years, and looting was commonplace throughout the whole province. In 1910 alone, such incidents took place in a dozen counties and towns, where thousands of peasants gathered and looted rice from the government granaries and wealthy families. Multifarious taxes and exorbitant levies imposed on peasants and merchants also resulted in violent protests and uprisings in many towns at the turn of the century.19 Before 1911, an armed uprising in Jiangxi that was organized by secret societies formed a most disturbing threat to the Manchu government. Many of these rebellions were aimed at overthrowing the government. In December 1906, instigated by the Chinese Revolutionary League, the Ping-Liu-Li Uprising erupted. Several thousand peasants, workers, and artisans, holding “Great Han” and “Anti-Manchu and Pro-Han” banners, gathered in Pingxiang, a village on the western border of Jiangxi and about one hundred and fifty miles southwest of Jiujiang. Their goal was to establish a republican government. As they marched northward, they were soon joined by many coal miners. Unfortunately, outnumbered by the enemy troops and lacking military experience, this greatest uprising since the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864) ended in bloodshed and failure. Nevertheless, it directly influenced the subsequent Xinhai Revolution.20 Yee’s hometown of Jiujiang, situated on the south bank of the Yangtze River and at the foot of Lu Mountain, had become a treaty port after 1858. In 1861, after the British and the Manchu government signed the “Jiujiang Land Lease,” three hundred households were forced to evacuate the leased territory, a stretch of twenty-five acres alongside the Yangtze River. According to the Treaty of Tianjin, foreigners in the concession were not subject to the ruling of Chinese authority, and their legal cases, if Chinese nationalities were involved, would be subject to the judiciary of both Chinese and foreign representatives. The British established their consulate in Jiujiang, and this was soon followed by banks, docks, warehouses, and other businesses.21 After the Wuchang Uprising broke out in Hubei Province on October 10, 1911, Jiujiang, merely one hundred miles away, was one of the first cities to respond with

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support. The New Army stationed in Jiujiang, guided by the Chinese Revolutionary League, attacked the office of the prefecture and had the city under its control by October 23. The next day, the Jiujiang military government was established, and a week later, Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi, was conquered. Joining Hunan and Shanxi provinces, Jiangxi proclaimed independence on November 3, 1911.22 As the situation in Jiujiang and neighboring cities grew increasingly unstable, the elders of the Chiang family decided to evacuate. Yee’s grandparents, third great-uncle, aunts, and all the children in the family were temporarily to stay in the countryside where the family owned some land. Yee stayed in a big farmhouse with some of his family members, and the rest moved into another house. Naturally, the eight-year-old Yee could not fully comprehend the meaning and power of “revolution,” but he knew that it had interrupted the rigid family tradition. The new life in the big farmhouse close to the foot of Lu Mountain, which he had only seen from a distance, freed him from the confining walls of the family compound and allowed him to savor his “first taste of life in the country.”23 Lu Mountain, located to the south of Jiujiang City, had been considered the most wondrous mountain in the world. It was said that Kuang Su, a hermit, had built a hut and lived there in the eleventh century b.c. He later became an immortal being and disappeared, leaving no trace behind except for the hut, which thus acquired the name Xian Lu—that is, “Immortal Hut.” From this legend came the name Lu Mountain. With its graceful, imposing, and precipitous contours, the mountain had been admired by countless poets, artists, and writers. The earliest recorded travel experience related to the mountain is from the Historical Records by Sima Qian (c. 145–85 b.c.) during the Han Dynasty. Tao Yuanmin, a landscape poet, was born in a village at the foot of Lu Mountain, and his essay “Notes on the Land of Peach Blossoms” is considered the first piece of Utopian literature in the Chinese language. It is generally believed that the description of the Land of Peach Blossoms was based on the rural scene of Kangwang Valley, on the southeast side of the mountain, not far from Tao’s residence.24 The natural beauty of the mountain had an undeniable influence on Tao’s imagination and vision of the ideal world. Over the next two thousand years, poets (Li Bai, Bai Juyi, and Su Dongpo), philosophers (Zhu Xi and Zhou Dunyi), and writers (Li Shizheng and Xu Xiake) visited the mountain and left behind invaluable literary and scientific records. While Jiujiang itself is known for its myriad historic and scenic sites, most of them are related to Lu Mountain. The mountain is also known for its religious associations, and its breathtaking scenes and temples make it an ideal place to entertain famous high monks from China and abroad. Yee cherished many happy memories of this one-year stay in the country near Lu Mountain. More importantly, he became, in his words, “a friend of Nature ever since.”25 The 1911 Xinhai Revolution brought a happy ending to the despised hairdressing routine for Yee. As soon as Sun Yat-sen successfully overthrew the Qing Dynasty, one of the first revolutionary acts was to cut the queue, or mandatory pigtail. Yee’s grandmother invited a barber over to the farmhouse to perform the

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task for the males in the family. They celebrated the occasion with fireworks and a big dinner. After his queue had been cut off, Yee looked into the mirror and saw a somewhat strange face, but he was happy: there was no longer the need to undergo the torture of hairdressing every morning. During the year in the country, the old routine was irrevocably interrupted despite his grandparents’ wish to preserve the family traditions. Yee, however, enthusiastically welcomed the changes. He found it a delight not to worry about clean dress or etiquette. He and his cousins were free to take off their shoes and wade in the stream, ride on the buffalo, and play with cowherds in the pasture. The beautiful natural environment—open air, chirping birds, and fresh grass—seemed infinitely charming and liberating. Several months before moving to the country, the family had been planning Ji’s wedding. As the oldest in the family and among his cousins, Ji was supposed to be the first to marry. The family had arranged for him to marry Cai Fen, whose father, Cai Hsiang-lin’s brother, was a court official. Cai Fen was a local beauty. She was well read and skillful in both embroidery and needlework. To the Chiang family, it was disappointing that the wedding could not take place at home in Jiujiang, as was originally planned. Nevertheless, it proved to be serendipitous because the wedding, taking place in the country and in a much simpler style, turned out to be extraordinarily cheerful and animated with all their rural friends participating. Grandfather always taught the family to “be kind” to their tenant farmers, for their own ancestors had also been farmers. To have the local farmers joining them at Ji’s wedding was an appropriate reminder of their own family origin.26 The wedding banquet was prepared in “the country fashion,” and “a temporary ancestral shrine was erected in the farm-house.”27 The wedding ceremony, though in the farmhouse, was performed in accordance with formal tradition: the bride arrived in a flowery sedan-chair, the bride and groom bowed to their ancestors and then to each other, a celebration followed in the bridal chamber, and it concluded with a sumptuous dinner banquet. Because of the change in living environment, Cai Fen, along with Yee’s sister Tsui-chen, quickly assumed the responsibility for some of the household chores previously performed by servants. Every morning after breakfast, they would carry baskets of laundry and take Yee and his cousins to a nearby stream. While the women did the laundry, the children played in the bamboo grove or in the stream. With Ji’s wedding, Cai Fen, a sister-in-law, was added to the Chiang family. Yee was to realize soon that the marriage of his sister Tsui-chen would mark a significant loss in his life. According to traditional customs in China, the bride generally moved out to live with the groom’s family. Tsui-chen, though only seven years older than Yee, had virtually played a maternal role in his life. Though her husband’s family lived in the same neighborhood, Yee would miss her terribly. Yee’s grandparents and father were pleased with the marriage. Tsui-chen’s husband had been raised in a modern family because his father, who worked in the Chinese customs house, had business contact with foreigners and spoke

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some English. He had attended the Missionary Boys’ High School, and when his father approached the Chiang family to make the marriage arrangements, he rode a bicycle—an eye-catching novelty in early twentieth-century China. After their engagement, Tsui-chen went to the American Missionary Girls’ High School, which was located beside her fiancé’s school. Horrified by the openness of Western culture and the strangeness of Christianity, the majority of the city’s elders tended to despise these missionary schools. Ho-an, however, was open-minded. He not only supported his daughter but also overcame Grandfather’s initial objections. Just a few days after Tsui-chen started school, Yee noticed major changes in her: she had shed her shyness and become articulate. Her school sounded remarkably different from the family school. In addition, she had become the first member of the family to learn the English alphabet. Regrettably, she quit school a year later when she got married.28 The Chinese education system underwent drastic reform across the country near the turn of the twentieth century. The gradual but inevitable deterioration of the conventional system witnessed the advent and flowering of modern-style schools. In 1904, the founding of the Jiangxi High Academy marked the beginning of modern education in the province, followed soon thereafter by the Teacher’s Academy, Women’s Academy, Law Academy, and a series of other public and private schools. In the meantime, as encouraged by the Qing government, Jiangxi and other provinces sent students overseas. Four students from the Military Academy, including Li Liejun, were the first group chosen to study in Japan. Between 1904 and 1908, 271 students from Jiangxi were sent to Japan, a dramatic increase compared with the dozen students sent between 1902 and 1903.29 Ho-an once took the ten-year-old Yee to visit the “Examination House” near the city wall. Yee was struck by the cramped size of the cells and the humiliating status the candidates had to endure in their climb to glory and honor. Father explained that only by experiencing the gravest hardships could one rise above the rest. Yee felt a profound sense of relief to know that the Imperial Examination had been abolished and those cells abandoned! “I am glad that I was born too late to sit for that type of examination!”30 One hot summer day, Father suggested going boating on Gantang Lake. The picturesque Gantang Lake, outside the south gate of the city, was one of the renowned scenic spots in Jiujiang. It had a bank running diagonally, dividing it into the Outer Lake and the Inner Lake. In addition to extraordinarily charming scenes, the lake boasted a rich cluster of legends associated with famous historical figures, such as the Tang poet Bai Juyi and Zhou Yu of the Three Kingdoms. Father loved boating on the lake at night. Sitting in the boat under the willows and gazing at the moon in the sky was his favorite recreation. They sat around a square table on the boat while a boatman rowed them around the Inner Lake. There were girls and women all around, busy collecting water caltrop in the sunset. Father urged Yee to observe the beautiful scene as he had recently started learning to paint. Later, when the moon rose high in the sky, Tsui-chen played on the Chinese flute and Ji sang a song in accompaniment. Yee

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had long cherished the hope of being a good poet like his brother. As everyone was to sing a song or narrate a story, Yee tried, for the first time in his life, to improvise a poem on the scene: I drift in the middle of the lake; The moonlight is above. There is also a moon in the bottom of the water. Surrounded on all sides by flowers I have no sorrow.31

Ji laughed and said that it was a poor poem with neither rhyme nor meter. Other people in the group started teasing Yee. Since flowers symbolize girls in Chinese poetry, the last line of his poem, they presumed, indicated that he was a “ladies’ man” and must have had a girl in mind. Yee was too young to comprehend much of the joke. As his debut quickly turned into a fiasco, tears of disappointment and mortification streamed down his cheeks.32 As a child, Yee had harbored an interest in painting. Ho-an’s friends often dropped by, and they would paint together for a little while. Ho-an, however, never taught Yee; he never even commented on Yee’s paintings, though his efforts were always encouraged. In the halls of the family compound, there were many paintings decorating the walls, and Ho-an changed these paintings once a month according to the season. Yee was very proud that Father always chose him to be his assistant. Finally, when he reached the age of twelve, he began to study painting seriously with Father. He learned how to make mineral pigments and charcoal pencils—essential materials for Chinese painting. He also learned the history of Chinese painting and some anecdotes about famous painters. Ho-an never gave formal lectures on painting; he only pointed out those places that needed improvement and asked Yee to observe more closely. This was how Ho-an had learned to paint from Xu Sheng-hua, an excellent painter specializing in portraiture. He himself had been taught to observe quietly, and his teacher would spank him with a rod if he asked questions. Ho-an, though, never resorted to physical punishment of Yee. He was extremely patient when teaching his own son, and he frequently quoted Confucius: “A gentleman never makes a mistake twice” and “No one should be afraid of correcting his fault once he recognized it.”33 One day, Yee’s aunt asked him to paint a cat for her. She grew silkworms at home, and, unfortunately, the rats often came to feast on silkworms. She had a fanciful idea that a painting of the cat might help guard the house and scare off the pests. Yee had never learned to paint cats, but he gave it a try anyway. His aunt picked up the painting, held it in her hand, and roared with laughter. “That’s not a cat! It looks more like a tiger. I’ve never seen such a thing before!” Interestingly, some time later she came back to tell Yee’s grandmother that the “cat” worked! After she pasted the painting on the wall, the rats stopped bothering her silkworms. Yee was delighted at his triumph. “It amuses me to think,” he later remembered, “that Chinese rats could appreciate my type of painting, though it was unrealistic enough!”34

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In August 1914, World War I broke out in Europe. Yuan Shi-kai, who had ousted his opponents in the Parliament after defeating the Nationalists during the Second Revolution of 1913, was actively taking steps to build his own dictatorship and restore the monarchy in China. To forestall foreign opposition, he accepted the infamous Twenty-one Demands from Japan in May 1915, granting that country extensive economic, territorial, and commercial privileges in Manchuria and other parts of China. Immediately afterward, widespread protests broke out, resulting in anti-Japanese rallies and a boycott of Japanese merchandise across the nation. Yee had heard many stories and legends about national heroes and the historical past from his grandfather. Grandfather had experienced the tumultuous Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864) in his youth, and he often criticized the corrupt Manchu government. To him, it was an eternal regret that China lost its sovereignty over its own territory after the Opium War and allowed Britain to turn Jiujiang into a treaty port with a British concession. In the summer of 1914, when Yee had just turned eleven, he accompanied Grandfather on his daily walk along Main Street to the British and Japanese concessions on the bank of the Yangtze River. Grandfather, seventy-five years old, felt exhausted. He seated himself on a public bench for a short rest but was instantly ordered to get up by a foreign police officer, who brandished a baton. Not far away, on another bench, sat an elderly foreign lady with a huge dog beside her, and no one bothered her. Yee was indignant. He never forgot the incident, and he never forgot how Grandfather heaved deep sighs when shuffling back home.35 In 1916, Yee entered the Jiujiang Third Middle School of Jiangxi, located near the south gate of the city. The site was originally Lianxi Academy, in memory of philosopher Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073). The school had added four classrooms in the rear as well as an indoor gym and spacious playground. Modern education broadened Yee’s perspective and knowledge. The school offered not only Chinese language and history but also fascinating science courses, such as mathematics, calculus, geometry, physics, and chemistry. Its curriculum included a painting and sculpture course and required two periods of physical education every week. The pedagogy there was appreciably different from the family school. Teachers, using equipment, charts, illustrations, and animal specimens, aimed to stimulate the interest of students and encourage them to raise questions. This public middle school urged students to be active in their pursuit of knowledge. This was in contrast to the family school, where students simply recited the text and never articulated their opinions. Education at the middle school initiated instant changes in Yee. “I talked to the members of the house differently,” he noted.36 He reached out beyond the family circle and made many new friends. They often met, discussing various subjects or strolling along the shores of beautiful Gantang Lake. Excelling in all subjects at school, Yee was well respected among his schoolmates, and his talent in art was especially impressive. Tan Danjiong, a reputed painter and director of the National Palace Museum, recalled in the 1990s that his elder brother once brought home two watercolor paintings that Yee had done at

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school. One of them was a corner scene of the city: soft willow branches swayed gracefully against the background of the ancient city wall over their reflection in the river. Years later, Tan was still impressed with the bluish-purple motif and simple but poetic composition of this painting.37 Yee always participated in the school’s spring excursions. Once, the class traveled about twenty miles upriver to visit the site of the famous Battle of the Red Cliff in a.d. 208. The trip was amazingly enlightening for Yee, who had just studied the masterpiece “On the Red Cliff ” by Su Dongpo, a Song Dynasty poet and essayist. He would also never forget the trip to the Stone-Bell Mountain in Hukou, where Poyang Lake joins the Yangtze River. The mountain, about thirty miles to the east of Jiujiang, has the shape of two bells. Its fame grew after Su Dongpo wrote his essay “A Trip to the Stone-Bell Mountain.” Yee and his classmates read this essay and memorized it by heart before the trip. They traveled in a junk down the river and stayed overnight in an inn away from home. In the mountains, they saw many huge rocks with big holes in the middle, which miraculously produced a sound similar to that of a bronze bell. The teachers had arranged for the class to go by boat along the foot of the mountain, following the same route that Su described in the essay. The students each wrote an essay about the trip afterward, and Yee’s received a high grade. Ever since childhood, Yee loved reading and thus earned the nickname “Bookworm.” Books were scattered everywhere in his room. Reading classical novels and heroic stories, such as Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Outlaws of the Marsh, gave him immense joy. At fourteen, his interest gradually shifted toward love stories, when he began to experience those ineffable feelings associated with adolescent sexual awakening. As he recalled later, three “tender hearts” had “stirred” his own in childhood. The first girl was Xiao Hong (“Little Red”), the daughter of an artist friend of the family. Yee had met her when he was only eight years old. A year or so later, Xiao Hong’s family moved away; she became ill and died only a couple of years afterward. The second “tender heart” was a mute girl. She was a nun at the Kangwang Temple in the south of Jiujiang. Yee’s grandmother, a devout Buddhist, visited the temple once a month, and Yee often accompanied her. During his first visit at age ten, Yee met the girl. She was about four years his senior, dressed in robes and with a shaved head. She was apparently happy with his visit and always had a smile on her face when they played together. Yee found her “extremely clever at reading people’s thoughts and hearts,” and he wondered why such a beautiful girl should be cut off from so many pleasant things in life. Their nonverbal communication created such a strong emotional bond that leaving at the end of the day was always difficult for Yee.38 The third girl, a distant relative of his, was extraordinarily beautiful in Yee’s eyes. She frequently came with her parents to visit his family. She loved to watch him draw, and on these occasions he always strove to do his best. They did not speak much to each other, and one day, unexpectedly, the girl presented him with

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a small embroidered silk bag she had secretly made. Such a gift was an expression of love in Chinese tradition. Yee received it with a “trembling thrill,” murmuring, “I will keep it carefully.”39 Through these three experiences, Yee had his first tastes of the mystery of love, which simultaneously exposed him to death, fate, and social convention. His “over-tender heart” had “endured unnecessary pain in childhood,” but he also learnt to cherish the memory of the “counterbalancing sweetness.”40 In late spring of 1917, not long after Yee turned fourteen, Ho-an announced that he would take Yee up Lu Mountain to stay for a few days and watch the sunrise. Yee put on a pair of old shoes and set out with his father. They took a car ride to the foot of the mountain, where they visited the Donglin Temple and the Lotus-Flower Cave. Around 6:30 in the evening, they began to climb the mountain. Their destination was about two thousand feet above them; this arduous track for passengers was approximately six miles, which usually took about four hours. Yee was excited, but his father instructed him to go slowly and steadily. Along the way, his father entertained him with stories, which made the steep rugged ascent less tiresome and difficult. They arrived at the top near midnight. Yee then leaned against his father for a short sleep. It was not long before he was awakened by the excited exclamation of his father, “The sun is going to rise!” There, in the east, a fine thread of soft light began to grow and expand and turned slowly into bright white and blazing red until finally an enormous red ball popped up in the far distance. What a breathtaking spectacle! It seemed as though Yee and his father were the only human beings in the universe, deeply immersed in peace and tranquility, welcoming, as well as being welcomed by, mountains, trees, clouds, Boyang Lake, and the sun. The universe appeared incredibly majestic in its measured proceeding; rather, it had completely ceased its movement for the time being. This awesome moment remained, as Yee stated many years later, “the most memorable one” of his life.41 Yee stayed with his father on the mountain for four days, visiting other scenic spots including the Yellow Dragon, White Dragon, and Black Dragon Falls, the Immortals’ Cave, and the Bridge of Heaven. He returned to the mountain several times in subsequent years, but he never had the chance to revisit it with his father. The death of his elderly grandfather at eighty-two that year was soon followed the next year by the untimely death of his father, age fifty-two, who committed suicide, a crushing blow and an irreparable loss to the adolescent Yee. His statement in the late 1930s was reflective of this deep psychological wound: “To me personally, the link between parents and children is unbreakable, also that between brothers and sisters. There is always something more than friendship in these links.” 42 With the loss of his father, Yee became an orphan, forlorn and vulnerable. He tended to be even quieter and lonelier. During his lifetime, he made many friends, but friendship alone could never replace the security and warmth of his parents. He had great respect for his father, whose suave manners, artistic talent, and elegant taste had left unmistakable traces in him.43

chapter 2



Revolutionary Era

Yuan Shi-kai, a shrewd and ambitious politician, proclaimed himself emperor and founder of the Hongxian Dynasty in 1916. His imperial dreams, however, lasted merely eighty-three days. His death in June marked the end of the attempt to revive the Chinese monarchy. With the familiar and established center of gravity gone, the nation drifted into a decade of confusion and anarchy. China was at a crossroads—reassessing, redefining, and relocating itself in the modern world. A cultural revolution stormed across the nation: civil examinations had been abolished and replaced by a new education system; the monarchy had given way to presidency and parliament; the Confucian family system, patriarchal authority, and traditional values were criticized and challenged by new ideas disseminated by intellectuals and the media. Some scholars during the 1910s deliberately chose to eschew politics, to revaluate Confucianism, and to search for a new value system. Youth, a journal edited by Chen Duxiu, called on the next generation to “exert intellect, discard resolutely the old and the rotten, regard them as enemies,” and to be independent, progressive, aggressive, cosmopolitan, and scientific.1 One of the most daring challenges was the attack on the Chinese writing system. Chinese classical writing (wenyan), with esoteric terms and erudite allusions, had been limited to a small class of elites; to replace it, scholars in the New Culture movement advocated the use of baihua, or everyday speech in written form, in literature, scholarship, and other areas of communication. Hu Shih, a student of John Dewey and pragmatism, promoted the application of scientific method to Chinese literary criticism and historical scholarship. The new theoretical conception and approach introduced vigor and fresh insights; it also engendered a new appraisal of Chinese legends, history, and classics.2 In that regard, Yee’s musing on the vicissitudes in his family life may serve as an excellent footnote to the volatile conditions of the nation at the time: Being human beings, my elders sometimes quarreled, like every one else. I do not remember any particular incident, but I know there was gossiping and

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chiang yee discontent from time to time. As long as both my grandparents retained their vigour everything went smoothly. Whatever money was earned by any individual member of the family was given to the head, and an allowance made to all for the month. Those members with children received more. This worked out very well, for the financial condition of my family was good, and, all necessaries being provided, no one had much use for money. Traditional thought still exercised great influence, and filial regard and industry in the interests of the whole house were esteemed. If any quarrel spread beyond our walls it was considered a blot upon the entire household. Every one tried to curb his irritation and any tendency to quarrel. In any event, our law did not provide for quarrels and we had in those days no lawyers to help one side and thus make a solution more difficult to find. Later a great change came—in my house as in the whole country. Students, returning from studying in foreign lands, where their peculiar habits and customs had been the subjects of jokes, shouted that we should adopt other ways of living. China fell into confusion. The financial position of my family declined; my grandparents were no longer there to control matters; and, the personal needs of some members being larger than before, frequent quarrels ensued. We still kept together, but the old happiness was gone.3

On November 11, 1918, World War I ended. China, having sided with the Allies, celebrated the Armistice Treaty across the nation. Ji, who was head of the educational authority in Jiujiang, planned a lantern procession with other local branches. The city was draped in colorful decorations, and twenty thousand people participated in the celebration. Among them marched the students from Yee’s school. Yee was very proud that all the students had learned to sing “The Song of Peace,” a song that his brother had composed for the occasion. Until then, Yee had shown little concern about the outside world. He could not read newspapers and did not know much about the tragic woes the war had inflicted in Europe. However, the very end of the war marked the beginning of a new consciousness in him, as well as in the nation as a whole. In China, sentiments of nationalism and democracy prevailed. Woodrow Wilson’s political principles, such as national self-determination and the abolition of secret diplomacy, had great appeal to many Chinese intellectuals. New political changes in Europe, the rise of women’s suffrage, and labor rights were welcomed as signs of hope and a call for sociopolitical changes. These changes ultimately led to the May Fourth Movement, an unprecedented anti-imperialistic and nationalistic student movement. On May 4, 1919, some three thousand college students in Beijing, carrying placards and flags, held a mass demonstration at Tiananmen Square in the center of the capital. From there, they proceeded to the foreign-legation quarters, protesting the decision made at the postwar Versailles Conference, legitimizing Japan’s occupation and rule of the previously Germanoccupied Shandong peninsula, without prior consent by the Chinese delegation. The protest turned violent. The students broke into the house of Cao Rulin, a proJapanese cabinet member; they attacked Zhang Zongxiang, the Chinese minister

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to Japan, and set Cao’s house on fire. Police were sent to suppress the violence, and, soon afterward, the student movement won national sympathy. Merchants, businessmen, workers, storeowners, industrialists, and students across the country gave the movement strong support. This eventually developed into a nationwide boycott of Japanese goods and some clashes with Japanese nationals.4 Social and governmental organizations in Jiujiang sent telegrams to the Beijing government on May 8, demonstrating their support for the student movement by calling for the release of imprisoned student protesters and encouraging the government not to sign the Treaty of Versailles. “[G]rieved and angered by the unreasonable Japanese demands and the injustice of the great powers at Versailles,” Yee joined the local students who participated in the demonstration for several days.5 Carrying a flag bearing the slogan “Down with Imperialism,” he and other students protested in the foreign concession. The red-bearded British police chief, who previously commanded an air of superiority, was tied up by the angry mob.6 The efforts of the students and overwhelming pressure from the general populace led to a major political victory: on July 2, the Chinese delegation at Versailles refused to sign the treaty. Ji, who joined Sun Yat-sen’s movement in 1916, had transferred to work in Guangzhou as secretary to General Li Liejun, formerly military governor of Jiangxi in the 1910s and now commander of the Jiangxi Army. Ji urged Yee to go to college. The Chiang family, following the death of Ho-an, was headed by Tseng-huai, Yee’s fourth uncle. His wife, a stingy and domineering personality, had the nickname of “Shrew.”7 Since she controlled the family finances, she set obstacles to prevent Yee from attending college. However, Ji and Cai Fen managed to gather enough money for Yee to take the matriculation examination in Shanghai. He applied to Jiaotong University and the National Southeastern University in Nanjing, and was accepted by the latter. Yee studied introductory courses at the prep school for a year and received top grades in chemistry. A popular notion at the time was that China, in order to rid itself of its social ills and rise as one of the most powerful nations in the world, should be equipped with advanced science and technology. In other words, only science could save China. Yee was determined to major in chemistry, even though Ji encouraged him to take up the study of literature. “I was rather revolutionary then,”8 Yee later reflected. His college years marked a transitional period in his life: he had the chance to leave home and travel to major cities, where he was exposed to exciting sociocultural changes; he acquired knowledge of science, which broadened the horizon of his mind; and he had more access to modern ideas, which led to his social consciousness and deep concerns about the future of the nation. Yee lived in the new dormitory building of the university. Tseng Shih-yu, also majoring in chemistry, was his roommate. According to Tseng, the National Southeastern University was known for its rigorous academic program. Students were required to take “calculus, physics, chemistry, analytical and organic,” all of which were “heavy courses.” The physical chemistry course they took during

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their second year was the most difficult. They attended lectures in the morning, spent afternoons in the laboratory, and wrote reports or prepared for class in the evening.9 Yee treasured this educational opportunity and worked hard—harder than many of his fellow classmates. He often studied until midnight by candlelight after the 11 p.m. curfew. His diligence paid off, and he always received top grades on his exams. Chemistry, art, and literature—which may appear unrelated to each other— could have some interesting interconnections. Tseng observed that it was his scientific training that had actually prepared Yee to explore art and literature years later. “He was trained to see Nature in its true light when conflicting views had been expressed about it. He was trained to understand Nature with its various and varying manifestations when all relevant facts had been taken into account. This sort of training has remained in him. It is this training that has enabled him to write on any subject, big or small, with details that can never fail to interest the reader.”10 Nanjing, a sprawling, ancient city on the Yangtze River, served as the nation’s capital during several dynasties. It boasted many historical and scenic sites, such as a Ming emperor’s tomb and the Qixia Mountains. During his college years, Yee had the pleasure of visiting these sites with his schoolmates, and he frequented the local tea house for the shuoshu, a form of storytelling performed with the pipa, a traditional Chinese string instrument.11 In the spring of 1924, Qi Xieyuan, the warlord governor of Jiangsu Province, waged war against General Lu Yongxiang, the warlord governor of neighboring Zhejiang Province. They fought a vicious battle without regard for the interests of civilians or the central government in Beijing. To ensure the safety of students and faculty, National Southeastern University was forced to close temporarily, and all students suspended their classes for a term. It was during this time that Yee went to Guangzhou to stay with Ji. As the country gradually disintegrated into warlordism, Sun Yet-sen set out in 1923 to reorganize the Nationalist Party, also known as the Guomindang (Kuomintang), and he advocated coalition with the Chinese Communist Party. He set up a government in Guangzhou in opposition to the warlord central government in Beijing. In January 1924, the First Plenary Session of Nationalist Representatives was held in Guangzhou, at which Sun was named party leader and his Three Principles of the People—nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood—were declared the official ideology. Recognizing the vital importance of a strong military, he established in May the Whampoa Military Academy, the purpose of which was “to lay the foundation of a new army imbued with revolutionary ideology.” Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the first commandant of the Military Academy.12 While Yee was in Guangzhou, he witnessed the excitement and high expectations of the general public in response to the new military academy. Numerous young people enrolled, and many of Ji’s friends suggested that Yee should join the

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academy rather than go back to college in Nanjing. However, Yee believed that he should finish his college education first, which was a view his brother shared. In late May, an express telegram arrived, announcing that Grandmother was critically ill. As matriarch of the family, Grandmother had ruled the forty family members for nearly half a century. She had taken good care of Yee ever since his mother passed away. Upon receiving this news, Yee hurried back to Jiujiang, only to be greeted by a cheerful and healthy Grandmother. He was totally confused, but he soon learned what had happened: Zeng Yun’s mother, who was his aunt, was deeply concerned about her daughter’s marriage. Zeng was born in a green placenta, a sign of future prosperity and wealth. This would certainly become true if she were to marry her cousin Yee, whose college education would almost guarantee a bright career. On the other hand, Zeng’s mother was worried that, with a college education, Yee might change his heart, break the engagement, and leave home for good. This fear was not ungrounded as rumors had been circulating among relatives since he left for college in Nanjing. Zeng was already twenty-one years old—the right age for marriage. Her mother had put excessive pressure on Grandmother who finally agreed to contrive the plan.13 Angry and distressed, Yee found himself in a dilemma. He had not been allowed to play with Zeng as a child because of their prearranged marriage. Nevertheless, he knew her well. Zeng’s father, uncle, and grandfather had made fortunes in opium and other businesses, and they were well known in the region. Zeng, fair-skinned and beautiful, had been taught to be a virtuous woman by observing good manners, controlling her emotions, and being obedient. Her education and literary skills were limited; yet, as the traditional saying went, it was “a virtue for women not to have literary talent.” Tradition and modernity left their traces in the shape of her feet: like all girls her age, she began foot binding in childhood. As a long-held tradition, foot binding was challenged and criticized at the time, and some had already refused to follow the practice. Zeng’s mother, who had a pair of three-inch lotus feet, had given birth to nine children. Of these, only two survived: the oldest and the youngest. When Zeng, the youngest, went through the foot-binding process, the excruciating pain in her deformed feet was so severe that she cried and pleaded for mercy. Her mother relented and ultimately decided to discontinue the process. Therefore, Zeng grew up wobbling on a pair of considerably smaller-than-normal, though not lotus-shaped, feet. Yee, however, was not prepared to marry because he wanted to complete his education first. Yet he also did not intend to cancel this engagement, for he was concerned with unfortunate consequences that might affect Zeng. In addition, such a rebellious act would be deemed disloyal to the family. The introduction of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House to China on the eve of the May Fourth Movement gave rise to what Lu Xun called the “Nora phenomenon.” The new generation of young Chinese thus became aware of bourgeois hypocrisy and gender inequality. Chinese literature of the 1920s was filled with stories of how a young, open-minded “Nora” met an intelligent student, and

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the two fell in love with each other.14 Free marriages were proposed to replace arranged marriages; conventional family relationships and moral concepts came under criticism. Mao Zedong’s newspaper article “On the Suicide of Miss Zhao” in 1919 cited the tragic death of a Miss Zhao in Changsha, in protest against an arranged marriage, to criticize “the darkness of the social system, the negation of the individual will, and the absence of the freedom to choose one’s own mate.”15 Yee was aware of this debate and of all these growing changes. Indeed, colleges across the nation began to accept female students the year he started college. In fact, the National Southeastern University was the first institution to introduce coeducation in China, with eleven female students in his class. Yee had his own model of ideal love, which was largely drawn from classical romance and love stories, such as Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the legendary “butterfly lovers;” Mengjiang Nü and Fan Xiliang; and Tang Yin and the servant girl Qiu Xiang. These stories of ideal love applauded the victory of individual will in overcoming social conventions. Yee never forgot the “great pleasure” these stories gave him when he was “just at the right age to understand the meaning” of love.16 Love was such a wonderfully mysterious human experience for Yee. Years later, in retrospect, he tried to define the subject again: “I feel, as I look back, that in China the conception of ‘love’ has been wrapped up in too many embroidered silks for many people to penetrate its meaning. The silks have been embroidered by skillful hands and the designs are as beautiful as all Chinese culture; but one is afraid to spoil them by unfolding; or one wearies of the effort to do so, since there are so many layers. So the bottom of our hearts is never revealed.”17 In his relation with Zeng, however, Yee had never experienced any of the passion or exhilaration that he often associated with love. Zeng’s mother was unyielding. Grandmother, with tears in her eyes, pleaded and persuaded Yee to abide by the family arrangement. Yee was unable to elicit any help, even from Ji, who was shackled by the Confucian tradition that a filial and obedient person must honor the elder generations. Yee went to the cemetery. By his parents’ grave, he sobbed and grieved alone. Finally, he consented. Yee and Zeng were married on June 3, 1924. After the wedding, he returned to Guangzhou. A friend of his ran a summer school on Hainan Island, and Yee was invited for a visit. “I never missed a chance to travel wherever I could,” he admitted.18 He accepted the invitation at once and visited the island that summer. Hainan Island is the southernmost part of China, approximately twenty-five miles off the mainland. Most of the residents on the island were either the Li ethnic minority or Han immigrants from areas in and around Guangzhou and Fujian. The language, lifestyle, and customs of the Li people differed remarkably from those in other parts of the country. The island, known for its rich natural resources, had been coveted by France, Britain, Germany, and other foreign powers since the late nineteenth century. Yee stayed with his friend in the school, housed in a former German consulate. After a month’s visit, he wrote an essay

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entitled “Hainan Island” that was published in 1925 under the pseudonym Chiang Shoudian (i.e., “Chiang Skinny Madman”) in The Eastern Miscellany, a reputable major journal. This travel writing was his first major publication. He was thrilled with this remarkable achievement.19 Yee’s essay begins with a succinct overview of the island’s history and quickly moves on to introduce its natural and sociocultural aspects. Incidentally, another similar essay, titled “A Report on Hainan Island,” had been published in the same journal in December 1923 by Yi Lu.20 Yee was probably aware of this, and his essay bears some obvious traces of the other, though it was not formally acknowledged in the bibliography. Yee’s writing demonstrates the author’s interest in cultural issues, with a focus on the social activities of local residents, education, and regional history. The essay concludes with a strong nationalistic tone, calling for the development of the island and retention of sovereignty over the territory.21 Recently, foreigners engaged in business activities have frequented the region, and they have long attended to the rich resources and important geographical position of the island. It would be a shame to allow outsiders to take control rather than manage the region ourselves. Yet it is still not too late to remedy this. May our compatriots swiftly move to action.22

In June 1926, after completing the required courses, Yee graduated from college with a B.S., ranking fourth in his class. His lofty dream to “bring prosperity to China with scientific knowledge” was shattered by reality. The nation was plagued with warlords, corruption, and violence. With his family’s worsening financial situation, further education in China was out of the question. He attempted to win a scholarship to study dyemaking and ceramics in Germany where technical fields were most advanced, but he failed mainly because of his inadequate English language skills.23 At the time, middle schools were in need of science teachers. Before graduation, Yee had already obtained a teaching post in chemistry at the Eleventh Middle School in Haizhou, in the northern corner of Jiangsu Province, near the Bo and Yellow Seas. The region was a mountainous area—rocky, isolated, and destitute. The school was underfunded and barely equipped for teaching. Local residents did not even have enough food for survival. As rice was expensive, Yee occasionally had to eat wowo-tou—a type of bread made with wheat, corn, chaff, and grass roots. Many local peasants ate it daily, though some could not even afford it. The trip to Yuntai Mountain was a most memorable experience. Yee remembered that his father once had spoken of the classical essay “Painting and Recording of Yuntai Mountain” by the master painter Gu Kaizhi (a.d. c. 345–406). Reportedly, the idyllic Yuntai Mountain was simply an imaginary scene or a mirage. When Yee learned in Haizhou that the mountain did exist, situated only twenty miles to the east, he was anxious to see it. One day, he set out with his friend Yang Weiyi. Composed of metamorphic rock, the mountain was an enormous mass, full of crevices and with no trees growing on it. Originally an island, it grew and merged

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with the land in the late seventeenth century. Its rugged environment delighted them with many extraordinary and spectacular scenes. Unexpectedly, thick clouds suddenly rolled overhead, and it became so dark that even the footpath ahead was not visible. Fortunately, they were both riding an old, experienced horse, which carried them safely back to town. The old saying was indeed prescient: “An old horse knows the way.”24 After six months of teaching, Yee went back to Jiujiang for a vacation. No sooner had he reached home than a letter arrived: “Don’t you dare come back, or I will kill you!” Yee knew that the letter had been sent by a student of his in Haizhou who had scored near zero on the final exam and failed the course. Violence was common in Haizhou, and the student, though only eighteen years old, was already quite skilled at handling firearms. By coincidence, Guanghua Middle School in Jiujiang offered Yee a teaching job, so he accepted and stayed.25 Yee’s first son was born on April 24 of that year. He was given the name Chienkuo, meaning “strong country.” In 1926, Chiang Kai-shek and other Nationalist leaders developed plans to start the Northern Expedition, a military campaign of combined forces that aimed to defeat the warlords and reunite the nation. On July 1, Chiang Kai-shek, appointed Generalissimo, led the National Revolutionary Army to begin the Northern Expedition. The National Revolutionary Army quickly conquered Changsha on July 11 and Wuchang on October 10. It then turned east with an eye to Jiangxi Province, especially Jiujiang and Nanchang, two strategically important cities. After two months of see-saw battles, the two cities were taken on November 5 and 8, respectively, and several others were soon to follow. The success of the Northern Expedition brought an end to the northern warlords’ control over Jiangxi, which had lasted fifteen years. These victories promoted the nationalist movement in Jiujiang, where workers called for a strike, demanding better working conditions and political rights from the British and Japanese companies. After violent confrontations with the British at a local dock on January 6, 1927, workers in Jiujiang took over the British concessions. Supported by labor unions, student unions, and other social organizations across the nation, the Nationalist government succeeded in regaining sovereignty over Jiujiang in February. Yee was happy to see his brother back with the army. Ji was still secretary to Li Liejun, commander-in-chief of the Jiangxi Army, who had been appointed to chair the Jiangxi government. There were reforms and reorganizations on various levels of the provincial government. “Many young, hot-blooded men”—Yee included—became “excited at the sight of the new force and the prospects of new programs for the future.”26 The Education Department of the province was restructured into the Provincial Educational Committee, and Yee was appointed as one of its eleven committee members, which also included Duan Xipeng, Cheng Tianfang, Wu Youxun, and Chen Lijiang. Like many of his contemporaries, he was “excited at the sight of

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the new force and the prospects of new progress for the future,” but the internal struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists grew intense. Duan Xipeng, a member of the committee, was organizing an anti-Bolshevik group, and he invited Yee to join. However, as a follower of Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People, Yee endeavored to bring about changes and prosperity for his country. Having no interest in factional activities, he declined the invitation.27 He then joined the National Revolutionary Army led by Bai Chongxi, frontline commander-in-chief, aiming to move east and capture the industrial and agricultural heartland of China—Shanghai. As a way for him to “express patriotism,” he changed his name into “Chiang Nu-tie,” of which Nu means “angry” and tie means “iron.”28 He was soon appointed chief secretary of the political department in the advanced force. In January 1927, the army advanced from Nanchang to Shangrao, Yushan, Jinhua, and Hangzhou. When they passed Angling Terrace on the Fuchun River, Yee had a chance to get off the boat and climb to the top of the mountains with Ji to visit that historical site. According to legend, Yan Ziling was a wellrespected hermit who lived during the first century. After assisting his friend Guang Wu secure the throne to become emperor, he refused to accept high official appointments as a reward. Instead, he chose to live as a poor hermit in that beautiful, secluded region. The terrace, where he used to linger and fish, was named after him. It amazed Yee to see that the terrace was now over 1,000 feet above water level. In February, the National Revolutionary Army pressed eastward with such force that it did not meet any resistance when they entered Hangzhou. The northern armies of the warlord Sun Chuanfang had either surrendered or escaped by train to Shanghai. The city of Hangzhou had been looted by the warlord’s armies, who broke into stores and ransacked them. In contrast, the National Revolutionary Army was highly disciplined and well behaved, causing no disturbance to civilians. They received a warm welcome from the crowds wherever they went. In Shanghai, the General Labor Union, organized by the Communist Party, called the third general strike, which started on March 21. About 500,000 workers responded. Armed strikers attacked Sun Chuanfang’s troops and the police stations in seven city zones. By the evening of March 22, Bai Chongxi’s northern expeditionary troops had moved in and occupied the city of Shanghai with minimal resistance.29 Again, people came out and lined the streets to greet the National Revolutionary Army. Equipped with five distinctive leather accessories (i.e., leather cap, belt, puttees, boots, and whip), young officers looked strikingly handsome. They were the favorite focus of lively female students from local high schools. Yee was also relentlessly pursued—not by the students, but by a female officer from the advance force headquarters. She was an outstanding woman, determined and physically capable. Even though she had been invited to lecture at nearly every girls’ school, she really had no idea what to talk about. In fact, Yee was compelled to prepare speeches for her, day in and day out.30

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In a few days, Suzhou and Changzhou, two cities between Shanghai and Nanjing, were conquered by the advance forces. Yee received a new appointment: acting director of the General Merchandise Tax Bureau in the Suzhou and Changzhou region. There was actually nothing for him to do; he simply stayed in a hotel. The taxes collected were reported directly to the upper-level authority without his examination. It was truly a nominal job, and Yee felt no more than a puppet.31 On April 12, Chiang Kai-shek, aided by the Green Gang, the most powerful underworld thugs in Shanghai, raided the Shanghai General Labor Union and attacked the headquarters of the picketing workers. Many were killed, and hundreds were arrested. The following day, Nationalist troops violently suppressed the protest rally that the Shanghai General Labor Union organized. In the conflict, sixty-six of the demonstrators were killed and 316 were wounded. During the next two months, Chiang Kai-shek virtually eliminated all communist groups in Shanghai. The national government Chiang Kai-shek established in Nanjing on April 18 formally and publicly vowed to expel communists from all ranks, and it initiated a nationwide purge of communism. During this White Terror, left-wing Nationalist members were also targeted.32 The day after the April 12 coup, Yee went to the headquarters. He learned that Wang Erzhuo, political adviser of his regiment, had disappeared. It was said that Wang was a Communist Party member and might have been killed. Wang was one of the first graduates from the Whampoa Military Academy, and Yee, as the chief secretary of the Political Department, had become quite close to him. They used to meet often and discuss ways to educate soldiers and the public about the devastating impact of the warlord scourge. Yee also heard that many communist personnel had either been killed or fled to the mountainous areas around Jiangxi. It was suggested that Yee should temporarily take Wang’s place, but he declined.33 Instead, he resigned from his position as chief secretary and went to Nanjing, which now served as the capital of the nation. On dusty streets lined with dilapidated stores and temples, old horse carriages were drudging along with soldiers and disheveled farmers. It was here that the intense White Terror was noticeable. Suspicion, grudges, animosity, and retaliation existed between the Nationalists and Communists, and even among different factions within the Nationalists.34 Yee’s plan to secure a job in the new Nanjing government failed. He instead joined his brother, Ji, in Shangrao, a city in eastern Jiangxi, now the site of the Eastern Jiangxi Provincial Government. Li Liejun had left for Nanjing in mid-May to serve on the National Government Committee. He had entrusted Ji with his army and appointed him as chairman of the newly founded local government, with jurisdiction over more than eleven counties, which stood in opposition to the Jiangxi Provincial Government headed by Zhu Peide.35 Soon after, Ji appointed Yee as director of the Department of Confidential Information. There were many meetings to attend but little actual business to handle.

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Approximately fifty miles to the east of Shangrao was Guixi County, in which the famous Dragon-Tiger Mountain, Taoist Master Zhang’s domain, was located. When Yee was acting director of the Tax Bureau, he heard that Master Zhang, seventieth-generation descendant of the Taoist master, lived in a luxurious palace in Suzhou. He did not possess the supernatural power that his ancestor had, and he never went to the Dragon-Tiger Mountain, which was supervised by his numerous managers. Every year, he would print hundreds and thousands of talisman sheets for sale at two silver dollars each, and the revenue went into his personal coffers without paying any business tax. The master squandered money, smoked opium, and indulged in women. Yee demanded a change soon after his arrival, arguing that it was unjustifiable to grant the Dragon-Tiger Mountain special privileges of exemption from all business taxes. His opinion was well accepted, and the government soon regained possession of the land and regulated taxation revenues in the area.36 While in Shangrao, Yee served for three months as the chief of Yushan County. With this job, he saw an opportunity to bring about order and change in the county. He worked hard, held meetings, and dealt with countless issues. Before long, he realized that some of the conventional practices and power abuses could not be eliminated without drastic reforms. To complete the task, he needed more time. The Nanjing Government had undergone a complete reorganization, and the venerable Lin Sen now served as chairman. On October 9, the Eastern Jiangxi Government was dissolved. Yee resigned and planned to leave for Shanghai with Ji, who was to be chief secretary to Xiong Shihui, commander of the Shanghai military garrison.37 They traveled to Hekou County by sedan, and from there they took a boat down the Fuchun River to Hangzhou. It was the third time that Yee had been on the river. The picturesque scenes reminded him of the famous painting, “Fuchun River,” by the Yuan Dynasty artist Huang Gongwang (1269–1354). Consequently, he began to appreciate the miraculous creative power of the ancient artist, who, with brush pens and colors, reproduced mountains and lakes embellished with trees and rocks. Soon after they arrived in Hangzhou, Ji went to Shanghai to start his job, leaving his family and Yee to follow later. Yee was given the task of transferring Jiang Ji’s 1,500 troops from Shangrao to Shanghai via Hangzhou. After securing several dozen ships and settling all logistics, Yee spoke with Gui Yongqing, garrison commander of the city, concerning the right of passage. “Since both of us are from Jiangxi, there should be no problem,” promised Gui. Yee was pleased by Gui’s apparent friendliness and generosity. This, however, was but an illusion. Some days later, when Ji’s troops entered the city, they were unexpectedly greeted with gunfire and quickly disarmed by Gui’s army. Only then did Yee realize that he had been ensnared: Gui coveted the thousand rifles belonging to Ji’s army, and he had seized them to strengthen his own troops! Yee could never fully reconcile himself with the shame and guilt of his naïveté and credulity, along with his fury at the treacherousness and betrayal of Gui, whose major

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concern was to increase his own power and turf, regardless of the interests of the people and the nation.38 In Shanghai, Ji lived in a small house he rented in the French concession; he refused to accept a big house staffed with servants, prepared by Huang Jinrong, head of the Green Gang. It was certainly crowded, but Ji felt it was much more comfortable to live in this small house with his family. Yee slept in a camp bed in the living room. There was a park in the French concession, and when Yee went for a visit, he saw a sign on the entrance gate that proclaimed, “No Dogs or Chinese Allowed.” A few years earlier when he was in Shanghai preparing for the college examination, he had seen the same sign and a foreigner going into the park with a dog.39 China’s sovereignty being thus ravaged was an insult too hard to swallow; he hated to see foreigners enjoying extraterritorial rights in China. “To rid the country of warlords, to build a prosperous China with a powerful government, and to drive all foreigners out of China”—these had been the reasons why he had joined the Northern Expedition.40 Shanghai was full of excitement, novelty, and amusement. He had been in Shanghai a few times in the past but had never stayed long enough to explore the city. Now unemployed, he was able to visit the city’s famous sites, especially the Great World Amusement Center, where he could enjoy entertainment, sports, and food among the commotion and noise. He loved the storytelling by northern Chinese actors and was fascinated by their narrative skills that transformed even the most difficult material into an engaging and entertaining story. He also enjoyed storytelling by Suzhou actors, and even though their dialect sounded like a foreign language, their pleasing vocal tunes and vivid facial expressions gave him limitless pleasure. This experience had a direct influence on his later writings. Chenghuang Temple was another place that Yee frequented. Like the Great World, it drew crowds every day. The narrow streets teemed with small stores, peddlers, fortunetellers, variety shows, and artists selling their calligraphy and art works. It was, in his own words, “the epitome of Chinese society,” from which he learned a lot about Chinese culture.41 One day in early 1928, on a trolley bus in Shanghai, Yee met Dr. Yan Jici, who was his college classmate. Yan was known for his exceptional achievements in scientific research, and he was also greatly admired among fellow students because of his marriage to Zhang Zongyin, one of the first female students admitted to the university. After graduation in 1923, Yan went on to study in France, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1927. He was the first Chinese to earn a French doctorate degree, at the age of twenty-seven, which made him big news in Paris. Back in China, he became a celebrity and frequently appeared in the news. He had just been appointed Dean of the School of Sciences and Engineering at Jinan University at Zhenru, Shanghai. He invited Yee to teach inorganic chemistry. Yee was extremely grateful for the offer and thus quickly resumed his teaching. On May 2, as soon as Ji arrived home from work, a car pulled up and out walked Cai Gongshi, his great uncle. Everyone was overjoyed to welcome this

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unexpected guest. Cai was a venerable revolutionary who had joined Sun Yat-sen’s Revolutionary League while studying in Japan. Cai came on urgent business: in April, Chiang Kai-shek had resumed the Northern Expedition to defeat remnants of warlords in northern China. Intending to circumvent any clashes with the Japanese, he searched for ways to make them withdraw from the city peacefully. He appointed Cai as a special envoy to negotiate on behalf of the Nanjing Government since Cai had studied in Japan and was the best candidate for such a task. Cai consulted with Ji on various details of his mission, and he requested Yee to accompany him to Jinan as his private secretary. Yee was happy to join, but he needed permission for leave from the president of his university. Cai and his delegation departed early the next morning, and Yee planned to follow soon afterward. On the night of May 3, not long after their arrival in Jinan, Cai and his delegates were arrested by the Japanese. Cai was ordered to kneel on the floor, but he “refused to bend his knees” and “cursed the Japanese military for their inhuman cruelty.” The Japanese tortured him. They cut out his ears, tongue, and eyes, before murdering him and all the other delegates.42 Having committed this horrendous brutality, the Japanese burned the corpses and adamantly denied that they had ever seen the Chinese envoy. Chiang Kai-shek, attempting to avoid escalation of the conflict with Japan, ordered his troops to retreat from Jinan and cross the Yellow River on May 4, thus eliminating all possibility of large-scale conflicts.43 Yee, due to the delay in departure, survived the “May Third Tragedy;” yet his conscience could never rest easy with the painful memory etched in his mind. Fifty years later, in his final article written only a couple of months before his death, he declaimed: “How could a foreign army, illegally stationed on Chinese soil, kill a Chinese envoy like this? Where was the international law? It could happen simply because the central government at [Nanjing] was so very weak.”44 Yee’s teaching at Jinan University lasted approximately six months. In the summer of 1928, Xiong Shihui recommended him to Chen Diaoyuan, who was to take the post of governor of Anhui Province. Yee thus resigned his teaching position and went by river steamer to Anqing, the capital of Anhui Province. After he had settled down in a small inn in Anqing, Yee set out to visit his friend Sun Moqian. A reputable painter of the influential Shanghai Art School, Sun had been invited by Yee’s fourth aunt to give painting lessons to Yee’s cousin Jen-chun, while Yee himself had only been allowed to observe and imitate on the side. Ironically, Jen-chun showed no improvement in painting, but Yee had soon made tremendous progress. Sun was now an employee at the Department of Civil Affairs in the provincial government. He was delighted to see Yee. The following day, Yee paid a courtesy call, introducing himself to Chen Diaoyuan. Since there were hardly any local historical sites to explore, he stayed in and invited Sun over for conversations nearly every day. The two discussed theories of Chinese painting—conversations that Yee thought very inspiring. With the company of Sun, an otherwise boring stay in Anqing became a stimulating experience. Early one morning about ten days later, Yee was awakened by the deafening noise of firecrackers outside the inn. He hurried out of bed and hardly had time

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to put on his clothes when the door was pushed open by a stranger in a blue robe. The stranger rushed forward and knelt down, proclaiming again and again, “Congratulations! Congratulations!” Before Yee had a chance to speak, the man produced a red sheet which stated that the Anhui government announced the appointment of Chiang Yee as magistrate of Wuhu County. Soon thereafter, Sun Moqian called and told him the same news. For the rest of the day, his little room was packed with visitors, one group after another. Some of them came to offer their congratulations, but most of them, seeking jobs, brought letters of recommendation prepared by department directors. That evening, Yee was on his way back to Jiujiang, about one hundred miles to the southwest. He wanted to see his family and two children, Chien-kuo and Xiaoyan, his daughter born in the spring. Most importantly, however, he planned to consult his uncle, who had served as chief of Tongcheng County in Anhui. The thoughts of his new social responsibility brought excitement and some anxiety. Three days later, he returned to Anqing to receive the official document of appointment. He then left for Wuhu to begin his new experience as a civil servant.45

chapter 3



Civil Servant

Wuhu, known as a land of rice and fish, was the most affluent county in southern Anhui Province. Located on the Yangtze River and only sixty miles from Nanjing, the capital of the country at that time, it became a commercial port in 1876. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was a flourishing business center and one of the four major rice markets in the whole country. On the day of Chiang Yee’s arrival, many local gentry waited in two lines, welcoming the new magistrate in front of the county yamen, a compound where the magistrate resided and conducted official business. Among them were many revered seniors, with impressive silvery hair and long beards, who were heads of villages and towns. Yee greeted them with smiles. Strangely enough, they neither responded with the expected warmth nor expressed their good wishes. They simply kept silent and left not long after. While walking through the yard of the yamen, Yee noticed a fox-spirit shrine. As it had been a local tradition to offer respect to the fox spirits, nearly all official residences in Anhui had a shrine for this purpose. With his college training in science, Yee knew that it was merely a superstition, so he ordered the shrine to be demolished at once. He came with two veteran officials whom his friends had recommended to assist him as department heads. From them, he learned that, as a conventional practice, the local dignitaries would pay him a visit the next day, and, to reciprocate the courtesy, he should then return the visit thereafter. However, no one showed up the following day. He soon learned that the local elders regarded him as “an ultramodern young man,” “eager to alter . . . traditional practices.” In their eyes, he was too young and too eccentric for the job.1 Yee decided to ignore this judgment and assume his office duties. He started reviewing the case files of the county rather than consulting the local dignitaries. A few days later, many of them, bewildered and uneasy with the new magistrate’s cool nonchalance, turned out to visit him. They offered compliments, calling him an “outstanding young man” and one of the “social elite.” These flattering remarks 31

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sounded repulsive to him, but he was secretly pleased because these sycophants had been pulled down a peg. 2 In China, county magistrates had extensive duties to perform. They were, as the Chinese would say, the “parents of the county.” Under the magistrate, there were four departments: “The first department dealt with general affairs, chiefly social welfare, and included a police bureau and military headquarters; the second dealt with land taxes and other financial matters; the third with local educational matters in conjunction with the local educational bureau; and the fourth with housing problems, the construction of public roads, and so forth as well as the special building bureau.”3 Before long, Yee found himself confronted with some unexpected thorny issues. As the Chinese proverb goes, “When a man ascends to the top, even his chickens and dogs will benefit.” Over twenty family members had come to join him in Wuhu, relying on his limited income. In addition to his wife and two children, his sister and her entire family, his uncle, his cousins, and several others had come to live in the yamen. Numerous natives from Jiujiang also called on him. Wuhu, only two hundred miles down the Yangtze River, was easily accessible. These Jiujiang residents came by boat, checked in at a local inn, and found their way to the yamen every day. They would beg Yee for jobs, and, after a month or two, if the prospect of a job still seemed hopeless, they would show up to bid him farewell. He would then be obliged to send them home with their traveling expenses. After their departure, the inn would submit the bills to him, as though he were responsible for payment since these were his guests.4 Several decades later, when recalling this, he could not help sighing, “How could a magistrate avoid embezzling under such circumstances?”5 The sociopolitical situation in China was very unstable at the time. Chiang Kai-shek’s government had just been established in Nanjing, and warlords were still fighting for power and territory. In order to strengthen his own power, Chiang Kai-shek would offer high posts to some warlords in exchange for their loyalty. One such example was the local military governor, General Yue Weijun, who also commanded the central government’s Second Army, which was garrisoned in Wuhu. One day, a bank on the main street was robbed. Early the next morning, Yee received a phone call from the police chief who reported that all three culprits had been apprehended. They were soldiers of the Second Army. Not long after, the phone rang again, and it was General Yue Weijun. “Magistrate Chiang,” he said, “I heard that you have arrested some bandits. That’s great! Send them over to the headquarters right away.”6 Yee ordered the police chief to transfer them over accordingly, believing that Yue, known for his ruthlessness, would severely punish the three perpetrators. The news that arrived the following day struck a stunning blow: these three soldiers were stationed outside the very bank they had just robbed. The situation at once became extremely tense. The owner, the staff, and the customers of the bank were all scared. Yee was flabbergasted. As head administrator of the county,

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there was nothing he could do. He could neither protest nor reason with the army commander. Fortunately, Yue and his troops were deployed to another province within a month. This was a period of social upheavals. Tenant farmers in Wuhu and the neighboring countryside frequently organized to resist paying exorbitant land taxes, and criminal activities were rampant. To assure the people of his presence, and to curb riotous or disorderly acts, Yee himself would patrol the countryside on horseback with armed soldiers. On one occasion, he caught three bandits during the patrol and took them back to the county office for interrogation. A widow testified that, while she had been at home alone, two of the bandits came in, tied her up, and demanded money. As she refused to comply, they tore her shirt and tortured her with fire from gasoline-soaked cotton. After she had lost consciousness, they looted her house and stole all of her savings. The woman, though much distressed, did not dare to confront the accused for fear of her own safety if they were later released. The arrest of these three bandits became a local sensation. Many prominent people came to argue in favor of keeping them in custody. Some were afraid that, if these three were transferred to court, they might get released. Eventually, Yee decided to report the case to the provincial government, which soon replied, “Let the County Magistrate handle the case based on his judgment.”7 Aware of the indignation of the masses waiting for justice outside the yamen, Yee, with tears rolling down his cheeks, made up his mind to impose the death penalty. The following morning, a huge crowd gathered outside the yamen awaiting the execution of the criminals, while Yee sat at his desk to sign an ordinance. His pen felt unusually heavy. Overwhelmed with grief, he tumbled into bed as soon as he had signed his name in red ink. He held deep compassion for these able-bodied youngsters who never had a chance to receive a decent education; yet there was nothing he could do to save their lives because of the heinous crimes they had committed.8 Anhui Province, near to the capital city Nanjing, was strategically significant. Within the course of a year, there were six separate governors. One night, the quiet darkness was shaken by rumbling cannon fire, and the news soon came that Shi Yousan, new governor of the province, had organized a coup, attempting to overthrow the Nanjing government. A battalion, deployed by General Bao Gang, new military governor, had the yamen under tight siege in the hope of capturing the magistrate or seizing the tax money stored in his office. Yee organized the evacuation of the female residents through the back of the building. He then went to the main room, sat down at the table, and started painting “Bodhidharma Gazing at the Wall in Meditation.” Bodhidharma, a south Indian Brahman, brought Dhya-na Buddhism to south China at the beginning of the sixth century. He traveled north and settled near the Shaolin Monastery, where he meditated for nine years in silence without interruption. He became the first patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China. Meditation, which frees the mind from bondage, is considered essential in Zen Buddhism and regarded as a pivotal step on the way to enlightenment.

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About two hours later, the phone rang. It was the president of the local chamber of commerce, who informed Yee that three airplanes, a naval gunship, and a brigade, dispatched by the Nanjing government, were on their way to crush the coup. In addition, Bao Gang had agreed to a peaceful withdrawal from the scene. Yee went out to greet the brigade commander and his troops. The rebels left quickly, the local government entertained the troops, and peace resumed. After the coup attempt, there was apparent improvement in the local situation, and Yee found more time to paint. It is worth mentioning that the Bodhidharma painting he did during the coup marked the beginning of his subsequent interest in Buddhist painting.9 In recognition of his successful handling of the coup, Yee was transferred in June 1929 to serve as magistrate in Dangtu, a county located between Nanjing and Wuhu. Since he had been in Wuhu for more than a year, most people in nearby Dangtu had already heard of his accomplishments. He found himself warmly received there. All the gentry and various top officials of the area came out to greet him the day of his arrival, and he did not meet with any mistrust or suspicions, as he had in Wuhu. The following day, Yee began reviewing files and documents. Only then did he perceive the true reason why he had been offered the job there. His predecessor, Magistrate Zhao, was a graduate from Baoding Military Academy. With the support and recommendation of his former cadet schoolmates, he got the job and served as magistrate of Dangtu for sixteen months. During his tenure, there had been many complaints and grievances concerning his embezzlements. He had two wives, both of whom resided in Shanghai, while in Dangtu he acquired a mistress who lived with him in the yamen. As his wanton behavior grew intolerably unrestrained, the provincial governor ordered him to be replaced. When Yee had joined the Northern Expedition, he aspired to bring about a unified new China; he never expected a resurgence of those social evils within so short a time. The story of his predecessor seemed like a replica of the corrupt court bureaucrats during the Qing Dynasty. He thought to himself, “Replacing this corrupt official may help dispose of one devil; but what can we do to get rid of the rest in other parts of the country?”10 One day, the vice president of the local chamber of commerce suggested establishing a standard measurement inspection office, of which Yee could serve as director and the president of the chamber as deputy director. It seemed like a great idea. Yee consulted with the Second Department chief, who supervised financial issues, to explore its feasibility. To Yee’s surprise, it turned out to be nothing short of a business scam. According to the chief, there used to be a Measurement Inspection Office created by Magistrate Zhao not long after the central government had issued an ordinance to standardize measurements across the nation. With the support of the magistrate, the inspectors went to villages and towns, blackmailing proprietors and business owners, and extorting money. They threatened to incarcerate anyone who dared refuse to obey. To prevent the conflict from

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escalating, food and clothing associations held meetings and decided to mandate a standard fee of two or three dollars on every measuring device in the county. Since there were thousands of families, this generated a huge amount of revenue. Zhao, as director, easily amassed twenty thousand dollars as a personal gain. Yee was furious at his predecessor’s unabashed exploitation and embezzlement. He asked the department chief to contact the central government and urge it to issue a standard measurement device. He decided to forego establishing the inspection office until such a measurement device was issued, reproduced, and disseminated. In July, the monsoon season began, and the area was hit hard by a torrential storm. Thousands of acres of rice fields were submerged, and a great number of farmers were left homeless. Dangtu, a few miles off the Yangtze River, was on a tributary that had not been dredged for centuries. Yee submitted a proposal to the provincial governor, petitioning for approval to dredge the river and improve the irrigation system in order to prevent future disasters. However, his suggestion was summarily dismissed—a rejection that left him both bewildered and “disillusioned.”11 It was a tradition in Anhui that magistrates rode in a sedan whenever traveling outside the yamen. Being young and healthy, Yee felt it awkward to be carried around by four people. He preferred to walk, but that was considered inappropriate. As an alternative, department chiefs found him a rickshaw and hired a driver. The rickshaw driver, though, was soon dismissed because of his reckless behavior. Finally, Yee decided to ride on horseback. After taking office, he had been presented with two horses: a mare and her colt. The mare, with a yellowish-brown coat, was very gentle, and Yee grew increasingly fond of her. He would often mount the horse and visit the different neighborhoods within his district. He soon became “better acquainted with the country folk than any of [his] predecessors for probably a thousand years.”12 As it was great physical exercise, it became Yee’s hobby to go horseback riding every morning, accompanied by his bodyguard. He enjoyed the fresh air in the countryside, and his slender figure seemed to grow stronger. One morning, he rushed back from a criminal investigation, followed by a number of his staff. As the horse galloped into the city, an eight-year-old boy threw a stool toward her. She came to an immediate halt and reared up, throwing Yee from the saddle and off her back. The horse swiftly regained her composure and stood still, eyeing him sympathetically until he remounted. The news quickly spread across the county that the magistrate had been in an accident. The boy’s mother was petrified, fearing that the child would inevitably be sent to jail. Yee knew that the boy did not cause the incident intentionally. To quell the rumors, he took a walk after lunch to show to the public that he had suffered no injury. He also sent an orderly to console the boy and give him a bag of candies as a gift. This dramatic turn of events was totally unexpected, and the mother felt instantly relieved. A few months passed. Yee found it relatively easy to work in Dangtu, even though it was a larger county than Wuhu and his administrative duty covered virtually all aspects, including land tax, education, construction, police, and

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law. It was a gratifying experience to have direct contact with local residents. He attempted to accomplish a few solid projects to benefit the people during his tenure, and he endeavored to overhaul the old system. School education, to him, was a priority, so he took measures to improve the quality of the teachers and curriculum. To ensure the safety of the civilians, he forbade leaders of village civildefense groups from abusing their power in the use of firearms. Since there was no local court in Dangtu, he had to preside over three rare divorce cases. Women were generally regarded as inferior in China, and divorce was invariably perceived as a stigma for women. Yee, however, was sympathetic toward women and attempted to mediate and defend their interest in these cases.13 A few years earlier, when he was editing a weekly women’s supplement for a newspaper at Hangzhou, he contributed a controversial article entitled “Why Does Man Always Keep His Eyes on Girls?” By citing various literary expressions related to women’s eyes, mouths, hair, arms, fingers, waists, feet, and clothes, he showed that women had been serving as the object of men’s gazes and the subject of men’s derision, admiration, criticism, and evaluation for a long time. He argued that women should be encouraged to keep their natural beauty instead of altering it in order to “pander to” the tastes of men. Having served as “a supporter of the ‘Women’s Movement’ in China” made him very proud years later.14 Ye Hongyu, secretary general of the city government, was a very dear friend that Yee made during his term in Wuhu. Ye, who served for two years as magistrate of Dangtu County, was an eminent scholar, specializing in ancient inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. The two men used to meet often to discuss poetry and calligraphy rather than county affairs. Ye mentioned that the mountains across the river from Dangtu were named after the poet Xie Tiao (466–499). He also mentioned that the mountains contained many ancient stone tablets, bearing inscriptions by famous calligraphers, that dated back to the Tang Dynasty. Yee visited the mountains several times during his time in Dangtu and was alarmed by the fact that many of these valuable tablets were missing. The yamen in Dangtu was originally naval commander Zeng Yulin’s headquarters during the mid-nineteenth century. It was extraordinarily spacious, with a garden on both the east and west. After consulting with his department chiefs, Yee relocated some stone tablets to the East Garden for preservation. A thatched pavilion was built, and Ye Hongyu contributed the essay “On the Pavilion of Ancient Tablets.” Yee also wrote an inscription, “Ancient Tablet Pavilion,” on the plaque. Furthermore, he painted a portrait of Tathagata Buddha, had it carved by a famous sculptor on a huge stone tablet, and installed in the central part of the pavilion. On April 28, Yee’s third child, Chien-fei, was born. The boy had a nickname, Xiao Yao, or “Little Rumor,” because Zeng Yun’s pregnancy was initially considered a rumor. Not long after the birth of his son, Yee was ordered to prepare for a new position offered by the Jiangxi government. He packed and quickly left for Jiujiang, his family joining him later.

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Upon his return, friends, neighbors, and relatives all came to greet him. Some intended to look for jobs and seek recommendation letters from him. There were visitors every day, so he decided to stay in his uncle’s hut on Lu Mountain while waiting for his new appointment. It was still quite chilly on the mountain; snow and ice were visible in some parts. Yee was emotional as he climbed the mountain. He had never forgotten the first trip over a decade earlier with his father. The memory of sitting next to his father on the mountaintop, while enjoying the breathtaking spectacle of sunrise, was perpetually fresh and painfully heart-rending. He stayed in his uncle’s hut at Guling, a small town halfway up the mountain, where over a thousand families lived. Since the mid-eighteenth century, and especially after the First Opium War ended in 1842, missionaries had come and built many Western-style houses in the surrounding pine woods. As a well-known summer resort, the area attracted many visitors in the summer. For several months, he enjoyed a carefree and reclusive respite in the mountains. No longer fettered with official business or disturbed by visitors, he was able to relish leisure, peace, and a regular life. Famous scenic sites in the mountains were almost everywhere, and he visited one or two of them every day. He often carried pens and paper with him in order to draw sketches during those excursions. Not too far down the hill was the Immortal Cave, a scenic site and renowned Taoist temple. To its left were steep cliffs, behind which flowed mountain streams, and there was a gigantic rock extending over the water. Yee loved to rest on it from time to time, and on it he carved the two characters ya-ta, meaning “The Silent Couch.” The ancient Yellow Dragon Monastery was nearby, which hosted Yee’s solo art exhibition in 1931. This was the first exhibition by a government official on Lu Mountain.15 Yee frequented the monastery and discussed Buddhist doctrines with the abbot there. Taixu Monk (1889–1947), an influential Buddhist monk in Zhejiang, was invited to give lectures on Buddhism at the monastery. Since Taixu Monk spoke the Ningbo dialect, which would be incomprehensible to the local people, Yee was appointed as the interpreter. He carefully prepared for this assignment and accomplished the mission successfully. This was an experience of which he was very proud. The south end of Guling was sparsely populated. A few secluded houses sprawled in the midst of woods on the mountain slopes. There was a summer house which belonged to Lin Sen, acting president of the Legislative Yuan in Nanjing. That summer, Lin rented the house to Chen Ming-shu, governor of Canton Province, as a place for his son to prepare for the matriculation examination. The boy had a tutor who happened to be Yee’s classmate at college. He invited Yee to join him, and Yee agreed. One day, while performing an inorganic chemistry experiment, he forgot to remove the cork from a tube, and it exploded. The explosion brought him the shocking awareness that, after these few years of military and political service, he had gained valuable insights into the nature of social and political life,

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but he had lost the academic skills acquired at college. After only a few days, he quit his tutoring job. In December, a telegram came from his brother, who was chairman of the Education Department of the provincial government. Ji asked him to travel to the provincial capital of Nanchang and meet with Governor Lu Diping. Once there, Yee was appointed as the magistrate of Jiujiang, with the approval of the council. By this time, Jiujiang had become a key city between Shanghai and Hankou. Situated on the Yangtze River, it was also a vital outlet for the products of several neighboring provinces. In the Qing Dynasty, Jiujiang was the locale of Daotai Yamen, the official building of the prefecture government. Yee’s home was adjacent to the site. The Daotai and his family used to attract a crowd on the street whenever they left the yamen for a trip. Manchurian women did not practice foot binding, so their feet seemed extraordinarily big. Also, their dress style appeared very exotic. They wore Manchurian robes rather than trousers, and their enormous Manchurian head coverings were elaborately decorated with flowers and hairpins. It was quite a spectacle. Yee remembered that there used to be a pair of lions on high pedestals in front of the yamen. As a child, he used to climb on their backs with other boys. He also remembered that, at an early age, he had cried one day and wanted to go out to see the prefecture yamen. His grandfather smiled and said, “Don’t cry, my treasure. When you grow up, you will become the official and live in that house. Don’t cry.” The spacious site, which had been vacant after the Qing emperor was dethroned in 1911, was to be used as the new county office, and he was in fact going to live in that building! It turned out to be a challenge for Yee to serve as magistrate of his own birthplace. He had to deal with various unforeseeable problems. Most of the neighbors and relatives, especially the elder ones, had known him since childhood, a fact that they relished with insatiable pleasure. Even the barber enjoyed repeating his memory of cutting Yee’s hair when he was four years old. In their eyes, Yee would never grow out of his childhood to govern the county. It occurred to him that growing a beard might be an effective way to change the people’s views and win their respect. As an old saying goes, “No word is reliable if one has no hair on his mouth.” Unfortunately, Chinese in general do not have thick facial hair, and his beard was rather sparse. It became a rather comical feature, only making him “a laughing stock.” After about six months, his mustache finally grew long enough and seemed to help a little. Yee attempted to grow a handlebar mustache, but the ends would not curl upward. In any case, since he was occupied with county business, there was little time he could spare to care for his beard.16 Nepotism was another problem with which he had to deal. Many people came to seek job offers. Determined to fight corruption and improve the political system of the county, he refused to accommodate private requests. In Wuhu, he was pressured to hire a cousin by marriage as bookkeeper. It was discovered, only two months later, that the cousin had embezzled over two thousand silver dollars. Yee fired him at once, sent him back home, and vowed never to employ relatives

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again.17 His honesty brought complaints and accusations, and it offended and alienated some of his friends and relatives. During his term as magistrate of Jiujiang, Yee handled a few big cases. The first involved a dispute between a missionary school and a Buddhist monastery. Soon after he took office, the principal of the missionary school sent him an invitation for dinner. Since there was no reason to refuse such an invitation, he accepted. When he arrived at the restaurant, there were almost a hundred people, including all the local gentry and board members of the county executive committees. The dinner began with a brief opening speech by the school principal, followed by a prayer. Yee found it irritating to make everyone stand up and listen to the prayer. After that, the minister, keeping everyone on their feet, continued, “Thank you all for coming. There is a piece of land near Nengren Monastery that belongs to Nuoli School. It has been the school’s plan to put up a classroom building on that property, but the roguish abbot of the monastery has been obstructing the efforts by claiming that the land is their property. While the previous magistrate failed to rule over the dispute, we hope the new magistrate will . . .” Fury rose in Yee, who now perceived that the dinner was but a setup to pressure him to support the school. “What is the purpose of this dinner?” He fumed at the host. “I came because I thought that you wanted to welcome me as a new magistrate. If you wanted to use this occasion to coerce me or influence my decision, then you are wrong. No government official should be allowed to make a judgment based on hearsay. I haven’t reviewed the files of the case you just mentioned, and I cannot make any decision right here. I am busy, and I am sorry that I have to leave now.”18 The news of the dinner fiasco quickly spread throughout the county. Yee learned that the school principal had planned the dinner carefully as soon as his new appointment was announced. She had spoken with the directors of the local chamber of commerce and had gotten support from the powerful military commander of Jiujiang. She was confident that the new magistrate would be on her side. Of course, Yee’s reaction at the dinner party was a shock to her as well as to everyone else at the scene. He now realized that he was to face an uphill battle with the bureaucrats in Jiujiang. After a careful study of the case file, he discovered that it was a rather complicated case. English and Japanese concessions in Jiujiang were abolished in 1926, but some land in the area was still occupied as “permanent rental property” by various missionary organizations, including this school. Nevertheless, there were stipulations limiting the use of the land. Yee decided to transfer the case to the county court for a ruling. The military commander, sensing that Nuoli School would not have enough evidence to defend its argument and win the case, tried to dissuade Yee but failed. The commander felt disgraced, and he behaved spitefully toward Yee ever after. To reform the local land tax system was an important goal Yee wanted to achieve. During his term in Wuhu, he had submitted a proposal for land tax reform, deploring that “rich families are exempt from tax, while the poor face

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taxes too heavy to bear.”19 He was, however, unable to accomplish any substantial changes since he was preoccupied with other issues. In China, land tax was a major source of government revenue. Tax collecting, however, was like a family business carried on from generation to generation, and tax collectors kept good records for private use and would not share them with the magistrate. In fact, magistrates changed every year or two, but these collectors stayed on forever. They were powerful, and their authority was never challenged, partly because they were protected by the county gentry, who in return enjoyed tax exemptions. Soon after he took office, Yee gathered the tax collectors together and asked them to hand in their tax records for review. As magistrate, he reasoned, he should have firsthand knowledge concerning the land tax. The collectors remained silent, apparently not taking the command seriously. Days passed, yet none of them surrendered the records as required. Yee decided to put more pressure on them. He sent them to jail for as long as six months, but they were simply tenacious and defiant, believing that his term would not last long. Unfortunately, he could not search their homes, nor could he convince the provincial government to adjudicate the issue. Eventually, this matter reached an impasse. In the meantime, Yee attempted to explore a new way of measuring the entire area by aerial photography in order to calculate the land tax accurately. He submitted a carefully prepared report to the provincial government, petitioning for the use of airplanes, which were still a novelty in China at the time, to photograph the land. The report did not even reach the hands of the governor or treasurer. It was reviewed and rejected by the section head, who responded with the derisive comment, “This magistrate . . . is a dreamer, and his proposal should be trashed.” To Yee’s aspirations as well as to his plans, this comment struck a deadly blow. In late May, another daughter, Chien-lan, his fourth child, was born. Since Ji had only a teenage son, Chien-min, and longed to have a daughter, he adopted Chien-lan five days after her birth. Jiujiang proved difficult to govern. Yee soon found himself entangled in a new problem, this time related to Tan Daoyuan, a powerful commander of the Nationalist army stationed in the province. One day, Tan’s chief of staff came all the way from the provincial capital. He said that a transport battalion had recently been guarding a truckload of money to the headquarters, but the soldiers had revolted, killed the battalion commander, and fled with the money. These soldiers, according to some reports, had carried the money and escaped to Jiujiang. The chief of staff demanded that Yee recover the money for his army, or troops would be dispatched to search the countryside. Yee was stunned. Why should the local government be responsible for such an obvious failure caused by an incompetent army leader? He tried to reason that these soldiers, instead of going north to Jiujiang, might have fled west to their hometown in Hunan Province. He pleaded with the chief of staff to not take any action until his investigation was over. He immediately held a meeting with the security bureau and chief police officers. He learned that, sometime earlier, a group of disbanded soldiers had been captured by security guards of

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the East Village. After a search, the guards discovered several thousand dollars on them. The chief of the guards confiscated the money, set the troops free, and then pocketed most of the money. This upset one of the guards, who then informed the provincial government of the chief ’s actions. As soon as he heard this, Yee sent police officers to arrest the chief and then returned the confiscated four thousand dollars to headquarters. Yee kept the chief incarcerated and waited for instructions from the provincial government and headquarters. A week later, the chief of staff from General Tan’s headquarters led a company of troops to the East Village. They searched every home for the lost money, looted the village, and forced villagers to provide food and board. All this was done without consultation with the county magistrate. Yee sent a telegram to the governor, requesting an immediate restraint on such “unwarranted movement” of General Tan, but there was no reply. Yee “grieved the whole night.” Even though he was the county magistrate, he was practically powerless in preventing such brutal violations. During his senior year at college, he had co-edited the journal New Jiujiang for its total run of ten issues. To each of these issues, he contributed an article, criticizing the county government and administration. Now, as a county magistrate himself, he came to perceive that it would never be possible to bring about a new China without fundamental changes. Old warlords had been simply replaced by new ones, and corruptions were rampant at every level. He was very disappointed. Nevertheless, he “persevered,” still hoping that his service could benefit a good many people.20 It was indeed a time of troubles. In 1927, an earthquake of great magnitude killed two hundred thousand people, and then a drought in 1928 left three million dead. In July and August of 1931, mass floods along the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and Huai River valleys brought damage to sixteen provinces and affected as many as forty million people. This natural disaster, which claimed 3,700,000 dead, left thousands of people homeless, begging for food, and struggling for survival. In the same year, Chiang Kai-shek endeavored to crush the Red Army in Jiangxi Province. The Red Army, the communist military force led by Mao Zedong and Zhu De, established its base in the Jinggang Mountain area, in the southeast of Jiangxi, in January 1928. It then moved its headquarters to Ruijin, also in the southeast of the province, where a Soviet regime had been established in November of 1931, confiscating land from the landlord for distribution among the poor, establishing a marriage law that protected free marriage choice, and strengthening the military force. As the Red Army increased its members and grew to be a formidable force, the communists began to dominate the southern mountainous areas of Jiangxi. In response, Chiang Kai-shek launched a total of five campaigns between 1930 and 1934, attempting to encircle and exterminate the communists. The first three of these campaigns occurred during Yee’s term in Jiujiang. After all three attempts failed, Chiang Kai-shek planned and led the fourth campaign in January 1933, which again failed on April 29.21 Coupled with natural disaster and civil strife was the Japanese invasion. On September 18, 1931, the Japanese army attacked the Chinese army near Mukden and

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caused the “Manchurian Incident.” The Japanese claimed that a bomb exploded on a section of the South Manchurian Railway and some shots were fired at the Japanese patrol. It was a convenient pretext that the Japanese used to mask their invasion. To the Japanese, who had the ambition to expand control over and dominate Asia, Manchuria was a strategic base for possible operations against the Soviet Union, as well as a much coveted natural resource. Despite rising national sentiment against the external Japanese threat, Chiang Kai-shek did not actively resist the Japanese invasion because of his priority to crush the communist forces. He appealed to the League of Nations, hoping to “gain time to organize his defense and await a favorable turnabout in Japanese domestic politics.” In the meantime, Japan continued its aggressive expansion, occupying most of Manchuria by late November. Two months later, they established a puppet state called Manchukuo that was headed by the dethroned Henry Pu-yi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty.22 Xunyang Daily, a local newspaper in Jiujiang, published Yee’s poem “Jiujiang Magistrate—Self-Reproach” on December 30, 1931. With a total of thirty-six lines, it is one of the longest poems he ever wrote. “The new Jiujiang Magistrate / is a Jiujiang native. / Having been in office for more than a year, / he is quite familiar with the folks and their lives.” The poem presents a poignant story of an elderly couple, suffering from natural disasters, harassment by bandits, and imposed taxes. They had three sons—one of whom was murdered, the youngest was seriously ill, and the other on the run as a fugitive. At the end of the poem, Yee exclaims in distress, “One may complain to the Magistrate, but who could the Magistrate blame? / Problems are there everywhere.” His tone is noticeably apologetic and exasperated. To grieve and despair publicly on New Year’s Eve in a poetic form was quite extraordinary, especially when done by the head of the local government. In December 1931, General Xiong Shihui was elected governor, and he soon came to Jiangxi to assume office. Xiong was a graduate from Baoding Military Academy and a military school in Japan. Because of his courage and competence in negotiating with the Japanese to resolve the crisis after the Jinan Tragedy in 1928, he quickly rose to prominence and won respect from the central government. He had been commander of the Shanghai garrisons, and his new appointment apparently indicated the trust placed in him by the central government. As a Jiangxi native, Xiong aspired to bring stability to the region by reforming the administrative system and making it more efficient. Incompetent and corrupt officials would be dismissed or punished. He organized seminars to train administrative leaders and restructured the government on various levels. In 1932, the first year of his term as governor, 107 magistrates in the province either resigned or were replaced or transferred.23 Yee supported reform. In his preface to a book of local information, entitled Guide to Jiujiang, he stressed the need for changes in order to keep abreast with social progress: “While mountains and water remain constant, religion and politics may rise and fall, customs and conventions refine and degenerate, local products have profits and losses. Hence, anything other than mountains and water, if not

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seeking change and making necessary rectifications, will surely fail to survive in the current world by obstinately following ancient paths.”24 Nevertheless, Yee preferred solid steps toward substantial changes and improvements. In his opinion, some of Xiong’s policies were trendy and impractical. Shortly after he took office, for example, Xiong began to promote the New Life Movement, urging officials to adhere to traditional virtues and be dedicated to public service. He invited a U.S.-trained scholar to give a lecture on pragmatism, and the audience was lost and confused by the fancy jargon. Xiong was displeased to learn that Yee was generally reluctant to promote these new policies. In 1932, the League of Nations sent a Commission of Inquiry, led by Lord Lytton of England, to investigate the Manchuria Incident. The delegates of the commission arrived in Shanghai in March. From Nanjing, they went to Hankou along the Yangtze River, stopping at Jiujiang briefly on April 3. The Jiujiang government entertained the delegates at a local restaurant, where Yee, as magistrate, delivered an opening speech to welcome the guests. The military commander Guo Su then spoke on behalf of the provincial government. After lunch, the delegates visited Gantang Lake in the city.25 In mid-July, the delegates, having finished their investigation in China, Manchuria, and Japan, returned to Beijing to prepare a final report for submission to the League of Nations. On September 3, all five members of the commission signed the report, and the next day, Lord Lytton, General McCoy, and Count Aldrovandi left for Shanghai and Geneva. According to Yee, the delegates “traveled by train” to Hankou and then stopped over at Jiujiang to “board a river steamer for Shanghai.” He planned to arrange an expedition to the famous Lu Mountain, but there were not enough cars to accommodate them.26 However, I planned a good banquet to entertain the delegation. After the feasting, I rose to give a toast and made a brief speech begging the fact-finders to consult their own consciences in passing a sound judgment on the facts they had observed in north China and Manchuria. Lord Lytton, returning the toast for his group, made a few remarks about what they had seen in the north and said that they would have a final discussion in Geneva. The Englishman was a well-known diplomat and knew what to say to small local government officials. However, my speech, rendered into English by my secretary, was recorded in full in the Shanghai Chinese newspapers—Sheng-pao and Hsin-wen-pao.27

Some twenty miles outside the city of Jiujiang were two big oil refineries, which belonged to the Asia Shell Company and the American Standard Oil Company. They had been there since the late nineteenth century when the Manchu government allowed foreign companies to own the land as “permanent rental property.” In 1931, the American Texaco Oil Company also planned to build a refinery in the area, so it attempted to purchase a piece of land for construction. The company hired many compradors, middlemen who received commissions, as their representatives. Aware that such a transaction was not legal and would probably be blocked

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by Yee, the company conspired to circumvent him. It secretly bribed various local and county government officials with enormous amounts of money. The associate chairman of the chamber of commerce, who had become their accomplice, invited land owners over, presented them with incredibly high offers, and coerced them to sell their land to the Texaco Company. In return, the company consented to build a road from that area to the city at its own expense. The deed for this “permanent rental property” was prepared, and the tax was paid. After that, the company promised the head of the Second Department an attractive sum, and the latter agreed to stamp the deed with the magistrate’s official seal. The transaction was thus completed without Yee’s permission. One morning about a month later, when reviewing files, Yee came across a report submitted by the commissioner of the building bureau in regard to the Texaco Company’s building application. He viewed it as suspicious since he had never heard of the company’s land transaction. Maintaining his composure, he asked the Second Department head for the transaction file. He was startled as soon as he read through the file: the transaction had been completed, and the deed approved, with his official seal, though without his knowledge or consent. He made a quick decision. Instead of interrogating the Second Department head, who was in charge of financial matters, he sent a trusted subordinate to the Building Bureau to request the land deed for inspection, in order to approve the building application. The commissioner of the bureau notified the Texaco Company by phone, and the latter delivered the deed over to the county government accordingly. Yee was relieved when the deed arrived two days later. Waiting for the deed had been so nerve-wracking that he had not been able to eat or sleep. Now that it was in his possession, he let out a sigh of relief. He nullified the deed and authenticated this cancellation with his own seal. He could have been held responsible if this transaction with a foreign company had become publicized—he could have been accused of betraying the public and national interests by selling the land to Westerners. It would have been extremely difficult and awkward for him to prove that he had actually been an innocent victim of this business scheme. As soon as the deed was nullified, the Second Department head knew that the fraud had been exposed. Afraid of the serious consequences, he attempted suicide. However, Yee put him in protective custody and swiftly dispatched guards to arrest the associate chairman of the chamber of commerce. This dramatic outcome triggered “turmoil in the city.”28 Those implicated feared that they might be arrested, imprisoned, and ordered to return the bribes. The military commander, who jumped at this rare opportunity for revenge, sent a telegram to the Generalissimo’s headquarters in Nanjing, claiming that Yee “had received huge sums in the land transaction with a foreign company and this would endanger the safety of our country.”29 At the same time, the Texaco Company sought assistance from the American ambassador, who protested to the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Nanjing. Yee received a reprimand from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who emphasized the paramount importance of peace

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and harmony in diplomatic relationships as the nation was currently dealing with the invading Japanese army in Manchuria. Yee was then summoned to the provincial capital to “face a direct rebuke” from General Xiong. He defended himself by emphasizing that “the Texaco Company should have tried to negotiate for the land directly” with his office instead of working through “dishonest” channels. Rather than offering a fair judgment and strong support, General Xiong suggested that he be transferred. Yee departed, feeling “deeply depressed.”30 During his terms in Wuhu, Dangtu, and Jiujiang, Yee witnessed poverty and misery. Living conditions of the peasants seemed “appalling and pitiful.” “Many had no land to till and no work to do but had to beg in the streets and country lanes.”31 He made suggestions to raise money to help the peasants, but his proposals were inevitably turned down by the provincial government. Most of the officials, as he observed, did not act in the interests of their communities. Their concern was primarily “how to squeeze money from the people for themselves.”32 He wrote, I became sadder and sadder. Whenever I saw a beggar on the road, nearly dying of starvation, I remembered the famous lines by the great poet, Tu Fu of the T’ang dynasty more than a thousand years ago: “. . . Within the vermilion gates wine and meat growing rank; But on the roadside the bones of those frozen to death.” The words described conditions so many years ago; how was it that our people could still be suffering in the same way in the twentieth century? It proved that none of the governments, in the hands of so-called Confucian scholars, in the past had done anything for the common people. The Nanking government officials, though supposedly equipped with modern and new ideas, did nothing new but simply were carrying on the old ways.33

Finally, Yee made up his mind to resign from his post.34 He cut off his beard and mustache since there was no need to keep them. No longer obliged to talking day and night as a civil servant, he could finally enjoy some peace by himself. Now freed from all entangling official business, he found himself in a dilemma. What should he do? Since he had quarreled with the powerful governor, all doors seemed closed to him. It was difficult for him to find a job; even a return to teaching became impossible. Yee wrote to his friend Luo Changhai in England, telling of his own troubles and thoughts. Luo, who was studying political science on a scholarship in London, quickly replied with a long letter, encouraging him to go to England and see the wider world apart from China. A magistrate, as chief legal officer, financial official, and guardian of public security, had enormous power over his jurisdictions. It was generally considered a “lucrative position” since heavy bribery was rampant. For all those years of service as county magistrate, Yee had been trying to improve people’s living conditions, advance education, and curb corruption. Believing that personal interests should be secondary to the public service, he did not accumulate money for private use.

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“I was young and had taken the posts with the avowed aim of wiping out the past social evils. After I relinquished my post, I had little and could just manage to keep myself going for a short while.”35 He could not even afford the fare and expenses for the trip overseas. Yee discussed his plan with Ji, who gave full support and helped raise ΍100 from friends and relatives—a loan which should have been adequate, in those days, to sustain him for about six months in London. In addition, Ji helped him obtain a scholarship from the province. Having secured the funds, Yee began his travel preparations. He booked passage from Shanghai to Marseilles. Since it was a French liner, the fare was comparatively cheap, but he had to wait until May for the journey. He stayed in his uncle’s hut on Lu Mountain for a few weeks. The beautiful waterfalls seemed like long satin in the distance. He loved to get up early to watch the sunrise, as well as rest on the “silent couch,” listening to the musical waterfalls and watching the clouds slowly unfolding. After resigning from his official post, he adopted the penname 啞 行 者 (yaxingzhe) for himself. The word 啞 (ya) means “silent,” and it has the same sound as the character 雅 in his school name. Disillusioned with the political system and the corruption of the Nationalist government, he found silence a pleasurable luxury to possess. Indeed, Confucius had advised, “Don’t talk too much; talking too much will lead to trouble.” The phrase 行 者 (xingzhe) means “walking man” or “traveler.” It came from Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai’s words, “The Universe is the hotel for all Creatures.” Yee wanted to be a traveler, or a “walking man,” sharing the universe with all other human beings.36 Yee was no politician. He knew that, to be successful in the political arena, one should possess three skills: flattery for high officials, the ability to play mahjong, and refined social behavior in the ballroom. During his term as magistrate of Jiujiang, he had plenty of opportunities to associate with top officials, including Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, who stayed in their summer house on Lu Mountain. Promotion was easily attainable so long as he desired to please and socialize. However, he showed no interest at all.37 He wanted to see how the government operated in the West, so he planned to study the political system in England. “It was exciting to have the opportunity to go to England to observe the world.”38 Early in May 1933, Yee set out for Shanghai via Nanjing, where his college classmate Tseng Shih-yu presented him with a copy of London through Chinese Eyes as a souvenir. It was a thoughtful gift. The book was written by M.T.Z. Tyau, a journalist and government official, who had studied law in London between 1909 and 1916. Published in 1920, the book offered a close observation of various aspects of the sociopolitical system in England. For example, it gave accounts of street names, afternoon tea, clubs and societies, English democracy, and the courts. Such a book would be a useful guide to a new arrival in London. “The book was presented and received,” recalled Tseng, who later became a professor of science in China during the 1970s. However, no one could anticipate the significant influ-

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ence this book would have on Yee and his future writing career. Even Tseng could hardly conceal his happy surprise when he recalled forty years later, “But who could at that moment have any idea that the recipient of the book would soon outdo its author in the pleasure and pride that he had derived from his work?”39 The future, replete with uncertainties, was nonetheless beckoning with exciting opportunities and promises. It also exacted exorbitant prices. Yee had to be away from his close friends in Jiujiang, with whom he had formed a salon and held monthly meetings to discuss art and poetry. Going abroad also meant leaving his family behind. His four children were lovely, each with a distinct personality: Chien-kuo, the oldest and a particularly bright boy, had just turned seven and was sick at home when Yee departed; Xiaoyan, five, was a cute and happy girl with a round face; Chien-fei, three, tended to be rather stubborn; and Jian-lan, though only two, was already learning to recite poems. He had to part from his elder brother, too. After Yee’s resignation, Ji succeeded him and used the same yamen as his office. During the many years since their father passed away, Ji had consistently offered Yee unwavering support. Ji’s financial assistance enabled him to complete his college education, and Ji’s sincere advice guided and strengthened him at various stages in his subsequent career. Now, Ji encouraged him to go abroad and concentrate on his studies. Ji promised to look after his family. It was heartbreaking for Yee to say good-bye to his dear brother in Shanghai. Who could possibly know at the time that they would never see each other again? To leave China was “an indescribable torture” which “only experienced political exiles can understand,” asserted Yee years later.40 He boarded the Lebrun, a French liner, with his nephew, who was to study law in Paris. A large number of passengers on the ship were French soldiers returning home. Neither Yee nor his nephew could communicate with them. Having been stationed in Shanghai for some time, these soldiers apparently considered the Chinese subservient and inferior; they often knocked Yee’s head with their knuckles or hit his cabin door with a stick. Although their actions were rude and disrespectful, Yee kept his fury in his heart and remained silent. “Sulky Boy” was his nickname in childhood, but he found himself turned into a truly sulky person on that voyage.

chapter 4



No Longer in Need of a Bench

The ocean voyage to Europe was long and rough and lasted thirty-three days. Chiang Yee saw many spectacular scenes, but nothing seemed to impress him more than the sunrise over the ocean. In China, he had various opportunities to enjoy viewing the sunrise from atop various mountains. As the penetrating sunbeam began to “lift the dark shroud from the earth,” he always felt “refreshed mentally,” able to see “more significance” in his life.1 The sunrise on the ocean, however, offered an entirely new perspective because he was looking at the sun not from above but from its own level. The sun did not seem to illuminate the entire earth but only “the flat emptiness of the sea.” It appeared as though the boat was “propelled not by her own engine but by a force drawn from the sun and by my own urgent desire to reach what lay ahead of me.”2 “On the Pacific Ocean” is a poem that he wrote upon the sight of the sunrise over the ocean. A mysterious whole unites the vast emptiness. The wholesome wind of heaven tosses and twitches my coat. I watch the early sun rising from the ship And feel as if I were reading an unfamiliar book.3

An ancient Chinese sage pronounced that, to be a wise man, “one should read ten thousand volumes of books and travel ten thousand miles.” Traveling allows one to meet new people and encounter new phenomena, an experience that cannot be substituted by formal education. The phrase “reading an unfamiliar book” in the poem is a reference to that advice. Indeed, Yee had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday on the deck of the Lebrun, probably in the Indian Ocean. Confucius said, “A man should become independent at the age of thirty.” It was unlikely that Yee had a birthday party or cake with which to celebrate; he probably gazed at the water and sky and reflected on the meaning of life and his unknown future in Europe. Sure enough, age thirty, a dividing line between youth and adulthood, marked the threshold of a new phase in his life. 48

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After the Lebrun docked at Marseilles, a beautiful city shrouded in dense morning mist, Yee boarded a train for Paris where he stayed overnight in a small hotel. Early the next morning, he parted from his nephew, who was to stay in Paris, and crossed the English Channel by ferry. On June 15, 1933, Chiang Yee arrived in London. His life outside China had begun. His friend, Luo Changhai, met him at Victoria Station in London and then took him to a Chinese restaurant. Luo had arranged with his own landlady to vacate a room for Yee. “Get rid of all bureaucratic habits!”—that was the first advice Luo gave him. Indeed, life in London would be a huge transition. Yee used to have between eighty and three hundred soldiers guarding his office and residence, as well as six personal servants.4 He was used to relying on servants and bodyguards to take care of his life and security; now, as a foreign student, he had to depend on himself and even learn to prepare his own meals. Nevertheless, he quickly found that the gas stove in London was surprisingly convenient and fairly easy to master. Furthermore, preparing one’s own meals was very economical. Yee and Luo had not seen each other for five years, ever since the latter left China. Luo was as diligent as ever. On the bookshelves in his room were many volumes of notebooks full of notes taken from his reading. Yee soon noticed distinct traces of foreign influence in his friend. For example, whenever Luo came for a visit, he would pause at the door, glance at his watch, and declare, “Now I have five minutes to talk to you.” As soon as time was up, he would get up and return to his own room. He advised Yee to improve his English skills quickly. It was vital for Yee, who knew only five English words upon arriving, to master a substantial amount of English vocabulary and learn to engage in daily conversations. Luo found a female tutor to give Yee one-hour English conversation lessons every other day; he also checked on Yee’s progress occasionally. Even though he was several years younger, Luo was rigorous in dealing with Yee’s English learning and would criticize him harshly whenever Yee gave wrong answers. His approach worked well! In just a few weeks, Yee found himself capable of making simple conversation in English! He was exhilarated and greatly encouraged. The landlady lived in the same building. She only had a high school education, but she loved reading and had a broad range of knowledge in world affairs and liberal arts. She knew so much that she and Luo seemed to have endless topics for discussion. She left for work at seven every morning, came home after five, and then started preparing dinner. She kept herself very busy. She also often helped copy and type manuscripts for Luo. On two occasions, they invited Yee to go on a Sunday picnic with them, once in Regent Park and another time at Kew Gardens. While delighted to have the opportunity to practice English, Yee discovered that Luo’s relationship with the landlady was closer than he had suspected. Luo originally came from southern Jiangxi. His family moved to Jiujiang after his father had gotten a job there, and his mother, one of few well-educated women, started teaching at a local school. Luo attended the elementary school where Ji used to work. At a young age, Luo lost both parents, and it was Ji who took care of

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him. Extraordinarily diligent, Luo finished high school, passed the examination, and won a scholarship for study abroad. With a promising future, Luo instantly became much sought after for marriage. A political friend once told Ji that he wanted to arrange a marriage between his own niece and Luo. Ji agreed to help. He discussed the matter with Luo, who consented to the suggested marriage at once though he had never even met the girl. He did this out of the respect and trust he had for Ji. Soon after the wedding, however, Luo realized that it was very difficult to get along with his barely-educated wife. Since he was to leave for England, he thought the distance from home might be a solution to this problem. Luo and Yee managed to find time for a heart-to-heart conversation about marriage. Luo recognized that his own marriage was a blunder. He was bitter about the fact that parents in China valued marriage for their daughters over an education that would teach them how to be mentally strong and make their own judgments. Women, Luo believed, should be educated to become capable and self-reliant, able to assist—rather than depend on—their husbands. Yee shared the same opinion. The case of his cousin, Chiang Chung-ho, a very bright, talented youth, was another example. After his admission to Qinghua University in Beijing, Chung-ho’s parents forced him to marry an illiterate country girl. As a filial son, he obeyed and returned to Jiujiang for the wedding. However, his wife’s lack of education made their relationship so intolerable that he became deeply saddened. The marriage practically claimed his life within a year. “As for my own case,” Yee admitted many years later, “it was very similar, except that I did not take it to heart. All my life I endeavored to accomplish what I aimed to do.”5 About a month after his arrival in London, Yee moved in to share a flat on the second floor of 50 Upper Park Road in Hampstead with Shih-I Hsiung. Three days later, Luo left England for Xiamen, China, with his friends, including the famous scholar Chen Ximeng and poets Wang Li-xi and Lu Jingqing, to organize a rebellion against the Chiang Kai-shek regime and to call for a common front against the Japanese invasion. This radical insurgence, commonly known as the “Fujian Movement,” did not win extensive support and was soon crushed by Chiang Kaishek in January 1934.6 Unfortunately, Luo was afflicted with appendicitis a few days after his arrival in Xiamen, a city in southeastern China. His wife, resentful of his relationship with an English girlfriend, deferred medical treatment. As a result, Luo passed away shortly afterward. When the news came, Yee was heartbroken. He expressed his grief in poetic form: “Emptying rivers and turning seas into tears / cannot match my sadness as expressed in this poem about you on this quiet night.”7 He now had to make his way in England without the company of a close friend. Even though he had not yet been able to have long discussions with Londoners, Yee observed some sharp contrasts between the Chinese and English, most notably in their literacy levels and living conditions. In London, he discovered to his surprise, “everybody could read and write” and “all expressed their feelings very freely and clearly.” Common people “ate their breakfasts, lunches, and dinners just like the aristocrats and officials, though the dishes may have been simpler.”

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However, he was appalled by the fact that Chinese people were not respected in London. As he walked in the street with Chinese friends, especially in the East End, children would often follow them and throw stones, chanting “Chin Chin Chinaman . . . ,” a song they had learned from the play and movie of that title. There was a small Chinatown in London, with restaurants and laundries operated by Chinese who generally spoke no English and dressed in shabby clothes. The area was considered dangerous for English ladies. Many people in England held stereotyped views about Chinese, whom they considered heathen, backward, and cunning. On several occasions, Yee, dressed in a tidy suit, was misidentified as Japanese. Chinese, most English reasoned, could not afford to wear respectable suits. News about China in the media was generally negative, and Fu Manchu movies and other stereotypical representations in mass media fanned antiOriental sentiment. There were Chinese intellectuals, too. Shih-I Hsiung, Yee’s new flatmate, was one. Also a Jiangxi native and about the same age as Yee, Hsiung had arrived in London in early 1933. Like Yee, he was married, with a wife and five children back in China. He had expressive eyes, and, though short, moved about swiftly and nimbly with inexhaustible energy. He was bright and well versed in literature, with a special interest in drama. A graduate from the National University in Beijing, he had taught in China and translated George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Franklin, and all of James Barrie’s plays. His fervent interest in English drama brought him to London to pursue a Ph.D. and, he hoped, to meet the great playwrights he admired, including George Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy, and James Barrie.8 He was quite ingenious and inexhaustibly sociable. Since Jiangxi was famous for porcelain products, he gave uniquely-designed vases, decorated with portraits of playwrights and gracious remarks, as gifts to those English playwrights. Within a year or two, Hsiung had become friends with many famous figures in literary circles.9 Hsiung met with Professor Allardyce Nicoll, a Shakespearean scholar at the University of London. After hearing of his interest in studying English drama, Nicoll suggested that Hsiung consider Chinese drama or playwriting based on Chinese subjects. As there was no Chinese play on stage in England at that time, it would be a worthy pursuit and possibly a shortcut to both fame and fortune. Hsiung took the advice to heart. He had recently received a similar suggestion from Sir James Stewart Lockhart, a former commissioner of Weihaiwei in China and retired governor of Hong Kong. Impressed with Hsiung’s expertise in drama, Lockhart suggested that Hsiung translate Chinese classical plays into English, which he would then help recommend for publication.10 Reassured by Nicoll’s advice, Hsiung set to work at once. For six weeks, he worked late into the night, adapting the classical Beijing opera The Red-Maned Steed into an English play, with a new title, Lady Precious Stream. It was a romance between a princess and a servant, and it had a melodramatic ending. As soon as the writing was completed, he made it widely known that the play would be on stage soon. A few months passed, yet there was no progress. Hsiung had been trying to find a manager to accept the play, but had met repeated rejections—eleven times in total. He did

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not give up, and, eventually, his extraordinary resilience paid off. Methuen and Company agreed to publish the play in July 1934 with a preface by Lascelles Abercrombie, an English poet and critic. It proceeded to win many favorable reviews. The director of the Little Theater, upon reading the play, agreed to stage it with Nancy Price and Hsiung as directors.11 Opening in London on November 27, 1934, this four-act play—charming, exotic, refreshing, captivating, and enchanting—attracted a full audience every night for several months. Queen Mary, it was said, saw the play as many as eight times. The play ran for a record three years, or nine hundred shows, and Hsiung was later invited to the United States with his wife for its Broadway premier. Hsiung rose to become a celebrity; there was news coverage about his play almost every day.12 Invigorated with this fabulous success, Hsiung set out to work on a new play, The Western Chamber, which was an English translation of a classical Chinese opera. His celebrated status made it very easy to find a publisher and a theater for this new play. He purchased embroidered, colorful costumes from Shanghai especially for its stage production. Unfortunately, the stage life of this second play lasted only two weeks, probably because its slow pace was unbearable for a Western audience.13 Different from Lady Precious Stream, this play had a relatively singular plot—a truly “artistic play” meant for high-brows.14 George Bernard Shaw, for example, expressed his profound appreciation: “I like THE WESTERN CHAMBER very much: far better than PRECIOUS STREAM, which is a commonplace melodrama, whereas THE W. CHAMBER is a delightful dramatic poem, like our very best medieval plays. But it needs an exquisite art of performance, which only China could produce in the Thirteenth Century.”15 In any case, the remarkable success of Lady Precious Stream altered the image of the Chinese. At the beginning, when Hsiung was looking for a reviewer of the play, a sinologist at the British Museum sneered, “Can yellow men write books?” The subsequent success of the play in London changed his view. Yee believed that the success of the play helped English people understand that Chinese were not all restaurateurs or laundry workers. Hsiung was a pioneer and harbinger in paving the way for successors. As a witness to this entire episode in Hsiung’s life, Yee had nothing but admiration. “I have great respect for Hsiung, who achieved success with such confidence, diligence, and resilience.”16 The book of the play had a charming feature: two colored plates by Xu Beihong, a famous Chinese artist, and twelve illustrations by Chiang Yee. “Brother Chiang, you may just make illustrations for my books in the future. If I become successful, you may also have a share,” Hsiung, intoxicated with victorious achievements, cast his promises to Yee one day. There was no doubt that Hsiung appreciated Yee’s illustrations. These beautiful line drawings, all about the scenes in the play, appeared simple but elegant, exotic but delightful. They definitely contributed to the popularity of the play. However, it was the ferocious arrogance in Hsiung’s remarks that was intolerable to Yee. He was skilled and interested in art, but it had never been

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his goal to be an illustrator in the service of a fellow writer. He also had a good literary background. This was the defining moment when he set his mind to getting published in the future.17 Yee worked hard to improve his English language skills and academic knowledge. Hiring a tutor was too expensive, but he was fortunate enough to get help from his landlady Mrs. Black, who was also the headmistress of a girls’ school. He would write an essay in Chinese and then translate it into English. Mrs. Black would then go over his English translation and correct the errors before he made a few more revisions.18 He would read everything within his reach, especially newspapers. He often went to the nearby park to practice English. The elderly tended to have more leisure time and often gently corrected him or pointed out his grammatical mistakes. There were a lot of children in the park as well. The sight of their lovely faces and the sound of their laughter filled his heart with joy and poignancy, for they reminded him of his own children and family left behind in China. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday when families gather together, look at the full moon, and eat moon cakes while remembering other family members away from home. During the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1933, Yee wrote the following poem for his wife: The echo of the church bell that landed on the emerald rail Has suddenly touched the cord of homesickness. The moon over Luzhou must be the same tonight Except that I am not there to appreciate it with my children as in the past.19

Yee’s hard work paid off. In January 1934, he became a student at the London School of Economics at the University of London. In May, with an exemption from matriculation, he was accepted to the Master of Science program in Economics. He paid the registration fee and planned to study English local government. One day, he received a “strange but interesting letter” from the Men of the Trees.20 This society was founded by Richard Baker eleven years earlier and aimed to “create a universal tree sense and encourage all to plant, protect and love trees everywhere.”21 In order to spread information and raise funds, the society planned an international exhibition of tree paintings by soliciting artworks from artists in many countries. Following the Chinese embassy’s recommendation, the society contacted Yee. He had not even brought painting materials with him to London, for he did not expect an opportunity to paint abroad. He immediately acquired brush pens and ink, and subsequently submitted three paintings—“Bamboo of Huangchow,” “The Willow Tree of West Lake,” and “Pine of Lu Mountain”—which were exhibited among two hundred art works at London’s Grosvenor House in November 1934. Among the participating artists, Yee was not only the only Chinese, but also the only Asian. To his surprise, “Bamboo of Huangchow” was reproduced in the London Evening Standard on the exhibition’s opening day. Bamboo, a popular plant in his native province, had traditionally been a favorite subject in Chinese painting, symbolizing the moral integrity of a gentleman. Inspired by this

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success, Yee set out to try various other subjects, such as ducks, swans, and seagulls in St. James’ Park and Kew Gardens. One of his duck paintings was published in the Illustrated London News. In the early summer of 1934, he chanced to meet Xu Beihong, a renowned modern Chinese artist. Xu graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he received a solid training in the tradition of Western academic art. Having recently arranged a Chinese contemporary art exhibition in Moscow, Xu came to visit London on his way back to China. Shih-I Hsiung invited Xu and his wife to stay at the vacant room in their flat. Hsiung always seemed to be well informed about the whereabouts of Chinese celebrities in London; indeed, these celebrities yearned to meet with him, as he had become a household name after the success of his play Lady Precious Stream. Yee had met Xu twice in China. The first time was in the summer of 1925 during Xu’s brief visit to Lu Mountain. He was present when Xu discussed painting techniques and gave a demonstration at Sun Moqian’s home. Two years later, Yee briefly saw Xu again at painter Huang Binhong’s home in Shanghai.22 “Do you remember that we have met before in Jiujiang?” Yee asked Xu. “How could I have forgotten that? I heard later that you became magistrate of Jiujiang. I was too busy establishing the art gallery in Guangxi; otherwise, I might have enjoyed a beautiful visit to Lu Mountain.” Yee replied, “At that time, Lu Mountain was not yet a special zone. It was under my administration, and it would have been my great pleasure to wander on the mountains with you.” Because of Xu’s visit, Yee got a chance to visit various well-known places and meet a number of famous people. He accompanied Xu to visit the film studio at Shepherd’s Bush, where they saw Paul Robeson making a musical film. Robeson was an African-American singer and actor who re-created his stage character Joe, from Show Boat, singing “Ol’ Man River.” Yee had long been impressed by Robeson’s resonant bass, and, standing next to this highly charismatic actor, he could not help but feel awed by his commanding presence. After a brief conversation with Robeson, Yee was deeply touched by the warm personality of this world-renowned singer. Philip Connard, a well-known English artist, had an actress daughter who knew Hsiung. Through that connection, Xu was invited to visit Connard’s home near Kew Gardens. After lunch, the two went out for a motorboat ride on the Thames River. Xu, who could speak French, reminisced about his student days in France and discussed Western artists and masterpieces with Connard. With the help of Connard, who was a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, Xu later planned to exchange artwork with some of the other Royal Academy artists and to develop the collection at a new gallery in Guangxi. He entrusted Yee with this task, but the plan was not executed because of the war.23 During his stay in London, Xu often went to museums and copied some of the many masterpieces. On Thursday mornings, the National Gallery, known for its

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rich collection of European art, especially Italian Renaissance art, was closed to the general public and open for artists only. Yee got two tickets for Xu and himself. Every Thursday, Xu rented an easel and began copying masterpieces, including Velázquez’s famous Venus and Cupid. Xu also copied Raphael’s seven cartoons in the Victoria and Albert Museum. While most of the artists in the museums were students, there were distinguished artists as well. A friend introduced Xu to the legendary art critic Roger Fry, who was copying Rembrandt’s self-portrait at the National Gallery. Best known for his promotion of modern art, Fry was also a sensitive painter. His copying skills won Xu’s genuine admiration. The two conversed in French, and Xu showed Fry some reproductions of his own paintings. Standing nearby and listening to these two great artists, Yee made the following observations of Fry: He had a usual type of face with wide forehead and two heavy lines under the cheekbone, into which I read the difficulties he must have overcome to carry out his determined purpose. Moreover, I felt his eyes had a special power of penetrating into the thing he saw. This is probably why he observed beauty in modern French art of the last century earlier than any other English person, though he met great opposition at the time, as I was told. Now visitors to the National and Tate Galleries enjoy looking at the modern works of art largely through his enlightened criticism.24

While Xu was engaged in his work, Yee strolled around, appreciating the masterpieces in the gallery. The Whitechapel Art Gallery, which hosted a Chinese art exhibition, was the first gallery Yee visited. He liked smaller museums, and the Leicester Gallery was his favorite. This easy accessibility to vast art collections was an unheard-of novelty in China before the 1910s, where artworks were amassed and stored in the Forbidden City for the exclusive pleasure of the royal family and high officials. Some private collections did exist, but they were not available to the public. Hence, the general public never had a chance to view the original masterpieces. To Yee, Western art appeared entirely different from the Eastern art with which he was familiar. He saw light, shade, and color as “the gift of Western painters.” The movement of the brush pen in oil painting, Yee claimed, captured and reflected the “vigorous and adventurous” spirit of the people in the West.25 While admiring Constable, Turner, Whistler, and other favorite painters, he began to compare the differences in art expression between the East and West. I believe the whole art world may be divided into followers of Apollo and Dionysus; Apollonian art represents strong feeling, deep thoughts, and powerful manifestation of affection; Dionysian art is quieter, more peaceful, shows an affection which is reserved, but tenacious and lasting. I also believe these two types may be taken to represent the respective arts of West and East.26

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He also noted: Chinese artistic technique is subjective and ethereal, putting human feeling into harmony with the spirit of Nature. The art of the West by contrast I may call objective and dramatic—it uses human power to control Nature. Out of these characteristics of the West arise realism and the idealizing of the human figure. The Western artist likes to control, as it were, this human form—to give all these sculptured figures the grace, strength, and perfection of an Apollo or a Venus. He tries, on the whole, to catch the light exactly as he sees it in life, and the colours as they strike his eyes. This is the basis of the difference between Western and Eastern art, for in the East we do not care about symmetry of form or reasoned order. . . . While trying to put a spirit into Nature’s forms, we accept the appearance of those forms just as they are without idealizing them . . .27

A master in both Western and Chinese painting techniques, Xu was best known for horse painting. He loved to paint galloping stallions, hoofs off the ground and manes floating in the air. He applied a Western perspective to his Chinese-style brushwork and created a world-famous horse painting style that was original and groundbreaking. Few people knew that Xu’s mastery really came from his insatiable curiosity for and close observations of his subject. While in London, Xu and his wife, accompanied by Yee, went to a major horse racing event. Saturday newspapers in London usually carried photos of horseracing, and, at Xu’s request, Yee saved the clippings and sent them to China for his study.28 Yee and Xu often discussed art and art theory, and they shared many of the same ideas. Both believed that modern artists in the West, such as Matisse and Picasso, had excellent technical training before they discovered a new style through experimentation. It was therefore wrong for trendy young artists in China to simply imitate more mature artists without mastering essential techniques. Such shortcuts would make them, as Xu humorously put it, Ma-ti-si, or “Horse Kicked Dead.” Xu and Yee even discussed an ambitious plan to copy all the important Chinese paintings dispersed overseas and send the copies back to China.29 Their friendship developed in London and continued to deepen over the next two decades until Xu’s death in the 1950s. While in London, Xu painted Yee’s portrait, with the inscription “Chiang Yee at the Age When No Longer in Need of a Bench.” It was an allusion to Confucius’s statement that a man should be independent—or on his own feet—at the age of thirty. The inscription encouraged Yee to aspire to lofty goals. Mei Lanfang was another celebrity who stayed in Yee’s flat. A famous Beijing opera actor and the best-known female impersonator in China, he was amiable and spoke softly. He seized every opportunity to observe and imitate females. Before breakfast every morning, for example, he would wash a pair of socks or a handkerchief, even though there was no need for him to do his own laundry.30 He had recently completed performances in Moscow and Leningrad, and subsequently visited Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy, exploring the possibility of

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future performances in Europe. It was his hope to present his troupe in Europe for a week or two. Since Hsiung had many acquaintances and friends in theatrical circles, he arranged for Mei to meet with Bernard Shaw and attend Paul Robeson’s performance in London. Yee and Hsiung also accompanied Mei to Cambridge, where the director of the Festival Theater invited them for lunch and a tour of the theater. The director regarded it a distinguished honor to have Mei, the “finest actor living,” visit Cambridge.31 Stewart Lockhart, who knew Hsiung well, was also a good friend of Yee’s. One of the earliest sinologists in England, Lockhart had an excellent command of Chinese. An expert in Chinese cultural history, he was the translator of A Manual of Chinese Quotations (1893). He was, in Yee’s words, “a man of great personality with profound learning and knowledge,” always eager to explore something new.32 They met every Saturday morning to discuss Chinese classics. One day, Lockhart asked if Yee would be interested in teaching Chinese at the School of Oriental Studies (SOS) at London University. J. Percy Bruce, a missionary teacher of Chinese at the SOS, had just passed away, and there was a vacant position. Lockhart, a member of the Management Committee of the School, was willing to recommend him if he was interested. Even though he had no language teaching experience, Yee seized the opportunity. He knew that he could meet more people through teaching, improve his English, and earn some income. On October 13, he went to be interviewed by Reginald Johnston, chairman of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East. It must have been a successful interview, for Johnston made a high commendation of the candidate in his note to the Secretary the following day: “I have seen Mr. Chiang and had a long talk with him. I think he would do excellently as occasional lecturer.” According to Johnston, Yee was preparing a thesis on the subject of government in China.33 His teaching began on October 24, 1934. He taught three hours a week, one hour on Wednesdays and two hours on Thursdays, as an occasional lecturer. As there was no established textbook for the teaching of Chinese, Yee began to collect material for a set of two elementary textbooks for beginners. These textbooks would contain pronunciation and vocabulary lists, new features that would be very convenient for language students. Later that semester, he proposed to Dora Edwards that he wanted to write a textbook and would be willing to publish it himself if no funding support from the school were available. Edwards, a reader in Chinese with that same department, reported this issue to Johnston in January 1935, with a comment that the manuscript should be tested before being “accepted as the basis of our syllabuses.” “We should not adopt a method of teaching which may prove unsuited to anyone but its author.” Yee’s proposal was rejected and never mentioned again.34 In spring 1935, Yee’s teaching responsibilities increased to six hours per week. He taught four courses: “Elementary Classical Chinese,” “Elementary Modern Chinese,” and two colloquial Chinese classes. While his classical Chinese and modern Chinese classes each had two students, the other two colloquial language

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classes each had five registered students. His monthly pay increased to £25 and he was finally able to send some money home to his family. The SOS, later named SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), was established by Royal Charter in 1916 to better “support the British Empire.”35 In 1935, still located at its original Finsbury Circus site, it consisted of eight departments: Ancient India and Iran, Modern India and Ceylon, South-East Asia and the Islands, the Far East, the Near East, Africa, Phonetics and Linguistics, and History and Law. Until the end of World War II, the basic priority of the school was to provide colloquial language training for businessmen, colonial foreign service officials, and missionaries before embarking on “the pursuit of study and research, commerce or a profession” in Asia or Africa.36 A major component of the Far East Department was Chinese language teaching. Over the years, a number of prominent expatriate Chinese had been appointed as lecturers, including Lao She (Colin C. Shu) from 1924 to 1929 and the journalist Xiao Qian (Hsiao Chien) in 1939.37 In July 1935, Yee’s department informed him of his new appointment as full-time additional lecturer for the 1935–1936 academic year. The long-brewing internal clashes, which had erupted in 1934–1935, had forced him to tread a fine line with extreme care. Johnston came to teach at SOS in 1931 to fill the position vacated after the retirement of the former chairman J. P. Bruce. Johnston, “a man of quite exceptional and rare attainments,” defeated his competitor Edwards and obtained the position.38 Without a formal academic training in Chinese studies, he was the author of multiple publications, including From Peking to Mandalay, Buddhist China, The Chinese Drama, and Twilight in the Forbidden City. The list of the services and posts he held in China was dazzling. He served as English tutor to the last Qing emperor, Henry Pu-Yi, from 1919 to 1925; secretary to the British China Indemnity Delegation in 1926; and the last commissioner of Weihaiwai from 1927 to 1930, before it was returned to China. By offering Johnston the chairmanship, the school hoped to improve the reputation of its academic programs and to forge more connections with Chinese scholars. The result, though, seemed disappointing. Johnston soon revealed his idiosyncratic personality. He was impatient with teaching basic colloquial Mandarin and performing administrative duties. He disappeared at least once without notice, when he should have been in the classroom teaching, and, on one such occasion, the school was forced to place an advertisement in The Times to determine his whereabouts. Eventually, he replied “from his library-hideaway” on an island in Argyllshire, Scotland. “He was most put out by the exercise and its implied criticism, but was inveigled into coming back down south to fulfill his duties for the term.” Johnston was all too aware of the hostility at the SOS. The school was “anxious to get rid of me,” he wrote, and he believed that his colleagues in the Chinese Department, Bruce and Edwards, had been counting on this. In October 1934, G. W. Rossetti, secretary of the school, attempted to oust Johnston. He survived the coup, however, partly because his memoir Twilight in the Forbidden City had just been released and was a sensational success. His appointment was fully extended by the university

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for two more years until 1937. As soon as he received the official confirmation, Johnston applied for a two-term leave of absence to visit his good friend Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of China and puppet emperor of Manchukuo. 39 During their time at the school together, Johnston offered important assistance to Yee. To arrange Yee’s employment, he proposed to the school, which had long been plagued with financial constraints, that he would pay Yee’s salary from his own pocket. His proposal was rejected for technical reasons; nevertheless, the school agreed to hire Yee at an hourly rate.40 Yee’s status change to full-time lecturer in 1935 must have been endorsed by Johnston, chair of the department, even though he was on sabbatical during the fall of 1935. Yee thus became one of two full-time faculty members in Chinese, Edwards, who also served as acting chairman, being the other. During the early 1930s, interest in Chinese art was “growing considerably.”41 There were several exhibitions of Chinese art, and Chinese artifacts were a common sight in many London galleries. The Modern Chinese Painting Exhibition, from February 21 to March 23, 1935, was one of them. Liu Haisu, a prominent Chinese artist, came to London in January 1935, bringing dozens of artworks by the best modern Chinese artists. Assisted by the Chinese consulate, he was to organize the Modern Chinese Painting Exhibition in London. Hsiung invited Liu and his wife to stay in their flat since there was a room available. A master painter in the Shanghai School, Liu was known for his vigorous brushwork and powerful style. He was also a progressive teacher of art. The art school he founded in 1912, when he was only seventeen years old, had evolved into the famous Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. He displayed nude figure studies at exhibitions in 1915, and, in 1925, he used nude models at the Shanghai Academy. These unprecedented, brazen experiments had brought personal attacks, and he was even put under warrant of arrest for some years. Liu vigorously defended his theory and practice, and his fearless spirit had won him much support and respect from Chinese intellectuals.42 Yee was delighted to have a chance to meet with this influential artist, and he helped Liu set up the exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries. On February 21, Yee attended its opening ceremony. Among the distinguished guests in attendance were the education minister, mayor of London, dean of the SOS, and Shih-I Hsiung. At Liu’s invitation, Yee submitted a few small-sized paintings, one of which was sold during the exhibition. Yee was overjoyed. It dawned on him that his training in art and his Chinese upbringing were his niche for success! He sent a letter to his brother in Jiujiang, requesting painting materials. Preparations for the International Exhibition of Chinese Art at the Burlington House were underway. Over three thousand pieces of painting, calligraphy, jade, sculpture, bronze, and porcelain—“the most remarkable assemblage”—were to be displayed to the public from November 28, 1935 to March 7, 1936.43 The Chinese government sent over eight hundred artifacts from the Palace Museum, and the British government dispatched the warship Suffolk to transport these national treasures to London. The excitement of the public was palpable. Every day, newspaper art columns included articles discussing Chinese art and its cultural

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tradition. Most people in London had only recently learned that China had an art history dating from 1500 b.c. On the street, Yee and other Chinese were often stopped by strangers who complimented them on their rich cultural history.44 For publishers, the exhibition was a golden opportunity to promote books on Chinese art. J. Alan White, director of Methuen & Company in London, thought that a book by a Chinese artist “would give an additional attraction.”45 Through Hsiung’s reference, White met with Yee and discussed his plan. Yee was worried that his limited English might not be adequate for the task, but White encouraged him to take it on. He suggested that Yee “jot down” his ideas in Chinese and then translate them into English; White would then edit the manuscript for publication.46 Fortunately, Yee obtained timely assistance from Innes Jackson, a student in his Elementary Classical Chinese class at SOS. Innes, a recent graduate from Oxford University with a major in English language and literature, was studying classical Chinese at SOS during the fall of 1934 and was intent on becoming a translator. Her exuberant interest in Chinese cultural history was kindled by two of her Chinese friends. One was Liao Hongying, a chemistry major at Oxford. Innes met Hongying at dinner on the first day at Oxford, and they became lifelong, close friends. Zeng Zhaoyu, her other Chinese friend, was studying art history with renowned art historian W. Percival Yetts of the Courthould Institute, while Innes was studying Chinese classical poetry and the Confucian Analects with Reginald Johnston. Innes often had long conversations with Zeng deep into the night. Young, bright, and curious, she distinguished herself from other students at SOS. Armed with a solid training in classics, poetry, and art, she reached out to Oriental studies. To such an ideal student, Johnston graciously reciprocated “enthusiasm, ability and youth with interest” by offering her extra lessons at no extra cost.47 Innes was a perfect candidate to assist Yee in his Chinese art book project. For several months, they worked together in his flat on Upper Park Road. “She worked hard,” Yee acknowledged, “polishing my clumsy English and questioning me on this and that aspect of Chinese art in general, and painting in particular.”48 The two went over his draft sentence by sentence. Innes would first ask Yee to explain and clarify his meaning, and she would then render it into proper English or restructure the sentence to make it flow smoothly. On many occasions, Yee had to make a sketch in order to explain himself. They often worked late hours, and Yee usually prepared dinner for both of them. The strenuous project moved along steadily. To Innes, it was an immensely rewarding experience, through which she learned to perceive the parallel and contrasting aspects of Western and Chinese art. It helped build the base for her future study of Chinese culture. Late at night, on her way to the subway station, she often felt exhausted yet “elevated,” having learned something new that day about China and Chinese art.49 When the writing was completed, Innes took the manuscript to her mother’s house in Bournemouth, where she edited and typed it out during the summer. “Alan White read the edited manuscript with approval and sent it to press at once.”50

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On November 21, 1935, just a week before the opening of the exhibition, the book came out under the title The Chinese Eye.51 Shih-I Hsiung wrote a preface for the book. Characteristically audacious and impassioned, he was very generous in his admiration. His comments on the book were terse but apt: Books on Chinese Art already existing were all written by Western critics whose conceptions, though valuable, would certainly give an interpretation quite different from that of Chinese artists, poor creatures! who, I expect you will agree with me, ought to have their own say. The author of this book treats the history and principles and philosophy of painting so deftly and yet so simply that one cannot help being instructed and entertained at the same time. It is not a big book, and, thank Heavens, not an academic book! If Mr. Chiang has achieved nothing else but has succeeded in writing about Chinese Art without being tiresomely academic, both the author and the reader ought to be highly congratulated.52

The Chinese Eye, with the subtitle “An Interpretation of Chinese Painting,” was unique in its approach compared with other books on the same subject. The term “Chinese Eye” denotes a work of art derived from what their eyes have seen and grown accustomed to. At the same time, this term implies the way the Chinese see things, especially works of art, and themselves. On the front cover of The Chinese Eye, the title and author’s name are in a bold, eye-catching red color, under which is a portrait of Confucius by Ma Yuan of the Song Dynasty. Free of academic jargon, the book is delightfully entertaining and original, rendering a simple but deft interpretation of the subject from the perspective of an experienced artist. It offers rare insights into the philosophical, literary, and aesthetic nature of Chinese painting, from the perspective of a Chinese artist who is sensitive to the needs of Western readers. There are vast differences between Chinese and Western artistic expressions and tastes, as Yee affirms, yet they are as easily comprehensible as the differences we know between tea and coffee. I have only just learned the correct time for taking tea in England; and I understand that one should add milk and sugar and eat some cakes with it as well. But our habit is not so: we have no regular time for tea; we drink it when we like, and not merely for refreshment: it is a form of sociability, a unifying element whenever friends may meet. Nor do we need any milk or sugar to flavour it; we think the natural flavour and scent of the leaves should reach our palate in their original purity, and so we sip it appreciatively, little by little instead of cup by cup. This habit of ours is not without its application in the work of art. We feel that a painting need call for no elaborate technique; it should speak simply from the power of its basic inspiration. That partly explains the Chinese preference for plain ink; we use few colours to help out the effect, just as we do not add

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chiang yee milk or sugar to improve the tea’s flavour. If we are drawing a single flower or bird, we often leave a blank background; as I said, we take no cakes with our tea! Nowadays, there are some of us who have learned indeed to take all these etceteras. I might add that I believe those Western people who drink black coffee can certainly appreciate our paintings—far more if they drink black coffee without sugar!53

In discussing the relationship between the artist and nature, Yee thus writes, Our love of Nature is based upon a desire to identify our minds with her and to enjoy her as she is. But the West tries to imitate, to control, and to master her. For example, you have learned to make artificial flowers whose unreality can hardly be detected—this is what I call your imitation of Nature; you have invented methods for keeping harsh wind and rain from harming trees and flowers—what I call your control of Nature; you can force flowers to bloom out of season—your mastery of Nature. Your careful nurturing of hothouse blooms must contrast with our appreciation of withering leaves—dying plants. Our poets and painters take a melancholy delight in faded glories and dying memories of the past, and so they often paint or describe the lotus after the time of its splendour, for the sake of its associations with these things.54

The comparative approach in his discussion draws out the different relations between man and nature in the East and West. Such an approach—unconventional, refreshing, and enlightening—becomes a benchmark feature of Yee’s subsequent works. The book was dedicated to Yee’s brother. The author also expressed his gratitude to Alan White and Shih-I Hsiung. As to Innes Jackson, he stated, “it is impossible adequately to express my gratitude. She has rendered into lucid English my clumsy expressions, translated many quotations from Chinese poetry in the chapter on ‘Painting and Literature,’ and drawn my attention to parallels in European thought.”55 Privately, Innes was disappointed at not being credited as a co-author after she had put in so much effort. This was despite the fact that Yee had explained that the publisher wanted to have a Chinese author as it would help the book’s sales.56 For Yee, it was indeed a dream come true. The book sold so well that it was reprinted one month after its publication, and its second edition came out a month later. With this book, Yee started on his “writing career outside China.”57 1935 was a fortunate year in Yee’s writing career. In addition to The Chinese Eye, he published a collection of Chinese poems, entitled Jiang Zhongya’s Poems (Poems by Chiang Yee). A small thread-bound volume, it begins with the poet’s preface dated January 1, 1935 and contains ninety poems, all in the classical septasyllabic quatrain format, written during the previous two years. The first eight poems in the collection were written during his journey to England. Approximately two-thirds of the poems in the collection are about his impressions and observa-

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tions of the lifestyle, weather, natural environment, and architecture of England; these poems, in general, are sanguine and urbane, with an occasional touch of humor. In comparison, the remaining one-third is solemn in tone, revealing the poet’s political concerns and turbulent emotions. The situation in China had been increasingly unsettling; by the end of 1934, the Japanese occupied Jehol, Inner Mongolia, and in 1935 demanded that the five northern provinces of China become independent from the Chinese government. Yee, though residing in England, was concerned about the situation in his homeland. In a forlorn but not sentimental tone, he expresses his anxiety, agony, and indignation as the sovereignty of the motherland, or “The Divine Land,” is being trampled under the invader’s foot. Dust and sand have brought in the autumn from all sides; Into the gilded tower drift the notes of a barbarian’s flute from afar. Most melancholy is when the west wind blows with the setting sun, While someone is gazing in the direction of the Divine Land with tears in his eyes.58

Likewise, the poems about family, friends, and hometown are worth noting. A family letter, as the Chinese proverb goes, is worth a thousand gold pieces. Ji had been keeping up the correspondence, and his letters came as sources of solace and comfort to the homesick Yee. However, Yee noted that Ji’s letters tended to “report the picturesque lake scene outside the South Gate / Where an autumn wind has brought out the white lotus.”59 He was fully aware of the disparity between the heart-wrenching reality in China and the sanguine depiction in those letters. He knew that Ji, the eldest of his generation and the most respected in the clan, had to mediate the frictions within the clan. He also knew that Ji, as a government official, had to handle many thorny issues. All the troubles and problems had been obscured in those letters to ensure that the younger brother could concentrate on his work and study abroad. Yee missed his fellow poets and artists in Jiujiang. While serving as the magistrate of Jiujiang, Yee had organized Kuang-she, a literary salon, with his friends. They met to discuss poetry and art on a regular monthly basis. Now that he was away from home, admiring the mountains overseas had become an expedient measure to relieve his nostalgic feelings about Lu Mountain and his friends. After my departure, I revisited Lu Mountain in my dreams, Just as we used to gather in the south of the city. There is one thing worthy of boasting in the year past: Admiring mountains overseas can never be overindulging.60

Indeed, many poems of the time reflected the same sentiments in regard to loss: “My hometown lingers in my mind even when I have my eyes closed” or “When spring comes, every dream takes me back to the south of the Yangtze,” a line which he recited over and over during the stay overseas.61

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There are a handful of poems in the book touching on the subject of love. The treatment of this delicate subject is tender, cautious, subtle, and reserved, as exemplified by the poem “Suggestiveness”: When the twinning of two hearts turns into crazy affection, They may dare to fill up a gulf or remove a mountain. The angels in heaven are the wisest of all, as I admire; They plant no red beans for fear of thinking of each other with hearts entire.62

Red beans, in the Chinese poetic tradition, are symbols of mutual longing between lovers. This poem reverses the poetic tradition by admiring the angels who “plant no red beans.” In fact, it is a rather ambiguous poem. The magnificent strength and the disastrous consequences love might generate are symmetrically balanced. It is impossible to ascertain whether an unfulfilled love is a blessing or a wretched forfeiture of happiness. There is no specific reference to the speaker’s identity. Though ambiguous, the poem leaves no doubt that love is the subject the poet contemplated, appreciated, revered, feared, and perhaps even resolved to stay away from. It is interesting to note the poem “Being Overseas on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon,” written in August 1935, and subsequently collected in an expanded collection of poems twenty years later. It is extremely lonely to have a rendezvous only once a year; I laugh at you for being so old-fashioned. Though divorce in heaven is unprecedented, The Milky Way might not cast a ban on the two stars.63

The Herd-Boy and the Weaving-Maid are two lovers in Chinese mythology, identified with the stars Altair and Vega. The Weaving-Maid is a fairy in heaven who falls in love with the Herd-Boy, and the two get married. Indulging themselves in love, they forget to tend to their duties. The Emperor of Heaven sends the Mother Goddess to recall the Weaving-Maid to resume her work in the heavens. Herd-Boy, chasing behind, is about to overtake her when the Mother Goddess tosses her sash, turning it into a river separating him from the Weaving-Maid. After this, the two lovers can meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. On that day, magpies create a bridge over the river—the Milky Way, or in Chinese, “The Heavenly River”—for them to have a rendezvous. It has become a well-known festival, an occasion to celebrate love and the reunion of the lovers. Nevertheless, the poet’s suggestion that the two lovers in heaven, “extremely lonely,” should consider divorce seemed, at best, idiosyncratic and unconventional. Is it possible that the wild fantasy might signal some serious contemplation or subconscious desire on the part of the poet?64

chapter 5



“Another C. Y.”

Chiang Yee wrote a New Year’s resolution in Chinese with a brush pen on absorbent rice paper. Though undated, it is probably from the late 1930s. From today on I will consistently work very hard on my English language skills for two years, learning to speak fluently and write quickly, and I will then go to America to live there for a few years. Above all, I should perfect my painting techniques. The world is so big that one can surely find a place to survive. New Year’s Resolution by Silent Man1

The signature “Silent Man” in its original Chinese was ya-zi: ya means “mute,” “dumb,” or “silent;” and zi is a noun suffix, meaning “man” here. Like most of his contemporaries, he had a school name, that is, 仲雅 Chung-ya (or Zhong-ya), from which came the new name—重啞 Zhong-ya—he made for himself soon after arriving in England. This new name was homophonous with his school name but entirely different in meaning: 重 zhong stands for “heavy,” and 啞 ya for “mute.”2 This new name carried a doleful undertone, as Xu Beihong later noted. However, Yee defended his decision by explaining that he had left China because he was fed up with endless disputes with local bureaucrats and the government, and he appreciated the peace that ensued after his resignation as an immeasurable joy. Nevertheless, the name certainly had a somber tone. As the Chinese proverb goes, “A dumb person tastes bitter herbs—suffering in silence.” Without linguistic competency in this new world, Yee had virtually transformed into a deaf and dumb person.3 Obviously, this new name became his favorite. From 1935, it appeared in his letters, paintings, and writings, and quite often he simply used the word ya, that is, “silent” or “mute.” In the meantime, he used the pen name 啞行者 yaxingzhe, or “silent traveller.” The phrase 行者 xingzhe, which literally means “walking man” or “traveler,” also 65

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carries some religious connotations as it could refer to a “monk” or “priest.” Shih-I Hsiung stated in September 1935 that Yee “sometimes signs his pictures with the pen-name of ‘The Silent Priest.’”4 Yee discussed this pen name in the following undated poem: There have been only three Travellers in the world, The first being Sun Wukong and the second Wu Song. The third is the Jiujiang folk, Who can neither subjugate a tiger nor display any superior power.5

Sun Wukong, also known as the Sun Traveller or Monkey, is a legendary character in the classic novel Journey to the West. Gifted with magical powers and faithful to his master, he successfully accompanied the Buddhist monk Xuanzang to India in search of the sacred sutra. Wu Song, also known as the Wu Traveller, is a heroic character in the classic novel Outlaws of the Marsh. His story of fighting and killing a monstrous tiger with his bare fists is one of the most exciting stories known to the Chinese. Admitting, rather self-deprecatingly, to his lack of physical strength and prowess, Yee identified himself as one of the trio. However, there is a major difference between him and the other two: rather than affixing his family name Chiang to “Traveller,” he instead used ya, or “silence,” as though this had become his identifying nomenclature. On January 2, Yee received three letters from Innes Jackson. She had just left with her mother for Palestine to visit her sister, who was working in Jerusalem. From there, she was to travel via Suez to China to attend university. “Dearest 靜,” Yee began his reply on January 3. “I had your three letters together yesterday morning! I was overjoyed. After I read them one after the other I found myself deeply affected by you and thought myself to have gone to your side! Oh, dearest, how good of you to have written so and you know, as I told you, that you are the only dearest person of mine in this world.”6 His beautiful cursive handwriting flowed across the page, and his long pentup feelings gushed out. The distance between them now allowed Yee to express his feelings in words, though he complained that it was “so hard and difficult to express my ideas” in English. You know, my dear, I am a very very [sic] sentimental person. Although I am like that, yet I have never been able to express myself thoroughly even to you. I had a very bad family life. My sentiment has been pressed highly all the time. And I had the great belief in “Pure beauty” and “Pure love.” But as I has [sic] come into contact with all sorts of people, I found no such thing could be existed, because nobody is really very sentimental nowadays! So I hid myself entirely from this belief, but I have never stopped my idea of searching it. You know I had a great love in the past literary men’s life of my country. I have read the records of them all. I always wanted and dreamt to be one like that. I wish you could find time to read some of them, and I am sure you will like it also. . . . As

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I could have it, so I always feel dispressed [sic]. My family’s trouble, the school trouble, my country’s future and my condition are all the causes raised for that reason of depression. Excuse me to have not been able to tell you in very much detail, and anyhow you will know all my life afterwards. You know I think most of the people who know me and nearly all have mistaken about me.7

Yee recognized in Innes beautiful qualities he had rarely found in women, namely, a good education, open-mindedness, and a genuine interest in art and literature. Discreet and reserved, he kept his affections well under control, content with a platonic relationship for spiritual and aesthetic fulfillment. However, he now confessed that his “pure love” had grown, and he became more and more “attached” to Innes—so much so that he even developed “a great fear” of her. Such “pure love,” he confessed, might not be reciprocated or understood since “the nature and characteristics of the Western mind” differed from that of the Eastern. Innes already had a Chinese name (賈克生 Jia Ke-sheng) when Yee suggested the name 賈靜如 Jia Ching-yu for her. The character 靜 (ching) means “quiet” or “calm,” and the name 靜如 Ching-yu means “as quiet” or “as calm.” Yee regarded the name as very poetic, and in his letter, Yee addressed Innes affectionately as 靜 (ching) and signed the letter 啞 (ya). Another letter from Innes came later that day. At night, Yee wrote again, with a brush pen on absorbent paper, which had a watercolor block-printed chrysanthemum. He mentioned “our plan” and his resolve to “stick to writing & painting for life!” At the time, Innes was editing his article, “How to Paint a Chinese Painting,” as well as the revisions related to the second edition of The Chinese Eye. He reminded her to post the edited manuscript before her voyage. His tightly packed schedule of teaching, writing, and painting had been unbearably exhausting, yet Innes had been a source of strength, inspiring him to strive for higher goals. There was “a truth in the spiritual world,” he believed, and their cooperation in studying Chinese art and poetry, according to his understanding, was an embodiment of such a “truth.” He signed the letter, “Your spiritual 啞.”8 “To study Chinese poetry”—that was the objective of Innes’s journey to China. She wanted to see “the shapes of the mountains, the colour of the sky, to feel the quality of the moonlight and the spring winds, to look at the configuration of the pine-trees, and to experience orchid scent,” and to see how peasants work in the fields. Such a firsthand experience, she believed, would provide her with an invaluable understanding and appreciation of Chinese poetry.9 She arrived in Shanghai in February 1936. After a fortnight’s stay, she boarded the train for Nanjing, where she enrolled at Jinling Girls’ College. She was fortunate to have classes with some excellent teachers, such as Hu Xiaoshi, an accomplished poet and calligrapher, who gave her private calligraphy lessons at his home. He would demonstrate with a brush pen on absorbent paper while lecturing on the history of Chinese calligraphy. He also gave lectures on “The Odes of Chu,” a collection of obscure ancient poems. Innes also took lessons with a dedicated Chinese poetry teacher. During her four months of study in Nanjing, she became

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friends with her teachers and schoolmates, and they “enjoyed life together with immense gusto.”10 Back in London, Yee held a solo exhibition—his first one overseas—at the Betty Joel Gallery. The “Exhibition of Modern Chinese Pictures and Fans” by Chiang Yee, together with some fans of the Qing Dynasty, was first scheduled to run from January 20 through February 15, but was later extended to February 29.11 In a long review published in The New England Weekly, Hugh Gordon Porteus declared Yee to be “one of the most distinguished contemporary Chinese painters.”12 Other critics appreciated the “the traditional spirit and craftsmanship of a race of poet-painters” in those exhibitions. 13 The pieces included in the exhibition covered landscape, flowers, birds, and animals—all presented in Chinese traditional style. Many of them had an obvious Chinese setting, such as “Li Po Listening to the Waterfalls,” “Moon and Pine on Lu-Mountain,” and “Four Fishermen.” But Yee also “wittily bends himself to finding an equivalent in line to unfamiliar material,” as a reviewer noted.14 It must have been a joyful surprise for Londoners to see some of the natural English scenes represented, such as “What I saw in St. James’s Park Last Spring” and “Ducks in St. James’s Park.” Among the exhibited works was a portrait of the Budai Monk with a wry smile. The Budai Monk is a legendary traveling monk, known for his tolerance and magnanimity. What distinguishes this painting is the lengthy inscription: Some monks love to eat animal meat; Some monks have excessive carnal desires. Truth does not exist in this world; A horse is deliberately misidentified as a deer. Why do women expose their legs? Men’s dreams are too shameful to describe. High rises and mansions are stately and handsome, But they all contain treachery and murders within. Oh, how nice it would be to become a bald monk, Always content to travel just with a cloth bag.

Porteus considered this portrait as “a simple, spontaneous and amusing caricature,” the inscription of which was a common joke about “the gluttony and salacity of professional holy men.”15 He failed to comment on the self-representational nature of Chinese art, though, for subjects such as pines or orchids are generally self-reflective, representing and suggesting the artist’s ideals and beliefs. The Budai Monk, then, a ubiquitous subject in figure painting, here speaks for the artist’s outlook on the world. In the exhibition catalogue was a short but excellent commentary by W. W. Winkworth, an art collector and critic, that touched on the relationship between imitation and innovation, tradition and originality:

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It is often supposed that living Chinese artists can do little except imitate old masters. It is true that one of the best pieces of work in the show is an album copied from one by a famous 17th century artist, PA TA SHAN JEN. But those who know European masters well will remember that Gainsborough copied Teniers, that Reynolds did not disdain to finish an uncompleted work by Velasquez, and that Rubens copied Mantegna. In Mr. Chiang’s other work there is as little trace of slavish adherence to old models as of any wish to adapt European conventions to Chinese technique. Mr. Chiang has remained a traditional Chinese artist in all his work; and in all his work he has also remained himself.16

Yee and Winkworth had met at the Whitechapel Gallery a couple of years earlier, and their common interest and mutual respect had forged a cordial friendship between the two. “I value his opinion on art in general very highly,” Yee admitted.17 Evidently, Yee was very proud of this commentary, for he sent a copy of it to American art critic James Cahill in 1971.18 During the academic year 1935–1936 at London University, Yee delivered six public lectures with demonstrations and slide presentations on Chinese painting and calligraphy techniques. At various clubs and associations, he also gave six lectures on Chinese painting, on the life of a Chinese painter, and on Chinese Buddhism. In addition to the book The Chinese Eye, his essays—“The Chinese Painter,” “Chinese Gardens,” and “The Life of a Chinese Artist”—were published in journals.19 Most importantly, in terms of his teaching career, E. Dora Edwards recommended him for reappointment to the school on April 20, 1936: “I have found him well qualified to do the work required of him. In addition, his teaching ability, his interest in the students and the school, and his active cooperation and help in the Department as a whole make him, in my opinion, a very desirable addition to the staff.”20 Judging from these affirmative remarks in her strong endorsements, Yee managed to survive the vortex of intense animosity between Edwards and Johnston. With such a series of enviable accomplishments in teaching, writing, and painting, Yee naturally opted to extend his stay in England as long as possible. Though, in various letters, he mentioned his intention of returning to China after a year or two, staying in England, at least for the time being, seemed a preferable choice. In order to secure an academic reputation and standing, he decided to pursue a doctoral degree with Reginald Johnston. Yee, however, was “surprised and disappointed” when Johnston told him, on April 30, about his plan to retire the following year. Later that day, Yee wrote him a letter, discussing his plan to study Chinese Buddhism for a Ph.D. degree. A Chinese publisher had already asked him to write an introductory book on the subject, and he was confident in the subject and project since he had been consulting “all the materials” with his Chinese scholar friends. The book could be translated into English and, with Johnston’s supervision and advising, be used as his dissertation.

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The “only difficulty,” Yee recognized, was the “University’s regulation which says two years for Ph.D.” It was his hope that he could circumvent the rule and get the Ph.D. within a year before Johnston’s retirement. “I could hardly think of any other who could supervise my work in Chinese Buddhism except you, if you don’t mind me to say so. I shall not work for the degree if you think it is not possible for you to be my supervisor.”21 Johnston had expertise in Buddhism. His book, Buddhist China (1913), was a study of the origin and development of Mahayana Buddhism, a branch of Buddhism associated with East Asia and with a focus on two of China’s sacred mountains. Johnston was confident that Yee would be a capable candidate, and he prepared a letter to Rossetti at once, inquiring about the possibility of permitting Yee to complete his thesis “in a year’s time.” Johnston was quite willing to go out of his way to help. As he explained in the letter that was tinged with sympathy and a touch of smugness, Yee’s only need was for Johnston “to correct and revise his English, and that could mean rewriting his book from beginning to end.”22 On May 13, Yee submitted to the university his Application for Registration as Postgraduate Student for Ph.D. Degree (Internal). The subject of his study was Chinese Buddhism, and his proposed thesis title was “The History and Teachings of the Different Buddhist Schools in China.” A few weeks later, he passed the qualifying examination in Chinese classics, history, and art, and was officially accepted in August as a Ph.D. candidate supervised by Reginald Johnston.23 Great Britain, which Adolf Hitler considered in 1924 to be “the greatest world power on earth,” lost its “world hegemony” a decade later in the political arena of a world mined with crises.24 It failed in its efforts to deter Italy from invading, and then conquering, Ethiopia in October 1935. In March 1936, while Britain and other Western powers were preoccupied with the Ethiopian crisis, Hitler broke the Locarno pacts and the Treaty of Versailles by sending troops to reoccupy demilitarized sections of the Rhineland; two months later, the Italian army marched into Addis Ababa. All of this happened within less than nine months, and it became evident that the League of Nations was incapable of curbing audacious aggressors. While many people in Britain, as well as in other parts of the world, protested and condemned the fascist threat to world peace, the prevailing view in Britain was that their own national interest had not been imperiled and another war could be averted.25 On July 17, the Spanish Civil War began. A week later, responding to a request from Francisco Franco for aid, Hitler dispatched thirty Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft to join Italian bombers in support of the Spanish Nationalist rebel forces.26 The situation in China and Asia was equally unsettling. On December 9, thousands of students rallied in Beijing to protest Japanese power which occupied northern China, but police forces brutally suppressed the protest. Anti-Japanese sentiments spread across the nation like wildfire. Thousands of students, organized by communists, participated in demonstrations in Shanghai, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Canton, and the Nationalist capital of Nanjing. Anti-Japanese sentiment had an effect on Nationalist troops as well. In the summer of 1936, several leading generals

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maneuvered their troops into Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, calling for an attack on the Japanese in the north. Even some staunch anti-communist allies began to question “guardedly” the “correctness” of Chiang Kai-shek’s “focus on antiCommunist campaigns.”27 The looming war in Asia and Europe was disturbing, but Yee chose to encapsulate himself in what he called “a spiritual state,” “a world of poetry and painting, a world of beauty of itself, a world of natural truth.”28 He and Innes had frequent exchanges about the individual’s role in the world. At Wuhan University, Innes became acquainted with Virginia Woolf ’s nephew Julian Bell, a Bloomsbury poet, who was teaching English. Under his influence, Innes became very “political,” concerned about the future of the world.29 Yee, however, insisted that one should not be perturbed by harsh realities since “in this world war can never be ended. We need not take any notice. Please go on and on [with] your work and we should not talk any more about war, for the time being anyway.”30 He wrote to Innes, I could not describe how it is. You know, before I knew you, I was always in a state of bewildering, suffering, and struggling all the time in my mind, and even I could commit suicide in any moment. That was because I had not found the real thing I could live with. Now it is entirely changed. I always said to you that you have made me a new life. I was brought by you to a spiritual world where we live now. I have nothing to care now except work and work.31

He believed that poetry, translation, painting, and calligraphy should be studied together. While Innes studied and translated classical Chinese poems, Yee, as an artist, focused on Chinese art. His ambition was to become “the only Chinese who really starts to expose his own country’s beauty in art.”32 Art and poetry, he believed, were not meant for private enjoyment or satisfaction. “We are not only wanting ourselves to live in the spiritual world, we must do something for others if they want to join in.” The world may never be free from war; but one can create peace and stability through art and poetry. Anxiety and worries about his family in China were continually gnawing at his heart. Yee had been living in London for three years, working under electric lights and walking in the smoggy and crowded atmosphere of an industrial city. He missed mountains and lakes. At his friends’ suggestion, he took a trip to the Lake District, known for its associations with famous English poets, such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, De Quincey, and Ruskin. He had taken a trip to north Wales in the summer of 1934, but the journey turned out to be a “bitter disappointment” because he could not enjoy even a moment of uninterrupted peace. He preferred “to be dumb,” that is, to observe the scenery closely by himself.33 On July 31, Yee arrived in Wastwater, and, over the next two weeks, he visited Derwentwater, Buttermere, Crummockwater, Windermere, and Grasmere. He kept a journal and made sketches of local scenes on 7" x 9" absorbent paper. In the Lake District, he finally found tranquility and peace. The journey was “the most agreeable period of all my English experience.”34

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A letter arrived for Yee while he was away. It was from the manager of Country Life Limited, a London publisher. The manager had seen Yee’s painting “Ducks in St. James’s Park” in Illustrated London News, and he wanted to meet the artist. At the meeting, the manager mentioned Yoshio Markino’s A Japanese Artist in London (1910), which had sold very well years earlier. He suggested that Yee consider writing A Chinese Artist in London. Yee replied with a smile, “That is exactly what I have been working on.” He showed the manager his journal and sketches of the Lake District scenes, and the manager took them back to the publisher for consultation. The following day, the manager telephoned, saying that the journal was too skimpy to make a marketable volume, and too few people could appreciate Yee’s Chinese-style sketches.35 The SOS’s library had a decent collection of travel books about China by former missionaries and diplomats. After a quick survey, Yee discovered that most of the books were “unfair and irritating at times.” The writers of these books pandered to the “unhealthy curiosity” of the West by emphasizing exotic sights of opium smokers, beggars, and coolies. Some of the authors did not really know China at all. They had been there for a couple months and could not even read or speak Chinese. Furthermore, these writings, which had sold well, only helped spread prejudice and misconceptions. It occurred to Yee that he should write about what he had seen in England. When he was a child, he had read the travelogue by Xu Xiake (1586–1641), the best-known travel writer in China. He admired the author so much that he aspired to become a modern-day Xu Xiake.36 Now, in England, he hoped to introduce a true China and bring an expansive understanding of different cultures to Europeans. Rather than highlight differences between the East and West, Yee chose to look for “similarities among all kinds of people not their differences or their oddities.”37 He submitted the manuscript to Methuen, but it was rejected immediately. He then tried several other publishers, but was turned down one after another. Getting published was an onerous task for an unknown writer; more so for a non-English speaker. Surprisingly, six months later, the manager of Country Life called to check on the progress of the London book. Yee insisted that he would not write a book on London unless the Lake District book was published first. A month later, Yee was informed that the publisher “had decided to take the risk of publishing the slight book on the English Lakeland, with one condition—no royalty,” except for six complimentary copies. Yee accepted the offer. The following week, at the signing of the contract, an unexpected obstacle arose: the publisher refused to accept the proposed title The Silent Traveller in Lakeland because “The Silent Traveller” sounded “sinister” and might incur suspicions from Scotland Yard. Yee argued that the precaution was unnecessary and that the title would only help sales of the book. Eventually, they reached a compromise by affixing a subtitle: The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland.38

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In the fall of 1937, Yee’s book was published with a short preface by the art critic Herbert Read. He commended Yee for his earlier book, The Chinese Eye, which had introduced the Chinese conception of art to the West in a lucid and comprehensible manner. In the Lake District book, according to Read, Yee proved that Chinese art is “not bound by geographical limits; it is universal, and can interpret . . . English landscape just as well as the Chinese landscape.” Yee’s endeavor, much the same as Wordsworth’s, was to show “the universality of all true modes of feeling and thinking. The relationship of man to his environment is the relationship of two constants—earth the same and man the same, eternally. What is inconstant is man’s ability to seize and express the real nature of that relationship.”39 To some extent, the book is a record of Yee’s exploration and discovery of this “universality” and the two “constants” that Read mentioned. Yee used to believe that English scenery was “set against a background of sea” and “somehow different from home.” This journey, however, enabled him to see “how similar Nature is everywhere.” English waterfalls, trees, mountains, rocks, and clouds all seemed so familiar and congenial, reminding him of his homeland and allowing him to compare and contrast the two places. He came to perceive that “nature has never changed to me in moving from place to place; she differs only according to my changing states of mind.”40 The book contains thirteen monochromatic plates of landscape painting in a consistent Chinese traditional style. Light and dark are presented through varied brush speeds and quantities of water on the paper. Trees, water, farm houses, and mountains are nearly indistinguishable from their counterparts in traditional Chinese paintings. Yee claimed that he treated the Lake District scenery “in Chinese manner” with Chinese media—brush, ink, and absorbent paper.41 The following statement is both a plea for understanding and a theoretical explanation to an audience not yet familiar with Chinese art. I hope my readers will not be prejudiced by the traditional English landscape painting and exclaim that “This is not like the place.” I can vouch for anyone who had examined this spot carefully recognizing it again from my picture! We very seldom use colours to enliven the painting and generally leave blank spaces to suggest water and sky. Please look at the illustration with a discerning eye!42

He further states that an “exact resemblance” is not what the Chinese artist aims for; he instead presents nature as it was observed, remembered, and retained in the artist’s mind. Paradoxically, it is this apparent lack of “exact resemblance” that allows the artist to catch the essence or spirit of a scene.43 Coincidentally, an English reader reported that when he saw “an actual photograph which shows another English scene in a mood which is indistinguishably Chinese,” he was struck with its similarity to “Going to Church in the Rain, Wasdale Hale,” one of the plates included in the book.44

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The war is introduced in the middle of the book (specifically, on August 6, halfway through his journey), at which point the book’s peaceful tone shifts dramatically. Yee does not want to touch the newspaper on his breakfast table because the front page must be “scored with words ‘War’ and ‘Peace,’ and especially with the state of Spain.”45 He becomes fully aware that “widespread peace” is no longer possible, and traces of uncertainties and horror become more and more obvious during the second half of the book. Industrialization, commercialism, and tourism threaten to reduce this sanctuary of Romanticism to another London. Disillusioned with the irrationality of the modern world, Yee, craving childlike innocence, turns to the fish in the river for philosophical conversations.46 To everybody’s surprise, his slim volume was a quick sale. Its first edition sold out in a month, and the manager of Country Life obviously wanted a reprint. “Time has changed,” he said. Yee replied, “My thoughts have also changed. I want a normal royalty for the second edition.” Nine editions of the book were subsequently published, and it has since become the first of the Silent Traveller series.47 Yee began work on a new book about Chinese calligraphy. He first mentioned it to Innes in general terms on June 14, and indicated that he would send her “one or two chapters” of the book for correction. The two chapters, when they arrived, gave Innes a shock: she had planned to study and write on this subject herself. Yee knew her plan, but he had started without disclosing it to her. His new book progressed swiftly, and, by December 30, the seventh chapter was completed and sent to Innes in Wuhan, where she had been studying since September. In another month, the entire book was completed, and Yee was exhausted. It was no exaggeration when he signed one letter: “Yours, 啞 in a great drowsy mood.”48 Yee was compelled to focus on his study of Chinese calligraphy, for he had received consent from Alan White to publish the book, preferably in the spring of 1937. His brother in China helped search for material necessary for the book and its illustrations. By September 1936, before half the book was completed, Yee had already arranged to have Lin Sen, president of the Chinese National Government, prepare the Foreword. It was his plan to complete the writing, have the book published the following spring, and then he hoped to use it as his doctoral thesis. As such, he had proposed to switch his doctoral study from Chinese Buddhism to Chinese calligraphy, and the department approved this change in November 1936. However, all things did not proceed as smoothly as planned. While Johnston agreed to consider accepting Yee’s calligraphy book as his thesis, Edwards refused to consent. She insisted that Yee “must add more valuable things in it,” though she offered no specifics and later demanded that Yee get no assistance from Innes Jackson.49 Yee did not feel secure with his limited English language skills and feared that public knowledge of his reliance on a native speaker for editing could jeopardize his academic standing and writing career. To conceal this collaboration from public scrutiny, he reminded Innes to keep it confidential and not to reveal it to anyone, including her own mother and sister.50

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This sensitive language issue was partially responsible for his unpleasant rupture with Ms. Violet E. Hawkes, a handwriting teacher at the Royal School of Art who taught him English and helped edit part of his calligraphy book. Yee felt perturbed and offended that Hawkes had spoken to a couple of her “intimate friends” about his book and about her teaching him English. Hawkes apologized humbly and sincerely in a letter dated March 12, 1937, for her misjudgment and for having “unwillingly caused you so much annoyance in my effort to help.” Yet she insisted that it had been a misunderstanding and that she meant no harm at all.51 She explained, “You talked at the Oriental School about your book and of my teaching you English, so I did not know you would not like me to mention them to one or two intimate friends who love the Chinese. No-one thought you were making use of me, or that I was overworking on your account, or connected my illness with my work for you.”52 In the same letter, Hawkes continued: Those Mayfair people treated you abominably. But you do not realize what heartfelt goodwill and intense admiration and respect some of us English feel towards the Chinese. But we do not understand you yet, and you do not understand us yet. We want to understand you, but we can only learn gradually. And you do not understand us when we offer you warm friendship.53

In December 1936, the warlord Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek, forcing him to commit China to a united front policy against the Japanese. War did not break out in China, but the subsequent short period of calm was really “a deceptive respite before the cataclysm.”54 In the area around Wuhan, Japanese and English gunboats sped along the Yangtze River, evacuating their nationals; people in the region were preparing for air raids; and gunshots and airplanes pierced the quietness of the night. “A universal ugliness and horrible premonitions forced themselves upon one, so that not only did the sole pursuit of poetry become monstrously irrelevant, but restlessness dominated the ordinary activities of life.”55 In a moment of disillusionment, Innes came to perceive that “China was in as bad a mess as England and that she had to cut down her own tangles.” Returning to England to face this reality became “imperative.”56 Despite Yee’s repeated urgings for her to stay, she left for home in early February 1937. Yee wrote a letter greeting Innes on her return to England on March 5, 1937. He included a Chinese poem he had composed: Feelings of humans are like those of Spring; Emotions of parting resemble those of water! The solitary pine is wavering alone, Facing the new appearance of the Moon.57

Yee referred to himself as the Pine and Innes as the Moon in a number of letters. He also wrote several poems about the Moon and Pine, remembering Innes while she was in the Far East.

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Innes had become dispirited during the months she spent in China, with anxiety and a serious concern for the future of the country. She shared her thoughts with Yee, who, like a mentor, offered generous encouragement and advice. “Be happy! You should be happy as not very many people can have such a happy life as you always have. Be happy please.” “I do hope you are happier. Will you look forward—will you stick to your decision for doing all sorts of popular work—will you not devote all your time on Chinese for the moment.” “Be happy my 靜! Life is not always a happy one. But one has to do best of it.”58 To a large degree, Yee’s constant admonition was a self-consolation. “Life is not always a happy one,” he affirmed on May 20. He had “two bad shocks” that morning: first, his landlady had a heart attack, which left her unconscious; and second, Methuen, which had previously agreed to put his Chinese calligraphy book to press by March 1, informed him that they might have to cancel the plan because of the high cost of printing all the illustrations in the book.59 Yee was distraught, since he had put so much hope in this book. A cancellation of the plan would undoubtedly create a hurdle on his path to a Ph.D. The 1930s were a transitional period for Chinese studies in the West. At the SOS, the Department of the Far East was restructured and expanded. In 1934–1935, there were only two full-time faculty members in Chinese studies: Johnston, Chair and Professor; and E. Dora Edwards, Reader. Yee joined the department as Assistant Lecturer, followed the next year by W. Simon, a German Jewish refugee with a Ph.D. from Berlin, who specialized in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Manchu studies. In the same year, a panel of additional lecturers was formed, including the luminary sinologist Arthur Waley, who specialized in Chinese poetry, and others who focused on various Asian languages and dialects. The feud between Johnston and Edwards epitomized that of “two different cultures”—that is, a traditional mode versus a modern view with a focus on teaching and research.60 If Johnston represented the former, Edwards and Simon, who subsequently served as department chair, marked the transition toward the latter.61 On June 29, Edwards, acting chair of the department, organized a farewell dinner party for Johnston at a Chinese restaurant. A few weeks later, Yee visited Johnston in Lochgilphead, Argyllshire. Two years earlier, Johnston, a native of Scotland, had purchased three islands there as his retirement home. “It is quite out of the world,” save for the mail and newspapers that came once a week and the news on the radio, Chiang wrote Innes on July 26. Johnston showed Yee many of the antiques that Henry Pu-Yi, the last emperor of China, had presented to him, and he shared many anecdotes about the emperor and the Forbidden City.62 Johnston was unusually close—as well as faithful—to Henry Pu Yi. Johnston had, in fact, recently visited his friend in Japan during his sabbatical a year earlier, and he hung a Manchu flag outside his house in Scotland.63 Interestingly, Yee never left any record of his conversations with Johnston concerning the Japanese invasion of China and the puppet Manchurian state of Manchukuo.

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Before Yee left for Scotland, he had “been terribly miserable.”64 One major reason for this was the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. On July 7, Japanese forces manufactured an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge, about ten miles west of Beijing, which precipitated a series of clashes. Thus, an undeclared war between China and Japan finally began. The modern Japanese military proved to be a formidable match for the Nanjing government. On July 28, Beijing fell, followed two days later by Tianjin. The situation deteriorated dramatically. The Japanese began to attack Shanghai on August 13. Nanjing, the capital, was taken in December, and the notorious “rape of Nanjing” took place soon after, resulting in approximately one hundred thousand Chinese civilians murdered and thousands of women molested. The Nationalist government relocated to Chongqing, located in a rugged and mountainous area, while Chiang Kai-shek directed military resistance in Wuhan. Yee’s hometown of Jiujiang was “severely bombarded” in August, and he lost contact with his brother and friends in both Jiujiang and Shanghai. He kept his distress to himself.65 Only in his letters to Innes did he confess his suppressed emotions. “There were so many miserable things happened to me nowadays, but I got nobody to talk about . . .”66 A month later, he wrote: I nearly cried the whole day! I did not know what I felt. Simply I could not go on living any more or even in one minute. . . . I haven’t had any letter from my brother for nearly two months. I don’t know what I could do now. I want to go back, but it seems useless and I could not go. What shall I do, 靜? Don’t worry about me. I really do not want to tell you, but I have nobody to talk here.67

The other cause of his “misery” was related to his precarious academic future. The departure of Johnston, who had been a strong voice of support, was an irrevocable loss. Out of sympathy, and to amuse Yee, Johnston fabricated a special diploma after the two of them went boating, certifying that Yee had been awarded the “Degree of Doctor of Oarsmanship (D.O.)” at the University of Eilean Rìgh, having successfully passed the examination held in July 1937 “with First Class Honours.” Johnston signed his name on the diploma as the “Examiner.”68 After a week’s stay with Johnston, Yee went to visit his good friend Sir William Milner in Yorkshire. Yee described him as “extremely kind,” and once he learned that Yee was depressed because of the situation in China, he persuaded Yee to visit him in Yorkshire, hoping that the idyllic country setting might bring him some comfort. A week later, Yee returned to London.69 Meanwhile, Innes had been working on her travelogue since April. She found writing to be an exacting task during such a stressful period, which was interlaced with the loss of her dear friend Julian Bell in the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of war in China, and the necessity to care for her ailing mother. From the beginning, Yee had been very supportive of her book project, and he suggested on April 1 that she should write “about the real Chinese life” she had experienced—“not too much praise but . . . a lot of criticism.” “We must learn the psychology of the

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present modern editors!”70 The book, replete with witty remarks and sharp—occasionally biting—comments, was less a chronicle of Innes’s “lovely journey” in China than a candid revelation of her emotional and political growth from an idealistic to a progressive youth. She declared that “the Chinese scholar may have to exchange his fan-painting and his commentary on the classics for social and scientific research” at the present historic juncture.71 The book was published in 1938, before the death of her mother in July. Innes acknowledged Yee’s help in preparing a map, designing the cover and title page, and permitting the use of his painting. She graciously identified him as her “initiator into the Chinese arts.”72 On November 1, 1937, “one of the strangest art exhibitions that London has ever seen” opened at the Calmann Gallery. Hans Calmann was a Jewish exile from Germany, and the artist was Chiang Yee, a Chinese exile. Covering the walls of the gallery were Yee’s paintings of the beautiful scenes he had witnessed in England—the Lake District, West Scotland, Yorkshire, and London. He “made them look like views of China,” as a reviewer commented. It offered audiences an eye-opening experience to view the unfamiliar Chinese art instruments, the unusual posture of the Chinese artist at work, and the unique right-to-left vertical order of writing. Only five minutes after private viewing began, the first purchase was made by renowned art collector George Eumorfopoulos.73 Yee was rightfully proud of one particularly interesting anecdote. The CocaCola Company advertised a contest in the 1930s for a Chinese translation of its brand name, and a prize of £6 would be offered to the winner. Prior to this contest, there had already existed a four-word translation in Chinese: ke-ke-kenla, which carried the bizarre literal meaning, “Keke bites wax.” Yee rendered the name into an entirely different four-word phrase—ke-kou-ke-le—which may be roughly retranslated as, “palatable and pleasurable,” or, more literally, “pleasing mouth, bringing pleasure.” His translation, with four common and simple words, had a melodic tonal quality that matched the original English impeccably, and ultimately won the contest. It continues to be used and recognized by millions of Chinese consumers as the standard brand name for one of the most popular soft drinks of the twentieth century. At this point, Yee began his involvement with the BBC. Before World War II ended in 1945, he had appeared on the BBC at least five times and recommended Xiao Qian, Shih-I Hsiung, and Ye Junjian as substitutes when he was not available. In an internal memo dated November 1937, Donald Boyd, BBC’s North Regional Director, laid out the plan for a discussion of the landscape around the Lake District. The speakers would be Harry Lamb, a farmer from Caldbeck in the Lake District, and Chiang Yee, whose Lake District book had just been published.74 After meeting Yee for an audition on November 26, Ian Cox reported, “In my opinion his English is not good enough for him to read the translations of his poetry.” He explained that Yee’s English pronunciation was poor, and he pronounced “nature” as “lature,” and “moon” as “mung.” However, as Cox noted, his reading of the Chinese sounded “very interesting.” “He more or less sings the

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poems and it makes a delightful noise.”75 In addition to the original plan, Cox decided to use him in “a highbrow poetry space,” that is, to read some Chinese poems and discuss the differences between English and Chinese poetry. As a kind of quality check, Cox telephoned Edwards, who assured him that it would be “very safe” for the BBC to use Yee. As a Jiujiang native, Edwards stated, Yee “might read in the dialect of this region or in Pekinese or possibly in literary Chinese.”76 The program, “Another Poet’s World,” went on air at 10:40 p.m. on December 29, 1937. It began with Yee’s reading of a Tang Dynasty poem by Li Bai. He outlined some unique features of Chinese poetry, such as tonal quality, variations, and parallelism, and then stressed that poetry was “a part of our life” in China. Poetry, he explained, had religious and philosophical functions. The world, though full of troubles and hazards, has poetry that “shows how one can get relief from them by appreciating the beauty of Nature. And it has taught us a view of life that has been accepted by society generally so that most people in China have a sense of compassion, a love of Nature and an attitude of artistic acceptance of life.” “We always recite a few poems in the study . . . in our courtyard . . . or in the pine grove or the bamboo grove or . . . on the top of a hill in the morning or evening. We go out alone.” “I’m afraid my countrymen can’t be doing so now without being disturbed by the sounds of bombs from aeroplanes.” The twenty-minute discussion ended with Yee’s explanation of the similarity between Chinese painting and Chinese poetry.77 It had become Yee’s habit to make new year’s resolutions, so at the dawn of 1938, he resolved: I am not willing to be commonplace in any aspect: I am not willing to live as a commonplace man, not to mention to die as a commonplace man. In short, the phrase “being commonplace” is my enemy. I love to be outstanding, extraordinary, original; I want to amaze and surprise the world. I should at least make some contributions to the world so that I will be cherished by the world forever. In the near future, I should return to China for a year and study the art of sword and lute, two instruments for transcending ordinariness. —First words written on New Year’s Day of 193878

On February 11, Yee and Harry Lamb appeared on the Northern Program at 7:45 p.m., discussing their observations of the Lake District from two distinctly different perspectives. Lamb was a shepherd, enjoying clear days and fearful of bad weather because of his flocks; Yee was a poet, relishing the mystical charm of misty mountains and vexed at the disappearance of a tranquil natural environment. These two speakers formed a fascinating “curious contrast,” and the antithesis in their styles made this fifteen-minute program quite captivating for its audience.79 With the publication of both The Chinese Eye and The Silent Traveller, Yee began to enjoy some recognition in literary and art circles. The Left Book Club, established by the Jewish publisher Victor Gollancz in May 1936, had grown to be

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an influential voice. Aiming to create an anti-fascist movement, the club published leftist books and promoted socialist ideas. Yee had been invited to join the club, where he saw Krishna Menon, head of London’s Indian League and representative of Jawaharlal Nehru, who later became the first prime minister of independent India. A charismatic figure, Menon’s speech drew an excited audience. After the Marco Polo Bridge incident, the club organized various meetings and fundraising activities to support Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion. Yee, as an artist and writer, gave a lecture at their meeting as well.80 Many social groups organized various fundraising activities for Chinese medical relief. Yee gave lectures and donated paintings to support this noble cause. In January, a small-scale but delightful Chinese exhibition was held at 9 Conduit Street in London. The items exhibited were all borrowed from private collectors. The admission fee, a contribution to China Aid, was on a clever flexible scale. The general admission fee was 2s. 6d., but it was only 1s. after 4 p.m. and 6d. on Thursdays and Saturdays. One of the highlights of the exhibition was the “fascinating and extremely well-informed talks” on Thursdays and Saturdays. Among the speakers was Yee.81 In April, a similar exhibition of Chinese art was opened by Laurence Binyon, a renowned art historian, in the Municipal College, Bournemouth. Binyon stated in his opening speech that “an inborn love of natural beauty made the Chinese great painters,” and he stressed that the Chinese “pursued peace more persistently and consistently than any other nation.” There was “very little glorification of war” in Chinese literature. Innes, as secretary of the Bournemouth Aid China Committee, helped organize the event in April. Yee gave a talk and demonstrated Chinese painting and calligraphy. He painted a natural scene with a tree and wild geese and wrote a poem. Both pieces were auctioned, selling for £3 7s. 6d. and £1 1s. respectively.82 March 1938 marked a critical moment in Yee’s academic and personal life. His academic future was in jeopardy. Edwards, acting head of the department, explained her decision in a sympathetic but firm tone: I am not at all sure how far I can help you at the School. It is very difficult to avoid allowing friendship and good feeling to decide one’s actions, and willing as I am to do anything I can for you personally, I cannot help but say that I feel strongly the need of the Department for a Chinese teacher who has a natural Pekinese accent. It is very hard for students to master the differences and it is too confusing for them in the early stages especially to have to adjust themselves to more than one pronunciation. I am sure that you will agree with me in this, as any teacher with any experience must feel as I do about it I think. I tell you this so that you may know that it is from no unwillingness that I say there is little I can do, but because my duty to the School and the Department compels me to put first other considerations.83

Furthermore, Edwards raised the potentially damning fact that Yee had not produced “any material” for his Ph.D. study during the previous two years.

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Yee needed someone with a strong voice to support him. Both Johnston and Lockhart had recently passed away, so he sought help from Sir William Milner, who wrote to Professor R. L. Turner, director of the SOS, pleading on behalf of his “great friend”: “I am concerned,” he stressed, “that Mr. Chiang’s reputation should not suffer by his being no longer connected with the School’s activities.”84 The school was adamant in upholding its decision not to renew his appointment, which was formally announced on June 10. After three years of full-time teaching at the SOS, Yee was suddenly disqualified from Chinese language teaching there. This must have been a devastating disgrace to him. He buried this memory deep in his heart for the rest of his life, and he never directly specified the cause of his leaving SOS in 1938. March was also the month that saw publication of Chinese Calligraphy. Yee had personally put in £100 to subsidize the cost since the publisher did not have full confidence in its marketing prospects. It was the first single volume in English devoted exclusively to Chinese calligraphy, a subject that had been, in Hugh Gordon Porteus’s words, “the Cinderella of the arts in the West.” 85 Like its earlier companion piece The Chinese Eye, this book, with its numerous illustrations, was entertainingly illuminating. For hundreds of years, calligraphy had been a popular traditional art form in China, but it had mystified scholars and calligraphers. Their discussion tended to be unintelligible, and the subject therefore became enigmatic and mysterious. Yee achieved one of the most formidable goals that many Chinese scholars before him had failed to do: help Western readers, many of whom had no knowledge of Chinese culture and language, to garner “an enjoyment” of Chinese calligraphy “without putting them to the labour of learning the language.”86 The book was selected as one of fifty “worthy examples of book production” in 1938, and it won many rave reviews.87 It was divided into two major sections: the first part focused on aesthetics, covering the origin and construction of Chinese characters, styles, and their abstract beauty; and the second part dealt with technique. Yee initially planned to write chapters on the five most common calligraphic styles over the previous two thousand years, a conventional approach that writers of this subject tended to adopt. However, he changed the plan and instead discussed posture, the brush, composition, training, and the relations between calligraphy and other forms of Chinese art. This was a significant switch—a clear indication of Yee’s shrewd awareness of his audience in the West. Chinese calligraphy, exotic and possibly boring, was transformed into a fascinating and unintimidating subject. The dust jacket was embellished with the English title and author’s name written in beautiful cursive calligraphic style. To the right is an inscription of the Chinese title by respected master calligrapher Ye Gong-chuo, ex-minister of finance in the Chinese government. In the “Author’s Note,” Yee acknowledged help from many individuals, including V. E. Hawkes for her encouragement and suggestions, Liu Haisu, and his own brother Ji, among others. Yet there was no mention of Innes Jackson.

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The book was dedicated “To Another C. Y.” Are the initials self-referential, as most readers would naturally assume? In fact, Yee discussed the specifics of the dedication with Innes as early as January 3, 1937, when the project was near completion. Innes was still in Wuhan, and he wrote the following in a letter: About the dedication I have not definite idea. But I do think C. J. will raise some suspicion among our Chinese friends—you know I hate them of talking nonsense most of the time. That’s why I did not join their talk very often. Another suspicion is that they might think of Sir R. S. Johnston! You see the letter “J” brings some idea. Could you think of any other way besides S. F. . . . I myself should think S. F. will be good as we do understand it well only in ourselves. As I am going to use it in my Chinese books it will be 獻給精神之友 . If you think it is not so close to us, perhaps I could use S.F.C.Y. (C.Y. for Chin-yu as well as for my name). Would it be good? Do tell me please. Or you could tell me a good name in Latin which you like best. Then I put in after S.F. You know your Chin-yu 靜如 will be known to anybody soon. Otherwise I could put it in Chinese in.88

The abbreviation S.F.C.Y. stands for “Spiritual Friend Innes Jackson,” or 精神之友靜如 in Chinese. He later told Innes that it would be “better not to put down” her name in the acknowledgment, and he was to dedicate the book to her “as we agreed.”89 Hence, “C. Y.” in the dedication, with S.F. trimmed off, was actually a reference to Innes, truly “another C. Y.” Nevertheless, as Yee affirmed, “C. Y.” may also stand for himself. Indeed, he would probably welcome this interpretation. There were myriad reasons for him to commemorate “Another Chiang Yee,” the one that existed prior to, and had metamorphosed into, this “new Ya.”90

chapter 6



“The Thing Has Come at Last”

Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, which moved to its current location on Euston Road in 1932, was founded by Sir Henry S. Wellcome (1853–1936), a pharmacist and entrepreneur. Specializing in the history of medicine and science, this unique institute has been considered “the first and best medical museum in the world.”1 Its Oriental Department has extensive Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese collections. In March 1938, Chiang Yee, whose teaching position at SOS was in jeopardy, came for a job interview with the director, P. J. Johnston-Saint. They talked about the Chinese and Japanese collections of the museum, and Johnston-Saint showed him the Chinese exhibits. Later that day, Yee prepared a thank-you letter, expressing his interest in the job. He was to leave for Ireland, but he would contact the museum again as soon as he returned in two weeks. He seemed comfortable in promoting himself. The letter was on his personal stationery, bearing his Parkhill Road address and the pen name “The Silent Traveller” printed on the top. He mentioned that he had already published three books, prospectuses of which were included. 2 As promised, Yee wrote Johnston-Saint again on April 19 after his return from the trip. In addition to reaffirming his confidence and interest in the job, he asked for another meeting to discuss the job. He wrote the letter with a brush pen on fine-textured absorbent paper, which contained colored woodblock printed flower painting. The cursive lines and strokes of his writing, with slight variations in width and speed, glided and flowed gracefully against the colorful background. It was eye-catching and aesthetically appealing. Yee was hired to work in the Japanese and Chinese sections of the museum, beginning on May 6. His job was to help the museum arrange an exhibit on the history of Chinese medicine. He worked every Friday, and from June 28, when his term at the SOS ended, he worked three days per week. The museum paid him 2 guineas for every day he worked.3 He earned a reputation as being thoughtful and sensitive. Whenever he decided 83

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to take on a project, he would plunge in and come up with fresh ideas. Immediately after his first visit to the museum, he began to consider the best way to arrange Chinese exhibits. He had observed that many European museums had “a lot of difficulties” in proper presentation of their Chinese collections.4 In his opinion, a chronological arrangement of the Wellcome exhibits would not do justice to the complex and rich medical history of China. He visited Dr. Harold Balme on May 12, and the two discussed this subject in detail. Both believed that it would be “far better” to present the exhibits in four thematic categories: 1) folklore in relation to sickness and death; 2) the Chinese conception of the human body; 3) Chinese pharmacology; 4) medical and surgical practice.5 Balme then submitted a proposal to Johnston-Saint and mentioned that Yee had “most generously offered” to make “a set of illustrative pictures” which “should make the whole section of the museum vivid and interesting to all visitors in a way that a mere collection of old and dusty exhibits will never do.”6 The war situation in China was a constant concern to Yee. After the fall of Nanjing and Shanghai, the Nationalist government retreated to Hankou, and northern Jiangxi on the Yangtze River became strategically critical to its defense. It was believed that the fall of Jiangxi would mean the loss of the entire south of China. In June 1938, the Japanese started its campaign to conquer Hankou. Jiangxi thus became the frontline for fierce battles on an unprecedented scale. Madang and Pengze Counties fell on June 27 and 29, respectively. A week later, Hukou was conquered and the passage from Poyang Lake to the Yangtze River was blocked. On July 25, Jiujiang fell. The Japanese armies slaughtered hundreds of villagers and burned down numerous houses, turning villages and towns into debris and wreckage. According to incomplete data, 313,249 Chinese in Jiangxi were killed, and 191,201 were wounded. Among the dead were 33,900 children and 84,379 women.7 Ji had been caring for Yee’s family as well as his own. In spring of 1938, both families evacuated to Yichang of Hubei Province, planning to move farther west to Chongqing, a mountainous region in Sichuan Province. Chongqing was considered relatively safe, and the Nationalist government and its officials considered retreating there since the situation in Hankou became increasingly perilous. Ji set out for Chongqing in April. If things went well, the plan was to send for both families soon after. Unexpectedly, he died of a heart attack not long after his arrival in Chongqing. He had been the central pillar of the family, and his sudden death sent everyone reeling. The original evacuation plan was cancelled, and everyone returned to Jiujiang for the funeral.8 In May, Ji’s wife Cai Fen decided to leave for Chongqing with her son Chienmin and adopted daughter Jianlan. Since her brother-in-law was an army officer in charge of military supplies, they left together on a military vessel. Before her departure, Cai came to speak with Zeng Yun, offering to bring Chien-kuo along

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with her. Zeng accepted the offer, and, in just few minutes, she packed some clothing into a parcel. Chien-kuo, only twelve years old, thought that his aunt was going to take him on a trip. He took the parcel and left home with her. It was quite extraordinary that Zeng, who appeared rather frail in her slenderness, reacted so calmly and resolutely. She loved her children dearly, especially Chien-kuo, the eldest son of the family. However, when sending him away to Chongqing seemed the best opportunity available for his survival, she consented and sent him away with no hesitation, as though the decision had been made after a long deliberation. Zeng had a prominent wide forehead, a fair-skinned face, and her hair was always carefully combed backward. Her bright eyes were expressive of a placid and congenial personality. Like many women her age, she had received little education, but she abided by the traditional virtues accorded to women. She was prim and proper. Playing mahjong with her sister or sister-in-law had been her hobby after marriage. Yee resented this because he considered it a waste of time. However, there were truly no other recreational opportunities available for Zeng. With her husband engaged in public services, her social circle was limited to her family and relatives.9 After Yee left for England in 1933, she single-handedly took care of the children and never complained. In early May, since it was not safe to remain in Jiujiang, Zeng Yun took Xiaoyan and Chien-fei and evacuated to approximately ten miles outside the city. Three other family members accompanied them: Zeng’s mother, wobbling on her threeinch bound feet; Zeng’s sister, fragile with tuberculosis (her husband, a bridge work specialist, had abandoned her without a divorce and the daughter of their marriage, Cai Jingrong, was away in Shanghai); and Zeng’s uncle, her mother’s elder brother and her sister’s father-in-law.10 The six of them went to the wild woods at the foot of Lu Mountain. They did not have money to buy food, and life was not easy. Even in that remote region far from towns and cities, everyone lived in fear. Nationalist troops engaged the Japanese in battles, and the tranquility of nature was constantly shattered by gunshots from the crossfire. Yet the family survived. Zeng, easygoing and cheerful, quickly became friends with the local peasants, who offered generous and kind assistance. They helped the family set up shelter. During their stay there, Zeng’s sister and uncle passed away, and the peasants helped arrange the burials. The deep friendship they built and nurtured through hardship was enduring. Three decades later, Zeng still graciously remembered these friends and would occasionally visit them with her granddaughter.11 On July 25, 1938, the Japanese entered Jiujiang. They broke into the Chiang family house. At the time, one of the rooms in the family compound, used as the mourning hall, was still decorated with flowers and couplets sent by friends and relatives in condolences. Among them was a couplet by Chiang Kai-shek in recognition of Ji’s loyal service to the Nationalist government. The Japanese thought the family was related to Chiang Kai-shek, so they smashed the furniture and demolished the house.12

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Staying in their native city became impossible. Along with her children and mother, Zeng set out for Shanghai. They sought help from Cai Jingrong, who was working as a nurse in a local hospital. They stayed in Xujiahui, and Xiaoyan and Chien-fei attended a missionary school near the cathedral in the area. After Ji’s death, their communication with Yee was interrupted for some time. Zeng was illiterate and the children were too young. Xiaoyan was only able to correspond with her father after she completed the third grade, mostly about her study and grades. Hence, Cai Jingrong became the major liaison between Zeng and Yee. When the news concerning Ji’s death finally reached Yee, it was devastating. “The grief inside me, like a knife cutting little by little, was utterly indescribable,” he remembered, “and for many days I felt it unbearable to go on living.”13 He was so distressed that he “took to bed for several days.” It was an infinite regret that, being overseas, he was unable to attend the funeral, take another look at his dear brother, and bid a last farewell.14 In July, his sister-in-law Cai Fen wrote him about a traditional ritual the family had just performed in memory of Ji. At the end of the letter, she copied four short poems that Ji had written for him. Yee read these poems over and over, and it seemed as though his brother was still alive and still sending him words of encouragement. Ji used to advise him never to cease searching for happiness and hope in the midst of suffering and difficulty. Ji wanted Yee to be happy and always endeavored to shield him from horror as much as possible. When the Japanese launched their invasion of China, he mentioned it only briefly with the line, “We are at war.” The horrific atrocities of war were circumvented in his letters; he often described “happy little incidents” on the battlefield.15 Over the previous five years, Yee had repeatedly mentioned his plan to go back to China in his letters. Settling down in England was never his goal. His brother often suggested that he should return only after the political and war situations grew stable. Now, returning home became unrealistic; yet his scattered family in China was a constant irresolvable concern. He immersed himself in strenuous work, hoping to divert and reduce the pain in his heart through writing, painting, and lecturing. “While I work, I keep myself aloof from most worries.” And he added, “Perhaps my work is the only form of happiness I have.”16 His teaching at the SOS came to an end in June, yet he was just as busy as before. Following the success of his Lakeland book in late 1937, he was under way on his second Silent Traveller book, this one on London. He told Innes in early summer that he had completed the writing. “I am alright but still very tired. I finished the whole writing of the book until yesterday morning without two nights sleep (Thursday and Friday). Anyway I am glad to have finished it. After I finished it, I went out to buy a bottle of sherry and made myself deadly drunk and then went to sleep—There is a lot left and hope you will taste it. I spent the whole day on Hampstead Heath today.”17 Yee rarely drank wine. He was “very strict with himself,” recalled Innes. When The Chinese Eye was completed, he had “allowed himself one glass of sherry to

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mark the occasion and that was that.”18 It was now another special occasion when he decided to indulge himself again to celebrate the completion of a new project. It was probably Yee’s way to recover from exhaustion or to soothe the pain that emerged when he found himself momentarily freed from a preoccupying schedule. During his time in London, he had grown fond of the great metropolis. He loved visiting art galleries, the British Museum, and the many parks and gardens. His favorite spot was along the Thames River, which he had read about in a textbook as a child. It was a pleasure to walk through Millbank near the Tate Gallery or from Kew Gardens to Hampton Court. The sound of the boats or even the ripples on the water, the sight of trees, birds, ducks, or deer, the contrast between the ancient or modern buildings and their natural setting—he was intoxicated by “the rhythm of nature.” Occasionally, he was so immersed in the moment that he forgot the buildings around him and felt as though he were walking along the waterside of a big stream in China.19 Through his publications and artwork, Yee made many English friends, such as George Eumorfopoulos, Oscar Raphael, Lawrence Binyon, General Sir Neal Malcolm, Mrs. Walter Sedgewick, Sir Reginald Johnston, Sir Herbert Read, and Sir William Milner. He was fully aware of the importance of social circles and enjoyed the friendship of his acquaintances. One of his close friends was Sir William Milner, who wrote to London University in 1937 pleading for Yee’s retention. The two had become acquainted in 1936. Early that year, Yee had an exhibition at Betty Joel’s gallery. When Milner saw reproductions of his paintings in the Illustrated London News, he contacted the artist and asked for a visit. As an admirer of Yee’s works, he enjoyed their subsequent meetings. After reading the Lakeland book, he thought that Yee would love to visit Yorkshire. Parcevall Hall, his home there, was a renovated medieval building where he had entertained numerous visitors, including Queen Mary. Yee was invited to visit and stay every summer, and one of the rooms was consequently named the “Chinese Room.”20 The tranquility of northern England surely brought soothing comfort to his soul. These visits also became opportunities for Yee to impress his friends; he sent letters to his friends, using Parcevall Hall stationery, or mentioning the visit and describing the house. In early September, he visited Milner in Yorkshire for over two weeks. When he returned from the trip, he expected to be freer for “a little more work every week.” He told Johnston-Saint that he could increase his weekly working time to two days per week.21 Johnston-Saint was very supportive, appreciated Yee’s talent and interest, and always accommodated his travel needs. Yee, however, missed home. He endowed plants with deep emotions in his artworks. Plums, which blossom and are fragrant in the winter, were his favorite. In “Irises,” a colored painting on silk, Yee inscribed: I have been sojourning overseas for nearly six years. As plums, my favorite flower, are not available, I have to switch my affection toward English irises. They are

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Zhuang Zhou, an ancient philosopher, had a dream where he transformed into a butterfly. When he discussed this dream with his friend afterward, the latter questioned, “How do you know that it was a dream? Isn’t it possible that you are indeed a butterfly, and you are now simply in your dream?” The allusion to the butterfly in Yee’s inscription was loaded with multiple implications. Reality and dreams are shown to be inseparably interconnected. Between November 4–21, the Sunday Times National Book Fair was held at Earls Court in London. The spacious exhibition halls and vast number of books on display attracted a record number of visitors who strolled around publishers’ stalls, examining the books and making inquiries or purchases. The two most prominent visitors were the Duke of Kent and Queen Mary. Newspapers featured exciting headlines the following day, such as “Duke of Kent at Book Fair” and “Duke of Kent Delighted by His Surprise Visit to the ‘Sunday Times’ Book Fair Buys 50 Volumes.”23 During the Book Fair, there were approximately fifty talks by French, German, Italian, and Chinese authors—the last, of course, was Yee. He gave his talk, “A Chinese Looks at England,” at 3 p.m. on November 8, followed by Peter Fleming, a travel writer and author of One’s Company: A Journey to China (1934), at 5 p.m. More than seven hundred people attended Yee’s talk, probably the largest audience he had ever drawn. It was a special day indeed, for his book The Silent Traveller in London was also published on that day. In his talk, Yee compared the cultural life of the English with that of the Chinese. He was touted as a “philosopher” as well as a poet and artist because of his witty remarks and sharp observations.24 He attempted to highlight the differences between the English and the Chinese but simultaneously called attention to the underlying similarities. With typical Chinese philosophy Mr. Chiang said: “Because I come from the other side of the world you’ll expect me to put everything backwards; and so I will in order not to disappoint you. “Thus you put your Christian names first and your family names second. I put my family name Chiang first and my other name Yee second. “People always say to me, ‘how do you do, Mr. Yee?’ and I reply, ‘How do you do Mr. Tom, Dick or Harry?’ ”25

He spoke of the close relationship between Chinese poetry and painting. “Poetry is only painting without colour, and painting is only writing without words.” A Chinese student who studied pictorial art was expected to excel in poetry, and vice versa. He then read some of his own poems in Chinese, as well as the English translations.26

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After that presentation, Yee autographed his books for the audience. He signed his name with a Chinese brush—the soft brush hair dancing rhythmically, leaving beautiful curving strokes on the paper. He concluded his signature with a characteristic elongated downward trace, like a “stork standing on one leg—stable but poised for movement.”27 Approximately seventy copies were signed, and he was dubbed a “popular autographer.”28 The Silent Traveller in London includes an author’s dedication in the front, which reads: IN MEMORY OF the death of my beloved brother, without whose help in bringing me up I should never have been able to see this amazing world in its age of progression and destruction, fighting side by side; and also IN MEMORY OF the entrance of the invader into my native city, Kiu-kiang on July 25th, 1938

In his own copy, there were some corrections he subsequently made. The word “progression” was changed to “progress,” and “Kiu-kiang” to “Kiukiang.” He noted, “Quite a few errors have been found in the book because of the rush for print, and I will keep this copy to remember the blemish on an otherwise happy occasion.”29 There is a noticeable distinction between his Lakeland and London books. The former was originally conceived as a journal, recording his two-week journey to the region in a straightforward chronological order; the London book is an encyclopedic presentation of the city through the eyes of a Chinese. It is not a theoretical or scholarly work. The author’s eye is fixed on understated, seemingly trivial objects and topics. The Chinese title of the book, “Chop Suey of London,” suggests that “there is nothing of great value in it, but it may be appetizing to some.”30 Chop suey, a special type of Chinese dish, means “a mixture of fragments.” Thematically organized, the book is divided into two parts. The first part, “London Scene,” focuses on natural aspects of the city. It presents London throughout four seasons and various weather conditions. The second part, “London Life,” is devoted to the city’s cultural aspects. It follows the English essayist tradition by touching on miscellaneous subjects, such as children, men, women, food, teatime, books, and plays and films. M.T.Z. Tyau’s London Through Chinese Eyes, cited several times in the book, was probably a useful reference; Yee’s book, on the other hand, is far less sociopolitical and more an artistic and poetic reconstruction of London by a Chinese observer.

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Yee observed the world around him with childlike curiosity and was capable of fresh insights about common and familiar phenomena, delighting and surprising his readers: “Had I not come to London, I should never have known there was a special time for tea.”31 These insights were often subversive and enlightening, as they challenged conventional wisdom and called for readers to reevaluate themselves and the world in which they lived. A Chinese artist friend, who visited London one winter, once complained, “There is nothing worth painting in London now. When you go out, you can only see the moving heads of people, tobacconists, and sweet-shops. All the buildings are grey or dark in colour, and the trees are dead black. There is really not a single thing that could be painted here.”32 This was not true for Yee, who felt that winter was actually “the best time” to enjoy the beauty of the city. It lent a “unique colour” to the houses, churches towers, and trees in London, one that matched his style of brushwork perfectly. Once all the leaves had fallen, he was able to study the arrangement of the naked branches and trunks—just like artists studying models in the art studio, but for free.33 Curiosity for new discoveries and an appreciation of beauty were the catalysts for fresh observations in every corner of London. For artists, there was beauty and pleasure even in adverse weather conditions. Misty scenes enveloped in fog became utterly enjoyable, and a walk in the rain provided “the true opportunity of appreciating nature.”34 Yee particularly loved to watch pedestrians in the rain. “I could not see their faces and bodies, but only the movement of umbrellas. If those had been made in dark blue colour, I would have mistaken them for the waves of the sea washing back from where I stood.”35 The book, though manifestly an account of his impression of the city, is essentially a comparison between English and Chinese cultures. Yee acknowledged that, as a Chinese, he was “bound to look at many things from a different angle,” yet various nationalities may not necessarily differ greatly from each other. “They may be different superficially, but they eat, drink, sleep, dress, and shelter themselves from wind and rain in the same way. In particular their outlook on life need not vary fundamentally.”36 “The more I look at London scenes the more friendly a feeling I have towards them. And the more I learn of the different phases of London life, the surer and deeper is my belief in humanity, love, and beauty. Why should people be separated by terms of race or nation?”37 His discussions of children’s education, working schedules, and expressions of love were demonstrations that, despite disparities in language, skin color, religion, and behavior, people in China, England, and other parts of the world had many essential similarities. When discussing food, he explained that, like their counterparts in England and France, Chinese cooks were economical, for they did not throw much away. They kept the “leftovers” to make chop suey, in much the same way that the English kept food for pies. Specific peculiarities of food was a similar matter. While the French, for example, might be fond of eating snails and frogs, some Chinese were fond of eating cats and dogs. This, Yee believed, should not be cause for spite or disparaging attacks.

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It must have been an eye-opening experience for readers in England, who had been used to reading books by European writers on Oriental peoples and cultures, to hear a new and unfamiliar voice commenting on their own. Despite a surging interest in Chinese culture, the general public in England still lacked a reasonable base of knowledge in this area. For example, Yee once visited a school, and the teacher asked her students to point to the national flag of China. A girl pointed to a flag with a dragon on it, and the whole class applauded. Yee joined them cheerfully. After the visit, he sent the teacher a letter thanking her for her hospitality, but explaining that the flag was that of the Qing Dynasty. China had become a republic in 1911 and had its own flag.38 Art is one of the key elements that have contributed to the success of Yee’s London book. There are eighteen plates included in the book: two colored and sixteen monochromic. Yee’s own poems are hand-copied, using four major calligraphic styles (standard, running, official, and seal), and they are printed after each chapter like a plate. There are numerous sketches, some of which are very exquisite, such as “God of Spring,” “Under the Moon,” and “Lady Precious Stream”; however, a few of them, such as “Co-operation and Mutual Help” and “A Chinese Henpecked Husband,” are rather burlesque. The illustrations were the result of his deliberate explorations with adapting his Chinese brush to daily scenes around him. An English friend once warned him not to attempt such an approach since he would be doomed to fail and might even spoil his original style, but he did not give up.39 In Western masterpieces, he observed, English watercolors had many techniques in common with the Chinese.40 He experimented and failed many times, but he eventually made remarkable progress in painting Western buildings and figures. It was a tradition in Chinese landscape painting to leave blank space to represent the fog and mist. London fog and mist suggested “many new ways of painting.” In his monochromic painting “Trafalgar Square,” Nelson’s Column and other objects are only faintly visible. When the painting was shown at an exhibition, some viewers took it for a trick and thought that such work necessitated very little effort; they failed to understand the artist’s serious search for an appropriate way to present Western scenes within a Chinese medium. Yee was pleased with this experiment. The blank space in the painting was not identical to emptiness, but it was suggestive, posing an amusing challenge which stimulated viewers’ imaginations.41 On December 31, Innes Jackson and Gustav Herdan had their wedding ceremony in the Town Hall of Hempstead. They had first met in the summer of 1935 when Gustav came to the SOS to take a certificate exam. A German Czechoslovakian with a law degree from Charles University in Prague, he was practicing law in Sudetenland. He had studied Chinese by himself as a hobby and later acquired a Ph.D. in Chinese in Vienna with a dissertation on the classic The Book of Songs. When Germans occupied the Sudetenland after the Munich conference in September, Gustav moved to Brno and then obtained permission to come to England with Innes.

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Yee sent his congratulations with a wedding gift: two pairs of ivory chopsticks, each carved with the four-character phrase caizi jiaren, meaning “the talented scholar and the beautiful lady.”42 Yee had shared much with Innes because of their similar interest in art and literature, and he valued the friendship that they nurtured over the previous four years. He also respected Innes, who, a modest but generous soul, had deftly edited nearly all of his publications. With a Confucian upbringing, he was a suave gentleman who sustained a close relationship with Innes—which continued for years to come—while at the same time cherished his admiration and affection deep in his heart. He was a man who abided by “the Confucian code of behavior and philosophy.”43 Though idealistic in his romantic nature, he would not forfeit his goals or values. His poem “Untitled” was written sometime in 1938: My hair disheveled, I traveled around the world in my middle age, Selling paintings and writings in order to make a living. Having also been the Chief Officer of Jiujiang, I would not let my tears wet the black gown for the woman.44

The phrase “Having also been the Chief Officer of Jiujiang” alludes to the famous Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi (772–846), who was demoted and left the capital for Jiujiang. It was Yee’s favorite line which he had carved in a seal and frequently applied to his artwork. He was proud of the affinity he had with Bai Juyi, in their shared political experiences and lives in exile. The poem “Untitled” refers to a long narrative poem, in which Bai recounted his encounter on an autumn night with a lute player, who, assisted by the medium of music, conveyed the vicissitudes in her life from being a beautiful prima donna to a lonesome wife of a merchant in a loveless marriage. Bai was mesmerized by the performance without realizing that the front of his black gown had become saturated with his own tears. While claiming the similarity in their public service, Yee was quick to announce, however, that he would not shed his tears “for the woman.” As for this rather blunt yet ambiguous reference to the “woman,” there is no specific explanation. It may have alluded to the classical poem, suggesting that the poet would not be as sentimental or disturbed by the suffering of the world. However, “the woman” may also represent an ideal love, over the loss of which he vowed not to grieve incessantly. When his enlarged collection of Chinese poems was reprinted in 1955, ninety-nine of the poems were written between 1933 and 1935; “Untitled” was the only exception, written in 1938. It was included at the very end of the volume, as though marking the close of an important chapter. Despite worries about the war, 1939 actually began with a cheerful event. On Christmas Eve of 1938, the Antenor was docked in London during a heavy snowstorm, bringing from China five live pandas captured by Floyd Tangier Smith. Ming, one of the pandas sold to the London Zoological Society, was a ten-month-old cub and soon went on display at the zoo. The little creature had

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a white body with two black ears, two black circles around its eyes, and four black legs. Its pigeon-toed clumsy movement appeared so comic and cute that it created a thrilling excitement among the public. For months, thousands of visitors from across Europe, including Queen Mary and her daughters, visited the zoo for this unprecedented opportunity. The “panda craze” was “sweeping” London. At a time when news across the Channel grew more and more somber, it was “attractive,” as a young boxer reflected, “to find something that you can really have an affection for.”45 Yee went to the zoo with the crowd. The panda was also a novelty for him. Even though pandas originated in China, they were rare animals and largely unknown to the public. Inspiration struck Yee at first sight. Coated in black and white colors, this creature could be a perfect subject for Chinese painting. In addition, its diet—bamboo leaves and stems—had always been a favorite subject of Chinese art. As a fellow of the Zoological Society, Yee obtained special permission through his friend Dr. Geoffrey Vevers to “spend an evening with the pandas” in order to observe them more closely. He drew over a hundred rough drafts and then began to work on them with ink and brush on absorbent paper.46 In his lifetime, Yee painted hundreds of panda paintings and thus became “the first Chinese painter to have painted the giant panda.” A London critic even gave him a nickname—“the panda man.”47 Interestingly, Yee was also the first person to paint penguins in a Chinese style. “What a peculiar creature!” he noted. “It looks like a bird, but cannot fly. It is not a beast or a fish, yet it swims in the water. Above all, it walks like a heavily-loaded person but with eyes turned to the sky.” With artistic sensitivity, he perceived that the penguin, with its dark back and white chest, would also be a great subject.48 His monochromic ink painting “Penguins” portrayed nine penguins by water. It exemplified the beauty of Chinese art, conveying the harmony of musical rhythms and grace through its economic details. In fact, “Penguins” is one of twelve exquisitely printed monochromic paintings in a portfolio published on February 10, 1939, under the title Birds and Beasts. In a delightful introduction, Yee outlines the dual motivations for the book: his happiness in discovering that “Nature is the same everywhere,” and an illustration of Chinese painting. He begins with a succinct introduction to the medium and to the technique of Chinese painting. “We do not paint in oils. The pictures reproduced here might be called water-colours, but it would be truer to say they are monochromes, for we consider black the only essential, other colours being merely a help to the artist if necessary.”49 After a brief explanation of the use of brushes, ink-stones, ink-sticks, and water, the topic shifts to the subjects of the drawings. In his eyes, animals were more like close friends than inferior creatures. He was often excited, for example, by a deer’s “inquisitive eyes” and “lordly demeanor,” or by the power manipulation of David, the largest monkey at the zoo. He also attempted to “humanize,” rather than “animalize,” these creatures. This is why the birds and beasts in his paintings—cats, geese, ducks, horses, or deer—appear individualistic and vivacious.

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Concurrent with the publication of Birds and Beasts, Yee exhibited sixty-five of his brush works at Zwemmer Gallery. Most of these works were original illustrations for his Lakeland and London books, as well as for Birds and Beasts. The exhibition received rave reviews in the local news media. “Mr. Chiang is essentially a poet with the brush, but a poet with a sense of humor, charmingly expressed” in his artworks, a reviewer commented.50 Another reviewer noted, “There is a quality of humanity, of actual sentient life which permeates inanimate, as well as animate nature, which brings one of the greatest characteristics of Chinese painting into contact with our alien surroundings, which makes alive what we feel as dead and infuses with fresh vitality what we think of merely as alive.”51 Among the exhibits were portraits, such as those of the poet Laurence Binyon, art collector George Eumorfopoulos, and playwright George Bernard Shaw. The last, entitled “G.B.S. in Trouble,” shows the gaunt literary giant being caressed by a black girl on her knees. “I have found my God!” the girl exclaims. Shaw replies, “No, my dear, you are wrong, I am not G O D, but G.B.S.” Yee said that he got his inspiration after reading The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God.52 Beside this portrait was a postcard by Shaw, who described the painting as “the best of all my million portraits,” but then added with a touch of wry humor: “In fine art and in courtesy the Flowery Republic can do nothing wrong.”53 Queen Mary, an art connoisseur, visited the exhibition at Zwemmer Gallery on May 2, 1939. With Yee as her guide, she spent twenty minutes viewing his exhibits and conversing with him on the styles of Chinese and Western art. She bought a copy of his new book, Birds and Beasts. Her brief visit to the gallery was a media event, and the news was published in many papers across the nation. Yee already enjoyed a fair degree of recognition as an artist and writer. The second edition of his London book, issued shortly before Christmas, almost sold out by late February. In January alone, though “notoriously the worst selling month of the year,” over 750 copies were sold.54 Two colored prints reproduced from his London book, “Deer in Richmond Park” and “Geese at Kew Gardens,” were published by Country Life, priced at 25s each. They were, to quote a reviewer, “striking and unusual nature studies.”55 His success had won him great esteem and admiration among the circle of Chinese as well. “He was reticent, extraordinarily diligent, yet very warm-hearted,” Xiao Shufang recalled. She was a young artist, whose training had been in both oil and Chinese paintings in China. She visited Yee at his residence in 1938, when he was writing a memoir about his childhood. Books and paintings were scattered everywhere in the room. He had seen Xiao’s artwork at her exhibition in London and encouraged her to write a book. “But I don’t have any experience,” Xiao hesitated. “What can I write about?” “The images of children in your paintings seemed so vivid and lovely. Why not write a book with illustrations on children’s games in China?”56 Though busy with his own writing, painting, and other work, Yee continued to exchange ideas with her on the book, which was eventually published in late 1939, under the title Chinese Children at Play. It was a charming book, containing

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sixteen delicate and adorable illustrations, as well as explanatory text. It included sixteen games in four seasons. Yee contributed an engaging introduction to the book in the form of a letter to his “Dear Young Friends.” He invited them to visit China after the war during the Lantern Festival. “You can wave lanterns in the shapes of doves and frogs and monkeys if you like,” he promised.57 In August 1939, Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas was published. It was Yee’s first children’s book. In a delightful and enthusiastic tone, the book appeals to both children and adults alike. The story is about a five-year-old village boy, Chinpao, who goes for a walk with his grandfather in the mountains. He strays away unintentionally and then meets Mao-mao, a baby panda, and her parents, uncle, and aunt. For the next three months, Chin-pao enjoys a unique experience of life in heaven-like nature with his panda friends until they are trapped in a net set by a foreign animal hunter and his Chinese assistants. The captive pandas are going to be sent to overseas zoos with the foreigner. “Good-bye, dear Chin-pao,” Mao-mao bids farewell. “I hope to see you in England or America soon.” In the end, Chinpao misses Mao-mao and wishes to go to London to visit her someday.58 In his “Backword,” dated May 30, 1939, Yee thanked Dr. Vevers of the London Zoological Society for allowing him to observe the pandas at night. He mentioned some remarks about the pandas he overheard at the zoo. These remarks indicated that the general public, though fascinated with the pandas, did not have a good understanding of the significance of these creatures. They made him wonder “how the pandas lived in their home in the high mountains of Western China.” Thus emerged “this little story.”59 The pandas in the story are endowed with human qualities. They have family values and philosophies. Through their interactions with Chin-pao, the story underlines a possible harmonious relationship between humans and nature. More importantly, it challenges complacency and convention. An interesting feature of the book is the scathing critique of Confucian philosophy made by the pandas. Chin-pao is taught at home to “behave according to Confucius’ ideas of a superior man.” It surprises him to learn that the pandas are not only familiar with but also critical of Confucius’ ideas. Father Panda considers Confucius hypocritical and impractical. For example, Confucius claimed that happiness came from unpolished food and plain water; when he had money, he liked to have his rice finely polished and meat delicately prepared. While avoiding any talk about money, he sought employment from kings and princes who thought about nothing but money. He taught people to love every creature in the world, but he himself relished the taste of good meat. Since it was cruel to harm animals, he found an excuse: “A superior man does not go near the kitchen.”60 The pandas, perfectly content with their simple life, proved to be genuinely superior and loving. “Blue sky is our roof, Green trees our pillars, Yellow earth our bed, White clouds our blankets.”61

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Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas is accompanied by the artist’s lovely illustrations. The line drawings, especially those of pandas in various postures, are vivid and lifelike, reflecting Yee’s careful observations. Among the three full-page color illustrations is “A Portrait of Mao-mao,” set among bamboo in the high mountains. Across the top is a long inscription: “I had read about the pandas but never witnessed one until last year when the three pandas from Sichuan came to the London Zoo. . . . Pandas are very gentle and mild. They live on bamboo, and they move around slowly and clumsily, so much so that they often make one laugh. With imagination, I have created this portrait of their life in the mountains, which might be a new page added to the history of Chinese painting.”62 That summer, Yee worked hard on his memoir. After the book was completed, he visited the continent for a much-needed rest. He chose Geneva because of the Prado Exhibition from Spain, which was open until the end of the month. He left for Geneva on August 24. Victoria Station was shrouded in an eerie silence that morning. The usual hustle and bustle had disappeared, and there was hardly anyone on the Continental Platform. A day earlier, Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with Russia. Now that the immediate obstacle to a German invasion of Poland had been eliminated, war appeared inevitable. The British government had passed the Emergency Power Act. When arriving in Geneva the next morning, Yee was struck by the pervasive apprehension and intense nervousness of the people. Everyone was discussing Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the imminent war in Europe. While his plan was to stay in Geneva for two weeks, his friends all advised him to hurry back to London. Indeed, he noticed that he was the only guest in his boarding house since most travelers had either stopped coming or had returned home already. That evening, the broadcast from England urged all British subjects to return as soon as possible. The next morning, he spent a few hours at the museum, admiring the Spanish treasures, especially those paintings by El Greco and Goya. At noon, he was on his way back to London. For months, there had been preparations for mass evacuation of schoolchildren in case of war. On August 31, the British government, though still clinging to the hope that war could be averted, finally issued an order to start evacuation on the following day. Yee was working at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum that afternoon. After work, he went to buy gym shoes for Hsiung’s three children. He noticed the sad and anxious expressions of a mother who was shopping with her children in the store. On his way home, it began to drizzle and the rain ushered feelings of melancholy into his heart. “It seemed to be setting the scene for all the tears which would be shed next morning.”63 Indeed, the next morning, newspapers announced that war in Europe had begun again. The armed forces of Germany had launched their invasion of Poland. Yee set out to Hsiung’s home, which was only a block away. Hsiung had brought his wife and three children to London in early 1938 for fear of war in China. Who

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would have expected that war could also break out in Europe? The children, a girl and two boys, went to a local elementary school. Following instructions from their school, they had each prepared a small knapsack with essential clothes and items. They would gather at the school where they would then be transported to their host family in St. Albans, a small town in Hertfordshire, twenty miles north of London. Yee accompanied the Hsiungs to the meeting place. Many parents, who had never been separated from their children, were hugging and kissing their children good-bye beside the gate of the school. On the same day, Ming, the baby panda, was bundled onto a zoo lorry and transported, along with another panda and a baby elephant, to Whipsnade, which became their temporary country home thirty miles north of the city. Ming had become a celebrity. Just two weeks earlier, she made an unprecedented appearance on BBC television, and the show was a huge success. London began its “black-out” that night, and Yee intended to go to bed early. Unexpectedly, a friend came to visit, so he was obliged to put the light on. Their “brief ” and “agitated conversation” was interrupted with “no less than three warnings and complaints.” He bought several large sheets of ARP paper the next day to cover his windows during the black-out.64 Sunday, September 3, was “a day of greatest sadness.”65 Yee woke up early, and, standing by the window, looked at the trees across the street for a while before resting in an armchair. Around nine o’clock, by sheer chance, he turned on the radio and was caught by the rather “ominous” tone of the announcer: “The Prime Minister will make an important announcement at eleven fifteen.” The atmosphere of the room seemed to freeze instantly. Hsiung came at 10:50 a.m., followed by the two tenants from upstairs right after. All four of them, solemn and silent, waited for the radio speech. “You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed,” Chamberlain asserted. Yee nodded his head. Suddenly, the solemn air was pierced by a shrieking air-raid siren outside. Its high-pitched note resembled the word “killing.” Hsiung and the two neighbors left swiftly. Yee walked to the door, paused for a moment, and listened to the noises of hasty footsteps and nervous whistles on the streets. He then went downstairs to the basement where he turned off the main gas tap and sat on a chair, waiting for the “all-clear” signal.66 His landlord had left for the countryside, so Yee was the only one remaining in the building. While waiting in the dim room, he recalled the god of the magic umbrella in Chinese legend. The god held an umbrella, which kept the world at peace when it was closed but, once opened, could disseminate plague to destroy enemies. Yee thought it would be wonderful if Chamberlain, who carried an umbrella all the time, could open it and release a plague on the German Nazis. It was chilly and gloomy in the basement. He felt a sudden surge of ineffable remorse. He had experienced war in his own country, but he never felt such a level of sadness. His family was now scattered across China: Chien-kuo was at boarding

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school in Sichuan, Jianlan was living with Cai Fen, and his wife was sojourning in Shanghai with the other two children. Thousands of miles away, there was nothing he could do to help. As the head of the family, he felt guilty.67 Later that day, Yee wrote a short letter to Gustav and Innes: Dear Dr. and Herdan, Today is a memorable day! The thing has come at last! What you both would do from now on? I think I shall be remaining in London all the time. This is the point I want to tell you and that is why I send the note. I hope both of you are keeping very well. Yours sincerely, Chiang Yee68

In the midst of helplessness and uncertainty, the arrival of the war added a sober touch of relief: “The thing has come at last!” His tone was calm, yet serious and determined. The war was such a horrendous monster that it had to be confronted with utmost care. It seemed as though even a simple reference to it could provoke catastrophic consequences.

chapter 7



“My Own World”

On September 5, Chiang Yee went for a walk with a gas mask in hand. It was the third day of the war. The traffic appeared to move as usual, but there were fewer pedestrians on the street. No one seemed to care about the relaxing warmth of the sunlight. Men and women, at street corners or in front of shops, were busy filling sandbags to prepare for an air attack. On the Thames, there were no more steamers in sight, and the wharf appeared empty. Yee strolled to St. James’ Park where he noticed a man lying on the grass under a chestnut tree. His face was covered with a gas-mask, and the man was enjoying a sound sleep. It had become a common sight to see pedestrians openly carrying gas masks. Yee felt that the ugly apparatus was really an eyesore, and he fancied a new design. How nice they would look if they were shaped like a sunflower, with the central filter designed to resemble the seed pod. War raged in Europe. On September 27, Germans overran Poland. Yee was on his way home when the words “Warsaw Falls” on a placard caught his eyes. He got off the bus one stop earlier than usual and solemnly walked home. As soon as he stepped into his apartment, he turned on the radio for news. He instantly turned it off, though, when the announcer reported the fall of Warsaw. It felt unbearably confining and suffocating to remain indoors. Yee decided to take a walk to Hampstead Heath. There were hardly any people in the park, which was quiet in the bright moonlight. A year earlier, he remembered, Poland had demanded territory from Czechoslovakia rather than offer help when the neighboring country faced the threat of German invasion. At the time, Yee was worried that Poland would suffer the consequences. According to a Chinese proverb, “Lips and teeth are dependent on each other; without lips, the teeth will suffer the cold.” It was a lesson from an ancient Chinese story that explained the importance of fidelity and allegiance. According to Yee, Czechoslovakia might be seen as the lips of Poland in this case; now that the lips were gone, the teeth felt the bitter wind. How nice it would be if mankind learned lessons from history. Yee, 99

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however, firmly believed that good would eventually prevail. He predicted that the Polish people, who had freed their nation from foreign invasion three times in the past, would eventually defeat and expel the invaders.1 Yee loved to stroll along the ponds and in the meadows of Hampstead Heath, a popular green space only a few blocks away. He had discovered that it was an efficient way to shake off sadness and clear his mind. On September 30, he received three letters from China: one from Cai Fen in Chongqing; another from Chien-min in Bishan, Sichuan; and the third from his niece Jingrong in Shanghai. He had rarely heard from them since war broke out in China. They all lived in great danger, yet they expressed such a genuine concern for his safety and urged him to go to America whenever it became possible. Their letters, though exuberant with affection, brought more sorrow to his heart. His family was now scattered among several places, and remembering them inevitably invited sorrow. He took a long walk in Hampstead Heath, from where he went to a nearby bar and ordered a glass of sherry. The crowd in the bar was talking, dancing, and laughing. No one noticed him. For the time being, the war seemed to have been thrown into total oblivion, and Yee immersed himself in the merry atmosphere. Wine, as he claimed, was “a cure for sorrow.” After another glass of sherry, he walked unsteadily back home, gas mask dancing in his hand.2 Since the war started, Yee had been at work on a new Silent Traveller volume on London, but one that covered the first two months of the war. The manager of Country Life, who had published his previous volume on pre-war London, thought that this new book would make an interesting contrast. Yee immersed himself in the task, writing and drawing. In six weeks, the book was completed, and by the end of the year, it was published. This new book, entitled The Silent Traveller in War Time, is a valuable record of his impressions of the city during the first two months of the war. It describes life in London and covers a variety of subjects. Like his previous London book, Yee chose to focus on “minute matters”: the unexpected beauty of the black-out, the balloon barrage, ducks on the Serpentine, swans in the Key Wood, and the moon. Except for one reviewer who berated the book as “pathetic vestiges of derelict urban charm,” all others appreciated the poetic, philosophical, and humorous touch of the writer. They agreed that it was “new, strange and delightful to Western minds.” One even warned that “this is no book to lend, lest it never comes back.”3 A special feature of the book is the form. It is presented as a long letter by the author to his deceased brother. The book begins with the address, “My dear elder brother Ta-chuan.” At the very end of the book, Yee concludes, I can find plenty of small joys to pass the time in spite of war, such as reciting poems during the black-out, leaning on sandbags to look at the movement of the tree leaves, and even making drawings on the cardboard box of my gas-

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mask! So please do not worry about me, my dear brother. I hope you are keeping very well. With greatest affection, Your loving brother, Yee

Such style probably appeared exotic to a Western audience, but it implied an interesting concept concerning life and death, as well as man and universe. In the book, Yee includes an ink painting of himself, standing side-by-side with his brother. Beneath the painting is a Chinese poem that exemplifies these intriguing relationships. He who died is not dead, I living shall live always. Death and life are only a matter of time— But Time itself has no change!4

The overall tone of the book is upbeat and optimistic. Yee follows his brother’s admonition, appreciating “the miracles of human life and the happiness to be found around me.”5 The war brought innumerable damages and loss of life, yet, as Yee points out, it also enabled Londoners to realize the beauty of the moonlight, the poor to share somewhat in the life of the rich, and the rich to get a taste of the life of the poor. Despite the horrors and atrocities of war, Yee, with full confidence in a bright future, asserts that war can not deter the progress of civilization. The book includes line drawings and ink paintings. While the ink paintings are not as refined as those in his earlier works, his line drawings of pedestrians, farmers, soldiers, and cyclists are quite successful, vivid, and humorous. One of his sketches was of the six typical faces of old English ladies. Hsiung’s three children, who had evacuated to the countryside, were staying with an English lady who was said to be very strict, though kind and friendly. Based on their descriptions, Yee drew these amusing sketches, which he then sent in his letter to the children for identification. They unanimously agreed that the sixth lady resembled their landlady. Yee, very imaginative and creative, included some caricatures of prominent English personages—such as Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, and Gracie Fields—clad in ancient Chinese dress and representing traditional Chinese deities. The ingenuity he demonstrated with these cartoons drew both praise and criticism as “the most tawdry chinoiserie.”6 Due to wartime paper shortages, this second London book had a small print run of only eight hundred copies. The Chinese-language version, translated and prepared by the author himself, contained edits and changes to accommodate a Chinese audience. He copied the entire text with a brush pen, and the book was distributed by the Far Eastern Bureau for the British Ministry of Information in Hong Kong. In its brief preface, dated May 4, 1940, Yee recalls the writing process

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and explains to his Chinese audience why he chose to focus on those seemingly minor details of daily life during the war. The concluding remarks reveal something deep and troubling in his heart: “The pain I had suffered from the war is beyond description. My motherland was conquered by enemies; my hometown fell; my house demolished; and my family scattered apart, thousands of miles away from me. Tormented by painful homesickness, how could it be possible for me to have a leisurely and carefree mood to compose something insignificant like this? But I did it, and that was really because of something too painful to disclose.”7 The Chinese version was reprinted later in December, with two additional chapters from The Silent Traveller in London. It was typeset by machine and published by World Cultural Press, a reputable publisher in Shanghai. Innes and Gustav had been living in Bournemouth, a coastal town in the south of England. In December 1939, their first child was born. On December 23, Yee sent a letter to Innes before his departure for Yorkshire. “I don’t know how to express my happiness of knowing the good news,” the letter began with exuberant excitement. He had been asked to be godfather to the baby girl, and he readily accepted the honor with a jocular query: “How could a Buddhist become a godfather?” A check for one pound was included as a gift for the girl’s “first saving.”8 “I like to call her ‘Juliet’ which I think is the most beautiful English girl name among all,” he suggested in the same letter.9 Romeo and Juliet, the romantic and poignant love story, was his favorite Shakespeare play. Innes and Gustav subsequently named their daughter Catherine Ann Juliet, Catherine and Ann after their own mothers, and Juliet in honor of Yee’s suggestion. Yee’s memoir, A Chinese Childhood, had initially been scheduled for publication in November 1939, but the outbreak of war caused its delay until May 2, 1940. The book cover was a colored illustration by Yee with the title “Three Stages of My Hair.” There were three figures representing the author at three different stages: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. At five, he lost his mother, who had given him a physical identity; at fifteen, he lost his father, whose care and love had given him an artistic and literary identity; at thirty, he left his motherland which had endowed him with a cultural identity. Dedicated to “All Members of the Hall of Three Footpaths,” the memoir outlines the vicissitudes of his family during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In a placid yet mirthful tone, Yee delves into his childhood experiences, unfolding an encyclopedic and panoramic view of the family’s life in Jiujiang. It had been a closely knit unit of four generations, with approximately fifty members living under one roof in a spacious family compound under the unquestioned authority of his grandparents. He describes a world of peace and happiness: the harmony of family relationships, deliberate protocols and manners, reverence for elders and ancestors, the pleasure taken in nature and art, the respect paid to scholars and poets, and the joys of celebrating festivals. It is a eulogy—as well as an elegy—for a China that disappeared forever with the advent of the sociocultural revolution and modernist movement in 1919. Nostalgic sentiments behind this narrative are hard to miss. On the eve of war, the author, while writing this

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memoir, was besieged by worries about home and uncertainty about his own future—emotions that influenced his creativity and forged a poetic dimension in his nostalgic remembrance of the past. The book features eight colored plates plus one hundred line drawings. These illustrations alone give remarkable visual pleasure, as well as an impressive coverage of the local socioeconomic life at the beginning of the twentieth century: bridal costumes, sedan chairs, hair-dressing styles, lanterns, and children’s games. There had been many publications by Jesuits and missionaries who recorded their travels or life experiences in China, such as The Costume of China (1805) by William Alexander, Pictures of the Chinese (1860) by Robert Henry Cobbold, Social Life of the Chinese (1867) by Justus Doolittle, China’s Millions (1867) by J. Hudson Taylor, and Alone in China and Other Stories (1897) by Julian Ralph.10 Some of these were used for reference, but Yee’s line drawings, following Chinese painting traditions, are considerably different in style from these artworks, and his subjects are characters of honor and dignity. There is no room for gambling, prostitution, torture, or violence. Most interesting is the fact that half of these line drawings are peddlers, often carrying their merchandise in baskets with a bamboo shoulder pole. They include the flower seller, fruit seller, vegetable seller, goldfish seller, silk seller, incense seller, broom seller, or palm-fan seller. Jiujiang was one of the commercial centers on the Yangtze River, and business was certainly a vital component of local social life. These peddlers, therefore, were reminiscent of the socioeconomic system that had given way to a modern and industrial society in the 1920s and 1930s. The book was so popular that it underwent several editions and reprints in England, Canada, and the United States, and Yee became one of Methuen’s top writers for the next decade.11 Some critics recommended the book to all “who seek a temporary escape from dismal wartime thoughts.” “It is a book to indulge in when anxiety needs a sedative.”12 The book, however, is by no means an escapist or Utopian elixir. As Dorothea Hosie commented, it “brought back to us something of our own childhood, reminded us of the joys as well as the pangs of youth, of a precious grace and a cultivation of spirit which we pray may not pass from family life, either East or West, however harshly the guns roar.”13 In fact, Yee explicitly condemned the war in China and Europe by denouncing those nations that attempted to crush or subdue other peoples for their domination. “We Chinese strive to enjoy ourselves in Nature and to live with her as much as possible and we look upon happiness as the greatest good.” The happiness that older generations took pains to create had been ravished; nevertheless, the Chinese were more determined than ever. “No matter what sufferings we endure, we shall find our way back to happiness.”14 In addition to Yee, there were two other Chinese writers who had been very successful in English-language publications. One was Shih-I Hsiung, who had published three plays and a novel, The Bridge of Heaven (1943). The other gifted writer was Lin Yutang, whose English publications, such as My Country and My People (1935), The Importance of Living (1937), and The Wisdom of Confucius

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(1938), enjoyed a wide audience in Europe. For Lin’s The Importance of Living, Yee contributed a double-page painting of Chinese literati on the inner covers. These books were all about contemporary China. Though few in number, they represented a fresh voice in the West and signaled an important shift in perspective—China would no longer only be interpreted by Western authors. Yee was active in utilizing his literary and artistic skills to promote Chinese culture and cultural understanding. He became even busier during the war. From late December through mid-January, a Red Cross benefit art exhibition at the China Institute at Gordon Square hosted approximately forty contemporary Chinese paintings by fifteen Chinese artists, such as “Shrimps” and “Frogs” by Qi Baishi, “White Lotus” by Liu Haisu, and “Magpie and Willow” by Xu Beihong. Most of the pieces were from Yee’s own collection, including ten of his own works. On January 20, he held a solo show at the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield. He also gave two talks—“How Chinese Artists Paint” and “Chinese Calligraphy”—followed by demonstrations. In spite of the war-anxiety on everyone’s mind, several hundred people, including the mayor and his wife, attended Yee’s talks. The exhibition was applauded as “an attempt to bring interest in art to the man-in-the-street.”15 In late April, his exhibition went further north to Wakefield and became the first exhibition of Chinese art at the City Art Gallery. In a news article, Yee was called “a well-known diplomat,” as well as a poet and artist.16 Though a fortuitous error, it inadvertently underscored the important role that Yee had played with his artwork, writing, and other cultural activities. At an informal luncheon held by the Overseas League in March 1940, the Chinese ambassador chaired the event, and Yee delivered a speech entitled “The English as I See Them.” He told the audience that, when he came to England seven years earlier, everything appeared in reverse. Chinese is read from right to left, and English is read from left to right. Chinese tradition places the family name first, but the English put it last. In China, men walked in front of women, whereas in England men stayed behind, as though to protect the lady from a rear attack. In the end, Yee drove his point across with diplomatic wit and charm: China and England share a fundamental similarity in “their refusal to submit to an aggression.”17 The British government was fully aware of the significance of propaganda. During the First World War, it had developed the most sophisticated propaganda apparatus in the world. In 1939, as soon as it had declared war, the Ministry of Information was founded to control and manage the press, broadcasting, posters, pamphlets, and film. Shortly after, the War Artists Advisory Committee was established, chaired by Sir Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery, to acquire artwork that recorded all aspects of the war, both at home and abroad. Visual art, like other media, was recognized both as an effective ideological means to sustain the morale of the civilian population and as a record of the war. The War Artists Exhibition, organized by the committee, opened at the National Gallery on July 3, 1940. It displayed several hundred pieces by over forty artists. Crowds of people were attracted to the exhibition, which included mid-

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day classical music concerts. To Herbert Read, it became “a defiant outpost of culture, right in the midst of the bombed and shattered metropolis.”18 Two weeks later, while at work at the Wellcome, Yee received an invitation to the exhibition from Alan White, so he took a couple of hours off. He subsequently visited the exhibition several more times and wrote a booklet in Chinese, hand-copied with a brush, entitled On the War Artists Exhibition in England. The booklet focuses on twenty representative artworks, which cover a variety of subjects and styles by both veteran and emerging artists, such as Sir William Rothenstein, Paul Nash, Evelyn Dunbar, and J. Worsley. Yee introduces the artists’ backgrounds and offers his opinion of the style and artistic achievements of each piece. He makes two summative comments at the end. First, the exhibition clearly indicates that contemporary artists in England are exploring new styles, new subjects, and new media to break away from tradition and convention. Second, the artworks in the exhibition are representations of the time and spirit of the English people. Having experienced or witnessed an unprecedented level of slaughter and destruction in World War I, many artists are no longer interested in depictions of grandiose magnificence of heroism or horrendous scenes of atrocity. The artists have shifted their attentions to soldiers’ lives on the front line and civilian activities—subjects that might effectively rally the public for continued efforts and victory.19 At the time, Yee was performing translation work for the Ministry of Information. This booklet, as well as the Wartime London booklet, was commissioned by the British government and sought to inform a Chinese audience of the war in Europe.20 He reiterated the fundamental role that art played in the war and urged the Chinese government to support war art.21 Yee admired Winston Churchill and wanted to draw a sketch of him. Churchill, who succeeded Neville Chamberlain as the British prime minister in May 1940, offered vital leadership in rallying the nation to fight Nazi Germany. In preparation for his sketch, Yee sorted through photos at the Ministry of Information. The physical contrast between Churchill and Chamberlain was great: Chamberlain, bearded and with large eyes, seemed nervous all the time; Churchill had no beard and wore his signature smile that seemed indicative of confidence and resoluteness. A young staff woman at the Ministry commented, “Churchill is not a handsome man. He looks like a bulldog. If he cannot smile, his face would scare you to death. . . . I love his smile, and it is contagious.” Indeed, Churchill’s smile and “bulldog spirit” caught the heart of the nation and inspired everyone to rally together.22 At the Royal Art Society luncheon, Yee seized the opportunity to make a quick sketch. With only a few curving lines, he completed the sketch and then applied some heavy strokes for his coat and the cigar in his hand, suggestive of strength, steadfastness, and passion. The sketch of a Churchill wearing a radiant smile, which Yee found “very satisfying,” was widely circulated after it appeared on the cover of his booklet Britain at War, on a poster in China, and in several British newspapers.23

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Art and poetry allowed him relief from, and the ability to forget, the “abnormal condition” of current wartime circumstances. From his window, he could see silvery balloons decorated against an otherwise spotless blue sky, and he could hear the recurring air raid warnings. As he wrote his new book, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales, Yee couldn’t help but think about the contrast between this harsh reality and the many idyllic moments he had experienced in the Yorkshire Dales only a few years before. Contrasts such as these often convinced him that his “own world” was still intact in the midst of war, death, and destruction. It further convinced him that “the human world of cultured feeling and thought,” enriched with poetry and art, would never be destroyed by whatever destruction caused by this war.24 Yee had been a part-time employee at Wellcome since 1938. He colored drawings, translated Chinese medical nomenclature, registered collection items, and arranged Chinese native drugs in the Chinese and Japanese collections. His payment between April 1939 and April 1940 was just over £136, which was a handsome income. Though contracted to work two days a week, he frequently asked for leave or a reduction in work days as he juggled many deadlines for various publications and exhibitions. Fortunately, Johnston-Saint seemed extraordinarily friendly and always willing to accommodate his requests. While Yee enjoyed the flexibility of his job, there were visible traces of anxiety on his part. On September 14, 1939, he inquired by letter about his future arrangements with the museum, and subtly implied that his position might be threatened by a new hire. Johnston-Saint replied immediately and asserted that it was “a misunderstanding.” He would be “very glad” if Yee could arrange to continue working there as usual and complete the entire task.25 A year later, on August 27, 1940, Yee raised the issue again and prodded tactfully in a letter to Johnston-Saint, “I now learn unofficially that you do not intend me to work in the Museum after September. I do not know whether this is true.” Johnston-Saint denied this assertion and again considered it a “misunderstanding.” He wanted Yee to stay and continue to work “for at least another month or so” and to prepare the History of Chinese Medicine chart, including painting and coloring, for the Museum’s exhibition.26 During the fall and winter of 1939–40, it was eerily quiet. While Hitler was preparing for more attacks, France and Britain thought it possible to find a way out of the war without actual fighting. Starting in April 1940, Germany launched attacks on Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, and France. The Maginot Line along the France-Germany border—a presumably formidable defense—was compromised. The British Expeditionary Force scrambled to retreat from Dunkirk back to England in May, and Luftwaffe raids on British coastal towns accelerated. On September 7, “Black Saturday,” Germany launched a blitz on London. Over six hundred fighters and six hundred German bombers dropped high explosives and incendiaries, which caused great damage to docks, gas works, and rail terminals. A highly-explosive bomb was dropped near Yee’s residence on Parkhill Road in Hampstead. The top part of the building was smashed to pieces, leaving the

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ground and second floors in shambles. Neighbors and home guards went to dig through the debris in search of Yee’s body, since he lived on the second floor. Fortunately, Yee happened to be away in Oxford that night, delivering a speech on Chinese art at the Chinese Society. The next morning, he received a wire and learned that his London flat and all his possessions had been destroyed in the blitz. It took him more than three hours—two more than usual—to reach London because the railroad track had been bombed. Upon his arrival at Parkhill Road in the afternoon, he saw a hole about thirty feet deep next to the building. His air shelter in the rear had been completely destroyed, and what remained of the building could have collapsed at any moment. He sent a wire to the landlord at once and then returned to the building. Most of his valuable belongings—books he had collected over the previous eight years, paintings, and letters—were gone. “The loss of material things—our house, our garden, our collections of paintings and books—leaves me now comparatively unmoved, though we took such pleasure in them. But on what principle is a civilization based which can destroy happiness and kill fellow-beings in the interests of some unstable dream of expansion and aggrandizement? What happiness can the invaders look for?”27 Interestingly enough, Yee had posed these mournful and profound questions near the end of his memoir, A Chinese Childhood, a short while before this disaster. Though they were his reflections on the Japanese invasion of China, they also perfectly matched the occasion in which he found himself following the blitz. He could see the litter-strewn interior of the small back room of his flat on the second floor. His manuscripts and some items that belonged to his friends were kept in that room. He ventured to climb over the rubble and onto the rickety staircase, attempting to retrieve his belongings. Suddenly, he heard someone calling from behind. He turned around and saw a police officer pointing at a posted notice which prohibited entry into the site. Yee smiled and explained, “This is my residence. It has now been bombed, and I have no place to stay tonight.” In response, the officer said nothing but turned and walked away. The landlord soon arrived, stared at the debris, and then burst into laughter. “Why?” Yee asked, bewildered. “Why not? Just think that we haven’t been dispatched to the other world. Why not laugh?” Yee understood and then joined him in a good laugh.28 It got dark, which meant that German planes would soon be approaching. The woman who used to clean Yee’s flat lived across the street. Yee went over to see her, and she agreed to let him stay in the basement. He would sleep under the staircase for safety. Though he was very hungry, the woman was unable to provide him with food, so he went to a local restaurant and had a simple dinner. On his way back, the pitch-black evening was interrupted by a flashing barrage in the air. As he walked past a convent that had been destroyed in the raid, a live fire bomb came down in front of the building. He threw himself on the ground instantly, but the

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explosion knocked him unconscious. Several hours later, cold rain revived him, and his clothes were soaking wet. Fortunately, he suffered no serious wounds. He made it back to the woman’s house in one piece, and the hostess offered him a cup of hot tea.29 Misfortunes never occur in isolation. Nevertheless, it is said that if one survives a great disaster, good fortune is bound to follow. In Yee’s case, the disaster of the London blitz ushered him into productive years in Oxford.

chapter 8



Oxford Years

Southmoor Road, lined on both sides with row houses, was in a lower-middle-class neighborhood near Oxford University. As London had been continually battered with Luftwaffe raids, Oxford seemed relatively safe. In addition, there were some Chinese students lodging in the area, so Chiang Yee went to the neighborhood for a temporary place to stay overnight. He knocked on one door after another. Henry and Violet Keene, who lived at 28 Southmoor Road, graciously welcomed this Chinese stranger in to stay for the night. Yee returned the next day. His stay extended for two weeks, and it eventually lasted fifteen years! On September 14, 1939, Yee notified Johnston-Saint of his temporary address in Oxford. Due to the present situation, he would not be able to return to work until September 29. Since he had planned to begin his winter stay at the end of the month in either Yorkshire or the Lake District, his work experience at the Wellcome Medical Museum was effectively over. The one exception was a big project that he completed later in November while living in his new Oxford residence. It consisted of fifteen drawings for the History of Chinese Medicine chart, and Yee worked on these drawings continuously for more than twenty-five days. They were, in Johnston-Saint’s words, “beautifully done,” and Yee received approximately £54 for the job. Traveling between London and Oxford was relatively convenient. Yee had been to Oxford several times to visit his friends or give lectures on Chinese art. His first visit was in 1937, when he stayed for ten days. He loved London and once said that there were three things he would miss the most if he had to leave England: the green grass of London parks, the sea gulls over the rivers, and the pigeons in the squares.1 Now away from London, he truly missed the sea gulls and pigeons, but there was plenty of green grass in Oxford. Nevertheless, Oxford, a medieval college town with ubiquitous domes, spires, pinnacles, and towers, boasted a world-class university and an excellent cultural sphere, which retained a rare quality of ageless freshness. Its beautiful architecture, mostly built of Cotswold sandstone, changed color with the light from a pale cream to an apricot glow in early morning and 109

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then again with the setting sun. Soon after moving to Oxford, he began taking morning walks along Broad Walk in Christ Church Meadow; he appreciated the grass, flowers, birds, mist, rain, and snow. On Sunday mornings, he often took a stroll down High Street, famed as the most beautiful street on earth, in the midst of a “delightful emptiness,” admiring “the real charm and beauty of Oxford.” In his eyes, the quiet street appeared “dignified and spacious in its solitude,” and the surrounding buildings revealed an aura of “aloof grandeur.”2 In late December, he moved all his rescued belongings from London to his Southmoor Road residence. He had decided to settle in Oxford. The Keene family was unpretentious and friendly. Henry worked at Howard Atomic Energy Research as a lab technician, and the young couple had a threeyear-old daughter named Rita. A few years younger than Yee, Henry and Viola treated him like a family member. Henry’s hobby was fishing, and he often went fishing on the weekend. Sometimes, Yee and the rest of the family would go along. Yee was an excellent cook, and, on Sundays, he often cooked the freshly caught fish. With just a few onions and other ingredients, he conjured up delicious dishes that delighted the entire family.3 Yee’s new residence was comfortable and homey. The Keene family occupied the second floor, while Yee lived on the first floor with his study in the front and a small bedroom in the back near the kitchen. Along the walls in the front room were bookshelves that Henry had built for him, and Yee soon had them filled with books. Yee read, wrote, and painted in his study, which faced the street and was also where he met with his guests. Yee entertained many visitors, including Shih-I Hsiung, Ye Junjian, Giles Sebastian (the manager of Methuen), Basil Gray, John Wheatley, E. K. Scott, and William Milner. Ye Junjian, a Chinese journalist, described one of his visits thus: He was painting. He put down the brush to greet me. Though he welcomed me with a big smile on his face, there was a slight trace of embracement because he could find no space for me to sit in the room. . . . Chiang Yee lived in a set of rooms commonly used by students. His study was full of Chinese and foreignlanguage books. Only near his desk, which also served as his painting table, there was a little space available. But eventually he vacated a space for me to sit. His life was very simple—his monthly expenses were probably lower than that of an ordinary Oxford student, but he worked extremely hard. . . . He was extraordinarily disciplined, writing or painting every day. His life pattern was interrupted only after he completed a book and set out on a journey to collect new material. That was what he had told me, and that was also what I had observed there.4

Winter arrived, along with wind, rain, and fog. Bombs and fires had left many parts of the country a shocking sight: wounded, sheared-off buildings were common scenes, and the sites of familiar landmarks had been turned into craters. The British, however, were resilient. Many looked forward to the arrival of spring

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and often asserted, somewhat optimistically, “Spring is coming soon,” or “Spring has arrived!” Spring is typically a harbinger of brightness, hope, and peace. For Yee, however, it often stirred up poignant homesickness. In this spirit, he wrote the following poem: The rain is drizzling outside the window, And the flame still blazes in the fireplace. Alas, another winter has passed by— Ask me not when I shall return home.5

Nearly eight years had passed since his arrival in England. In those eight years, he had made many friends and established himself as a known writer, artist, and poet. However, he had been unable to see his family or fulfill his duty as a husband and father. One Sunday in May, the Keene family came back from a walk. Rita presented Yee with a bouquet of golden buttercups and cheerfully announced, “Happy Birthday, Misty.” Violet explained that they had learned his birthday from a Chinese neighbor, so they went to University Park where Rita collected the flowers. “How strange that my birthday should be celebrated by buttercups from so young a child!” Yee later reflected. His daughter, Xiaoyan, had been about Rita’s age when he left China, but that was eight years ago. Xiaoyan was now in elementary school in Shanghai with Chien-fei, and she had grown up considerably. Looking at these beautiful buttercups, a token of affection “from an innocent heart in a strange land,” Yee was profoundly touched.6 William Milner, Yee’s good friend and an Oxford graduate, once gave him the advice: “To see Oxford at her most typical, you want to be there in May and June, when the trees are all at the height of their beauty, and the water-meadows one solid sheet of golden buttercups . . .”7 With the buttercups Rita had picked for him, Yee certainly saw beauty on that wonderful day in May. Ravaging air raids continued until June 1941, when the Luftwaffe refocused on the Russian front. Unfortunately, the Wellcome Museum incurred heavy damage during an air raid in late May. The Chinese section “suffered rather severely,” according to Johnston-Saint in his reply to Yee’s inquiry, dated June 5. “Most of the central cases down the middle of the Section were completely destroyed and considerable damage was done to some of the models.” Johnston-Saint regretted the fact that no photographs were ever taken of these materials, and restoring the collection would be a laborious task for many years to come.8 Despite the adverse impact of war, Yee was consistently productive. Without a regular job, he was able to concentrate on his literary and artistic creativity. Six months after moving to Oxford, his fourth Silent Traveller book was released. The first three had been published by Country Life; this new volume, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales, was published by Methuen. It was a slender book, with only ninety pages and sixteen illustrations.

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The book was dedicated “To William, and in memory of the little London flat in which I wrote this book and which was destroyed by bombs on the eve of the re-opening of the Burma Road.”9 “William” refers to William Milner, owner of Parcevall Hall, a sixteenth-century architectural gem situated on a south-facing hillside. Milner, who purchased the estate in 1927, restored and extended the building, turning it into a major feature of the landscape. A three-tiered garden was built in front of the house, and it took thirty men three years to complete the construction of the garden. In spring, thousands of daffodils, roses, narcissi, and other rare plants bloom, and the sight is a breathtaking splendor. Though a rather eccentric recluse, Milner was very generous and loving. He invited Yee to visit on many occasions and even asked him to move in after Yee’s London flat was destroyed. It was Milner who urged Yee to write the new book; without Milner, Yee might never have made so many memorable visits to northern England to relish the beautiful landscape. “Historical matters” were not the focus of his interest, though. Yee did not intend to write a guidebook. He rendered his impression of the sites and sought to convey “some of the many happy moments” he had experienced during his visits. The description of his psyche and senses, satisfied by the beauty of the visits, was aesthetically pleasing and touching. He was remarkably observant, even if the inclusion of so many colorful details occasionally seems overwhelming and insipid. The book charmingly ends with a list of twenty-two brief “happy moments,” three of which follow: One night at Parcevall Hall I could not sleep. It was too late to go out, but fortunately my bed was near the little old-fashioned window of my room, so I sat upright to look at the bright moon through the panes. There were two stone bars in this window and I had to dodge them to keep the moon in sight as she moved. A happy moment! I watched a horse drinking from a shallow stream under a group of trees. After it had drunk the horse flung up its head and broke into a long whinney as if to tell the world that he was refreshed. A happy moment! I stared over a low stone wall at a group of cows, while they stared back at me. Neither they nor I knew what to do next. A happy moment!10

Yee recorded his “happy moments” in his modest London flat just a few days before the building was destroyed and thankfully the manuscript survived the bombing. It was in his new residence in Oxford where he eventually completed all the exquisite illustrations. The Yorkshire Dales book was so popular that Methuen quickly printed a second edition. Yee’s inscription on his own copy revealed his excitement, “A new edition of this book is issued five months after its original publication. The fact that this has happened during the war makes me feel really pleased. Ya, August 21, 1941.”

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His prewar publication Chin-Pao and the Giant Pandas was a recommended gift book by the end of 1939. Because of the war, London’s giant pandas had been evacuated to the Whipsnade Zoo with other animals, and they were not as easily accessible to the public as in the past. Yet they still inspired a number of magnificent children’s books, and Yee’s panda book, as a newspaper article believed, should “enhance even those who failed to worship at Ming’s shrine in the Zoo. Even a detester of pandas must delight in the elaborately courteous conversation of Mr. Yee’s pandas in heaven, and the exquisite colour-plates” of the book.11 Yee entrusted Sir William Milner to send a copy to Queen Mary as a gift for Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, and it was graciously accepted. Chinpao at the Zoo, a sequel to the earlier popular panda book, was published by Methuen two years later in December 1941, together with When Fun Begins by Pearl Buck and Runabout Rhymes by Rose Fyleman. The second Chinpao book tells about the title character’s adventure in London. The boy and his English friend Richard travel from China to the London Zoo to visit Mao-mao, now named Ming. After two years in London, Ming has become Westernized, so he explains some cultural practices in England. Chinpao and Richard are introduced to various animals that warmly welcome and entertain their guests. They enjoy the dancing of peacocks, a greeting from penguins, a tea party with chimpanzees, a boxing match with the kangaroo, and a shower-bath with the elephant. Two days after the book was released, Japanese aircraft dealt a treacherous blow to the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. Within a few hours of the shattering attack, the Japanese launched attacks on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Winston Churchill had pledged on November 11 that “if Japan attacked the United States a British declaration of war would follow ‘within the hour.’ ”12 He kept his promise and declared war on Japan on December 8. He sent a telegraph to Chiang Kai-shek: “The British Empire and United States have been attacked by Japan. Always we have been friends: now we face a common enemy.”13 Britain and the United States carefully developed long-range plans to coordinate their war efforts. They formed an alliance with China and Russia, and on January 1, 1942, twenty-six countries signed the Declaration by United Nations, pledging to wage an unrelenting war against their common enemy. Chinese nationals in England found themselves experiencing “sudden reevaluations” in their lives. Before December 7, they had been classed as “enemy aliens.” Some restrictions had been imposed by the Home Office: they were under curfew from eight in the evening until six in the morning, and they were not allowed to travel within five miles of the coast. In addition, they had to report to the local police station once a week. After Pearl Harbor, China suddenly became an ally, and Chinese citizens were abruptly upgraded to members of the Grand Alliance.14 Lo Cheng: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Keep Still was published in spring of 1942. It was a Puffin picture book, edited by Yee’s friend Noel Carrington. The story is about a five-year-old mischievous boy, Lo Cheng, who plays pranks on his teacher and runs away with a circus. He takes a ship down the Yangtze River and goes to

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Beijing by train. He wanders into the Imperial Palace and rides on a donkey to the Great Wall before a policeman identifies him and sends him back home. The story, though a fanciful adventure, includes some autobiographical references. The charming illustrations—Chinese architecture, furniture, landscape, and children’s games—are attractive and informative. The book could be a primer of Chinese culture for curious young readers in the West. After Shanghai fell in October 1937, the Japanese had full control of the Chinese coast and virtually strangled the country from war supplies. To keep China alive in its war against Japanese invasion, roughly two hundred thousand laborers from all over the country came to southwest China to build the road, which ran 610 miles from Wanting on the China-Burma border to Kunming in Yunnan Province. The road was built with primitive methods under extraordinarily rough conditions, yet it was completed in nine months.15 “Using only their hands, they erected 289 bridges, including two big suspension bridges with a load-bearing capacity of 10 to 15 tons, and 1,959 culverts. The road-bed is sixteen feet wide, has a maximum grade of eight in a hundred and a minimum curve radius of fifty feet.”16 Extending to Lashio in Burma, this famous “highway” served as a vital lifeline during the war; war supplies were transported from Rangoon to Lashio and then via the Burma Road to China. A couple of months after the publication of Lo Cheng: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Keep Still, Methuen released Yee’s novel The Men of the Burma Road. The novel, Yee’s first and only attempt at fiction, portrays the epic qualities of ordinary Chinese civilians who participated in the road’s construction through the story of two farmers, Old Lo and Old Li, and their families. The story begins in the summer of 1937, just before Japan launched its full-scale attack in China. Lo, a typical rice farmer, is devoted to the patch of land his family has cultivated and owned for centuries. A series of tragedies then befalls him over the following months: the Japanese occupy Nanjing; his daughter drowns herself in a lake for fear of Japanese rape; his grandson dies in a bombing; and both his son-in-law and son lose their lives in battles against Japanese. Lo is turned from “a very ignorant farmer” into a patriot, and from “a feeble old man” into a hero. He voluntarily donates his land to the government for the construction of the Burma Road.17 Li is also a victim of the war. During an air raid, his infant son and wife, Lo’s cousin, are both killed. The two families then join thousands of volunteers to carry out the perilous task of building the Burma Road. Li, while working on a bridge, falls into the rapids below and is washed away; Lo’s wife contracts malaria near the Mekong River and dies; and, ultimately, Lo also gives his life while dynamiting rock. Only Lo’s daughter, Hsiao-mei, and Li’s son, Tieh-ming, manage to survive. A nurse and lorry driver, the young couple is in love and, together, they continue the course their parents began. There is a detail in the novel worthy of notice. Journalists Frank Wood and Donald Coward “invented a thrilling story” about Old Lo based on their imagination since they were not able to interview him. In their sensational presentations, Lo was either shown as a “stern, sinister and obstinate” farmer, ignorant and

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violent or portrayed as a “faithful Confucianist” who gave up his lands only under pressure from the government. Their stories had been published in London and New York, and readers in the West believed they were truthful. However, Yee asserted in the novel that stories like these were simply misrepresentations. Chinese were not “individualists and fatalists”; they were, as his novel has shown, diligent, courageous, and generous instead.18 The Men of the Burma Road, which combines fiction with real-life events, emphasizes that the Burma Road was not a marvelous engineering feat, but a monument of human endeavor dedicated to a glorious national cause. A reviewer noted, “Beauty shines through their tragedy and their tragedy inspires hope, not despair.” This novel was also said to be “one of the most moving stories of the moment.”19 Through the story, readers could get a glimpse of the major changes happening in China, such as those in education, urbanization, and gender equality. Hsiao-mei and Tieh-ming represent the next generation of educated, literate, and open-minded youth, ready to embrace and promote social progress. The novel was dedicated to Xiao Qian, “who witnessed the completion of the Burma Road,” as well as to “those who gave their lives to the Road.” Xiao was a literary editor of Takungpao in China. One of the first to travel over the Burma Road in the spring of 1939, he witnessed the heroic spirit of tens of thousands of ordinary Chinese working to ensure the successful operation of this major supply line in their effort to resist Japanese invaders. He traveled to London to teach modern Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies (formerly SOS) shortly after the outbreak of war. Because of his firsthand experience, the China Campaign Committee invited him to give lectures about the Burma Road and the war in Asia in various cities. Though he was an admirer of Churchill, he was critical of the British government’s decision to cast “all principles aside” and close the Burma Road from July to October 1940.20 Xiao lived in the basement of an apartment building in Hampstead. After a time bomb was dropped in Yee’s neighborhood during air raids in 1940, Yee stayed in Xiao’s basement flat with a few other Chinese friends for several nights, and they had long conversations together. Yee’s dedication indicated his respect for Xiao’s righteousness and courage.21 During this time, Yee participated in several exhibitions. His animal and Yorkshire paintings were presented in two Allied Artists’ Exhibitions that opened in April and August. Among the international artists from countries such as Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Norway, Poland, France, and Yugoslavia, he was the only Asian artist named in the newspaper reports.22 He also had a solo exhibition at Eton later that year. Two years earlier, he had given a demonstration of the Chinese painting method at the Eton College Drawing School, and he was warmly received. The school hoped that he could someday visit again. Indeed, they felt that The Silent Traveller in Eton, if such a book were possible, “would be a most welcome addition to Eton literature.”23 Yee was as humble and amiable as ever. An English man who met him at Sadler’s Theater confessed that he had “never seen a man of the world so genuinely shy.”24 Han Suyin, a young novelist who began to emerge in the literary

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field in the 1940s, remembered him as a gentle and creative person. It was in 1942 when she first met him at a Chinese book exhibition in London. “His voice was soft and pleasant. And he never made anyone feel embarrassed,” she recollected. What impressed her most was his extraordinary ability to draw a comparison between two seemingly unconnected objects. He was able to, for example, “connect the ducks in the London park to the returning swallow and to draw out the similarities between them. Such an amazing discovery was very refreshing, energetic, and lively.”25 Yee generally offered generous praise and encouragement to fellow writers and poets. John Irvine, an Irish poet, asked him to write a preface for his poetry collection Willow Leaves. Yee readily agreed. “Poetry is the voice of the human heart,” he wrote, and Irvine’s poems “have spoken in harmony” with his heart. Surely, he mused, there are many similarities that the Irish and Chinese share, but poetry, by its very nature, can be shared by all human beings. Poetry provides relief and freedom from inner turmoil and adverse social conditions. “Our own world within ourselves is full of freedom, and alive to joy as well as sadness.” He concludes with optimism and confidence: “I am now more certain than ever that my own world will never be changed, and that the human world of cultured feeling and thought cannot be changed by whatever destruction may happen in this war.”26 In 1942, Yee branched out into an entirely new artistic field. Constant Lambert contacted him to see if he might be interested in designing the décor for The Birds, a ballet scheduled to open at Sadler’s Theater by the Wells Ballet on November 24. The production was directed by Robert Helpmann, a talented choreographer whose productions of Comus and Hamlet had been amazing successes.27 Lambert thought that a Chinese setting would be appropriate for this particular ballet.28 Yee accepted the task. Such a rare opportunity was too exciting to pass up. He admired Russian ballet and had seen several performances in London. In general, however, he had little interest in music, let alone Western music. Nevertheless, as soon as he began to research the subject, he found himself instantly “interested in ballet.” The Birds is a comic story where the Dove meets the Nightingale and falls in love. The Hen, who has fallen for the Dove, attempts to charm him by imitating the steps of her rival, while the Cuckoo, donning the Dove’s plumage, tries to disguise himself and gain the favor of the Nightingale. The two imposters are amusing but unsuccessful, and their unrequited passion only turns them into a laughingstock by the Sparrows. In the end, the Dove and the Nightingale are married. To prepare for the design, Yee spoke with the choreographer and studied the music by Respighi. It occurred to Yee that a flower or landscape painting by a Chinese classical painter might provide a simple yet suggestive background. He initially thought the masterpiece “Two Cranes Playing by a Spring” by Xia Gui (1195–1224) would be an appropriate option. However, on second thought, he perceived that the stage might appear too bare. He instead designed a “rather detailed, leafy world,” an enchanting Chinese fairy garden full of leaves and flowers

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and sunshine.29 He realized that the stage design, which aimed to “intensify the effectiveness of the drama,” should be “symbolical, abstract or surrealist. . . . Realism is impossible.”30 Horace Horsnell’s favorable comments on his design served to highlight the essential merit of the setting: Yee “has effected a happy compromise between the theatrical and the celestial. His pastoral scene is fabulously horticultural. Its dreamscape trees and flowering shrubs have the charm of a Chinese print.”31 A Chinese artist designing Chinese-style scenery for a successful ballet was truly an unprecedented endeavor. His debut design was so charming and distinct that “it almost [stole] the show from the dancers.”32 The play was on stage for almost three years. In July 1943, the Exhibition of Ballet Design opened at the Art Gallery in Leicester. Yee was among the forty artists whose scenery and costume designs were featured. The exhibition toured around the country before moving to the National Gallery in October and then to the Royal Pavilion in Brighton in January 1944.33 In 1948, Yee reminisced about his design experience on The Birds in a short essay, “What Can I Say about Ballet?” He concluded with a definition of ballet as a “combination of three arts—dance, music and painting”—all three of which coordinate in communicating emotions to arouse the audience’s imagination. His emphasis on its essential poetic quality was not merely perceptive; it provided a vital base for his argument that “a Chinese rendering of a painting may be suitable” for classical ballets. To illustrate his point, Yee included a design that he created for Les Sylphides that was based on a Ming Dynasty masterpiece. The setting was a pine forest, with distant mountains and a crescent moon in the sky. The stage was flanked by Western stone columns.34 The scene was unquestionably serene and graceful, but to convince a Western audience to accept the Chinese eye would not be an easy task. To suggest that the Christmas season in England instigated the sale of Chinese Calligraphy might sound absurd. Indeed, the book was released at a terrible time. People in England were all worried about the war, and no one had the luxury to peruse Chinese art. Four years later, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many U.S. troops were stationed in England, and they started shopping for gifts to send home in late 1942. Supplies were scarce because of the war; yet, somehow, Chinese Calligraphy caught their attention and became an attractive choice for shoppers. Many American soldiers bought the book to send home as a Christmas gift. “By the end of 1942 the entire edition, though small, had gone to America,” Yee recalled in 1973 upon the publication of its third, revised and enlarged, edition by Harvard University Press: “Is it not curious that a work on such an esoteric subject turned out to be a Christmas giftbook? I can still recall those difficult days in England with glee, for it was an unbelievable result!”35 On January 11, 1943, the United States and Britain signed bilateral treaties with the Chinese government to relinquish their extraterritorial rights in China. With the announcement of this news, the Chinese, particularly among the younger generations, were “wild with joy.”36 It had been a century since China’s first

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humiliating defeat by Britain in the First Opium War. At the time, Britain and other foreign nations went to China to “convert, trade, rule or fight.”37 Since that time, China had gone from a nation with no sovereignty over its own territory to one respected as an ally and equal partner. On the day after the announcement, the Chinese Nationalist flag was raised together with the English, French, Russian, and American flags in Piccadilly Circus. China had long been looked down on by Western eyes and there were never good words for her in the newspapers. The raising of the Chinese flags was regarded as a most unusual event, at least in the minds of the Chinese. I especially went down to London to walk about near the Chinese flag all morning and afternoon like a young child.38

Many people in England had expressed their sympathy and support toward China since the Japanese invasion in 1937. British relief work for China was underway, and a substantial amount of clothes, drugs, medical and hospital supplies, and other donations were sent to China. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the United Aid to China Fund was launched to raise funds and create widespread “China consciousness.” The support was enormous, and within twenty months it raised £1,000,000.39 From March 31 to May 25, 1943, The Artists Aid China Exhibition, organized by Mrs. I. G. Tennyson and under the auspices of the Central Institute of Art and Design, was held at Hertford House in Manchester Square. Over seven hundred contemporary paintings and sculptures and 170 objects of Chinese art were on display, including works by Yee and five bird and flower paintings by Shih-I Hsiung’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Diana. All of the artists donated 50 percent of their profits to the Lady Cripps United Aid to China Fund, and the event raised £4,266. Queen Mary donated a rose quartz carving of a musician, and Lady Louis Mountbatten donated a carved jade bowl from the Qianlong period (1735–1795) of the Qing Dynasty. In about ten days, nearly all the Chinese exhibits were sold. Yee’s Yorkshire Dales book was “a best seller at the exhibition.”40 E. Huxley of the BBC invited Yee for a short discussion on Chinese art in connection with the exhibition. It was “difficult” to cover the subject “in a very short talk,” Yee explained, but he prepared a succinct piece.41 Its concluding paragraph ran as follows: We Chinese think that art speaks or expresses the human heart, because we hold that the passion for beauty and the love of artistic manifestation are innate in men. In times of the greatest difficulty and distress art can soothe the mind and give man courage by reminding him that there is still beauty to be found in the world; in times of peace, art, enjoyed at leisure, brings much happiness. I personally think art has been playing a great part in the present struggle, giving comfort to those who are fighting heroically in the forefront, and to those working feverishly behind.42

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During the exhibition, there were lectures by Chiang Yee, Kenneth Clark, Christmas Humphreys, Xiao Qian, Arthur Waley, W. Percival Yetts, and Shih-I Hsiung. Yee, now a “widely appreciated author and painter,” was first on the list. He gave a demonstration of Chinese painting and calligraphy on April 8, chaired by Lady Cripps; a second lecture, “An Englishman Looks at Chinese Painting” by Sir Kenneth Clark, was chaired by Mrs. Winston Churchill.43 Yee contributed illustrations to two other books that year: The Pool of Ch’ien Lung by Lady Hosie and Chinese Cookery by M. P. Lee. The latter was a little cookbook containing one hundred recipes. The illustrations Yee created for the books by Shih-I Hsiung, Lin Yutang, and Lady Hosie adhered to traditional style and were exquisitely executed. Those in the cookbook, though, are line drawing caricatures, including one that depicts an obese man sitting at a table and holding a rice bowl above his head, while a slender man stands next to him and joyfully lifts noodles longer than three feet from the bowl. The illustration on the front cover resembles a self-portrait; it is of a man dressed in a Chinese robe and eating with chopsticks. These were unquestionably “vivacious” and “delightful” illustrations, especially during wartime when food was scarce.44 On July 21, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Samuel Joseph, welcomed the Chinese ambassador, Wellington Koo, to Mansion House with a luncheon. Yee, Hsiung, and Xiao were among the dozens of guests, most of whom were British government officials. Only a decade had passed since Yee welcomed Koo and the Lytton Commission in Jiujiang. While Koo, a brilliant diplomat, orator, and negotiator, was now a star in the world of politics, Yee, a former magistrate, had become a famed artist and poet in the West.45 Hsiung and his wife Dymia moved to St. Albans to be with their children soon after their evacuation. The whole family then moved to Oxford in 1943 because their three older children were going to attend college in a year or two. With a new baby daughter, Deh-I, born in St. Albans, they were now a big family. Fortunately, they were able to rent the spacious Iffley Turn House in the Rose Hill district of the city. With the arrival of Hsiung, three acclaimed Chinese writers became known as the famous trio in Oxford: Hsiung specialized in Chinese drama; Yee in Chinese poetry and art; and Tsui Chi in Chinese history and literature. All three of them, by coincidence, were Jiangxi natives and former neighbors in London. Tsui Chi had been a professor of English in China before coming to England in 1937. His most important scholarship was A Short History of Chinese Civilization, published in 1942. It was prefaced by renowned poet and critic Laurence Binyon, who commended the book for its “admirably lucid English” and its “brief but clear account” of Chinese history.46 Innes Herdan, who had offered invaluable editorial help to Yee, also rendered generous assistance to Tsui, who graciously dedicated that book to her. Without her “collaboration,” Tsui acknowledged, “this book would never have appeared in print.” Tsui had a number of other publications, including an English translation of An Autobiography of a Chinese Girl by Xie Bingying. He was, unfortunately, afflicted with tuberculosis in the kidneys and

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died in 1951, not yet fifty years old. As his wife and children were all in China, Yee and Hsiung helped to arrange his funeral in Oxford.47 In October 1943, a committee, sponsored by the P.E.N. Club, was formed to organize a short story competition about China. Children between the ages of seven and seventeen were invited to participate by submitting “a story with a Chinese background.” On the committee were Yee, Xiao Qian, and Hsiung, as well as five non-Chinese P.E.N. Club members. The committee was to judge the stories and select prize winners. It was determined that a collection of stories might be published if there were a sufficient number of quality entries, and the proceeds would go to Lady Cripps’s United Aid to China Fund. The objective of the competition was “to bring our children into closer awareness of our Chinese Ally, whose country, history, traditions and characteristics are almost unknown to the young generation on this side of the world.”48 In Britain, the number of Chinese nationals had increased to about twelve thousand, including more than eight thousand seamen in Liverpool, about forty diplomatic and consular officials plus their families, two hundred students, fortyfive engineers, eighteen doctors, and three thousand shopkeepers, restaurant proprietors, and laundrymen. In her China Fights in Britain, journalist Barbara Whittingham-Jones specifically introduces Chinese writers and artists such as Hsiung, Xiao, Tsui, Han, and Yee, whose works “enable millions of readers to penetrate the soul of New China.” “All are young. All are versatile. All have attained a rare and distinctive mastery of English prose. All, at one time or another, have drunk of the waters of the Isis or the Granta.”49 By early 1943, the tide of war was turning to Russia, the Pacific, Africa, and Asia. At the Tehran Conference in late 1943, Allied forces decided to plan an Anglo-American invasion across the Channel at Normandy. By early June of 1944, nearly three million Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen were mobilized and positioned for the invasion. Transport ships, fighters, bombers, tanks, trucks, jeeps, and billeted troops were all across southern England, which had been transformed into a huge military encampment. According to operation commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, it seemed as though a mighty human power was getting ready to “vault the English Channel in the greatest amphibious assault ever attempted.”50 Allied forces launched the D-Day invasion on June 6 and, by the end of the day, crossed the Channel successfully controlled about twelve square miles of France. This became the turning point of the war, which led to an Allied victory. A month after D-Day, Dr. Wellington Koo, the Chinese ambassador, opened an exhibition of Chinese art in the Kelvingrove Galleries in Glasgow. “Nothing has been so deeply ingrained in the spirit of the Chinese people as love of peace and hatred of war,” Koo said in his opening speech. The news of the past weeks had been “exceedingly good.” Along both the European and Eastern fronts, Allies had dealt devastating strikes against the Axis powers. While winning the war was an immediate objective and inevitable end, the “fundamental goal,” as Koo pointed out, was to jointly build “a new world in which peace-loving nations could live

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in security, freedom, and prosperity.” He explained that the art exhibition aimed to inculcate an appreciation of Chinese art but, more importantly, bring about a better understanding and knowledge of the Chinese people.51 The exhibition showcased Ming pottery, Tang and Song sculpture, and earlier bronzes and paintings. Yee’s Edinburgh paintings and Xu Beihong’s artworks were also on display.52 The media regarded Yee as the overseas representative of Chinese art. He participated in many art exhibitions, and, in addition to the Glasgow exhibition, his paintings were reported to be on display earlier in May at the National Gallery’s Chinese exhibition.53 At an exhibition of modern Chinese paintings in Wakefield, however, Yee took on a new role. As an author and artist, he gave the opening speech on July 14. He had become a seasoned public speaker. Indeed, just the day before, he had delivered a speech on “Chinese Art and Life” in Rotherham to support China Aid.54 His speech in Wakefield was a short address that “contained very interesting matter” to a large audience at Jubilee Hall. He underlined the need for mutual understanding and friendship between different nations and the significant role that art could play in reaching that goal. He was thankful to Mayor Hopkinson for his generous support in fundraising efforts for the Aid to China Fund, which raised £366, along with another £60 that was sent with the profits from the exhibition. Four years after the blitz destroyed his London apartment, Yee saw the publication of a new Silent Traveller title about Oxford. In a sense, the people of Oxford, to quote Gerard Hopkins’s humorous assertion, truly owed “a debt of gratitude to the Luftwaffe” for bringing Yee to their city.55 In his own advance copy, Yee left the following inscription on the inner front page: “This book was completed in December of 1942, but it has been delayed for as long as two years owing to the wartime difficulties in printing and paper supplies. I have now received an advance copy on October 23, 1944, and the book will be formally released on November 2. It makes me joyful, and I record this for remembrance. The Silent Traveller.” Beside this inscription, he painted a magpie singing on a bamboo branch.56 The book was dedicated to his friend Alan White, the Methuen editor whose generous, unwavering support had been crucial to every Yee book published by the press. As in earlier Silent Traveller volumes, Yee did not search for local history and then relate it to the reader. There had been “so many books . . . written about Oxford that it would be unwise” for him to write another similar one. Doing so would only invite “criticism” from “Oxford scholars.”57 Instead, he offered personal observations and reflections, and divided them into twenty-nine chapters in a roughly chronological order. They were modestly labeled “insignificant perambulations around Oxford,” but he was fully aware that this approach was precisely his strength and niche. Truly, his book was a miracle in recovering the charm of this ancient city, even for old inhabitants.58 Yee’s narrative in the book seems more fluent and natural. He shifts effortlessly from one scene to another without disrupting the rhythm and then surprises the

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reader by revealing his point and showing that the apparent digression was really a subtle strategy. Among numerous examples is the chapter, “What Do I Know of Shelley?” Yee tells about his leisurely stroll down a “darkish passage” in the University College before his unexpected discovery of the Percy Shelley sculpture in the Shelley Memorial, which he describes as “a spacious hollow place.” He recalls his own experience reading Shelley’s poems in China after college. After that visit, he discovers Shelley’s nickname was “Mad Shelley” during his Eton years—a discovery that allows Yee to point out similarities among poets all over the world. He then introduces his poet friend Wang Li-xi (self-named Shelley Wang) who used to share a flat with him on Upper Park Road. Wang returned to China in 1938 and subsequently died in battle against Japan. “I could not fail to be deeply moved by the recollection of him as I stood before the Shelley Memorial,” the chapter concludes.59 The book, written in simple language, gives such lucid details that it often evokes visual images in the reader’s mind. As one reviewer in Punch pointed out, “the chief fascination of the book is in such pictures of still life.”60 Yee relates the story of one occasion when he trudged through snow and stopped at Port Meadow. “I looked at the vast flat stretch of whiteness whose cold purity brought peace to the heart. So much snow had fallen that the low meadow had been raised to the level of the footpath. . . . It seemed that the earth had been lifted closer to the sky, its surface broadened and distant objects brought into clearer view.” Further along, he found a fisherman sitting in the snow by a wooden bridge, which, Yee claims, evokes two classical Chinese poems, one of which is by Liu Zongyuan: Not a bird among the thousand mountains; Not a footprint on the myriad footpaths. In a lonely boat an old fisherman with bamboo-hat and grass-coat Is fishing in the cold snowy river.

If Liu’s poem is a still life in ancient China, Yee’s passage below may be seen as a still life in modern England. When eventually I reached his haunt I saw that he was well protected by a thick yellow mackintosh and high Wellington boots, and was smoking a pipe. He turned and smiled at me, and I smiled back. No word was spoken. There were no “Thousand mountains” around us, and no snow-laden bamboo was to be seen; but the English fisherman, Wytham Hill, and the long reeds by the river, made a perfect picture all the same.61

Consider another scene. The setting is Christmas morning, 1941. Yee, having spent Christmas Eve with Mrs. Oliver’s family, walks past a newly-plowed field on his way home to enjoy a Christmas dinner with the Keene family. The earthly quietness, filtered through his eyes, becomes an enchanting idyllic realm.

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A flock of crows or rooks rose from the field in front of the elegantly-twisted branches of two trees outside a nearby house. They wheeled and settled again, only to fly up once more when I moved on. They entertained me with a sort of flying-dance performance, uttering their interminable “caws.” As they darted backwards and forwards, the trees seemed covered by a moving veil decorated with bird-designs. Sometimes this moving veil covered the dark shadowy valley where the spires and towers of Oxford lay. Sometimes the rooks as they rose from the ground were like curls of black smoke rising from the earth—as if the earth were burning. Why should such a thought come into my mind? The rooks, I thought, must be grateful for the newly-ploughed field, so expressive of the willingness of English people to “dig for victory,” to save them scraping hard to find their food.62

The book contains twenty plates, twelve of which are colored, in addition to dozens of line drawings. A considerable number of these illustrations contain architectural images. Presenting architectural details with a brush was no longer a challenge to Yee. Indeed, most of the plates contain churches, houses, or towers. His application of water and ink was perfect for buildings shrouded in mist, in the distance, or in dusk in such monochromic paintings as “Tom Tower in Mist,” “Lapwings over Merton Field,” and “Twilight over St. Giles.” In the colored plates, though, he combined Chinese traditional methods with a Western perspective and was able to depict the scenes more accurately; he succeeded in portraying Western subjects while retaining a Chinese flavor. The best examples of this are “The High in Snow,” “Peacocks at Trout Inn,” and “Ancient and Modern in Camera Square.” One reviewer commented that Yee’s landscape paintings looked “completely oriental” but the “well-known Oxford features” retained their Western flavor.63 This comment precisely pinpointed Yee’s accomplishment and success in exploring new ways to depict the unfamiliar setting and details. Since the first English publication of The Chinese Eye, reviews had been predominantly favorable, though a few ironic or belittling remarks did occasionally emerge. As a writer, Yee was attentive to the public’s response, especially to comments by critics and reviewers. He had been collecting all the newspaper reviews through the International Press-Cutting Bureau, and these clippings were carefully sorted out and collected in different albums. His Oxford book received a relentlessly hostile review in Oxford Mail. This relatively long review, by S.P.B. Mais, a prolific writer, was published on November 22. It was full of sarcastic derision, tantamount to an ad hominem attack. “The climate of Oxford is not very different from the rest of England.” So says Chiang Yee. Come to Sussex, Chiang Yee, and let me show you a part of England where the sun shines and the air is dry and invigorating, and if you are not completely insensitive to climate you will retract that astonishing statement.

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Oxford, which gave me first pneumonia, then sciatica, removed from me all faculty to think or power to work, not different? You must have the hide of an ox, Chiang Yee. “I love rain,” says Chiang Yee. Later he calls rain “the wine of heaven.” I nearly closed the book on that note. Then I came across these two lines: “In Oxford I have twice seen winter’s arrival and departure: Who can have the same deep longing as I have now for my homeland?” Shake hands, Chiang Yee. I couldn’t agree with you more. I am about to see my fourth winter in Oxford and my longing is twice as deep as your longing for my homeland.64

Mais claimed that Yee viewed Oxford “through rose-coloured glasses,” and that the book was nothing more than “an ideal Christmas present.” The most malicious remarks, however, were: “I’m always ready to take to my heart an ally who is so frank as to say that he has endured a number of damp and dreary English winters but does not find them quite so dreary as the English people.”65 This is a reference to the comparison Yee makes in this passage from his book: In spite of this I cannot resist claiming that I do now know something of damp and dreary English winters, though perhaps I do not find them quite so dreary as the English people, for I love the countryside at this season—snow, the beautiful lines of the naked trees, and the morning fog. But my joy at seeing the first crocus is no less heartfelt than that of the Englishman; indeed, I might be considered to have now acquired the English habit in this respect.66

The willful distortion and assault in the review brought an agonizing humiliation to the author. He grieved in his letter to Betty Scott, a high school teacher who had helped him edit this and a few other books. Betty replied immediately, assuring him that she and a few others had read the entire book, discovering no “misprint or mistake” or “such statement in the book.” She did acknowledge, though, that the sentence mentioned above was ambiguous. The phrase “English people” in the comparison could serve as either the object of the verb “find” or the subject of the implied verb “are.” She apologized for her oversight in leaving this ambiguous sentence in the text, yet she emphasized repeatedly that the meaning was unequivocal if the sentence were read in context. She condemned the reviewer as “a small-minded Oxford snob.” Yee’s “struggle and devotion for friendship between England and China,” she consoled and assured him, would end with “good results.”67 Despite this nettlesome episode, The Silent Traveller in Oxford turned out to be Yee’s first bestselling book. It topped the list of the six “most in demand” books during the week of November 5–11, 1944.68 Then, on December 1, just a few days after Mais’s review, the Liverpool Post announced that city’s eight best-selling nonfiction books for November. The list included well-known

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and emerging writers such as Francis Brett Young, G. M. Trevelyan, Beverley Nichols, and Chiang Yee.69 Being ranked equal to Trevelyan, an influential social historian, armed Yee with some much-needed confidence, and it sustained his morale. It was this book that “truly established” him. His books began to appear on the bookshelves in Blackwell; his fame and Oxford became inseparably intertwined.70 London’s giant panda Ming had been ailing for some time, and on Christmas Day, 1944, she was found dead in her cage. The London Times published a leading article entitled “Ming,” eulogizing that “she could die happy in the knowledge that she had gladdened the universal heart . . .” It stated, “If there had been no panda we should surely have invented one. . . . She will live in song and story as a fable, a superior kind of teddy bear become miraculously alive.”71 Yee received many letters from his readers. Among them was a “delightful verse” from Margery Fry: They wrote Ming was dead, But I said With a tear in my eye, “She can never quite die, Whilst her games and her glee, Her sleep and her plays, And her elegant ways, Are still ours to see, Thanks to Mr. Chiang Yee.”72

Yee’s second Puffin picture book, The Story of Ming, was published in 1944. For centuries, children had indulged themselves in the insatiable pleasure of reading improbable adventure stories starring animal heroes, and The Story of Ming was another in such a saga. It was a shortened version of both Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas and Chinpao at the Zoo, but the giant panda became the narrative focus. The story begins with Ming’s birth in the mountainous region of western China, and it tells how she is captured and carried down the mountains, then transported on a boat along the Yangtze River and on a ship across the ocean before finally delivered to the London Zoo on a cart pulled by animal folks. Shortly before Christmas 1944, newspapers in London recommended this delightful picture book as an attractive Christmas present choice. Subsequent editions all included Yee’s hand-written letter on the last page, bidding farewell to Ming. My dear friends, Is it not curious that Ming came to England on Christmas Eve, 1938, and went away Christmas Day, 1944? We might say that she was just like Father Christmas coming to bring happiness for the festive occasion, only that she spent six years over it instead of one night.

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We all remember her comical black-ringed eyes and her erect black ears. Her funny white body rolling along on her four black legs warmed every heart, old and young. We can never forget her charm and friendliness, can we? I hope you will agree with me that she is now an Immortal in Heaven.

Yours sincerely, Chiang Yee January 1945 As some critics noted, the giant panda, during her brief sojourn in England, had become a “modern children’s myth,” like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, or Rupert Bear. The Story of Ming would become a “perpetual monument to the Panda” who had caught the heart of children and adults.73 While teaching at the SOS ten years earlier, Yee had hoped to write a Chinese textbook. His wish partly came true in 1945 when his booklet, Some Chinese Words to Be Learnt without a Teacher, was published as an effort to raise funds for the United Aid China Fund. The booklet is small (only four by five inches) and the cover depicts a fine painting of a vase with roses. The English title is in cursive style and written by the author with a brush. Yee introduces twelve basic characters, written in graceful standard style: 人 “man,” 大 “great,” 小 “small,” 中 “middle,” 少 “few,” 女 “girl,” 子 “boy,” 好 “good,” 妙 “charming,” 笑 “laugh,” 哭 “cry,” and 怒 “anger.” This is followed by phrases composed with these characters, such as 好笑 “laughable” (good + laugh) or 大怒 “furious” (big + anger). Numerical terms are then introduced. Once readers have mastered the characters from one to ten, they should find themselves capable of reading even more phrases with the words they just learned. The drills included are fun, simple, friendly, and engaging. They are challenging yet manageable. The News Review was enthusiastic in its review and proclaimed, “Puzzle Resolved” and “One of the world’s most brain-cracking languages made simple for Westerners!”74 Simple yet interesting, educational yet practical—these features may have been Yee’s pedagogical approach, but they also suggest a shrewd awareness of the relationship between the writer and reader, and between the teacher and student. The war in Europe finally came to an end on May 8, 1945. In August, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Emperor of Japan announced that country’s surrender. During the war, some forty million people had lost their lives, and millions of others were rendered homeless. Britain, the only major power to have fought continually since 1939, lost four hundred thousand lives, and the country was in a state of virtual bankruptcy when the war was over. On August 6, The Times published a letter to its editor by sixteen famous artists, writers, playwrights, and musicians. The group, headed by W. D. Ross and including Arnold Bax, Laurence Olivier, L. Curtis, and Chiang Yee, called for the establishment of a charter college—an international center where “young leaders from many nations may get to know each other and learn how to build the new

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world of friends.” It was to “concentrate on those universal interests which unite mankind—the arts, sports, science and civics,” and these leaders, with their vision and skills, were to help to build “a lasting and progressive peace.”75 The war had influenced people’s reading habits. When war unfolded in various parts of the world, readers were attracted to great writers in foreign lands for knowledge and understanding of those places. War and Peace, for example, was read when Russia was resisting its invaders. Many American soldiers, swarming into bookshops, bought up Welbore S. Clair Baddeley’s A History of Cirencester, while the British furrowed the lines of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, and William Faulkner. For the same reason, readers in England took up Joseph Conrad, Henrik Ibsen, Karel Czapek, Chiang Yee, and Lin Yutang. The higher demand for books was apparent on the other side of the Atlantic as well. In the United States, there had been “an increasing demand for the better class book of all types.” The publisher Transatlantic Arts, Ltd., a London company formed before the war, had an export agency specializing in exporting sheets and books from British publishers to meet the demand. The company arranged for printing and publication in the United States of several popular books that the original British publishers could not supply due to paper shortage.76 Yee had been one of their favorite authors. At least seven of his books were issued by Transatlantic in the United States, including Chinese Calligraphy, A Chinese Childhood, and Men of the Burma Road. Transatlantic also published selected children’s books to be sold on both sides of the Atlantic. One of them was Yee’s Dabbitse, a story about friendship between a peasant boy named Ho Lin and his beloved water buffalo Dabbitse, which was published during the Christmas season of 1944. Now that Hsiung and his wife had a big house, they often invited Chinese friends over for dinner and tea on the weekend. Their house became “the social centre of the Chinese community in England,” where artists, writers, and scholars gathered and relaxed in the warmth of a family-like atmosphere.77 Yee was a frequent guest at Hsiung’s house, which was more like his second home. The three oldest children of the Hsiung family were all students at Oxford, majoring in either literature or history. Five-year-old Deh-I, their youngest, was the only child still at home. Before Christmas, she mentioned to Yee her wish to have a tricycle. This was nothing but a childish whim, for such a luxury was nearly impossible to acquire in postwar Britain. However, the miracle did happen. Yee acquired a tricycle and had it delivered to Deh-I as a Christmas gift. For the rest of her life, Deh-I could never figure out how Yee managed to get the tricycle. While she was overjoyed, the family somehow forgot to acknowledge the gift and express their gratitude. Yee was upset with this untoward negligence and wrote to inquire why he had never received a thank-you note.78 Yee had a genuine affection toward children. The Keenes considered him “a very nice and kind man.” To many people, he was “a very gentle kindly man who got on well with children.” He often took Rita and other neighborhood youngsters to the playground or to join him when he visited the Hsiungs. He bought them ice cream,

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took them out for lunch, or autographed his book and gave it to them as a gift. He would visit London department stores to purchase Christmas presents for his young friends. When away on trips or during Christmas seasons, he never forgot to send them postcards or brief notes. Being with children helped him forget the many worries caused by war. His relationship with children had a bearing on his writing. “In my writing of children’s story books,” he acknowledged, Rita was “a constant reminder and assistant.”79 He had a printing press in the attic, and Rita and her friend enjoyed the occasional privilege of operating the machine. They set up letters in a metal frame and pulled a handle to print letter headings or cards, an activity that allowed them to earn “quite a bit of money.” In their eyes, Yee was “a very quiet, gentle man, extremely generous with a great sense of humor.” Rita and her friends called him “Misty,” a title he accepted with pride.80 He maintained contact with Innes, who still helped edit his writing. He sometimes visited her family in Bournemouth. By war’s end, Innes had three children. To them, Yee was “an amazingly loving and generous person.” Catherine and her two younger brothers called him “Uncle Ya.” “His case was always loaded with presents,” she remembered. “It was just after the war and we were not used to expensive presents and visits to grand restaurants. He would bring us enormous boxes of chocolates, a copy of his latest book, beautiful clothes and toys. I especially remember a rabbit, black and white, made of real rabbit fur which looked exactly like a real one. I kept it for many years.” Yee was very amiable. Children loved to pull his hair and play tricks on him. He often fascinated them with his drawings. With a brush and just a few strokes, he could produce bamboo, chickens, mountain scenes, and flowers.81 Yee’s own children had all grown up now. He missed them. He told Innes in December 1946 that he had heard “many disturbing news” from them, and he hoped to go back to China the following year if possible.82 In 1941, Yee’s wife Zeng Yun, returned to Jiujiang with her mother and son Chien-fei. Her daughter Xiaoyan was left in Shanghai under the care of Jinrong. Xiaoyan went to Nanjing later and enrolled in middle school there in 1945. The following year she moved back to Jiujiang to live with her mother. Chien-kuo had been attending a boarding school in Sichuan, far away from home. In 1944, he was conscripted for military training. In two years, he was demobilized and returned to Jiujiang as well. In 1945, Cai Fen, with Jianlan, also came back to join them. After ten years of separation and displacement, the family had its first chance to be together, with the exception of Yee. In November 1945, at the National Book League’s headquarters on Albemarle Street, there was an exhibition of fifty illustrated books published in the past ten years and chosen by a committee of experts. Representing a variety of styles and printing techniques, they ranged from a two-penny midget to a hundred-guinea edition. These books showed “a high standard of work by the artists and the skill used in various methods of reproduction.” The Silent Traveller in Oxford was among them. The exhibition was intended to be part of the international book exhibition in New York.83

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Indeed, Yee was one of the few author-artists who accomplished a perfect union of pen and brush and illustrated his own works. Such versatility became a rare commodity in the modern world, owing partly to the invention of photography. The Bodleian Library held an exhibition in May 1945, showcasing some of those rare author-artists, such as Ruskin, Thackeray, Kipling, and Lewis Carroll. Yee was one of the few contemporaries featured.84 The book market in the United States appeared potentially stronger. Methuen and the John Day company arranged for Yee to visit New York. He was to stay there for six months on a visit that all hoped would result in a new Silent Traveller title on that vibrant city. Now that the war was over, Wellcome needed to restore the exhibition of the Chinese section damaged during the blitz. In response to Johnston-Saint’s request, Yee sent a letter dated January 26, 1946, stating that he was preparing to sail for the United States in a few days. He would be able to help out after his return in six months, or the museum could contact his friend Professor Chen Yuan of the Sino-British Cultural Association for assistance. Yee’s letter was typed; its uneven typing indicated that it was done by a new hand. His landlady, Violet, often typed his manuscripts, and he might have been learning to use the machine himself. Johnston-Saint immediately replied. He sounded rather sentimental when recalling their gatherings in the past: I often think of our pleasant and enjoyable monthly Chinese dinners when we used to foregather all together. Sir William Milner, Mr. Baur, you and myself. They were very enjoyable evenings and I still recall the numerous cups of wonderful tea that we used to consume in the course of the evening. I don’t mean tea in the British sense, that is to say a cup of dish water with a faint flavour of cabbage, but a lovely scented orange-pekoe drunk out of little semitransparent miniature cups. That was tea in those days.85

Johnston-Saint expressed his envy, happiness, and best wishes for Yee before his departure from a “bleak and sorbid [sic]” postwar England.86

chapter 9



“My English Christmas”

Chiang Yee was getting ready for his voyage to the United States on February 5, 1946. Unexpectedly, he was notified of a transfer to the Queen Mary, which was set to sail two days earlier. It was very short notice, but he accepted the change of the schedule. Carrying two small suitcases, he went to Waterloo Station for the Southampton boat train on February 3. It was the first time that he had traveled outside Britain since 1939. Once again, he found himself on a big ocean liner. His voyage across the Pacific Ocean from China took place nearly thirteen years earlier; his journey to America would take him further west across the Atlantic. He was prepared to explore a new country. Some poignant feelings stirred in his heart. He came to realize the grip England had on him. After living there for more than a decade, he had grown familiar with the country, which was now a “second home” to him. He had a lot of company on the boat. Over two thousand G.I. brides with about seven hundred babies were on board, headed for America. It was the experience of a lifetime: when one baby began to cry, hundreds of others would follow. He got up very early one morning and climbed to the top deck. The excitement of watching the sunrise over the ocean thirteen years earlier was still fresh in his memory. He wanted to have a reprise of that “fascinating spectacle of nature.” As the sky turned from darkish gray into fish-white and then burning scarlet, he was dazzled by its radiance. “My belief that adventure, progress and practicability should now be my watchwords was confirmed.” He recited to himself the poem he wrote on the Pacific Ocean. The sun never failed to rise from the darkness. The thought gave him a “radiant feeling of immortality.”1 A visit to the United States, particularly to New York City, had been his dream for many years, especially after World War II when the country replaced Britain as the leading power, together with the Soviet Union, in international affairs. New York, a city full of wonders and excitement, had swiftly risen to be the center of finance, commerce, art, fashion, architecture, and culture. It hosted the 1939 World’s Fair and proudly called itself “The City of Tomorrow.” Towering 130

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skyscrapers sprung up, decorating and reformatting the skyline. They stood as symbols of progress, modernity, and internationalism. Yee discussed with Alan White why so many skyscrapers were built in New York. White believed that skyscrapers were tall because the designers, like those of Gothic churches, wanted these buildings to “soar above” and to “emphasize the importance and grandeur of the city of all cities.”2 Yee stayed in a hotel near Central Park and explored the city by bus, subway, train, taxi, and on foot. Yee had already made many friends in America through his publications. Paul Standard, a typographer and very fine calligrapher, had been corresponding with him after reading Chinese Calligraphy. He helped book Yee’s hotel and invited him for dinner at his home the night after Yee’s arrival. Yee’s panda books had also acquainted him with John Tee-Van, executive secretary of the New York Zoological Park in the Bronx. Since reading Yee’s panda book in 1943, Tee-Van had been an admirer of his writing and paintings. Tee-Van also had a special interest in pandas. He was sent to China in 1941 to receive the two pandas that the Chinese government gave to the United States. Taking charge of the two baby pandas, he had since earned himself the nickname “The Panda Nurse.” He and Yee maintained correspondence for some time, so when Yee visited the Bronx Zoo, he was warmly welcomed by Tee-Van. “The Panda Nurse” and “The Panda Man” finally met.3 Yee became acquainted with numerous artists, writers, actors, and musicians during his stay in New York. Just two weeks before returning to England, he was invited to take tea with Richard Walsh and his wife Pearl Buck in their residence on Park Avenue. Buck was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938. Though some of her novels about China, including The Good Earth (1931), had long been familiar to him, this was the first time the two had met. Buck grew up in China and was on the faculties of both the University of Nanking and Southeastern University. Her husband, Walsh, was owner of the John Day Company, which published her novels and many Lin Yutang books. Walsh was very familiar with China as well. In fact, The Autobiography of Mao Tse-Tung, As Told to Edgar Snow first appeared in serial form in 1937 in Asia magazine, which he published. Thus, there was a great deal for them to talk about. Buck entertained Yee with tea “in the English fashion,” probably because he had been in England for so long. It was a short but pleasant occasion. Yee also visited Hu Shih, a renowned Chinese scholar and philosopher, who served as Chinese ambassador to the United States from 1938 to 1942. At the time, Hu was preparing to leave for China to assume his new appointment as president of Beijing National University. Hu was fortunate to have gourmet tea left over from pre–Pearl Harbor days, and he invited Yee over for a cup. Several guests also came during Yee’s visit, including Arthur Walworth, author of Black Ships off Japan and Cape Breton: Isle of Romance. Some days later, Yee received a phone call from his first cousin Dr. Wei Taoming. Wei, Chinese ambassador to the United States, was in New York to deliver a speech. He invited Yee to see the play Lute Song, adapted from a classical Chinese morality play, which had enjoyed some success on Broadway. There were two other

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guests present: Cao Yu, one of the leading contemporary dramatists in China, and Lao She, known for his vernacular novels and plays. Interestingly, Lao She taught Chinese at the School of Oriental Studies before Yee, and that was the first and probably only occasion when Yee met Lao She.4 Likewise, Yee and Wei probably never met afterwards. In fact, Wei twice wired and urged Yee to go to the United States to assist him. When the United Nations was established in New York after World War II, the Chinese delegation had invited Yee to accept an appointment as a Chinese translator, but he was not tempted by “the good pay and prospect.” “I did not want to get myself into politics again,” he stated.5 He deliberately stayed away from political connections with the Nationalist government. Wei’s political career continued to ascend during the subsequent decades in Taiwan, but Yee sought no contact with him.6 In late June, Yee returned to England to work on his New York book. A few days before Christmas, he sent a letter from Cumberland to Innes Herdan, whom he had not seen in almost a year. I want to send you a special word to give you my best thought for the better and brighter New Year! I have longed to see you all since I came back from the States but just could not manage it. Please be assured that I have never forgotten you and shall never! As a matter of fact, you have come into my dreams many a time recently. This brought me back to many years ago. My tears shed freely themselves (I should have not told you this, but could not help telling you. I hope you will not be disturbed).7

He told Innes that he would visit her soon after his return from Cumberland, which was to be sometime near the end of February. In this very emotional letter, he mentioned that he had “many disturbing news” from his own children. “I hope to go back to my own country next year if possible.”8 The situation in China grew increasingly unstable, and civil war had broken out in July 1946. Beginning in January 1947, the communist army launched a series of offensives in northeastern China, and by June 1947, it had seized the region. The state of the Nationalist position, as historians have commented, was “comparable to the predicament of the German forces before Stalingrad in early 1943.”9 Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, declared on December 25, 1947 with exuberant confidence: “The Chinese people’s revolutionary war has now reached a turning point.” He predicted that the defeat of “the Chiang Kai-shek bandits” was inevitable.10 The failure of Chiang Kai-shek’s military on the battlefield was coupled with the serious deterioration of the government’s financial and economic situation. Since the government kept producing paper money to meet military expenditures, inflation was out of control. In 1948, in an effort to stabilize the financial situation, the government pushed for “currency reform.” It issued “the gold yuan,” valued at four yuan to one U.S. dollar. The government also ordered conversion of all Chinese National Currency in circulation to the gold yuan at an exchange value of one gold yuan to three million CNC yuan. Indeed, by 1949, the Central Bank

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of China was “issuing paper money bills of one hundred thousand gold yuan for everyday use.”11 This skyrocketing inflation reflected the serious financial crisis in China, and Yee inadvertently became its victim. He had been periodically sending money home to China. Providing financial support to his family was a “responsibility” to which he was committed. Due to the administration’s foreign currency regulations, the exchange rate was 75–80 percent below the market rate, and he lost a considerable portion of his savings in converting British sterling pounds to Chinese currency. Understandably, he was very bitter about the loss. As the situation in China deteriorated, Yee decided to bring a family member over to live with him in England. He considered his nephew, Chien-min, the only son of his elder brother, to come and live in England, but Chien-min chose instead to go to Taiwan with the help of Wei Tao-ming. Yee then attempted to persuade his former orderly in Jiujiang to come. He wanted to express his gratitude to a man who had been loyal in service, but again his offer was turned down. Finally, he considered his elder son, Chien-kuo. He asked Chien-kuo to go to Nanjing to meet Tze-ko Ho, a friend who had been appointed First Secretary in the Chinese consulate in England. Following his father’s advice, Chien-kuo successfully obtained his passport and prepared to leave for England. In the meantime, Yee suggested that his other children enroll in Zhengze Vocational School in Jiangsu Province. Xiaoyan and Chien-fei would study embroidery and painting, respectively, while Jianlan continued her high-school education.12 Chien-kuo arrived in England on December 22, 1947. At Tilbury Dock near London, father and son reunited after nearly fifteen years. When Yee left China, Chien-kuo was only seven years old; he had since grown up to become a handsome young man. Darker and slightly shorter than Yee, he was chubby and strong, and his face resembled his father’s.13 After an overnight stay in London, Yee took Chien-kuo to Oxford to live with him. He advised Chien-kuo not to seek employment in London’s Chinatown. He did not want his son to mingle with the Chinese, and he did not even encourage visits to the Hsiung family, where Chinese as well as English friends often congregated. Chien-kuo, Yee believed, should make friends primarily with the English; otherwise, his social circle would be limited and he would never reach beyond Chinatown. Chien-kuo followed the advice and stayed with his father at their Southmoor residence. However, Chien-kuo could never fully satisfy his father. In Yee’s eyes, Chienkuo was not a worthy son. Unlike Hsiung’s children, Chien-kuo had neither English language skills nor a college degree. Further, he loved to work with his hands and seemed inclined to technical jobs. He enjoyed cooking, for example, which remained his lifelong hobby. Meanwhile, resentment brewed in Chien-kuo’s heart. He had lived through considerably turbulent years in China, when survival itself was a challenge. He personally wished to continue his education and in fact had been preparing for college right before Yee invited him to leave for England. There was no question that he needed to respect Yee; it was simply impossible for him to meet the high expectations set by such an extraordinary father. He sensed

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the awkwardness between them, for his father, always generous with his praise of others, never seemed to have any for his own son. His father appeared more strange than familiar.14 On New Year’s Day, 1948, Yee took a copy of Yebbin: A Guest from the Wild and inscribed the following in Chinese: May Chien-kuo my son carefully read this book— Yee, the father, presenting this on the first New Year’s Day after being reunited overseas after fifteen years, Sojourning together in Oxford on January 1, 1948

The strokes, carefully executed, registered paternal love, pride, excitement, and expectations. Yebbin, published in 1947, was another children’s book written by Yee. The title hero is a monkey that lives with a Chinese family for many years and becomes a trusted and beloved family friend. It is a charming story with lively depictions of the human-like monkey and presentations of Chinese culture and daily life. By offering this book as a New Year gift, Yee expressed his wish for Chien-kuo to master the English language; more importantly, he wanted Chienkuo to appreciate his father’s level of attainment and to understand that nothing was impossible so long as he tried his best. In August, Yee took a trip to Dublin to prepare a new title about that city. Ten years earlier, in the spring of 1938, he had been there for a few days as a guest of the Earl and Countess of Longford at their house on Leinster Road. Lord Longford, Earl Edward Pakenham, was a playwright, translator, artist, and managing director and producer of the Longford Theatrical Company, which ran the Gate Theatre at the north end of O’Connell Street. With a deep interest in Chinese culture, he had collected some objets d’art, mostly porcelain, paintings, and silk hangings. His play Armlet of Jade, a creative adaptation of a classical story about Tang Dynasty Empress Yang Guifei, was first staged at the Gate and later invited to London’s Westminster Theater for the 1937 season, set to coincide with the Chinese Art Exhibition at Burlington House.15 Yee made his acquaintance with Lord Longford during the latter production. Lady Longford, Countess Christine Pakenham, was also a talented playwright, novelist, and translator. Her plays were among the Gate’s many productions and performed by such renowned actors as James Mason, Orson Welles, Betty Chancellor, Edward Lexy, and Geraldine Fitzgerald. She was the author of A Biography of Dublin and claimed that Dubliners were a “critical and intent” audience. “They go to plays more than they read books, and write plays more than they write books.”16 During his first visit, Yee had seen plays at both the Abbey and the Gate. He had gone to see the play The Absentee, Lady Longford’s adaptation of Maria Edgeworth’s classic, at the Gate Theater. During the intermission, he was introduced to Jack Yeats, artist-brother of W. B. Yeats, and had tea at Yeats’s house on the following Sunday.

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In 1948, the Longfords invited Yee to visit Dublin again, and he stayed at their house on Leinster Road for a month. He went to the Abbey to see J. M. Synge’s controversial play Playboy of the Western World. Though he had seen the play twice before, its theme of anti-patriarchal authority, which is contradictory to Confucian teaching, was difficult for him to accept. His third viewing, however, was after he had experienced the war, and he began to understand and appreciate the theme. He also accompanied Alan White and his family, who came to Dublin on vacation, to the Gate Theatre to see Lady Longford’s popular comedy Tankardstown. The theater, according to Yee, was packed with people who “rocked with laughter.”17 The Longfords made time in their busy schedules to take Yee to visit their country house, Pakenham Hall, in Westmeath, as well as to other nearby historic and scenic sites. During most of his stay, he enjoyed walks by himself along the River Liffey or on the city streets. He loved the bird market off Bride Street, the library of Trinity College where he admired the Book of Kells and the Zoological Gardens. Street corners, gardens, and squares stimulated his curiosity and reflections. Chance discoveries and leisurely observations ignited his sense of humor and enlivened the memories in his mind. There were very few Chinese in Ireland. Yee felt that one could stay there an entire year without seeing a single Chinese.18 He was conscious of his cultural “uniqueness” and was fully aware of some of the unpleasant reactions he received from the local people. He noted that his “flat face caused a stir” at the bird market, where “all eyes were turned on me,” and a young waitress at a restaurant found his appearance funny and giggled behind a partition. Yee continued to go his own way, neither ruffled nor offended by those embarrassments. He countered unwitting insensibility with humor, and he laughed with those who laughed at him. “The attention of a few of the younger spectators was not fixed continuously on the birds: first furtively, then openly, they were staring at me, as if I were a bird. The thought of being a bird appealed to me and I giggled. The youngsters responded with broad laughter, in which the elder folk joined. It was a delightful moment.”19 On November 18, The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh was published. This was his sixth Silent Traveller book over the span of a decade since the first book on Lakeland. The introduction to the Edinburgh book, entitled “Unnecessary Introduction,” was a review of his own literary and artistic practices, an explanation of his theory of writing and painting, and a declaration of his accomplishments in these areas. The necessity he faced for artistic creativity was daunting. Not long after he resumed painting in England, he perceived that some innovations were required. He did not want his works to “simply wear the conventional overcoat of old Chinese paintings.” He needed to go beyond mere repetition of the old Chinese styles. He intended to explore innovative expressions appropriate to the new subject matter: “not to produce a mere representation of the external appearance of my subject, but to seize its basic form and inner spirit, and to give these free

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expression without interference from abstract ideas.” With that aim in mind, he experimented various ways to render Western architecture, city scenes, and the grouping of natural elements with Chinese media.20 Yee stressed that his writings were expressions of his personal reactions and feelings. Indeed, as he pointed out, he differed from most tourists who would resort to a guidebook, check local history, and plan an itinerary. His way of traveling was spontaneous and intuitive. This seemingly very casual traveling style offered him a great deal of freedom and flexibility, which often led to surprising discoveries. Indeed, he was capable of finding pleasure and beauty in the mist or rain, as well as in the purple heather or blue-gray hills. He was always able to match Scottish sayings with something in the Chinese classics or find an appropriate Chinese story for every scene. In his Edinburgh book, Yee continues to de-familiarize the world by transforming common scenes into unfamiliar sights or normal concepts into abnormal ones. He appears in one of the line drawings as “an imaginary Scot,” wearing the Great Plaid with a bonnet in hand, while Robert Burns, said to be a Chinese Confucian by birth, is clad in Chinese robes and strolls leisurely with a folding fan in hand. Arthur’s Seat, traditionally interpreted as bearing the shape of a lion, is reenvisioned as an elephant. Such views challenge traditional concepts and an established and rigid belief system. They also allow the author to highlight common features or shared characteristics between Scots and Chinese—commonalities that lead toward a new vision and understanding that he encourages the reader to recognize. He makes the reader aware that the elephant associated with Arthur’s Seat is not just an animal beloved in Asia; it is “the most respected of animals” by the entire human race.21 He makes the reader aware that there exists an essential bond between the folk songs of ancient China and Robert Burns’s poetry. Finally, he makes the reader aware that the Chinese and Scottish people are similar, since he, of Chinese origin, could be misidentified as an “imaginary Scot,” while an aged Scot could so resemble an “inscrutable Chinese.” The pictorial quality stands out as a major feature of this book. It contains many beautiful and impressionistic narrative passages. Natural elements, such as rocks, trees, clouds, water, mountains, birds, and animals, are Yee’s favorite subjects, and those vignettes, intermingled with descriptions, comments, reminiscences, and anecdotes, are like the subtle details on a painter’s canvas. Yee, however, understood that a true artist should go beyond the external appearance to seize the basic form and inner spirit in order to give a masterful representation. His descriptions of Edinburgh Castle exemplify this point in a dramatic manner. His impressions of the castle are presented from different perspectives and in various conditions: in sunlight, in the rain, at dusk, in the wind, or in the moonlight. The vignettes are simple word-pictures of everyday life and common incidents, rich in detail, with a focus on the gradual development of unexpected discoveries and the ecstasies that accompany such surprises. When juxtaposed, these impressionistic word-pictures generate exhilarating and poetic effects comparable to Claude Monet’s watercolor masterpieces, such as his paintings of Rouen Cathedral or water lilies.

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One of the best reviews of Yee’s book was by Ian Finlay, whose comments were aired by the Scottish Home Service on March 4, 1949: The Silent Traveller does not, in fact, do Edinburgh with note-book and pencil, amassing the old stories like so many other travellers who have written about her and giving them forth again as if they’d discovered something new. Instead, he has soaked in her atmosphere, rain and all, and recorded it in simple wordpictures of simple things and incidents, word-pictures which often leave to the imagination all but some tiny and apparently trivial details, like some painting of finches by the Emperor Hui Tsung. I find this fascinating. It’s not simply a matter of seeing oneself through Oriental eyes. It’s a salutary lesson to the miseducated, fact-hungry Western world of to-day to pay more attention to the senses and less to facts and figures. Mr. Chiang’s book will do little to help the day-tourist who wants to know the height of the Scott Monument or the age of St. Giles’; but the more leisured person who wants to recapture the feel of the east wind or the scent of the city on a summer morning will find much to absorb him in its pages.22

There are twenty plates and sixty-eight line drawings included in the book. About half of the plates are colored and the other half are monochromic. Castles, architecture, and street scenes are major subjects or backgrounds of the illustrations, and Yee has clearly become more masterful in tackling the texture, shade, and atmosphere of his subject. In “Advocates’ Close in Twilight,” “The Regent Bridge at Night from Leith Street,” and “Two Sisters near by Smollett’s House,” architecture is the major component, yet each picture conveys a distinct mood and character of the subject. Further, Yee is able to render a building with such precision that would be “the ambition and despair of a western architectural student.”23 The most eye-catching illustrations are the colored plates, such as “The Scott Monument from West Princes Street,” “Courting on the Little Pond of the Royal Botanic Garden,” and “Castle in the Summer Haze.” These are among the best of Yee’s paintings. His unconventional—as well as unrealistic—use of excessive green and pink for the trees creates a delightfully enchanting motif that might strike a native as inherently strange yet strangely familiar. The Edinburgh book, a huge success, brought him to the “highest” point of his career. He was invited to literary functions, broadcasts, lectures in international book fairs, and TV shows. The Gaumont British Picture Corporation even made a film of him painting in the Chinese manner. He used his publications as a means to build connections and form friendships. He sent a copy of A Chinese Childhood to Queen Mary in May 1940, and for several years, he sent his recent publications—such as A Chinese Childhood, The Men of the Burma Road, and The Silent Traveller in Oxford—as Christmas gifts to Sir Anthony Eden. As a successful writer, he had opportunities to be acquainted with high officials. He once attended the Royal Academy banquet with Sir Winston Churchill and twice had lunch with Eden.24 In the meantime, his friendship with Alan White and his wife Marjorie

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had deepened. Together, they went to Edinburgh to promote the book and had a wonderful time. The Whites fondly named their marmalade cat after him, and Yee, who always enjoyed jokes with a good sense of humor, playfully accepted the new title of “Marmalade Cat Uncle” for himself.25 The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh was reprinted in the United States by John Day in late 1951. One reviewer, Mary Stack McNiff, wrote, “We are accustomed to books about China written by Occidentals; it is more revealing, somehow, to read these Chinese impressions of places familiar to us—at least in literature and lore. The Oriental mind becomes less inscrutable when it reflects upon Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and Mary, Queen of Scots. The universal traits of human beings loom larger than the differences when Yee matches Chinese equivalents for ancient Scottish legends of romance, when he compares the caution of his countrymen with the proverbial Aberdonian thrift, or when he finds the laugher point of Edinburgh’s oldest resident.”26 She sent a copy of her review to Yee, who graciously responded, I am very interested in your remark “The Oriental mind becomes less inscrutable . . .” Of course, most of my people have long regarded the Western mind as inscrutable, too. By guessing what people are doing, rather than by trying to understand through reading, can lead to wrong conclusions. Unfortunately the Chinese language is not an easy language for anyone to tackle. I travel in search of similarities between peoples rather than peculiarities.27

Yee gave a copy of this book as a birthday gift to his son with the inscription: This book was published a year after Chien-kuo, my son, came to England. I am presenting this as a gift to commemorate your twenty-first birthday and hoping that you will read this book closely. Yee, the father, on April 22, 1949, in Oxford

Chien-kuo was actually twenty-three years old; to qualify for immigration, he took two years off his age when he applied for a passport in China, and he stayed that way for the rest of his life. In September 1948, Chien-kuo enrolled in the London School of Printing. The school specialized in printing technology and offered a three-year program. At the time, Chien-fei was studying art at the Zhengze Art School. Like his father, Chien-fei had maintained a strong interest in art since early childhood. After eighth grade, he attempted to quit middle school to pursue his study of art. He was ridiculed and criticized by everyone around him. Surprisingly, his father was the only one who offered support. Yee sent letters home, almost daily, stating that parents in the modern era should respect children’s own aspirations and their potentials. In addition, he entrusted his niece to help get Chien-fei enrolled in the Zhengze Art School, which was run by Lü Fengzi, a famous Chinese artist. Then, in 1948, Yee donated a large number of albums

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of Western art to that school.28 As the communist army started launching its attack from the north, the situation seemed precarious and deteriorated swiftly. Yee believed that it would be safer for Chien-fei to move farther south and attend the art school in Guangzhou or Guilin. He wrote Chien-fei and advised him that if he wanted to visit home on his way south, the stay should be kept as brief as possible. “You would never be able to leave again if you stayed home long.” Chien-fei took these words to his heart. He arrived home on January 28, the eve of the Chinese New Year. He enjoyed the traditional family dinner with his mother and sisters, and, the next day, his mother started packing for him. She sewed a ring and a few silver dollars in his coat. Chien-fei was her youngest son and the only male family member left in China. Though she loved him dearly, she supported his decision and encouraged him to leave for safety. The following day, Chien-fei waved good-bye to his family and the comfort of home, and he traveled to Guangzhou by train. At the time, he did not know that this was the beginning of his life in exile, nor did he know that he would never be able to see his mother again.29 The train was tightly packed with passengers. Many people were still frantically scrambling to get aboard in order to evacuate south. As there was no room on the train, some people tied themselves to the train with a rope around their waist, their upper bodies suspended outside the car.30 It turned out that Guangzhou was no safe haven. Chiang Kai-shek’s government was clearly on the verge of collapse. Three months after the Communists took over Beijing, they crossed the Yangtze River and conquered Nanjing, the capital of the Nationalist government. During the next few months, almost all major cities fell, and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. On October 1, Mao Zedong, on the Gate of Heavenly Peace, proclaimed to the world the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In mid-October, Guangzhou fell. Chien-fei escaped to Taiwan with two fellow schoolmates. As exile students, and without entry permits, they had to sneak off the boat and enter Taiwan at the risk of being captured as Communist spies. Chien-fei’s companions soon left to look for their own friends and relatives, so Chien-fei was left alone with no money, no job, and no friends. As he wandered around, he ran into military recruiters who detained him and gave him a uniform. Thereafter, he began to serve in the Nationalist army, where he remained until 1956.31 In postwar England, people’s unflinching spirit was manifest by an enduring fervor for books. The Sunday Times National Book Exhibition at Grosvenor House in London attracted a record number of visitors. Lectures, readings, award presentations, and games were tightly scheduled every day. Many events were packed to capacity, especially by luminaries such as Churchill and J. B. Priestley. On Wednesday, November 9, the first event was a travel and adventure panel consisting of Chiang Yee, Brig. D. W. Clarke, Kenneth Harris, Hammond Innes, Rose Macaulay, and Robert Gibbings. The panel chair posed the first question to the panelists: “If a new country suddenly appeared in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean how would you set out to explore it?” Yee, the first to answer,

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proclaimed that he would ask the usual questions abroad: “Does anybody here speak Chinese?”32 That night, Lieutenant Commander Kerans visited the exhibition. He signed books for the schoolchildren, and he purchased three books—all with a Chinese connection. Newspapers published the news and listed the three titles, one of which was The Silent Traveller in London. Yee’s London book had in fact enjoyed a constant streak of successes. It had been printed several times since 1938, and in 1949 it was published by Transatlantic Arts in the United States. Newspaper reviewers touted the book as a “bright, perceptive, collection of essays” and “one of the most charming books of the year.”33 Excerpts from the book were broadcast on the BBC in 1949. When its eighth printing appeared in 1951, three additional color plates were added to that edition. In 1950, Yee and Chien-kuo visited and stayed with the Herdan family in Bournemouth. During the war, the Herdans had lived in Cambridge and then moved back to Bournemouth after Innes’s sister passed away in 1942. Gustav served as the regional officer of the British Ministry of Supply during the war. He began teaching at the University of Bristol a couple years earlier. Innes had been staying at home, taking care of the family, after they got married. The three children loved “Uncle Ya” and looked forward to his visits more than those of any other adult visitors. They loved to watch him, with just a few strokes of the pen, magically bring to life a panda, bird, or dog. It was through food that Uncle Ya demonstrated his love for the children. To this day, their fond memories of him are inevitably associated with food, and how he loved to see them, in his pronunciation, “yeating.” He often took them out for ice cream, or they would go to a nearby restaurant where he ordered a sumptuous meal and demanded that they finish it all.34 Chien-kuo completed his second year of college that summer. He studied various printing technologies, including letter press, lithography, photolithography, and silk screen, an ancient printing technique. As he explored the topic of his thesis project, Yee’s booklet Wartime Britain gave him some inspiration. Wartime Britain, a record of the author’s firsthand experience during the war, was handwritten with line drawings. Chien-kuo planned to prepare a similar travelogue for his thesis project. He discussed the idea with Yee and gained his strong support. In late August, Chien-kuo traveled to Switzerland and France for two weeks with his schoolmates. He recorded his daily activities and observations, and he made a number of drawings about the architecture, street scenes, and life he witnessed in these places. After returning to London, he put them together in the form of a journal, entitled A Short Trip to Switzerland and France. The booklet, twenty-four pages long, was bilingual: the English part was typed and the Chinese part handwritten. Some of the details and illustrations Chien-kuo included are quite entertaining, and, in fact, his work successfully reproduces Yee’s characteristic vividness and humor. For example:

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The hotel manager had four children aged from 6 to 12. The youngest was called Paul, a noisy and lovable little boy. He always liked to sit on our shoulders and pull our hair with his little hands. He was always good humoured and during our eight days’ stay we never heard him cry. Occasionally we were tired of his noisiness and pretended not to take any notice of him; then he would try all sorts of ways to make us smile again. Any time he wanted us to do something for him he always tried to explain very clearly and slowly in French but still could not make us understand, so in the end he always asked us just to say ‘Oui’ or ‘Non.’ To please his little heart we said ‘Oui” all the time. Once I replied ‘Oui’ to him. I found too late that I should have said ‘Non.’ He pushed me down on the floor and rode on my back. I had a tough time being his horse.35

Chien-kuo printed the booklet by himself. On the title page is the Chinese phrase 堅果自印, which means “Self Print by Chien-kuo.” The name 堅果, meaning “solid fruit,” is written with different characters from his original name 健國, “strong nation,” though they are pronounced the same. Yee suggested the change to emphasize effort and success.36 A variety of printing techniques were applied to Chien-kuo’s thesis, one for each page. The result was original and unique. While students traditionally applied only one printing technique to their thesis, Chien-kuo’s product allowed him to showcase all the techniques that he had learned in college. He won high praise from Mr. Thirkettle, the college president, who considered him among the best students he ever had. Chien-kuo was happy, but what made him really proud was the fact that his father was very pleased with the thesis.37 In November 1950, The Silent Traveller in New York was published by Methuen in England and John Day in the United States. This was the first Silent Traveller title about a city outside of Great Britain. Yee had worked on it since September 1946, and the manuscript was finally completed and sent to the printer in November 1949. The book has a preface by Van Wyck Brooks. “When I heard that the ‘Silent Traveller’ was writing a book about New York,” Brooks writes, “I wondered if he would find this a happy subject. With his fondness for dull rainy days and the misty-moisty English scene, would he like the hard dry light of our stone and steel? In New York he would have for mountain peaks only metallic skyscrapers, and instead of the soft English rain he would have our thoroughly business-like rain that comes down as if it was also made of steel.” However, Yee’s strong interest in humanity and nature, as well as his sensitivity, led to another success. He enjoyed the Bowery, Broadway, Times Square, Harlem, Wall Street, and the Empire State Building. He delighted in everything around him in New York City. “In the six months that he spent in the city, he made discoveries in Greenwich Village that will surprise even the oldest New Yorkers, and he made discoveries in Chinatown that surprised a Chinese.”38 Brooks was one of the most respected literary historians and cultural critics of twentieth-century America. He was awarded the gold medal for literary

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achievement at the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1946. At a friend’s invitation, Yee happened to attend the event. The following year, he sent Brooks a copy of his own book with an introductory letter, thus initiating the correspondence between them. Later, when Yee asked if Brooks could possibly consider writing a preface for his New York book, the latter quickly consented. It was quite unusual for Brooks to undertake this for someone he had not yet met; he agreed because he recognized some “ingenious and entirely personal quality” in Yee’s writing and the “companionable charm of a mind of great natural distinction that was willing to be pleased.”39 As Brooks wrote to tell Yee: “Your philosophy seems to me very valuable just now, your peculiarly Chinese sanity and feeling for the real values of life. It makes me very happy that you are now expressing this in times that Americans should be able to understand. We are so lacking at present in sanity here.”40 Brooks regarded Yee as “a true citizen of the world . . . everywhere at home.” 41 In Yee’s Chinese wisdom, he discovered some congenial strain that he had been searching for in America. He concluded the preface with a relentlessly direct punch on modern and materialistic culture. Mr. Chiang Yee repeats the saying of Mencius that a wise man should retain his childlike mind,—a rebuke to our tiresome ideal of “sophistication”; and he says that in securing the freedoms from ignorance and want we should also plan for a “freedom from too many desires.” That might be his reply to our foolish cult of advertising, which exists for the breeding of desires, the more the better. In saying that man is a greedy creature, greedy for wealth, food, clothes or fame, he suggests that he himself is more often greedy for things that delight the eye or delight the mind—that he is appreciative, in short, as he kindles in others the appreciative feeling that alone perhaps can keep the world at peace.42

Yee and Brooks finally met in June 1951 in the lobby of Brown’s Hotel in London. Gladys Brooks’s memoirs give a vivid account of this long anticipated meeting, from which began a long, rewarding friendship between the two writers. He bowed low as he greeted us on our arrival, thus making us aware of that ingrained Oriental courtesy which was a major part of his tradition. We were then taken to the theater, to Chinese restaurants, to museums, while Chiang Yee’s character unrolled before us like some meticulously ornamented Chinese scroll displaying both the wisdom of the ancients and the fresh naivete of a child. There came the moment, nonetheless, when it was borne in on us that we could not indefinitely accept kindness and hospitality on any such scale, a debt increasing with each agreeable day. We decided, then, to withdraw, to quit London, to make our farewells to Chiang Yee in the hope that he would later come to visit us at Bridgewater, and we fled away on an afternoon of permeating sunlight to Waterloo Station. . . . For Salisbury.43

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The New York book retains many stylistic features of Yee’s earlier travel books. He views New York with his typical fresh and delightful “slant,” shares his unique insights, and presents a more objective interpretation to underline commonalities between the East and West. For example, kissing is a widely-accepted public and private physical expression of affection and love in the West. Due to different cultural beliefs, Chinese do not kiss in public, a fact that has led to various myths: “Chinese don’t kiss but rub noses instead” or “No Chinese man throughout the whole length and breadth of the vast Chinese Empire ever kisses wife or child, unless he has been taught to do so by a foreigner.” Yee responds: “The truth is that kissing is something which we Chinese—at least our forefathers—considered to be ‘sacred, secret and rare for special occasions.’ ‘Rarity makes precious,’ says an old Chinese proverb.”44 The colored drawings included in the book are precise and delicate. Many portray natural scenes—such as the river, trees, and birds in Central Park, the upper Hudson River, or Brooklyn Botanical Gardens—or typical metropolitan landscape features, such as skyscrapers. Some of them, such as “Wall Street at Twilight” and “Skyscrapers above Evening Cloud and Mist,” are ingeniously composed and executed with dream-like surrealistic quality. The author’s admiration for the United States, a country known for its energy, modernism, and materialism, is obvious, yet he also includes a few surprising jibes with humorous twists. One such instance is his discussion of poodle puppies in Irene Hayes’s window. Yee describes the puppies, which looked “ridiculous and amusing” after their grooming, thus: One had green and the other had red satin ribbons tied in bows on its tail and legs; and the remaining hair had been brushed with the utmost care. The light inside the window, reflected on the shaved parts of the bodies, revealing the pinkish flesh, which looked so soft and delicate as almost to make one weep. Though outside it was snowing heavily and it made me feel bitterly cold to look at these dogs, inside the window the shop was air-conditioned and the poodles were in fact perfectly warm. They could not have been better cared for. But I wondered who it was who first thought of shaving poodles—rather than any other species of dog. Nature has given the poodle a coat to protect him from cold and sudden attack: man denies him its use. Men strive to produce mechanical objects which resemble living beings, and turn the poodle, which is a living being, into something artificial. It is very peculiar.45

In the same vein, Yee also ruminates on the George Washington Bridge. While he recognizes that it is a great and beautiful achievement of modern engineering, he complains that he feels “invisible,” as though the bridge was never intended for him or any single soul. He goes on to claim that modern ideologies, which seem to have “praiseworthy ideals,” “hardly ever . . . place the individual first.” Though he believes in progress and technology, he feels that “the great achievements of

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the Western world should not dwarf or disable the living units for whom, alone, they were created.”46 The New York book won critical attention, particularly in America and Canada. The New York Herald, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Montreal Daily Star all published lengthy reviews of the book. One of the reviewers considered the author an artist in language. He compared Yee with Lin Yutang, a productive Chinese writer popular in America during the 1940s whose novels and prose were deemed a window into Chinese wisdom, life, and cultural tradition. The reviewer asserted that “there is no pseudo-quaint Lin-Yutangish pose about [Chiang Yee]. . . . It is a pleasure to walk the city with him as a companion.”47 Another reviewer even offered the following fantastic suggestion: It would be a wonderful thing if Chiang Yee could be persuaded to travel up and down the whole United States, giving us a new idea of what this country is like. There is just one hitch to such a project: he found so much to record in and around New York City that it would take him two or three lifetimes to cover everything in the country. But I could wish he would try to cover more.48

His book was not only the first by a Chinese writer about New York, but it was also published at the time when China was deemed an archenemy to the West. One reviewer noted: “There are Chinese who enjoy western life, and there are others who don’t. I suppose Wu Hsiu-chuan, the impassive representative of the People’s Republic of China Communist who is now delivering a load of insults at the United Nations meetings, doesn’t see the appealing side of American life. But Chiang Yee can walk thru [sic] New York and find it filled with picturesque details that appeal to the Chinese mind.”49 Yee carefully circumvented politics in his writing. He wrote freely about legends, literary anecdotes, and art history, yet he never mentioned current sociopolitical issues. He meant his writing to be apolitical, free from the swirl of ideological strife and contest. The huge success of the book in North America was entirely unexpected. John Day planned a first printing of five thousand copies, which was bound in two installments. The first of these sold out within a week in November 1950, and the second followed suit in February. As there were many back orders, the publisher had to rush out another printing to meet the high demand. Unfortunately, it took extra time to produce: to save costs, it had been arranged that the colored plates and colored jackets would be printed in Great Britain and then shipped to America to be bound with the text. Because of the fact that colored lithography was a slow process, requiring as many as nine impressions, when the second printing finally came out in the fall, much of the marketing opportunity had already slipped away. Based on his revised contract with John Day, signed March 6, 1951, Yee would receive 6 percent of the list price on the first printing of approximately five thousand copies, 10 percent on the next five thousand copies, 12½ percent on the next five thousand copies, and 15 percent thereafter.50 Had the publisher placed

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a larger order for its first printing, the book would have brought a larger profit and made a wider distribution. Yee was upset about John Day’s miscalculation and “lack of energy in distributing the book” in the United States.51 Having received “very little” from the first five thousand copies, he felt bitter about being undersold.52 Meanwhile, Yee contributed two essays on Chinese art to academic publications in the United States soon after the war ended. The first essay was included in China (1946), edited by scholar Harley F. MacNair. The volume, with its comprehensive coverage of Chinese history, politics, philosophy, religion, art, literature, and economy, became a must-read for China studies students in the postwar era. It is a collection of essays by thirty-three of the “most distinguished authorities available,” such as Chen Meng-Chia in archeology, Hu Shih in intellectual history, Chan Wing-Tsit in philosophy, Shih-I Hsiung in drama, Pearl Buck in literature, L. Carrington Goodrich in history, and Chiang Yee in art. Yee’s essay, “Art,” examines the origins and development of Chinese art, emphasizing the impact of Chinese philosophy on art at various historical periods. He concludes the essay by asserting that art constantly evolves and that modern artists in China need to blend Western art with Chinese tradition.53 Another essay on the same subject, “The Philosophical Basis of Chinese Painting,” was published in 1949 in Ideological Differences and World Order, edited by F.S.C. Northrop. This essay offers an elaborate discussion and full development of the subject with a more focused thesis: “The course Chinese painting has followed can only be ascribed to our traditional philosophy,” that is, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Yee draws comparisons between European and American art and Chinese art. He also argues that, unlike European and American art, Chinese art is not concerned with love or fear; it “simply reveals the artist’s true self.”54 Country Life on December 7, 1951 carried an essay by Yee with the title “Your Christmas.” The emotional opening paragraph is soul-stirring: Your English Christmas or mine? I have now spent eighteen Christmases in England. Another one approaches, and I am filled once more with poignant and whimsical feelings, realizing that at the end of yet another year I am still outside my homeland and at the same time that Christmas had become an important part of my life in England. Therefore my English Christmas, too.55

He goes on to compare Chinese New Year with an English Christmas. In China, New Year celebrations in January or February are very happy occasions when entire families gather together to celebrate. In London, Yee spent his first Christmas with his landlady’s family. Yee then shares some of his fond memories of the following eighteen Christmas holidays he spent in England. In December 1940, shortly after his residence in London was destroyed, he moved to Oxford and celebrated Christmas with the Keene family. Even though the war was raging across Europe, the Christmas season still offered Rita, the young girl of the family,

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stimulation and beautiful dreams. Such a magical power touched him so much that he turned “Christmas-conscious” ever since. As both Christmas and Chinese New Year endow people with hope, joy, and peace, he appeals to the world to cherish the holidays as “a precious occasion.”56 His sentiments are hard to miss. Introducing Chinese New Year, Yee writes, It was the most important family affair of the year. Members of a big family might have traveled far from home, following their different occupations, but it was the tradition to make one’s way home for the New Year Festival if at all possible. The Chinese family system based on Confucius’s principles of filial piety made every Chinese most conscious of the importance of this festival.57

After so many years overseas, Christmas had become a familiar holiday to him, while Chinese New Year seemed to have turned into a dreamlike past. Nevertheless, as time went by, those distant memories only grew ever more tantalizingly appealing. Zeng Yun had been living in Jiujiang with Xiaoyan, as well as with Zeng’s mother and sister. Cai Fen and Jianlan lived with them as well. In this extended family of women, Zeng quietly shouldered much of the responsibility. She was upbeat and never appeared sorrowful or bitter. Political changes after 1949 brought some serious problems to the family. Both Ji and Yee had served the Chiang Kaishek government during the 1930s; both Chien-min and Chien-fei had moved to Taiwan; Tao-ming was still a high government official in Taiwan—the family was thus deemed anti-revolutionary and found itself under heavy pressure, both socially and politically. Zeng Yun missed her sons dearly. Thoughts about their safety and whereabouts continually lingered in her mind, yet she never spoke about them in front of her daughter. On special holidays typically spent with the family, such as the MidAutumn Festival, however, Zeng would walk outside the house alone, gaze at the moon in the sky, and remember her sons. On the eve of Chinese New Year, when the family gathered around the table to enjoy the last dinner of the year, she never forgot to ask Xiaoyan to prepare two extra seats and place two extra sets of plates and chopsticks on the table. They were meant for her two absent sons, and Xiaoyan dutifully complied. As the years passed, this ritual became a family tradition.58

chapter 10



To America

In December 1951, Chiang Yee went to Paris. He was to stay there for six months to prepare a new book about that city. Among famous places in the West, Paris held a special meaning for Yee. It was the city where he spent his first night in Europe nearly two decades earlier. At age ten, he had read in a textbook about Napoleon, the legendary French hero. He later learned about Notre Dame cathedral from Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, officially declaring peace at the end of World War I. This also came a month after the nationwide student movement in China, which was in protest against the decision made at the Versailles Conference concerning sovereignty of Chinese territory in Shandong. At the time, Yee was at the impressionable age of sixteen.1 Though he had been in Paris three times before, he never had the chance to view the city very closely. The last trip was a two-week stay in 1947 when he attended a UNESCO conference as an expert delegate. At the time, the agenda was so tight that he had hardly seen the city at all. This trip finally allowed him the time and leisure needed for viewing the streets and savoring the beauty of this world-renowned cultural center. London, where I have lived long, is like my home; The wind and light of New York are not yet forgotten. My three visits to Paris have passed as if in a dream; This time I go there to wander at leisure.

A major obstacle Yee encountered during this trip was the language barrier. He was traveling “absolutely silently in Paris,” thus “living up my name,” as he humorously confessed.2 He never had reason to learn French since English, as he claimed, had caused him “enough headaches.” However, he acknowledged, “I was resolved now to learn enough French to enable me to enjoy my travels round Paris to the full.”3 Soon after his arrival in Paris, he enrolled in a local 147

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language school and immersed in an intensive short-term study of French with twenty other international students. His keen observation and sensitivity to nuances of the language engendered some fascinating and humorous details, which he later recorded in the chapter “French with Tears” in The Silent Traveller in Paris. However, the language barrier ultimately proved to be crippling. He could not communicate to a full satisfying degree with artists, poets, craftsmen, and workers in Paris, and thus had to rely on friends as interpreters. Years later, when the emperor of Ethiopia, an admirer of his travel writing, invited him to visit the country and write a volume, Yee declined the honor. His rationale was that such a project would require a new language, and this would exact an enormous amount of time and energy, which was a luxury he could no longer afford. In Paris, he loitered on the wide pavement of the boulevards; roamed through crooked alleys, visiting galleries, studios, museums, and marketplaces; strolled along paths in parks and by the Seine; and had conversations in broken French and English with artists, dressmakers, garlic vendors, craftsmen, and policemen. How would he, a self-defined “uninteresting and insignificant” foreigner, have appeared to Parisians? Here is his self-portrait: Face flat; nose virtually without a bridge; hair jet black, with a few white threads; eyes slanting only very slightly, and downwards instead of upwards; wearing an English fifty-shilling tailored grey suit; does not walk like an English-man; was perhaps an idiot, for he gazed at a small maple tree without blinking for a long while and at three white ducks on the lake even longer; strolled along as if he had been an invalid in hospital for years.4

Deep in his heart, a yearning for companionship often wrestled with a fierce desire for success. “Like a tiger leaving his skin behind, a man leaves his name behind.”5 This was the motto he abided by in his resilient pursuit of a successful career. “He lived for his writing and work,” commented his friend Basil Gray, an art historian at the British Museum.6 Writing and traveling left virtually no room for a normal family life, which could be a distraction, exacting obligations and responsibilities. “Having a family is really a problem,” he wrote. “No matter how dedicated you are in work, it is impossible not to carry the family issues into your heart.”7 He was very cautious in his relationships with women, especially female fans, to avoid emotional entanglements and frivolous affairs. His conscious effort to avoid confinement manifested itself in the form of affection and warmth. Despite a busy schedule, he kept in touch with his friends. In addition to keeping correspondence with publishers and agents, he never forgot to send postcards and short notes to his friends during his trips away from home. Gray remembered him as one “always quiet, equable who enjoyed a laugh and a chuckle. He had a detached view of life and got on well with everyone he met especially with children and animals.”8 In Oxford, the Keenes’ young daughter, Rita, and her schoolmate Jennifer, for example, looked forward to letters and cards

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from “Uncle Misty” whenever he was away. In one of his letters from Paris, Uncle Misty copied a joke to entertain his young friends: Can you understand French? You should, because you have learned it in this school for some time. Here is a story: Les oeufs à la coque: Madame, Mademoiselle et Monsieur Durand sont à la table dans la salle à manger. Marie, la domestique apporte les oeufs. Madame Durand goute les oeufs et dit: “Les oeufs sont encore dür [sic]” et elle appelle Marie. “Marie, combine de minutes avez-vous fait cuire ces oeufs?” —‘Neuf minutes, Madame.’ —‘J’ai dit de faire cuire les oeufs à la coque trois minutes seulement.’ —‘Oui, Madame, mais il y a trois oeufs et trois fois trois font neuf!’ What do you think of it?9

After returning to Oxford, Yee completed the manuscript for a portfolio book on Chinese painting. While still in Paris, he had corresponded with Gray about the book, which was to be included in the series “The Faber Gallery of Oriental Art,” edited by Gray. Its ten plates, mostly from the British Museum, represent major styles and periods in figure painting, landscape, and flower-and-bird painting by ancient Chinese artists. Each is accompanied by a detailed note, explaining its content and composition, cultural significance of various elements, and artistic value. It is a beautifully-produced book that was released in 1953 under the title Chinese Painting. In November, Yee set out across the Atlantic on his second trip to America. At the suggestion of his publisher Alan White, who was now managing director of Methuen, Yee was to explore New England in preparation for a volume on Boston (and, possibly, another book on New England). Alan White and his family went to see him off at Waterloo Station. Boston, a city that prides itself on its Puritan tradition and cultural heritage, welcomed Yee. The Christian Science Monitor published a long report titled “‘Silent Traveller’ Sees Hub Clothed with Winter.” It announced that the Silent Traveller, whose travel books on New York and English cities have “delighted Occidental readers with impressions of their countries gained by Oriental eyes,” had silently arrived in Boston. “A book on the Hub, different from anything written about it before, is in the making.”10 Boston had a special attraction for Yee. While New York could boast skyscrapers, Wall Street, Broadway, and modernity, Boston was gracefully composed, exerting its unique identity and features through winding, labyrinthine streets, worldrenowned colleges, church steeples, cemeteries, and granite and red-brick buildings. In late November, he moved to a row house at 69 Pinckney Street on Beacon Hill after a three-day visit to Gladys and Van Wyck Brooks in their Bridgewater home. Van Wyck Brooks had suggested that he try to find a place on Beacon Hill to get a feel for that distinguished neighborhood. Pinckney Street was adjacent

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to Louisburg Square, and it enclosed a garden that was perennially enticing to passersby. Many homes on the square were connected to American literary history: singer Jenny Lind married pianist Otto Goldschmidt at No. 20; writer Louisa May Alcott lived at No. 10 from 1880 to 1888; and William Dean Howells occupied No. 14 when he was editor of Atlantic Monthly. Located in the center of Boston, Beacon Hill is steeped in history. Before the American Revolution, it had been pastureland for cattle, and then, during the nineteenth century, builders constructed elegant row houses along the south slope of the hill. The neighborhood, which later won recognition as a National Historic Landmark, was comfortably nestled in the midst of the golden dome of the State House, Boston Common, the Public Garden, and the Charles River. Red-brick and brownstone buildings, colorful vines and plants outside every house, cobblestone streets—all were traces of serenity and distinction. The actual hill seemed the right height to Yee, neither too high nor too low, providing him “with the delicious novelty of walking up and down slowly instead of moving to and fro along monotonous flat streets with nothing to see in front or behind.”11 He spent his first Thanksgiving in America on Beacon Hill. His friends, Mr. and Mrs. John Nichols, took him to a friend’s house on Willow Street for Thanksgiving dinner. It was the first time that he tasted pumpkin pie, which, like turkey, is a traditional part of Thanksgiving celebrations in New England. Christmas came a month later. Yee commented on the commercialism surrounding the joyous holiday celebration in the United States: In England I had always tried to explain to my young English friends that they must be patient, as there was only one Santa Claus who had to have time to make his round of all the chimneys. Young children in Boston would regard me as the eternal inscrutable Chinese if I said the same to them, for they could tell me how many Santa Clauses they had encountered inside and outside the department stores along Washington Street.12

Christmas Eve on Beacon Hill was a unique event. Since the early twentieth century, the neighborhood had developed a candle-lighting tradition. For weeks, in almost every window, red candles gleamed and radiated a tranquil, mellow air. On Christmas Eve, groups of singers would travel from door to door, singing traditional carols. Like many neighborhood families, Mr. MacFarlane, Yee’s landlord, opened his doors and welcomed carol singers with sandwiches and candy. Yee invited his friend Yang Lien-sheng and his family over for this event. Thousands of people from all across the city streamed into Beacon Hill and gathered at Louisburg Square to join in the festivities and enjoy the magical atmosphere. Among his many talents, Yee was also skilled at letter writing. His beautiful, fastflowing handwriting helped convey a gracious, urbane, and charming self image. He wrote Mark DeWolfe Howe on December 2, 1953 from his Pinckney Street address, “I have come back from New York and am staying at the above address for the moment. My friend has found the room for me and it is not far from your

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house.” Howe, eighty-nine years old, was author of more than thirty books on New England, and, through Brooks’s introduction, Yee met him a few times in his home where they discussed the history of Beacon Hill and New England. Yee’s apartment was, in fact, only a few steps away from Howe’s home. In another letter, dated December 29, Yee replied to Howe’s invitation to dinner at the Tavern Club in honor of their mutual friend Van Wyck Brooks. The letter begins: “Thank you for your two letters. I was outside your house on Christmas Eve, but I did not try to call on you for my eyes were busy following the bell-ringers and also the carol singers. I thank you for your thoughtful suggestion all the same.”13 This trip to the United States was different from his previous one because the sociopolitical situation in the country was extremely tense. A series of international events had rapidly unfolded since the late 1940s: the “fall” of China, the Soviet Union’s development of atomic weapons, and the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula. The United States and the Soviet Union confronted each other with fear and hostility, which led to the development of the Cold War. Since China and the Soviet Union were ideological partners, the United States sanctioned a trade embargo against China soon after the start of the Korean War. These international events instigated a “Red Scare” in America. The nation subsequently underwent a virulent phase when Americans were held in the grip of fear: “individual fear of denunciation, collective fear of Communist subversion.”14 The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, the Hollywood investigations, the Alger Hiss case, the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial and execution, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges concerning communities in the State Department and the subsequent interrogations, and the prosecution of China expert Owen Lattimore—all these events occurred immediately before or during Yee’s second trip to the United States. He was cautious and tried to stay away from politics as much as possible. When Robert E. Cantwell from Newsweek interviewed him for a report, Yee specifically requested not to talk much about his political life in China.15 During this second trip to America, he traveled to many new places, developed old friendships, and extended his circles of friends considerably. In addition to touring well-known sites in Boston and New England, he also traveled to New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, and San Francisco. The two most important friends he made, however, were Yang Lien-sheng and Walter Muir Whitehill. Yang, a Harvard Ph.D. with extensive knowledge of Chinese economic and cultural history, was a student of eminent historian and scholar Chen Yinke at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Since 1947, Yang had taught at Harvard. His monographs Topics in Chinese History (1950) and Money and Credit in China (1952) established his irrefutable reputation as one of the most promising sinologists in the West and attracted considerable attention in European academic circles.16 When Yang toured Europe during his sabbatical in the spring of 1951, he visited Yee in Oxford, and the two became acquainted. Yee, eleven years older and well-established in Europe, recognized and admired the rare talent, profound scholarship, and gentlemanly quality of Yang. Likewise, Yang respected Yee for his extraordinary accomplishments, cultivated mind, and artistic temperament. Chinese intellectuals

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overseas were scant in the 1950s, and those who studied Chinese history, language, and art were even rarer. Common interests and mutual respect helped seal their friendship and narrowed the age gap between them. Over a year later, when Yee was in the United States, Yang’s house at 10 Prescott Street in Cambridge became his base in the Boston area. Yang’s wife, Jean, cooked Chinese dinners, and Yee was treated like a family member, enjoying pancakes, dumplings, or tofu soup at the dinner table. He stayed in their spare bedroom for various periods and had his mail forwarded to Yang whenever he was away in other parts of the country. His conversations with Yang covered a variety of subjects: literature, history, Chinese language teaching, and publications. He even spoke about his unhappy marriage and about his wife’s past drug addiction. When Yang half-suggested and half-joked that he should seek true happiness by going for another woman, Yee turned serious and refused even to consider the proposition.17 In ancient China, literati exchanged poems as a means to express themselves, to share their literary artistry, and to deepen their friendships. They responded by following the rhyme scheme, making comments on the subject, and invoking complementary or contradictory references. After 1919, when the vernacular became popular literary language, classical poetry grew obscure; it became even more so after 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The traditional practice of writing poetry was preserved among only a small circle of literary minds. Beginning in 1953, Yee and Yang exchanged dayou poems, a form of ragged verse. Most of these poems consisted of four lines with seven characters each. The final characters in the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme. Seemingly casual and unrefined, dayou poems set no limitations on subject matter. In fact, such freedom offers unlimited creative possibilities, and the poet is thus able to reflect on daily events, life experience, and local customs with spontaneity, humor, and wit. Yee’s first poem was written on January 11, 1953: The Silent Man, holding a peculiar interest in ragged verse, Has wandered overseas for twenty years. He has now made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Yang, Whose pancakes with scallions are a first-rate success!18

Yang responded with two poems on January 13: A capable artist, writer, and composer of ragged verse, You are greatly missed, one day’s absence is almost like three years. After eating pancakes, we enjoy mahjong games, And playing chess yet remaining decent is as good as success! My hair used to be thick and shiny; I have also left home for twelve years. Acquainted overseas, we are all sojourners; Let us remember not misery but experience of success.19

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In most cases, they copied the poems for exchange in their letters. Occasionally, they shared the poems with a few friends, such as Chen Shih-hsiang, of UC Berkeley, and Wu Shichang, a scholar in Oxford. Yang recorded the more than forty poems exchanged in 1953—about life, family, career, travel, and friendship—with a brush pen in a thread-bound notebook of absorbent paper. On January 29, Yee left for California via New York, Chicago, and Denver. He would be away for a few months. They wrote dayou poems to express their feelings toward each other: January 29. “Seeing Off the Silent Traveller to the West.” I bid farewell to you at the subway, You are boarding not the high rise but a train, It is such a windy day, piercing cold, But we will get together, upon your return, to appreciate blossoms.

January 29, night. “Sending the Poem on the Train.” Waving hands, I departed from Mr. and Mrs. Yang temporarily, And I booked my trip westward by train. I am now sending my words to Ton Ton and Shuli, Let’s meet again in the spring to chase flying blossoms.20

May 17, 1953, was Yee’s fiftieth birthday and a day for him to reflect. Confucius once remarked about himself, “At forty I no longer suffered from perplexities, and at fifty I knew what was the bidding of Heaven.” Twenty years earlier, Yee had been aboard the Lebrun on his way to England. The future was unknown yet hopeful. Over time, he established himself as a travel writer and artist with more than twenty publications. The Yang family arranged a dinner party at their home in celebration of his birthday on May 19. Jean cooked lobsters that Yee purchased, and she prepared noodles in the Chinese tradition. In addition, there was birthday cake and ice cream. Yang wrote a celebratory dayou poem and even translated it into English: Boundless mountains and rivers, endless inspiration, Lovely birds and flowers, very lucky man! You have still half of your one hundred years’ happiness, I bet you’ll add many more volumes to your Traveller Series.21

Yee responded on May 23: Commenting on mountains and rivers, or speaking of birds and flowers, I sell paintings and writings just to please the naïve man. Now that half of the hundred years has already gone by, Thanks to you and your wife, and thanks for allowing me to stretch my height.22

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The other important friendship that Yee developed was with Walter Muir Whitehill, a historian and scholar who was director and librarian of the Boston Athenaeum. It was through mutual friends John Hall Wheelock and Chen Shihhsiang that Yee and Whitehill got to know each other. On November 17, 1952, Whitehill invited Yee to attend the annual dinner of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. As it is “a rather peasant old-fashioned occasion, I thought that you might enjoy coming to it,” Whitehill suggested. “Normally dinner coats are worn, but if you are traveling light they would not be obligatory.” He enclosed an Athenaeum card for Yee to use during his stay in Boston, and he politely concluded the letter, “Professor Chen has spoken of you so often that your arrival will be a great treat.”23 Yee accepted the invitation and went to the dinner with Yang Lien-sheng. The dinner, as he indicated, “marked the first day of our friendship,” a deep and extraordinary friendship that lasted for the rest of their lives.24 Whitehill, his sober, rotund face marked by a bushy mustache, always maintained an unhurried gait and serene manner. With a well-filled waistcoat, he had earned the nickname “amiable walrus” from the New Yorker. About the same age as Yee, Whitehill had already established a luminous career and was a central figure in Boston cultural life. A Harvard graduate in the class of 1926, he studied medieval Spanish Romanesque architecture and earned a Ph.D. from the University of London in 1934. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he became assistant director of Salem’s Peabody Museum from 1937 to 1946. Having served on dozens of boards of cultural institutions, Whitehill established himself as a fixture in Boston public and intellectual circles. Despite his full schedule, he still took time to entertain Yee in his North Andover home in the Merrimac River Valley, and at various places in and around the Boston area. He introduced Yee to new friends, such as John Pomfret of San Francisco’s Huntington Library and David McCord of Harvard University. As Whitehill graciously stated, he himself “became most attached to” Yee.25 The Boston Athenaeum, a private library established in 1807, was located at 10½ Beacon Street, almost next door to the Union Club, King’s Chapel, Tremont Temple, and Park Street Church. From the first-floor window, one could glimpse the Old Granary Burial Ground, where an obelisk marking the final resting place of Benjamin Franklin’s parents rose above the graves of eighteenth-century citizens and Revolutionary-era patriots. Interior design, architecture, statues, portraits, and an extensive collection of art and literature—all these generated a unique, endearing, and enduring atmosphere, and marked the Athenaeum as one of the most distinguished private institutions in the nation. Through Whitehill’s arrangement, David McKibbin of the art department helped to organize an exhibition of original illustrations from Yee’s Lakeland, London, Oxford, Edinburgh, and New York books in the Athenaeum Exhibition Room during the spring of 1953. Athenaeum Items, the library’s publication, gives enthusiastic commendations to the artist and his artwork in March 1953:

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Obviously silence has its rewards, for in the moment when a talkative traveller would have been exchanging banalities with a companion, Chiang Yee has caught one of the fleeting glimpses of beauty that now and then illuminate even the most familiar scenes, and has preserved it for all time. The rapidity and insight of his observation, the subtlety of his humor, the unerring skill of his brush, make one wish that more travellers were not only scholars and painters but truly educated men.26

The article ends with a long quotation from E. Harris Harbison’s definition of “the liberally-educated man.” “The liberally-educated man is articulate, both in speech and writing. He has a feel for language, a respect for clarity and directness of expression, and knowledge of some language other than his own. He is at home in the world of quantity, number and measurement. He thinks rationally, logically, objectively, and knows the difference between fact and opinion. When the occasion demands, however, his thought is imaginative and creative rather than logical. He is perceptive, sensitive to form, and affected by beauty . . .” It claims that the exhibition of Yee’s artworks demonstrated “what one liberally-educated man can do when he puts his mind to observing people and places.”27 On October 24, Yee was set to leave for Oxford. He and Yang exchanged their last two dayou poems of the year, further revealing their mutual respect and appreciation: “Departure from the Yang Family in Cambridge” I intend to write but do not know where to start; I am to depart but feel hesitant to set out. Like the willow tree in Cambridge, Each and every branch clings to my heart.

“Responding to the Departure Poem by the Silent Traveller” After a year-long visit to Boston, You are leaving today on a long journey. It is unknown when we’ll meet again, And my poignant feelings are unbearable.28

Before his departure, Yee sent a painting of pandas to the Whitehills. Aboard the Queen Elizabeth on his return trip to England, he wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Whitehill, announcing the surprise Christmas gift. The latter were delighted with the beautiful painting, which they welcomed with “extraordinary pleasure” and had it framed and hung on the wall at home.29 The Silent Traveller in Dublin was published shortly after his return. Ireland, and Dublin in particular, seemed to be an attractive subject at the time, as an interesting variety of books had already been published. Yee’s book came out at about the same time with two other volumes, Mind You, I’ve Said Nothing by Honor Tracy and James Reynolds’ Ireland by James Reynolds. Nevertheless, the

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Silent Traveller book was the first book on the subject by a Chinese author, and it differed in the approach. Yee picks upon Finlay’s earlier observation on his Edinburgh volume, asserting that this Dublin book does not add anything new to the much-written-about city. It is, instead, a mere record of his impressions and experiences, in words and in paint, of his month-long trip to the city in 1948. As he explained, he sought to preserve “the mood and feeling of the occasion.” The Chinese phrase jing-hua-shui-yue means “reflecting the flower in the mirror or the moon on the water.” Flowers may wither, and the moon may wane, but reflections paradoxically stay real so long as they last. “It is experiences no more substantial than this that I seek to describe.”30 The Dublin book was Yee’s twentieth English-language book. Yee didn’t slow down, as his volume on Paris was in progress, and he was also preparing books on Boston, San Francisco, and possibly New England. By this time, he had been abroad for a full twenty years. Time was definitely on his mind as he prepared the Foreword, probably in 1952: There is a limit to life but no limit to knowledge and experience. The things worth knowing, the people worth meeting, and the places worth seeing are numberless; but our powers of acquiring knowledge and our opportunities of meeting people and seeing places are severely restricted, not only by the short allotted span of human life, but also by the restriction of our activities during the years of immaturity and of old age.31

Fifty years had passed, and Yee felt “more anxious” to “disclaim any pretensions to scholarship or learning than to acquire and exhibit knowledge for its own sake.”32 Like all other volumes in the Silent Traveller series, the Dublin installment continues to offer wit and freshness in its gentle and philosophical observations. Its distinctive flavor is detectable in the nineteen chapter titles that each begin with “How I”: “How I Won the Friendship of Two Cats,” “How I Was Chased by a Nude Picture,” “How I Tried to Avoid Being a Fool,” “How I Nearly Lost My Scalp,” and “How I Was Better off than a King.” The first chapter is about the task of making friends with the two cats at the Longfords’ house. Yee feels uneasy when the cats treat him as a stranger who has disturbed their peace. Changes happen when they gradually accept him as a friend and comfortably stay where they are when he enters a room. “I felt I had now won their friendship, and this made me happy. . . . I did not approach them, nor did they come to mew at me. We were just giving our respective feelings free play.” Through this, he is further convinced that “human beings are instinctively friendly if they are not prevented from being so; and the same is true of animals, not excluding cats.”33 As a book critic commented, the incident, slight in itself, is narrated “with a beauty of style that is rare in present-day prose.”34 The book has sixteen colored plates, along with dozens of line drawings. While some flower-and-bird paintings resemble his earlier styles, his landscape

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and city paintings show clear traces of change. Yee has obviously become more skilled and innovative with regard to color, style, and subject matter. The colors are darker, providing a sense of substance. He applies blue color to the water in “Swans on the River Liffey” and “Sunny Afternoon at Chapelizod.” The painting “Tide Ebbing along Dublin Bay” appears more like a watercolor than a Chinese painting. Most noticeably, his paintings include more details and human figures, and he is more comfortable in treating Western architecture. “Activities along High Street” includes dozens of vendors, pedestrians and cyclists, and automobiles on a boisterous main street lined with light poles, brick buildings, and a church. In contrast, “Homely Scene along Granby Lane” is a monochromic ink painting that depicts a corner scene of a neighborhood insulated from pedestrians and traffic. A young woman talks to her two children outside their house while a boy and an elderly woman hurry home. Nearby stands a girl, and a cat and dog enjoying themselves in their own way. The serenity of the scene is mesmerizing. One can almost hear the echo of footsteps on the paving stone. There are a few other major differences of note. Unlike other volumes in the Silent Traveller series, the Dublin book, for example, does not include any poems by the author, either in English or Chinese. His writing has become more narrative, and his discussion more detailed and elaborate. In addition, he frequently cites poems, passages, anecdotes, and legends from books, magazines, newspapers, and other sources. While the quoted material is generally interesting and relevant, some quotations are too long. These lengthy extracts, as one critic rightly pointed out, seem “bookish” and could be rather “boring for the native reader.” However, the same critic quickly added that even the “slight bookishness,” which is the only weakness of the book, “has an Eastern attractiveness about it.”35 The book attracted more critical attention than any of his previous publications. Within two months, major newspapers in Ireland and England published news or reviews about the book. More importantly, there were newspaper reviews in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States. The New York Times announced that copies of The Silent Traveller in Dublin, recently published in England, would be made available in the United States by John Day on November 30. In December and early January, over a dozen major U.S. newspapers published reviews of the book. They mostly praised Yee for his accurate presentation of “the charm and warmth of the Irish people,” which all Americans should see.36 The reviewer in the New York Herald Tribune stated that, though Yee “must travel with passports and luggage and travellers checks,” he maps “a globe without frontiers.”37 Newsweek ends its long review with a reference to Van Wyck Brooks: Van Wyck Brooks believes that the counsel of Chiang Yee, “and perhaps the general counsel of Chinese wisdom,” is sanity, and therefore should be particularly welcome in the United States at present. Brooks supports the view of life that sees society at the end of a road, with two alternatives, universal war or more appreciation—“the appreciation of life and men that would lead people to

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chiang yee give up the resistances and repressions that must otherwise lead them to fight.” He therefore sees Chiang Yee as primarily valuable for his gift of appreciation. “He is appreciative, in short, as he kindles in others the appreciative feeling that alone perhaps can keep the world at peace.” Chiang Yee is more modest: “I am uninteresting and far from being important—just a simple fellow without a nation at present,” he says. But he also says that everybody can do something for liberty.38

Many readers in America were still impressed with The Silent Traveller in New York for its “dazzling new look” at the “much-pictured metropolis.” The review article in the Washington Post claimed that readers would extend a warm welcome to the author for another visit. It hoped that “the publishers can prevail on the Silent Traveller to spend more time in this country: the results should be highly rewarding.”39 The Dublin book, however, turned out to be a big disappointment in the American market. John Day, which had published The Silent Traveller in New York, A Chinese Childhood, and The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh, set the price at $7.50 for the Dublin book. Only a few thousand copies were sold, and Yee received approximately $1,242.75 in royalties for the period ending on January 31, 1954. For the next six-month period, he received nothing, and in the following year, he got merely $13.50. By comparison, his New York book, priced at $5.00, sold 10,288 copies in the United States in two years, and brought him $5,152.43. The high price of the Dublin book was essentially the cause of this humiliating failure, but Richard Walter of John Day refused to acknowledge such an explanation. Meanwhile, Yee had the good fortune to bring out a new edition of Chinese Calligraphy. The book had been out of print, and Methuen was interested in a reprint if a joint-publisher in America was also interested. Yee had spoken with Whitehill before his return to Oxford, and, after consulting his friend Harold Hugo from the Meriden Gravure Company, Whitehill wrote to his publisher friend Alfred A. Knopf in New York on December 11, 1953, “I don’t know whether you share my very considerable enthusiasm for Yee’s Silent Traveller series in which, during the past fifteen years, he has given his delightful views of various parts of the world in prose and water color.” The “admirable book” on Chinese calligraphy, published by Methuen in 1938, was out of print, and Whitehill enquired if Knopf would consider a reprint of it. He enclosed Harold Hugo’s cost estimate for reference.40 “The trouble is,” Knopf responded on December 14, “I don’t know Chiang Yee’s Silent Traveller series at all.”41 Indeed, not all publishers in the United States were yet familiar with or appreciative of Yee’s works. Whitehill dispatched a copy of The Silent Traveller in Dublin to Knopf and explained that “Chiang, who is well pleased with his relations with Methuen in London, has not been particularly happy about John Day’s lack of energy in distributing the books.” Whitehill insinuated that Yee’s travel books, which had sold thousands of copies in England,

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could be “a profitable” and “attractive” project for Knopf in the future.42 After some careful analysis and deliberations, however, Knopf rejected the proposal. Whitehill then contacted another friend, Tom J. Wilson, an editor at Harvard University Press. A few months later, Methuen and Harvard began to discuss an American edition, and they soon brought out the second edition of the book. Lin Sen’s Foreword to the first edition was replaced with a preface by Herbert Read, now an internationally-esteemed aesthetician. Read asserts that Yee “has greatly extended our knowledge, not only of Chinese art and civilization, but also of art and civilization in general. He is one of those rare foreigners who help us to understand ourselves.”43 Significantly, he draws an analogy between the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy and Western modern art: What specially interested me when I first read Mr. Chiang’s book was the analogy between this aesthetic and the aesthetic of modern “abstract” art. I use the word “analogy” because modern artists in general have not made their principles sufficiently clear (by the perfection of their works), and as a result the public is still confused and even antagonized by such art. I believe that the best of the Western abstract artists are groping in the right direction, and a great painter like Paul Klee had certainly found the illumination that comes from a perfect understanding of abstract beauty. But so many abstract paintings are “designed and motionless shapes”; of how few could one say, as Mr. Chiang says of a Chinese character, that if any part had been wrongly placed the whole would appear to totter?44

Read, “one of the first enthusiasts on this book,” believed that Chinese Calligraphy would “provide visions” to many artists “in connection with the modern art movement.”45 Yee was thrilled with the preface, especially the analogy, which he thought was “full of insight and stimulation.”46 Probably inspired by Read’s affirmation, he took on a rather bold project to explore the similarities between bronze and jade sculpture in Chinese art and Futurist and Cubist arts in the West. This study, he hoped, could help break boundaries and usher in new perspectives on the intrinsic connections between Western modern art and Eastern artistic traditions.47 Only a year and a half had passed since their first meeting in November 1952, but Yee and Whitehill grew much closer through their trans-Atlantic correspondence and conversations. Unlike Whitehill, a historian who presented his ideas and advice gracefully and eloquently, Yee was an artist and poet who tended to be witty and entertaining in his letters. The letter he sent from Parcevall Hall exemplifies his ability to dramatize and capture the attention of his audience: Before I came north I meant to send you a copy of THE SILENT TRAVELLER IN YORKSHIRE [DALES] in order to introduce to you the Hall I am staying at the moment. I did not manage to do it, but you will have it after I am back in

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Oxford. The main part of this Hall was built in 1671, situated on the top of a hill and surrounded by the wide expansion of the Yorkshire moors. Before 1671 it used to be a monastery and many monks were buried underneath. Last night I thought some of them, who were buried directly underneath my bed, wanted to come up for a chat with me, so I kept myself wide awake the whole night while the April shower and wind were howling and whirling round the building all the time. If you have seen the Hollywood picture “Wuthering Heights” in the Yorkshire Moors, you will be able to understand what I mean. You may come and see England one day. If so, I shall be very happy to take you here for a weekend. I am sure that my friend, Sir William Milner, will be delighted to have you. This is a provisional arrangement.48

Yee felt comfortable confiding to Whitehill his difficulties and thoughts; the latter, sympathetic yet never condescending, reliable yet never manipulating, was attentive and responsive to all of Yee’s requests with sound advice and expeditious assistance. As their friendship grew, formality seemed a cumbersome hurdle in their communication. Yee addressed the Whitehills by their given names—Jane and Walter—in his letter of April 27, 1954 and proposed that “it is time that you should just call me YEE!”49 Whitehill embraced the idea with joy and switched to the friendlier term immediately. In Whitehill, Yee observed some remarkable qualities: honesty, kindheartedness, prudence, erudition, and a familiarity with the high circles. Yee felt an obligation to Whitehill for his friend’s tireless efforts to get Chinese Calligraphy reprinted. “Without your help I doubt if Chinese Calligraphy would be on sale today. I owe much to you.”50 The two discussed Yee’s future plans in America, concerning his writing and publications. They talked about their dissatisfaction with John Day and about Yee’s New York literary agent, Paul Standard. Yee expressed his wish that, someday, Whitehill might help with his future works in America. In February 1955, Whitehill began to act as Yee’s literary representative in the United States. Yee informed John Day’s president, Richard Walsh, of this decision and then sent his contracts to his new agent. Whitehill graciously accepted the role but refused to accept the proposed share of Yee’s commission fee. “I would much prefer not to follow your suggestion that I take the customary fee of 10 percent, but to work instead purely as a friend. Should I be put to any expense which would only arise if it became necessary to make a special trip on your behalf—I would willingly deduct the amount involved (always within the 10 percent limit) from the royalty account, but otherwise I would prefer that money should not be involved.”51 Faithfully, competently, and persistently, Whitehill represented Yee for the next two decades as literary agent. He communicated and negotiated with the publishers on Yee’s behalf, and he updated the latter on all the latest changes and developments. He never accepted any fee except on rare occasions when he would take a very small amount for reimbursement. To Yee’s gracious appreciation,

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Whitehill replied with genuine sincerity and humbleness: “Your friendship has enriched my life in these past years.”52 In the meantime, Yee was cautious and shrewd in handling this delicate relationship with John Day. In 1952, as he prepared for a visit to the United States, John Day wrote letters to the British Treasury and the American Embassy in London to make financial arrangements and secure a visa for him. The publisher also agreed to pay royalties—those already accumulated and in advance—for his needs during the trip. With their letters of support and financial assurance, Yee succeeded in obtaining his visa. Though resentful to Walsh for the perceived mishandling of his business, Yee felt that he owed the company “a moral kindness” even though it had never offered him any extra payment. He saw it as his “obligation” to allow John Day to consider his books, especially the Boston book. In his heart, he feared that an abrupt termination of his relationship with the publisher could result in unpleasant complications.53 In March 1954, Whitehill introduced to Yee his “old and dear friend,” Storer Lunt, president of W. W. Norton and Company, who would be in England on business that month. Whitehill had told Lunt that Yee and Methuen were “not particularly pleased” with their present American arrangements with John Day, and Lunt expressed his enthusiastic interest in Yee’s works. Whitehill believed that Norton, a small-sized but energetic publisher, would be a perfect match for Yee’s publication needs in North America. If properly arranged, Lunt indicated that he would consider publishing all future Silent Traveller volumes, as well as securing American rights on the earlier volumes. Thus, “the entire series in stock in New York” could be kept “at a reasonable price.”54 Yee replied immediately with a threepage, typed letter. He offered a detailed account of John Day’s assistance in 1952, to which he was bound by “a certain kind of obligation.” He told Whitehill that he had been working “feverishly” on his Paris book, hoping to finish its text by August, and he briefly disclosed a plan he had in mind: [M]y English publisher has agreed to join hand with me to force an issue—say 10,000 copies with about $5 or $6 or the published price for each. (Methuen has always published that much for the English market, as the English population is not as big as the American.) If the opposite side cannot come to these terms, we or at least I can have the freedom to approach others. We think they are entitled to have the first option of PARIS for they have had other titles before, though we did not think they have handled them very well.55

Later that month, Yee and Lunt met in London. The two talked about Yee’s experience and relationship with John Day and the potential cooperation with Norton in the future. “He is a gentleman-publisher,” Yee wrote Whitehill afterward, and “I consider him a friend of mine through you.”56 Yee maintained a business relationship with John Day for the time being and declared, “John Day would be just as good as any other publisher.”57 His experience

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with publishers in the past had taught him that marketing and profit were the common, primary concerns of all publishers. At the same time, he was preparing for a future dissolution of the relationship. In a letter to Richard Walsh, Jr. on November 7, 1954, Yee wrote: It is good of you to say so very clearly in your last letter that “It is simply impossible for us to ‘commission’ you or ‘make an offer’ for your next work.” This must mean that you agree with what I said in my last letter that my last trip to America from October 1952 to October 1953 was undertaken of my own accord and that your firm and I have no obligation to one another. Nevertheless, I must still thank your firm again for having written a letter to the American Embassy in London and another one, similar to that of Methuen’s, to the English Treasury on my behalf, as the publishers of four of my books.58

After highlighting his disagreements with John Day, he stated that the company should help Methuen “by placing a big order to share the responsibility of the high cost as well as to lower the selling price.” If John Day could not accept Methuen’s estimate for his future work, he suggested, it should either find another printer or simply “give up your deal with the author.”59 Walsh probably detected Yee’s intentions and coyly reminded him that he should submit his next book to John Day for consideration.60 The year quickly drew to an end. For Yee, it had gone by relentlessly fast. He was racing against time, worked feverishly, and slept only three hours a night. He was obviously hopeful for a propitious 1955. On New Year’s Day, he received a call to meet Helpmann in London. The meeting eventually dealt him “a terrible blow.”61 During the summer of 1954, Yee was presented with an opportunity to work with Helpmann again. It was Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, and he was invited to design the costumes. The cast included Virginia McKenna as Rosalind, John Neville as Orlando, and Eric Porter as Jaques. The play was scheduled to open in March at the Old Vic Company. London newspapers, beginning in December 1954, published news about the production and announced, “décor by the Chinese artist Chiang Yee.”62 His earlier experience designing costumes for The Bird had been very satisfying, and he once bragged, “I gained nothing in terms of money, but I thus became the first Chinese to do stage design in the West. When Foujita was the most celebrated in Montparnasse years ago, his popularity was nothing more than this.”63 After discussing the style with Helpmann, Yee accepted the job, signed the contract in September, and “began to work on the subject in earnest.” In October, he completed the design in an Elizabethan-French style, with twelve back-clothes and fifty-four costumes, but it was rejected by Helpmann. At Yee’s request, Helpmann agreed to allow a revision with the assistance of Watteau Benthall, director of the Old Vic. The assurance that Benthall “knows all my thoughts on production” invigorated Yee to continue the work. The revised version, which Benthall liked very much, was completed and then reviewed by Helpmann on December 29. “Charming,

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charming,” he exclaimed.64 It appeared that he had approved the setting and the costumes, except for those of the two female leads. Unexpectedly, on New Year’s Day, at the meeting with Yee, Helpmann abruptly broke the contract and pronounced a cancellation of the original plan. To justify his decision, he accused Yee of having not tried the eighteenth-century Chinoiserie style, which was a style akin to Aladdin in an English pantomime.65 Such wanton disrespect would have been hard for anyone to withstand. Several friends advised Yee to bring it to court since he had a signed contract, but he chose not to wage a legal battle or complain about the unfairness. He simply typed a five-page letter, systematically refuting Helpmann’s accusations and denouncing his opprobrious behavior. “Please ask your own conscience and also the fairness of your British mind,” he demanded. In a controlled but indignant voice, he concluded: I do not want to quarrel with anybody in my life. I still thank you for having asked me to try to do the designs for you. But I would like to repeat my words: Is it necessary for you to accuse me so much for having not done what you expected in order to justify yourself to break the contract with me?66

The Old Vic subsequently apologized and offered a payment of £100 as settlement.67 This was a pathetically trivial amount compared to the emotion, time, and effort that Yee invested in the project. He had devoted many hours and designed almost three full sets of costumes for the play. He had also put aside his work on the Paris book, which would otherwise have been completed. In addition, an art gallery and two publishers had approached him during this time because they were interested in exhibiting and publishing his designs for the play after it was staged. Obviously, these opportunities evaporated with the cancellation of his designs. Furthermore, he felt humiliated. It was a major setback in his career. He fell ill and stayed in bed for a whole week in Oxford. There was neither protest nor renunciation; he only mentioned the incident to a few friends, such as Whitehill, Brooks, and Yang. The anger was buried in his heart, and he soon moved on. Despite this unfortunate incident, 1955 marked a turning point in his life: he was to lecture on Chinese culture as an adjunct professor of Chinese at Columbia University in New York. Two of his good friends—Dr. Louis M. Hacker, dean of the School of General Studies, and Professor L. Carrington Goodrich, chair of the Chinese and Japanese Department—made the arrangement for him. He was going to teach “Introduction to Chinese Literature” at the School of General Studies in September 1955. For an annual honorarium of $1,000, he was to lecture two hours per week, and devoted the rest of the week to writing, painting, and traveling.68 A teaching career in the United States was an ideal opportunity for him. During the war, Harold Macmillan, a British political adviser in Algiers, made the famous remark that Britain should become Greece to America’s Rome. His prediction that the inevitable British decline would be met with an American rise proved accurate

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during the postwar era. The British Empire reached its peak in World War I and was no longer on equal footing with the other major world powers. The United States, meanwhile, had exerted its increasing influence and grown to be a world leader after World War II. It financed the rebuilding of Europe and Japan and helped guide the creation of new German and Japanese states.69 As far as Yee’s writing career was concerned, America was the perfect choice for him. Before 1947, he had produced one book per year. Since that time, the demand for his books in Britain began to wane. There was “a limit to everything within the British Isles,” he complained.70 By August 1955, Methuen had sold twenty-six thousand copies of his Oxford book and twenty-three thousand copies of the Edinburgh book. Comparatively, his New York book was a huge success in England with twenty thousand copies sold.71 However, publishers in England were not keen to promote his books on American subjects. Though over fifty years old, he still had “great energy and the fighting spirit to work” as hard as he could.72 He felt that he could sustain his creative energy and continue to be productive in America. His ambition was to “bring out ten travel books on American subjects.”73 Yee believed that teaching at Columbia would be a worthy and psychologically gratifying venture. Confucian tradition credits teaching with premier honor. However, to find an academic position at Oxford University was virtually impossible, because he lacked formal teaching training and an advanced educational background, though he had accumulated a dazzling array of publications and other accomplishments. In this respect, it was enviable that his friend Hsiung had become the first Chinese faculty member and lectured on Chinese drama at the University of Cambridge from 1950 to 1953, before going on to the University of Hawaii as visiting scholar for a year and then to Singapore as Dean of the College of Arts at Nanyang University in 1954. Columbia, located in central Manhattan, was a preeminent national center for education and scholarship. On its faculty were many great minds, including Jacques Barzun, Mark Van Doren, Lionel Trilling, I. I. Rabi, and John Dewey, who had lectured and taught in China and introduced pragmatism to the Chinese. A large number of influential contemporary intellectuals in China were trained at Columbia, such as historian Hu Shih, diplomat Wellington Koo, financier T. V. Soong, and philosopher Feng Yulan. To join the faculty at Columbia and be associated with the Ivy League institution would be a supreme honor. His visa application turned out to be an exceptionally complicated and excruciating process. Since 1949, all Chinese nationals overseas had lost their formal connections and become a class of stateless residents. At the time, Yee held an English Certificate of Identity, and the validity of this travel document was restricted to a year. To apply for a non-immigrant visa from the embassy, he was required to hold “a passport valid for not less than six months beyond the intended length of stay in the U.S.”74 For this reason, he applied for a six-month extension to his travel document from the British Home Office, which proved to be an issue extremely difficult to resolve. He was also required to prove that he had sufficient financial resources, in addition to the meager income from teaching

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at Columbia, to support himself. He had his savings from royalties, and he could earn money through lectures and postcard prints in America. However, because of the stringent postwar money regulations, he needed to obtain permission from the British government and his publisher in order to use his own royalty earnings in America. Yee once again turned to Whitehill for help and explained the two thorny issues he faced in visa application. Whitehill contacted his friend William R. Tyler at the Department of State, who in turn requested that the U.S. Embassy in London expedite the process so that Yee “will have the minimum amount of worry and paper pushing.”75 Whitehill wrote numerous letters, offered advice, updated Yee on the progress, and contacted Tyler, Methuen, the British government, and others in regard to the issue. In the midst of his anguish and anxiety regarding the bureaucratic labyrinth of the visa process, Yee continued writing the Paris volume. Its text, fifty chapters across more than six hundred typed pages, was finally completed in late February. He then began to make the illustrations, which were about two hundred in all. The work was so intense that he had to turn down the BBC’s invitation for a fifteen-minute talk on the Home Service. He was “hard pressed with work at the moment” and was to be “fully occupied for the next months.” He suggested that they contact Innes Herdan, who was living with her family near Bristol.76 Yee sent the first fifteen chapters of his newest manuscript to Whitehill. The latter, delighted with anticipation, ruminated on his own experiences in Paris as a bachelor and then with Jane as a married couple. They stayed at the Hotel du Quai Voltaire, overlooking the Seine. Even though he had not been back for many years, he wrote to Yee, “I shall delight in tramping its streets again in your shoes.”77 Yee replied, “I wish you could have told me before about your and Jane’s experience at the Hotel du Quai Voltaire in Paris. I had often walked along the Quai Voltaire and could have easily brought you both into the book. What fun it would be! Never mind. You will be constantly with me in my future travels, I hope.”78 He often included names of his friends and acquaintances in his travel writings. While the inclusion of these names lent a touch of realism and vividness to the narrative, it also helped to deepen these friendships. On April 12, Yee sent a long letter to Whitehill, revealing his “mental torture” and underlining the importance of his upcoming trip to the United States: But I can never foresee things these days, for I have fallen into a position beyond my own knowledge. If you don’t mind, I would like to tell you what has been troubling my mind and a kind of mental torture—since my return from your country. It is the present international situation. It should not affect me really. I have long left my country and did not want to have anything to do with politics since 1933. Most of my compatriots left England when the new regime was officially recognized. Those who remain are in agreement with the new. As I have no desire of returning and no more ambitions whatsoever in political

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matters, I need not bother about either side. Unfortunately I have made a little name in this country and become one rather sought of (as there are only few Chinese in England except a number of restaurateurs and laundry men). I do not wish to see or talk to people, particularly my compatriots, on any other subjects except what I am interested myself. But it is difficult to refuse seeing callers, for England is not big. The new regime has their representative in this country from last autumn and it has made my movement more difficult each day. That is why I have not been able to work very well since my return owing to this kind of mental torture. It is also why I would like to come to your country again if possible. I think you will be able to see my point and can understand if I say that if I cannot come to your country this year, I shall not be able to come at all in future. I was an active member of the Nationalist party since 1924 and became district governor in four districts for four years. . . . Please just keep this in mind.79

He had been consistently circumventing politics for more than two decades. He was therefore annoyed when Robert E. Cantwell, during an interview, repeatedly asked about his life between 1918 and 1933 and about his political career in China. “This is the part of my life I have tried hard to forget, for there were much complications in Chinese politics some 20 years ago.”80 Though he had consciously distanced himself from the Nationalist government, he had no trust in the Communist government either. Suddenly, with formalized diplomatic relations between Britain and China, he felt as though he were under the supervision of the Communist government. His delicate, self-constructed, apolitical personal space seemed besieged from all sides. “I would prefer to be left alone. The trouble is that England is so small and I could not easily find a place to hide and to work on my own way without my mind being disturbed.”81 Whitehill offered sincere consolation. “I can well understand your unhappiness in England at the present time. From my years in Spain I know how trying it is to avoid compatriots whose interests and ideas are alien. From this point of view, as well as from many others, I would feel far happier to have you here than in England.” He assured Yee that new opportunities “which might prove attractive” will be available in America.82 In another letter, Whitehill discussed his family’s plan to buy a piece of land in Vermont, where they would love to give Yee some space to build his own house. To that notion, Yee responded: I have always hoped to design a house for myself and also to design my furniture as well as to do my own interior decoration. But I cannot be certain about this now for there will be practical difficulties. What I want now is a biggish hut, a bed, a large table, a chair and plenty of sunshine. However, I was born near the bottom of a very famous mountain in my country, famous since 1st century b.c. I have always felt happy and healthy whenever I was near a mountain and

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among rocks and streams. If possible I look forward to spending the rest of my days in Vermont.83

A dramatic turn of events occurred in late June. The British government— “with the traditional magnanimity of Great Britain in regard to distinguished foreigners”—granted Yee citizenship.84 This unexpected development brought his stateless status to an abrupt end. With a British passport, he could easily travel around the world. On July 5, upon hearing the news, Whitehill dispatched his congratulatory note: “It gives me singular pleasure to greet you not as ‘an imaginary Scot’ but as a genuine Briton. I am delighted that the government has offered you British citizenship and that you have accepted, thus rescuing you from the endless nonsense of papers that hounds stateless persons. As a compatriot of Sir Winston Churchill you will be able to bark and snap appropriately at the bureaucratic-minded, whether here or abroad.”85 At that time, Yee’s son Chien-kuo had just opened his own printing shop, named “The Rayden Press” in Seven Kings, twelve miles outside London. He was about to marry a girl from St. Helier, capital of Jersey in the Channel Islands. He himself had lived there after graduation in the summer of 1951. His college friend, a Jersey native, invited him to spend the summer on the island, known for its soothing climate and lush surroundings. The friend’s family owned a local printing company named Collins Ltd. They offered Chien-kuo a job, and he, fresh from college, took the opportunity and settled down on the island. He was the only Chinese resident in St. Helier, but he did not experience discrimination and felt quite comfortable. The local residents were friendly and not very formal. “I only felt novelty,” he recalled. He loved sports, especially table tennis, so he joined the table tennis club and made many friends.86 Among his new friends was Barbara Muriel. Her grandfather had moved to Jersey from Essex in the 1890s. He married a local girl and later served in World War I. Since the late 1920s, Barbara’s father, born on Jersey Island, had been a chauffeur for a local family and traveled frequently with them to London where they owned property. He eventually resigned and stayed on the Island with his own family right before the German blitz on London. Postwar Britain faced a serious shortage of school teachers, so Barbara went to a teacher’s training college in 1950 and specialized in remedial English education. She graduated in two years with a certificate and began teaching in a local school.87 There was clearly a mutual attraction between Barbara and Chien-kuo. Barbara, strikingly beautiful, vivacious, and educated, caught Chien-kuo’s eyes immediately. Likewise, Chien-kuo appeared handsome, energetic, and unique to Barbara. Older than other members of the club, he was apparently more mature and interesting. He had experienced different cultures, and Barbara found him fascinating and fun to be around. Their relationship grew and deepened, and they got married in April 1955. The couple then moved to Seven Kings, where Barbara assisted Chien-kuo in running

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the printing shop, which was renamed “The Silent Traveller Press.” With his own printing shop, Chien-kuo could help print special orders for his father or friends, such as Christmas cards or postcards. Yee, however, did not approve of the marriage. Even though he had been overseas for two decades, he still embraced conventional Confucian ideals of the family. He expected reverence, humbleness, and prudence in women, especially those in the household. Barbara, outgoing, educated, and headstrong, could hardly fit this role. She accosted him with a casual “hello” and never called him “Dad” or “Baba.” He could speak to his son in Chinese only when she was not present. When she was around, he had to switch to English in order not to alienate her. Yee found this extremely uncomfortable. To his mind, a blonde-haired daughterin-law would never be able to fully appreciate Chinese culture and customs. He tried to talk Chien-kuo out of the relationship, but his son blatantly refused. From Chien-kuo’s perspective, Yee, who did not have a happy marriage himself, showed no empathy toward his son.88 Frustrated, Yee shared his feelings with a few close friends, both Chinese and English. By comparison, his friends seemed more willing to accept Chien-kuo’s marriage. Abel William Bahr, an art collector and historian, affirmed: “I really think it is a good omen in the present evolution of the world that your son is going to marry a blonde; as you say, gentlemen prefer blondes.”89 Yang Lien-sheng sent $10 to Chien-kuo as a wedding gift. Nevertheless, the excruciating agony of helplessness was obvious in Yee. He sent a poem with a long note to Wang Chichen, a friend at Columbia: I became silent twenty years ago; I am now even more silent plus deaf. My children are said to have married by themselves; Do not expect that the foreign girl would call me Father. In early April my older son captured a Blonde and made his decision to marry her. In May last year, my older daughter was married in China by herself. Who really cares for this Old Man? Soon after leaving China I changed my name to “Zhong-ya” and “The Silent Traveller.” I meant to attend to my own course and avoid socializing. But how could I stay free from food, clothing, and shelter?90

He felt his age creeping upon him. Aging, a natural, inevitable process, became a challenge, bringing out a level of forlorn anxiety. He realized that his memory was not as good as before. He was not able to stay with his children, two of whom were now married. On top of that, his dental problems persisted for several years, and, from late 1954, he had to extract all his teeth. He was so temporarily debilitated that he had to turn down BBC’s invitation for a radio event in February.91 He had also lost a few close friends of a similar age, such as Sun Moqian and Tsui Chi. The death of his friend Xu Beihong was a devastating loss. He had, in fact, received a picture sent by Xu, with an inscription on the back,

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I have been sick in bed without shaving my beard for four months. To Chung-ya for keeping, Beihong, June 1953

Three months later, in September, Xu Beihong died in Beijing of a cerebral hemorrhage. For nearly twenty years, the two had kept correspondence, exchanging opinions on modern art and Chinese traditional art. Xu, a world-class artist, believed that a Chinese artist should have a solid training before experimenting with new styles. Yee highly respected him and shared many views with him on traditional Chinese art, modernity, and Chinese art in the modern world. Since he lived in Britain, Yee purchased books and other art materials for Xu. The latter trusted him and even planned to ask him help to sell his paintings in the West. Xu’s passing dealt a blow to Yee from which he never fully recovered.92 On September 9, Yee boarded the Mauretania in Southampton. He knew that there were hurdles on his path ahead. He had “no proper teaching training” and knew “very little about phonetics.” “But I am willing and eager to learn,” as he told Wang Chi-chen before his departure. “I am a very conscientious worker. Whatever work I am to undertake, I would like to do it well, unless I am handicapped by my natural defect.”93

chapter 11



Americanized

Yee arrived in New York on September 15, 1955. After staying overnight in King’s Crown Hotel near Morningside Drive, he moved to an apartment on West 114th Street. A month later, he moved again to 165 West 91st Street, sharing an apartment with Chu Linsun, a Chinese medical doctor. The first letter he received upon arrival came from Whitehill, who invited him to a weekend stay with the Olivers at Mount Kisco, north of Manhattan, on September 23 and 24. In the letter, Whitehill implored Yee to consider writing a review of The Art of Beatrix Potter by Anne Carroll Moore. He sought this opportunity for Yee after a discussion in late August with his good friend Francis Brown, the book review editor for the New York Times. Whitehill knew that Yee would be reluctant because of his tight schedule, yet he reasoned that the New York Times paid generously and that book reviews would help him gain more readers and increase his own book sales. “Hence I regard this as a matter of considerable importance.”1 Yee took the advice and contributed his review “With an Appeal to the Heart,” which came out in November. Beatrix Potter, known for her enchanting children’s books, set many of her stories in the English Lakes. Yee met her after the publication of his first Silent Traveller book in 1938. He recalled how he discovered The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other books by Potter during his early days in London. He briefly spoke of Potter’s accomplishments and then made some precise and insightful observations about her life and creativity. He noted the dynamic interchanges between the text and illustrations in her works: “Writing and illustration are fused in her works to a greater degree than they are in the works of any comparable author-artist I know. What words cannot convey is revealed in the pictures which leave the story to be told by the words. And both words and pictures are permanently memorable.”2 It was a short but engaging piece. During the next few years, Yee wrote six more reviews for the New York Times, all related to Chinese culture or art. Because of New York’s proximity to Boston, Yee was able to visit his friend Yang 170

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Lien-sheng in Cambridge every few weeks. He consulted Yang about his teaching, family issues, and writing plan. Indeed, out of respect for Yang’s scholarly insights, Yee occasionally sent his lecture notes to Yang for comment and review. The Yang family had recently moved to their new house on Sacramento Place. They received friends and visitors almost every day. The family warmly welcomed Yee to stay and dine with them at any time. They treated him like a family member, and their children regarded him as their “No. 1 Uncle.” Yee compiled a new collection of Chinese poems in 1956. Entitled Chung-ya jueju baishou (One Hundred Poems by Zhong-ya), it was thread-bound in the traditional Chinese book design. Calligrapher and artist Chung-ho Chang inscribed the book title. To that collection, Yang Lien-sheng and Tsun-jen Liu of Hong Kong University contributed the Foreword and Postscript, respectively. Both of them celebrated Yee’s natural style and approach to his subject. “Yee mostly writes about nature and human emotions,” Yang notes, “and, like beautiful adolescent girls, his poems hold a kind of simple and pure beauty.”3 Yee also became a frequent visitor to Van Wyck Brooks’s enormous house in Bridgewater, Connecticut. He was, as Gladys described, a “migratory bird,” whom they generously and warmly sheltered whenever he “alighted in the vicinity of Bridgewater.” Yee was a “perfect guest.” He often stayed in his room after breakfast, concentrated on writing, and emerged before lunch for a slow stroll with Brooks. In that old New England village, amidst a most pastoral setting, these two writers from entirely different backgrounds talked about nature, flowers, childhood, and Chinese philosophy and culture. Brooks’s mind was thoroughly engaged in “easy, happy communication with that of Chiang Yee.”4 On Brooks’s seventieth birthday, February 16, 1956, Yee sent a congratulatory message prepared in beautiful script: Confucius said that at 40, he had no more perplexities. At 50, he knew what was the bidding of Heaven. At 60, nothing he heard disturbed him. At 70, he could follow the dictates of his own heart.5

Brooks studied the wisdom of the Analects in childhood and had followed a lifelong pursuit of harmony with himself and the world. Yee identified him as a “true Confucian scholar . . . by Confucius’ own definition of a true gentleman.”6 Yee’s teaching at Columbia began on October 5. It was an evening class, underenrolled with only four registered students. That the course was subject to possible cancellation was unnerving to Yee, even though Yang had promised him free room and board in Cambridge if that were ever to happen. Luckily, another student enrolled in the class, and four others chose to audit. The class only met one evening per week, so Yee was free to utilize his time for other social engagements. The China Institute in Manhattan—founded by Hu Shih, John Dewey, and Paul Monroe in 1926—was the oldest cultural organization in the United States devoted to educating the public about China and Chinese culture. The institute invited many distinguished Chinese writers, artists, and scholars to give lectures, including Mei Lanfang, Chao Yuen-ren, Pearl Buck, Lao She, Lin Yutang, and Yang

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Lien-sheng. Its director, Meng Chih, invited Yee to give a series of six lectures on Chinese art, calligraphy, and poetry starting in November. In addition, Yee was already committed to lecture in New Jersey the following summer and at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. It did not take long before he discovered that life in New York in particular and in the United States in general moved like “a non-stop train.” To New Yorkers, life was “a constant struggle”: “the air of New York urges her inhabitants to struggle on. . . . The New York air is full of vitality.”7 He was caught “in the whirls of New York life,” dazzling, imposing, and invasive. “I find New York life too much for me,” he complained. “I can go to a party every day, but I just have no time for writing and painting.” On Thanksgiving, for example, he stayed with the Van Wyck Brooks family in the morning and rushed back to be the guest of honor at a club in New York at 2 p.m. He was simply “haunted round the parties in one type after another.” Even a visit to Cambridge during Chinese New Year bothered him, for possibly being “tied up with the Chinese community there.”8 Privacy and silence were his preferences, and he would much rather stay in a quiet place all by himself, reading, writing, and drawing. He knew, though, that attending social functions and entertaining people was in fact essential in networking and securing a foothold in this new country. Yee’s appointment at Columbia University was not entirely satisfying. It was a temporary position, and he was hoping for a stable position that would entitle him to a longer stay in the United States. In November, he was already considering other opportunities when Columbia informed him of its interest in extending his contract for another year—with the same terms and payment. Whitehilll was sympathetic to Yee’s situation, and he hoped to bring Yee to Boston to write and paint. He contacted his brother-in-law, John Coolidge, director of Harvard’s Fogg Museum, for a part-time job on Yee’s behalf. With museum work experience in England and expertise in Chinese art, Yee could do “some very useful work” for the Fogg.9 The arrangement did not work out, however, since funds were unavailable for such a hire. In the meantime, Wellesley College in Massachusetts was interested in offering him a post, yet there would be no payment except for free room and board. In November, at Whitehill’s suggestion, Yee submitted a fellowship application to the Bollingen Foundation to study Chinese paintings in the collections of American museums. He proposed to catalog the paintings and discuss their styles and merit, with the ultimate goal of writing a “large, liberally illustrated book” about Chinese art, which “will be a great contribution to knowledge.”10 Whitehill offered invaluable advice and wrote a reference for him, but he failed to get the fellowship. Nevertheless, his ties with John Day were tactfully severed in early 1956. This was done largely with Whitehill’s assistance. “A certain amount of growling seems to be required in the present situation,” Whitehill sensed. A self-proclaimed novice literary agent, he believed that he could “at least growl more offensively than Yee can (or will) do.”11 He managed to maneuver through the intricate minefield dexterously and diplomatically without a growl. Fear

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of a loss in profit ultimately proved to be the only way to force John Day to withdraw its hold on the Paris book and other Silent Traveller titles. Methuen notified Whitehill of the price for the Paris book, which turned out to be a 25 percent increase over the Edinburgh, New York, and Dublin books, on account of rising production costs. Whitehill then wrote John Day to discuss the price increase. Emphasizing that the American retail price of $7.50 versus the British 21s had been largely responsible for the failure in sales of Yee’s early books in the United States, Whitehill warned that the Paris volume, though larger than its predecessors, should be priced no higher than $6 to ensure its success. He was rather “disappointed” a few days later to discover that Richard Walsh still expressed an interest in the book and requested to have the manuscript sent to him “right away.”12 After he reviewed the manuscript, Walsh appeared somewhat frustrated. Methuen’s quote for the book was approximately £1.50 per copy, and this meant that John Day’s profit margin would be nil if the book were priced at $6. He asked if Methuen could reduce the price or print the colored plates and cover in England and have the text printed and bound in America. Alan White flatly rejected this idea. In late February, Whitehill visited Walsh in New York. “I spent an hour with Walsh and was saddened to discover that he was, in the first place, such a pleasant fellow; and in the second, that the whole firm had a general air of something asleep inside a forest.”13 Whitehill knew that Walsh would not be able to publish this volume without a loss. He knew also that Walsh was “clutching at every straw” before giving it up. On March 16, the day after the agreed deadline, Walsh, dispirited and hopeless, replied, “I am afraid we must give up, as you and I both expected.”14 He had made calculations and concluded that the book was “uneconomical” for his company because it could only break even—or, at most, make $0.30 per copy—with a $6 cover price. Whitehill shared the news of their long-awaited victory with his friend Lunt as soon as Walsh’s letter arrived. Walsh has “thrown up the sponge on the Silent Traveller in Paris,” he wrote. “I am now perfectly free to discuss anything that you wish to do about Yee’s future works.”15 Whitehill immediately set out to get matters under way. He updated White on the change and hoped that Methuen would assist Norton to ensure publication of the Paris volume “at a reasonable price, but without loss.”16 He also negotiated the royalty with Norton. Due to close figuring on the book, Norton was unable to offer the royalty on a sliding scale as Whitehill wished. However, Whitehill assured Yee that Norton, with its willingness to cooperate and communicate, was apparently a far more pleasant and worthy publisher to work with. For the initial installment, Norton ordered 7,500 copies for the domestic American market. By the time these books were shipped from England in early October, it had already received more than three thousand customer orders. Early in 1956, Whitehill mysteriously asked Yee to keep June 11 open, but gave him no specifics. Only after receiving Whitehill’s letter, dated February 22, did he realize that he had been invited “to serve as Orator at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa” on that day.

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Phi Beta Kappa is the preeminent honorary society for the liberal arts, and the Harvard chapter, established in 1781, developed the tradition of inviting a poet to read an original poem and a scholar or public figure to orate at the annual meeting. Over the previous two centuries, it accumulated a long list of stellar luminaries, including George Ticknor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Quincy Adams, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar,” identified by Oliver Wendell Holmes as the American “intellectual Declaration of Independence,” was the 1837 Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Oration. The only other Asian on the list was Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Nobel laureate. 17 Whitehill and David McCord first discussed nominating Yee for the poet position as early as May 1955, and the idea was later supported by Van Wyck Brooks. Eventually, the Phi Beta Kappa Committee, chaired by McCord, agreed to have Yee as orator and Richard P. Wilbur of Wellesley (who was later replaced by John Holmes of Tufts University) as poet. Yee, “surprised and overwhelmed with the honor,” accepted the invitation graciously.18 Whitehill was instrumental in establishing and promoting him in literary and cultural circles. At his recommendation, Ernest Dodge, director of the Peabody Museum in Salem, appointed Yee as honorary curator of Chinese Ethnology at the trustee meeting in December 1955. Through Whitehill, Yee was also elected to be fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 1956. Though honorable, none of these appointments, to Yee’s mind, was as galvanizing as the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Orator. He immediately set to work on the topic of his speech and proposed both “The Aim of My Travel” and “The Effect of Cross Cultures” to Whitehill. McCord suggested “The Chinese Scholar,” an ambitious but fitting topic that could rank Yee’s speech as a companion piece to Emerson’s. Aware of his niche as an artist and poet, Yee adjusted McCord’s suggestion to “The Chinese Painter,” a topic that would be far more appropriate to his individual background and cultural tradition. In addition, a Chinese painter, held in highest esteem, was by tradition more than an artist—he was simultaneously a scholar, a thinker, a poet, and a calligrapher. Whitehill favored the topic and advised him to incorporate into the speech his thoughts on the effect of cross-cultural interaction. Yee regarded this speech to be “the greatest honor” ever bestowed on him, the single most significant event that marked a milestone in his career.19 He shared the news with his friends, and, in a long and swiftly scribbled letter, he updated Innes about his new life in the United States. “As I am not known here and as America is such a vast country, I have to make a start here all anew. That is why I struggle harder than anybody else. I must for I have no alternative.” “However,” he continued with a tint of smugness, “my little name still can bring me some honour and respect from others on this side of the Atlantic.” He gave a lecture on Chinese painting at the Freer Gallery on March 13, and he was scheduled to give a talk at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in April and the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard in June.20

Chiang Yee in his New York apartment. Courtesy of Chien-fei Chiang.

Chiang Yee in England. Courtesy of Deh-I Hsiung.

Chiang Yee in Scotland, July 1937. Courtesy of Barbara Chiang.

Chiang Yee autographing books in the Boston Athenaeum. Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society.

Zeng Yun. Permission of Jiang Xiaoyan.

Chiang Yee with Chien-kuo, Barbara, and their children, 1965. Permission of Barbara Chiang.

Chiang Yee visiting Chien-fei and Chiao-wen in Taiwan, 1966. Permission of Chien-fei Chiang.

A reunion in Nanchang, China, 1975. Seated, left to right: Cai Jinrong, Zeng Yun, Chiang Yee, Guo Liwen; standing, left to right: Mei Caizhen, Liu Naichong, Jiang Jianlan, Tan Yin, Tan Ling, Tan Ting, Tan Wei, Tan Jusheng, Mei Duanhua, Tan Ting, Jiang Xiaoyan, Pan Lihua. Permission of Jiang Xiaoyan.

Chiang Yee’s birthday party in Meriden, Connecticut, 1977. Permission of Chien-fei Chiang.

Innes Jackson in China, 1936/1937. Permission of Andrew Herdan.

Shih-I Hsiung (left) and Mei Lanfang in England, 1935. Permission of Deh-I Hsiung.

Chiang Yee (left) presenting his painting “Portrait beneath the Camel’s Hump” as a birthday gift to Walter Muir Whitehill, with Jane Whitehill on the right. Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society.

Chiang Yee and Yang Lien-sheng at Harvard. Courtesy of Chien-fei Chiang.

“Horse in Buttermere” from The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (1937). Permission of Chien-fei Chiang.

“Three Stages of My Hair” from A Chinese Childhood (1940). Permission of Chien-fei Chiang.

Stage scene from The Birds (1942). Courtesy of Chien-fei Chiang.

Book cover of The Silent Traveller in Boston (1959). Permission of Chien-fei Chiang.

“An Oriental in Union Square” from The Silent Traveller in San Francisco (1964). Permission of Chien-fei Chiang.

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The last one is a great honour, for they told me that Emerson was the first orator there a hundred years ago and that I am the only second Oriental they have asked, next to Tagore! I must prepare this oration well and write some useful and important thought of my own. I am trying to build me up here and must work harder than ever.21

Yee asked if Innes could write an article summing up his thoughts from his works and life. There were two other people writing a paper and a short article on him, but, in his opinion, neither truly knew him well enough. Innes was the only one who knew “all sides” of him. He suggested that she write an article about him and send it to Harper magazine, Saturday Review, or Newsweek. He had many ideas for book projects and was confident that he could get his writings published. He proposed that, if Innes was willing to cooperate, he would send her the manuscripts for editing and pay her $50 for each book upon publication.22 He consulted Yang Lien-sheng about the speech, and they discussed details about dress and the delivery of the speech. Just a few days before the event, Yang wrote him, offering encouragement and assurance in a typical humorous manner: “Your topic is a very good one, and I am sure that you will not fall into disgrace (Note: there is an insurance fee). When one lectures on his specialty subject, naturally it should be perfectly safe.”23 Yee then wrote Whitehill: “June 11 will be the day of test of my life. I feel uneasy about it, for the honour bestowed on me is too overwhelming. Please wish me luck, you and Jane.”24 He stayed in Lowell House at Harvard University the night before his speech. In the morning, Whitehill, the chief marshal of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, accompanied Yee and Elliott Perkins, master of Lowell House, to Harvard Yard where the faculty and Deans assembled. Yee walked in a long procession to the Sanders Theater that was led by a fife-and-drum corps, Whitehill, President Nathan Pusey, and other school officials and faculty. After Van Wyck Brooks delivered the presidential address and John Holmes read his long poem “The Eleventh Commandment,” Yee approached the podium and gave his speech “The Chinese Painter.” Dressed in a long gown, a Chinese traditional costume, he appeared distinct from everyone else on stage who wore academic caps and gowns. He began with an evocation of Emerson’s speech “The American Scholar” and underlined the similarities between his background and Emerson’s: Emerson was born in 1803, and he was born in 1903; Emerson first visited England in 1833, and he reached England in 1933. From that point on, however, the two diverged. Unlike Emerson, who quickly “returned to America to stress the distinct qualities of the American scholar,” Yee stayed in England, learning the English language and cultural aspects of the West. By and by I saw new things more clearly. I began to find myself turning into a modern man. A modern man, to my way of thinking, is a product of mixed cultures. Basically I am body and soul Chinese, but my twenty years’ stay in England and my contacts with other parts of the world have brought me some

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chiang yee understanding of occidental cultures. I have found myself readily accepted, and not as an interesting heathen but as a fellow human being who may have something to contribute. Time has wrought the change. Only in recent years have peoples ceased to look upon each other as peculiar. I am happy to have been born exactly a hundred years later than Emerson. Through my study of Western civilization and modern art, no matter how little I may know of them, I see the Chinese painter playing his part in the evolution of the civilization of the world. My theme is to examine the possibility that Chinese pictorial art will interweave itself with the world art of the future and the word “Chinese” as applied to a painter become a mere qualification of birthplace.25

He discussed the Chinese artist’s approach to the poetic truth of Man and Nature; delineated the Chinese painter’s multiple roles as thinker, scholar, poet, and calligrapher; and addressed Western influences on Chinese painting in the recent past. He expounded “the interdependence of all cultures—a step towards entering the sphere of mutual understanding of all peoples.” The world had dramatically changed during the century since Emerson’s speech, and a Chinese painter “is not, and should not be, isolated from or independent of the rest of the world, for he has his part to play in the cultural evolution of the world.”26 The speech concluded with an emphasis on mutual understanding, a goal opposite to Emerson’s: It is impossible for one culture to hold itself apart from the rest in this modern age of ours. The means available for the transmission of thought, idea, and art are today so many and so swift that even Eskimos have little excuse for cultural isolation. We modern men are the products of the crossing of cultures, and it does not become us to make much of our differences. Beneath the schools and techniques lies the poetic truth of Man and of Nature, the basis of all civilization. Our goal is different from Emerson’s. It is civilization, rather than national culture, for which recognition is needed.27

With the exceptions of its length and a rushed second half, the speech was deemed a huge success. It was broadcast on the radio later that evening and with great delight he listened to it from Lowell House. He had good reason to be exhilarated: it was an elegant speech with a well-presented viewpoint and gracefully-developed argument. It even won the rare admiration of Chih-tsing Hsia, a China scholar and Yee’s long-time colleague at Columbia, who admitted that it was a very solid scholarly work of considerable value. The speech was published in 1957 in Daedalus, a celebrated journal that Whitehill took over in 1955. Yee ordered five hundred copies. In a light-gray cover, with the words “Phi Beta Kappa Oration delivered at Harvard University on 11 June 1956, Cambridge, Massachusetts” printed under the title and his own name, the booklet served as an embodiment of his work and a crystallization of his theories during the past two decades. He inscribed and disseminated the booklet

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among his friends in England, France, Switzerland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and elsewhere. Following his speech, Yee remained in Lowell House for two more nights to participate in Harvard’s commencement exercises. He then went with the Whitehills to visit Vermont and Maine until June 21. His excitement was somewhat dampened upon his return to New York when he learned of the rejection from the Bollingen Foundation. He had entertained the hope, for the past six months, that the fellowship would allow him to devote several years to the survey of Chinese paintings in American collections. Since he was not awarded the fellowship, he decided to abandon the project completely. “I feel that I should now stick to my own writing and painting on my travels with occasional sideslip on Chinese art and that I should not tread on other experts’ sphere of work.”28 Understandably, Yee felt a mixture of disappointment and anguish. That summer, he gave lectures at New Jersey State Teachers College in Montclair and Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in San Francisco. He was interviewed and found himself on the radio, on television, and in newspapers in San Francisco. His enthusiasm and efforts, which won him admiration and popularity, unexpectedly incurred jealousy and resentment from individuals who taught the same subject areas. To them, Yee seemed to be “an intruder in their field.” Frustrated and bewildered, he questioned, “It looked most odd to me. Why so? I cannot understand.”29 A sympathetic Whitehill offered his solace. In this “wicked world,” he explained, some of those “small-minded,” both Chinese and Westerners, “probably do resent the success that you have with students.” He advised Yee to concentrate on writing and painting, and to finish his Boston book in the spring.30 Overtly, Yee appeared “genial” in public among his circles of friends. He was “an essentially ‘sunny’ person” that people loved to invite to converse with at parties and social gatherings. His friends all purchased his books for themselves or as gifts. In August, while he was in San Francisco, he was invited to have lunch with Edith Cunningham’s sister. Evelyn later reported to Edith that they had a “very pleasant time.” “I agree with you that Chiang Yee is much Americanized. I see little trace of Oxford left. . . . I imagine he is very glad of the Columbia appointment”31 Yee, however, did not find teaching at Columbia particularly enjoyable. His course “Introduction to Chinese Culture” did not draw many students, and he found it difficult to make classes interesting and successful, due to departmental regulations. “I wish to stay in Boston, for I feel that I now belong to Boston,” he wrote in May 1956. “I like to do research work and museum type of work is for me, even if I get much less than what I have been getting now.”32 The same dissatisfaction lingered through the fall. He expressed his frustration in letters to Yang and Whitehill, both of whom consoled him and advised him to stay put while looking for better opportunities. “Whether Columbia employs you much or little, satisfactorily to you or not, Columbia is still a first rate place

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and a desirable base of operations in the academic sense, and . . . if you were to leave there, you should only go to a place at least as good, or better, or else cast yourself adrift from American universities and become a man of letters and painter, relying on the Peabody Museum of Salem as an institutional tie.”33 The Silent Traveller in Paris was set for publication on November 21. A furious and devastated Lunt wrote Whitehilll on November 16 and enclosed a review of the book by Gerald Sykes that was scheduled to appear in the November 18 New York Times. “When you see the smart aleck and really insulting review in the Sunday Times on Yee’s book, your hackles will rise. How the Times could have first, put the book in this reviewer’s hands and second, let it through is beyond me.”34 The review, entitled “A Paris without Fireworks,” was supercilious and blunt. It labeled Yee as stubbornly old-fashioned in ideas and untalented in language. His English style was said to be “adequate but undistinguished,” and his drawings and paintings “charming . . . but on a postcard level.” It concluded that it was Yee’s “mediocrity, in fact, that makes his book interesting” and appealing to “those modest souls whom the present apocalypse has driven underground.”35 Such an averse prelude to the Paris book was hurtful to Lunt, whose company had spared no effort on its first Silent Traveller volume, but it was even more so to the author himself. The review was reminiscent of Mais’s review of the Oxford volume in 1944. Nevertheless, Yee could not afford to be dispirited and dwell on it. He had recently moved from Unit 3D to Unit 14F for more space, but the move had been a “formidable business.” He had many lectures scheduled outside Columbia. “I am prepared for any set-back any time. This is no surprise to me,” he told Whitehill. “But I cannot help wondering if I can go [on] writing for a living without having a job to support me at the same time.”36 Whitehill immediately offered his support. “Almost any fool can write a book if he has a violent enough subject, but very few people can approach a city with the subtlety of understanding that you have shown in ‘Paris.’ Do not be downhearted.”37 Predictably, all other reviews enthusiastically cheered the new volume. Among the titles were “Paris Seen Anew by Wise Oriental” and “Paris Seen through the Wise Eyes of Artist-Traveler Yee.” Sterling North’s concluding paragraphs bring Yee’s writings to a higher level of global peace-making: Could this world be blessed with dozens of talented, well-educated, openminded men like Chiang Yee interpreting each culture in terms of some other culture, perhaps in time we could civilize the millions of shaggy barbarians still making our beautiful planet an inferno of clashing nationalisms and threats of genocide. For a taste of the peaceful blending of cultures which may some day supplant our ardent parochialism and provincial bigotry, spend a few hours with The Silent Traveller in Paris.38

Another review explains why Yee’s travel writing stands out “so far above those of most contemporaries.” While most people carry the “wrong luggage”—“ignorance”

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of the countries and people, “blindness” to beauty, “prejudice” to different ways and foods, and “a whole hatbox full of arrogance”—Yee’s luggage contains “a lively curiosity; a sympathetic understanding of people and an unprejudiced interest in foreign ways and foods; a keen eye for beauty, even in the commonplace; an alert ear, and an instant readiness to leave well-trod paths for strange adventure.”39 Yee dedicated the Paris book to Van Wyck and Gladys Brooks and to Alan and Marjorie White. Regrettably, Marjorie passed away just before the release of the book, and Yee was deeply saddened by the sudden loss. Sir William Hayter, British minister in Paris from 1949–1953, wrote a Foreword to the book. Through William Milner’s introduction, Yee was invited to have lunch with Hayter and then tour the British Embassy on the Faubourg St Honoré. The embassy was a grand building that had been the residence of the Duke of Charost and Pauline Bonaparte before the British government acquired it in 1814. Yee’s narrative in the Paris book seems more confident and dexterous. He draws together many unrelated details and weaves them into a colorful embroidery piece. The fashion style of bonnets and high-heeled shoes in the West is shown to be not very different from the exotic feudalistic tradition of foot binding in China. In both cases, women are victims, gratifying the “attention of the gentlemen” at the expense of physical pain, deformity, and social inequality.40 He writes about snails, a French delicacy, to illustrate a similarity with peculiarities in Chinese cuisine. In “Midsummer Night in Winter,” he writes about a dinner with his friends at the restaurant “Chez Roger,” famous for serving frogs. When the dish is served, the sight of the frogs on the plate triggers memories of a frog dish he’d easten in Shanghai thirty years earlier, his Buddhist grandmother’s admonitions not to eat animal meat, and a Tang Dynasty emperor’s decision to spare frogs. He drifts into a reverie of his childhood days when he and his cousins spent many hot summer nights near the pond, listening to “fantastic stories” about ghosts and spirits while the surrounding chorus of croaking frogs comforted them like a soothing rainfall. He continues to explain that, after the French dinner, he steps outside the restaurant, and the cold penetrates his bones. “I shivered. It was then I realized that it was still January and that Paris was only halfway through her winter. Yet I had just spent a midsummer night.”41 Hayter writes, “Those who thought they knew Paris will find they have missed much, and even the most famous landmarks of the French capital will never seem quite the same to them again.”42 Yee describes visits to a violin bow maker, a string instrument maker in Pigalle, the stained-glass factory at Ingrand, the studio at the Grande Chanmière, cafes, theaters, and many famous museums, galleries, and parks. The Eiffel Tower is described as a modern version of the Basilica of St. Denis, with its legs planted wide apart. In an intriguing analogy, the tower is also compared to the mast of a huge ship, while the twin towers of Notre Dame are said to resemble two piles of hay on a long barge. With the numerous surrounding church spires and domes said to be a collection of ships’ masts, the city, as Yee claims, appears like a scene of the Yangtze River.

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Yee is delighted to perceive China in Paris. He finds the intricate landscape design and picturesque features of Buttes-Chaumont Park evocative of Chinese gardens. He discovers tiny shoes for bound feet in a Paris market and Chinese vase-shaped gates in the park, and he meets some Chinese artists and expatriates. Through his eye, various scenes metamorphose into Suzhou’s Lion Rock Grove, a Buddhist temple in southern China, or a Chinese painting of a hermit under pine trees. The following poem indicates his attempt to wrestle with the homesickness that has become a constant emotional companion. The crag is like another in Eastern lands; Its reflection in the water is more beautiful still. If another scene is just as lovely, Why should I think of Jiujiang.43

His paintings from the Paris book, in addition to some other recent paintings on the American scene, were exhibited at New York’s Beekman Place Bookshop until December 1. At Whitehill’s request, the Paris paintings were subsequently shipped to the Athenaeum for another show to stimulate sales of the book. J. B. Claff, Yee’s art agent, instructed that they could be sold for $200 each. The Paris book fared well. By December 31, nearly 5,600 copies had been sold, and Yee earned $3,312.91 in royalties. In another month, the entire stock of 7,500 was sold out. His books reached a wide audience. According to a sales report in early 1956, his Yorkshire and Oxford volumes sold a total of fourteen thousand and twentysix thousand copies, respectively. For books published in both England and the United States, Edinburgh sold 26,385 (23,600 in the UK and 3,235 in the U.S.); New York sold 31,253 (20,000 in the UK and 11,253 in the U.S.); and Dublin sold 12,184 (10,500 in the UK and 1,684 in the U.S.). One of his children’s books sold close to a quarter of a million copies in a Penguin paperback edition.44 Yee had become an incredibly successful freelance writer. Yang Lien-sheng was one of the few friends that Yee genuinely respected, and the two occasionally had discussions about Chinese cultural issues. Yang was very sharp and frank, and he was never shy from correcting or voicing his disagreement with Yee’s opinions. On February 16, 1957, at Yee’s invitation, Yang and his daughter Lily attended a dinner party in a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Van Wyck Brooks’s birthday. Their mutual friends Gladys Brooks, Mr. and Mrs. John Hall Wheelocks, and Hu Shih were also present. At the dinner, the issue of poetry’s translatability came up, and the discussion continued afterward in their letters. Yang disagreed with Yee, who argued that all poetry was translatable. While contending that not all poetry was translatable, Yang considered it “cultural imperialism” simply to disregard the untranslatable as non-poetry. He also believed that interpretation of the historical past should be contextualized and called Yee “a modern pedantic” who imposed contemporary standards in his evaluation of the past.45 Yang’s comments, occasionally acrimonious and arrogant, always kept Yee’s full attention.

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He knew that Yang’s knowledge of Chinese culture was unrivalled in the West, and his advice was solid and wholesome. Yang, who was sympathetic to Yee’s situation, usually demonstrated tolerance and caring in their relationship. On one occasion, he was concerned when Yee’s letter arrived a few days late, due to the faulty address of “Cambridge St., California,” rather than “Cambridge, Massachusetts.” Yee’s complaints about teaching and publishing caught Yang’s full attention. Sensing that Yee was overstressed and exhausted, he replied at once, offering his compassion. He also attached a dayou poem: A cautious, prudent Silent Traveller, And a magnificent, awe-inspiring county magistrate— Which one is real and which is unreal, I wonder; It is indeed difficult to assess the present and the past.46

During their meeting in New York in May, Yee related that Columbia was planning to extend his position for another year, again with an honorarium only. His course, “Symbolism in Chinese Literature and Art” (formerly, “Introduction to Chinese Literature”), was contingent upon student enrollment, and the school showed no interest in hiring him again in the future. While the Boston book was in progress, Yee complained that writing was a haphazard profession, depending on the mercy of the publisher. At the same time, a return to England promised no better solutions. He was in a dilemma. Yang noted this in his journal entry for the day: “I could offer no help in that regard and feel really woeful.”47 A surge of interest in Eastern philosophy and religion became apparent in the mid-1950s. Daisetz T. Suzuki, a prominent Zen master, gave a series of special lectures on Zen Buddhism at Columbia during its 1954 bicentennial celebration. In 1956, Cornelius Crane formed the Zen Studies Society in New York to assist Suzuki in his scholarly research and publications concerning Zen Buddhism. His lectures and writings, such as Essays in Zen Buddhism, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, and Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, illustrated the illusive simplicity of Eastern philosophy and helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the West. In November 1956, Crane spoke with Yee and suggested a study of Chinese Zen poetry. Yee perceived the significance of this groundbreaking subject, yet he was also well aware that the project would be a considerable challenge. Chinese Zen poetry (or “Chinese Ch’an poetry,” in Yee’s preferred term) was directly and indirectly influenced by the establishment of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism in the fifth and sixth centuries. The relationship between Ch’an and Zen is as follows: The word Ch’an is an abbreviation of the term Ch’anna, a Chinese transliteration of the Indian term Dhya-na meaning meditating and thought reflecting by deep in contemplation. Many Sanskrit words are ended with na. When Dhya-na school of thought in Indian Buddhism transformed into Chinese school of

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Japanese Zen Buddhism, which blossomed and flourished in Japan, did not have a direct connection with Chinese Ch’an organizations. In addition to the wealth of published research in Japanese Zen Buddhism, there were more publications of Chinese Ch’an literature in Japan than in China. A study of Chinese Zen poetry would thus be a scholarly work that, unlike travel writing, required consultation of a vast number of sources in literature, history, philosophy, and religion. He discussed the issue with Yang, who had previously studied Zen writings and theories. Yang encouraged Yee to accept the project. He argued that translating Zen poetry was original and interesting and that the $3,600 grant Crane offered was an excellent remuneration. Yang promised to provide assistance since the Harvard-Yenching Library had a sizable collection of Japanese and Chinese books, many of which were not available at Columbia.49 Nevertheless, he reminded Yee, “Read more; otherwise you might make foolish mistakes. There are myriad allusions in Zen anecdotes, which cannot always be interpreted with ingenious guesswork.”50 Yee took his time before finally agreeing to undertake the project. In response to his related enquires, Yang wrote several letters, discussing Zen philosophy and offering detailed advice concerning the approach to the study, selection of the material, and even the structure of the book. The warm spirit of camaraderie was palpable. “It is a subject interesting to me as well,” Yang wrote. “Those Japanese publications on the subject I will check for you, and I can benefit from the study myself.” He did as promised, and, two days later, he sent five full pages of handcopied Zen poems for reference.51 Yee kept himself in his “New York cell” that summer, writing and painting. He had been engaged in “non-stop activities” for the past two years and now needed to stay focused and free from “any attraction and activity.” He turned down various invitations for lectures and teaching to concentrate on his work.52 On August 18, Chang Shu-chi died of cancer in Piedmont, California. Chang was one of the most talented contemporary Chinese artists, best known for his flower and bird paintings. He first came to the United States in 1941 as a goodwill ambassador of the Chinese government and presented his silk painting of one hundred doves, entitled “Messengers of Peace,” to President Roosevelt. He stayed in the United States, demonstrating and exhibiting his painting to raise funds for China War Relief. After a brief return to China, he came back and settled in California, lecturing on Chinese art and pursuing his art career.

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Chang was a good friend of Yee’s. Both men were artists, and both were accomplished in their own ways. The two showed mutual respect, and Chang’s sincerity and respect were obvious in his last note, which Yee received by mail in September. Tears streamed down Yee’s face instantly. His last visit to Chang was in the summer of 1956 with Mr. and Mrs. Chen Shih-hsiang. Had he not canceled the invitation to lecture at UC Berkeley that summer and thus postponed his visit to the ailing Chang, the two could have seen each other one last time. Chang had completed a manuscript on Chinese painting, which his wife, Helen, a Chinese American who graduated from UC Berkeley, was translating into English. On his deathbed, Chang wrote to implore Yee to help Helen finish the book. “And I will be most grateful in the nether regions.” Yee met his friend’s affection and trust with sincerity and compassion. He sent letters to Helen, promising to do his best to help. “I shall do this purely for my friendship and respect to Shu-chi and also for my promise to fulfill his request in the last letter he left me.”53 On September 13, Yee went to the New York Immigration Office for a visa extension. Due to a new regulation regarding the exchanging-visitor program, he would be allowed another one-year extension, but at the end of that period, he would have to leave the country for two years before he could reapply for a new visa. The immigration officer, who happened to be one of his readers, explained that a viable alternative was to petition for Classification of Quota Immigrant as an “alien whose services are needed urgently in the United States.” Since his visa would expire in two days, he must “act quickly,” that is, to find an individual or institution that could file a strong petition on his behalf within the next few days.54 Yee resorted to Whitehill for assistance. He wrote to explain the difficulty he had encountered: Columbia would not offer help; neither the School of General Studies nor the Department of Chinese and Japanese would care about his visa extension; if Norton became his petitioner, he would have to forfeit teaching at Columbia to concentrate on writing only. He suggested that Whitehill discuss this matter with Ernest Dodge, director of the Peabody Museum. “The only way” to resolve the issue, he explained, was for him to be employed as the curator, and not simply as the nominal “honorary curator.” He felt “ashamed” that, as the “honorary curator” of Chinese ethnology, he had not yet done anything for the museum. He apologized to Whitehill, “I know how busy you always are and I should not trouble you with all these. But you are the only one who really can help me in this matter.”55 Whitehill expedited the handling of this urgent issue. He arranged a meeting in a Cambridge hotel on September 20, at which he and Dodge discussed the matter with Cornelius Crane and Richard De Martino, of the Zen Studies Society in New York. According to the memorandum, the Peabody Museum agreed to employ Yee as “a permanent member of its staff,” and the grant for the Zen poetry project by the Zen Studies Society would be sent to Peabody and then paid to Yee as a salary.

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As such studies are of a type that would interest the Peabody Museum, Mr. Whitehill suggested that in order to consolidate Mr. Chiang’s situation the Zen Studies Society make a one-year grant of $3,600 (payable in quarterly installments) to the Peabody Museum of Salem. The Museum would in turn pay this sum to Mr. Chiang in the form of a monthly salary as Curator of Chinese Ethnology. Under this arrangement Mr. Chiang would carry out the duties proposed by the Zen Studies Society, but in the capacity of a permanent member of the Peabody Museum staff rather than as a private individual. Mr. Crane was agreeable to this suggestion56

Whitehill, as secretary of the Peabody Museum’s board of trustees, filed the petition on September 23. Two letters of recommendation were included—one prepared by Yang Lien-sheng, and the other by David McCord, secretary of the Harvard Fund Council and honorary curator of the Farnsworth and Poetry Rooms in the Harvard University Library. Spurred by a desire for success, torn by multiple writing tasks and social engagements, and beset with doubts and uncertainties related to his career, Yee struggled to stay focused on his work. “Days race by and we are all racing with them,” he lamented. “Nevertheless, in the Central Park a little stream does murmur to one who walks by it. Alas, I have not even been able to listen to one single murmur of it for days! It still murmurs there, I know.” He even wondered “if it is worth my while to rush myself to death.”57 He often found himself easily agitated. “Perhaps I have tried to tackle on too many different things since my arrival in this country. Keeping on switching on one thing after another alternatively proves no good to any one thing and very confusing in my mind. I cannot work out one thing to my satisfaction. Besides, I have found far more human [en]tanglement, or say relation between man and man, in living in this country than I knew it in Oxford. I have been feeling too tired so easily.” Several times he offered apologies to Whitehill for having “not behaved as normally as I usually am.”58 To mark the beginning of his study of Chinese Ch’an poetry, Yee wrote on a piece of paper a large character 禪 (Chan), signed his penname 啞行者 (Silent Traveller), and dated September 1957. He made several trips to Cambridge that year, attending lectures by Shinichi Hisamatsu, a revered Zen master and philosopher in Japan who was a visiting professor of Zen Buddhism at Harvard’s Divinity School. Hisamatsu delivered a series of lectures at Harvard, covering the philosophical and religious aspects of Zen Buddhism and its relation to art and life. During the same academic year, Daisetz Suzuki was also visiting Harvard. Yee corresponded with both masters and met with them in Cambridge. Yee was unable to join the Yang family for Thanksgiving dinner that year. Instead, he sent them a Yunnan ham by mail and attached a dayou poem: I am sending you this authentic Yunnan ham, So that your mouth may enjoy a homecoming.59

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Yunnan ham is a famous delicacy in China. To Chinese overseas, food from their homeland was not merely pleasing to their taste buds; it was a makeshift remedy to mitigate homesickness. In the letter, Yee also requested Yang’s collaboration on the Zen poetry project. Yang’s advice and comments on Zen Buddhism were indicative of his generosity as well as of his profound knowledge and scholarly sophistication. Collaboration with Yang would ensure a smooth progression and high-quality output. However, his request was bluntly declined: In regard to the collaboration, your idea is appreciated. Collaboration might be feasible in the future, but at present both of us are busy. I care for fame more than gain (income from teaching is just adequate for my humble household), yet you covet both fame and gain, and sometimes even gain over fame. Naturally, our views on writing do not agree with each other.60

Yee was upset with the response. He indicated his agitation in the next letter and abruptly cancelled his planned trip to Cambridge for the scheduled meeting with Suzuki, Hisamatsu, and Yang. As a freelance writer, Yee was enviably successful with respect to financial income, but a life dependent on royalties as a major source of income was inevitably precarious and vulnerable. By spring of 1958, approximately twelve chapters of the Boston book had been sent to Lunt for review. Although he showed great interest in the book and for the “excellent color illustrations,” Lunt refused to draw up a contract before the whole manuscript was ready. At the time, Methuen was facing a big hurdle of financial issues, yet Norton insisted on importing the Boston book as they had done with the Paris book. Methuen and Norton, in Yee’s view, offered “very little encouragement or cooperation” concerning this new volume, and neither attempted to find a way to hasten its production. He felt frustrated.61 In January 1958, Harvard announced new faculty wage scales: $12,000–20,000 for full professors, $8,000–11,000 for associate professors, and $6,500–7,500 for assistant professors. The salary at Columbia was comparable. His friend at Columbia, Wang Chi-chen, received a pay raise of $1,000 in 1956 to a total salary of $9,000. Compared to these figures, Yee’s annual honorarium of $1,000 at Columbia was a miserably meager amount. Yee knew that a full-time teaching position could provide a steady source of decent income. With a full-time teaching job, he might be able to bring Chien-fei over from Taiwan. He had reconnected with Chien-fei in 1950 with help from his friends. Chien-fei was serving in the Nationalist army in Taiwan. The military situation in the Taiwan Strait was extremely tense. General MacArthur, supreme commander of the Allied Powers, planned to wage a total war on communist China and asked for atomic bombs to be dropped on North Korea and China. Chien-fei and thousands of other Nationalist troops followed orders and boarded warships, waiting for the attacks on China. Things may have developed very differently had President Truman not removed MacArthur from command on April 11, 1951. Even

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so, it was still a time of uncertainty and despair for Chien-fei. Yee had sent long letters, one after another, offering warm encouragement and detailed advice for him to aspire to a better future and seek higher education in art. He mentioned many success stories of world-famous artists, and he discussed the essential qualities a good artist should possess.62 His letters came like light in the darkness, and Chien-fei always kept them in his pocket. In late 1955, he was promoted to captain. A promising military career appeared a sure path ahead, but he retired the following year to pursue study of art at the Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. Nevertheless, Taiwan was too far away, and Yee wanted to bring Chien-fei to the United States. Yee was now a grandfather. Chien-kuo’s wife, Barbara, had given birth to a boy on July 31, and they named their son Stephen. When Chien-kuo wrote to ask Yee for a Chinese name, he happily complied and chose the name 子東 (Zidong), or “son of the east.” Both of his daughters were now married. Xiaoyan lived with her mother and grandmother in Nanchang and had two daughters.63 Jianlan graduated from college with a major in Chinese and then moved to live in Beijing. Yee sent her a panda painting as a wedding gift when she married in 1957. According to Chinese tradition, the ultimate bliss an elderly man may honorably expect lies in the moment when one holds a grandchild on his lap while surrounded by a large family, with children and grandchildren chatting and laughing freely nearby. Around Yee, though, there were only strangers and inanimate New York high-rises. “In Utmost Low Spirit” is a poem he wrote in early 1958, wherein he registers his unsettling sentiments of displacement. It is not that my country has been conquered, Or my family has been destroyed. But nowhere can my soul find a place to abide, For an alien land is never the same as my homeland.64

Yee often found himself drifting to thoughts of his children and their families, but he kept his heartbroken state of mind largely to himself. The Korean War was over and McCarthy had passed away, but anticommunist ideology continued. Under the Truman Doctrine that divided the world between forces of good and evil, China was openly identified by the U.S. government as “the mighty instrument of Communist power in Asia.” U.S. policy of containment and isolation aimed to restrain the communist influence and continued its unilateral embargo on all trade with China. When China renewed shelling of Quemoy in late August 1958, the Taiwan Strait crisis quickly escalated, and U.S. forces in the area were reinforced. The two countries appeared to be on the brink of war. “U.S. Decides to Use Force If Reds Invade Quemoy,” was the heading of a report in the New York Times.65 Under such circumstances, Yee dared not mention his family in China, and he never expressed his wish to visit the motherland. “Only those who have endured a similar situation would understand,” he claimed.66

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Harvard appointed Yee as Ralph Waldo Emerson Fellow in Poetry for the academic year 1958–1959. McCord worked for nearly two years to achieve this goal, raising $2,000 for the appointment and personally arranging department placement. Yee would be the second occupant of the chair, first held by the poet Robert Frost from 1939 to 1941. Yee was nevertheless reluctant as there were some practical concerns. Logistical arrangements such as packing and moving were expensive and time consuming, and it would be costly to rent an apartment in Cambridge while keeping one in New York. It was only to be a one-year appointment, and he did not want to lose his connections to Columbia. In late April, after Harvard approved the appointment, Whitehill contacted Yee, hoping that he would accept it. The Emerson fellowship, in his words, would give Yee an opportunity to “somehow catch up” with his own thoughts and “feel once more as [he] used to in Oxford.”67 When the official notification from Harvard reached him on June 27, Yee thanked McCord for his persistent efforts which brought about this appointment. In the same letter, he indicated that he wished to seek advice from him and Whitehill on the following matter that had been “haunting” him for the past few weeks: after he informed Columbia of his wish to accept Harvard’s Emerson fellowship appointment a few weeks earlier, both the head of the Department of Chinese and Japanese and the Dean of the School of General Studies wanted him to continue teaching two courses as an adjunct professor during the year. He felt obligated to his colleagues at Columbia since they had initially sponsored his move to the United States, so he wanted to ensure that teaching at Columbia would not conflict with the Harvard appointment. Upon hearing this, Whitehill voiced his concern. Making weekly trips to New York on Wednesdays would be extremely exhausting and time consuming. Besides, the train fare, a substantial fraction of his salary, should at least be compensated. In his view, Columbia, which had been merely renewing appointments “without very generous salary” every year, was exploiting Yee, who was effectively shortchanged for his contributions.68 After deliberation, Yee decided to accept the teaching appointment at Columbia. He wrote to inform Whitehill of his decision: I shall try to continue the courses, though I am aware of the physical strain and effort they may involve. However, I am not too old yet. It is my age of being 55–56 that I cannot expect to get more than an annual appointment if I am lucky enough, particularly when I have no Ph.D. degree. I can say that I feel quite all right with Columbia and do not want to lose my connection with it if I can help. I have no great obligation to Columbia I know, but I use the word “obligation” for it sounds better. I am not an indispensable man like a neuclear [sic] scientist nor a highly-skilled medical doctor. I cannot demand an increase in salary. Friends in Columbia have the courses specially arranged for my sake with great effort and I was paid according to the number of students registered. You must not think of me too highly.69

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He continued, “I am not young and cannot travel as resourcefully as I used to. I have began [sic] to think of my future years. I still keep my rooms and books and clothes in Oxford and shall go back there if I fail to do something here.”70 Yee taught summer school at Columbia. His English friend and art critic Basil Gray came with the family to visit him in New York. “They were shocked by the unacceptable attitude of American people towards him and Chinese people.” Gray observed that “Yee was being snubbed by many Americans and he was at this time not very happy.”71 After returning from a week-long trip to Kansas City in early September, Yee set out for Cambridge and stayed in Yang’s house. The next day, September 13, he went to Lyman H. Butterfield’s summer cottage in Minot, Massachusetts, for Whitehill’s birthday party. At around one o’clock, Whitehill arrived with Jane and a few friends from a motorboat excursion that morning. He must have been genuinely surprised when so many people, nearly two hundred in all, suddenly emerged in front of him and greeted him. He blushed and felt overwhelmed. “I never saw anyone look more like a bear caught stealing from a garbage can,” McCord humorously noted. L. H. Butterfield, on behalf of all friends, presented Walter Muir Whitehill: A Record Compiled by His Friends as a birthday gift. In addition to two short essays by Julian P. Boyd and a poem by McCord, the book contains a chronology of Whitehill’s publications and the services and positions he held. Secretly prepared by numerous friends and printed without Whitehill’s knowing, the book crystallized the heartfelt appreciation and sincere admiration his friends had toward a man who was “so saturated in printer’s ink . . . the writer and editor of so many books and the anonymous midwife of so many more.” Whitehill was recognized as “a master in drawing out the best” in his friends and as one who had “played so large a part in the cultural life of Boston that if he had not existed he would have had to be invented or not a few of the learned institutions of this community might have wilted rather than blossomed anew in the mid-twentieth century.”72 The gift book also contains a portrait of Whitehill prepared by Yee. In the portrait, Whitehill, smoking a pipe and leaning on a camel, enjoys wine outside his country villa beneath the Camel’s Hump in Vermont. The painting is furnished with an inscription: The Whitehills’ country house is called Yi-tuo-ju Facing the clouds and sky since time immemorial, In leisurely hours the owner drinks happily the wine brewed in Scotland, And laughs at Li Po, for he gets more fun out of this than the poet.73 Yi-tuo-ju, meaning “Leaning-on-the-Camel House,” was the Chinese name Yee ascribed to the country villa. He presented the original painting to Whitehill at the party, and he recited the poem in Chinese even though no one present understood it.74 On September 16, Yee moved into a one-bedroom apartment at 22 Brimmer St

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on Beacon Hill, beside the historic Church of the Advent and the Charles Street Meeting House. A couple of blocks away was Louisburg Square, where he had stayed in 1953. The houses in the neighborhood were built of red brick, and the “sedate air and surroundings” were very pleasing.75 Yee had the option of living in Lowell House at Harvard. Whitehill spoke with the acting master of Lowell House on his behalf. The rent for a one-bedroom unit from September to June was a reasonable $700. Yee turned down the offer because of the problem “in the eating”: there was no kitchen or cooking facilities in Lowell House. He felt that going out for meals in the dining hall or restaurants in the midst of writing or painting would be disruptive. His fierce desire for privacy and freedom was another reason: “Being a sort of artist I doubt if I can keep my rooms very clean, nor could I let others tidy up my papers and brushes.” Having a living space for himself without interference was his primary concern. He outlined his ideal apartment as below: I think what I shall do now is to find a small apartment, unfurnished preferable, with a small bed room, a good-sized living room and a small kitchen and bath, and no telephone. I can buy a long working desk and a divin [sic] bed, for I have bought five book cases here and also a small chest of drawers. In the past three years I have accumulated more than a roomful of books, etc. I don’t want to spend much time to furnish the apartment too well, even if I can afford, for I cannot tell where I would be after July 1st, 1959. Nevertheless, I must have a place entirely to myself in Cambridge or its neighbourhood.76

He also explained to Whitehill why he could not move to stay in his house in North Andover: You were most kind to say again and again that I can use your House in North Andover with complete freedom to work and to cook. Unfortunately I shall not be able to live in North Andover for this year. I have a peculiar working habit—while working I must have all my books, sketches and other material surrounding me and I prefer not to see anybody in sight for days. This is a very bad habit I know, but I just cannot alter it. So I doubt if your suggestion, though most kind, is workable in my case.77

Yee’s application for status adjustment was approved on October 1. He could now stay in the United States without worries, and he could travel overseas freely so long as his absence did not exceed one year. He wrote to Whitehill after receiving the permanent resident card in November, “I must thank you again for all your help in making arrangements for me to stay permanently. I am glad that it is now over.”78 He had not traveled outside the United States since September 1955. With his status adjustment, he planned to be back in England the following summer for a visit.

chapter 12



“Invisible Pains”

The year-long Emerson fellowship at Harvard supposedly offered Chiang Yee an opportunity to focus on his writing and painting with minimum disruptions, except for his weekly trips to New York to teach at Columbia. His Boston book was nearing completion, and the Zen poetry project finally got under way. He had done some primary research before the summer and had already made an outline of the book, estimated to be approximately two hundred pages, and he anticipated a completed draft by the end of 1958. He sent an inquiry to the University of London Senate Secretary on October 17 concerning his doctoral degree. He explained that he had enrolled as a student in the London School of Economics in October 1934 and then “worked on Chinese Buddhism for a Ph.D. thesis under the late Sir Reginald Johnston,” who later passed away in 1938. Then the war began, and he lost all his books and papers, including his registration card with the university, in the air strike of 1940. “I am writing this letter to ask if you can possibly find the record of my registration in your file such a long way back and also if you can tell me what steps I must take so as to be allowed to submit my thesis on ‘A Study of Chinese Ch’an (Zen) Buddhist Poetry’ next June.” He enclosed an outline of the contents for the proposed thesis. Yee circumvented the fact that his thesis subject in the 1930s had switched from Buddhism to Chinese calligraphy, out of which developed his successful monograph of the same name. He also neglected to mention that the Chinese Calligraphy manuscript he had written as a Ph.D. thesis was rejected by the department head. He needed an advanced degree to survive in an increasingly competitive academic world. The Zen poetry book would certainly be a solid scholarly work which could conveniently merit a doctorate if the university consented to consider his request. The matter was completely dropped eventually, and he stopped pursuing it further. He never earned a doctorate. So far as he knew, most of the professors of Chinese art in the West were not well-versed in Chinese classics and could not write well on the subject, and few were comparable to him in terms of expertise in Chinese art. Nevertheless, he had been passed over for various job opportunities simply 190

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because he lacked a doctorate, which was similar to a union card in the academic world. To this, he simply exclaimed: “How funny the world is!”1 Suzuki was returning to Japan for his retirement, so Yee made appointments with him to discuss the translation of Transmission of the Lamp. He expressed his reverence and admiration in a letter, stating, “I feel that I have only just begun to receive your guidance in my study of Zen Buddhism. I would like to be with you all the time.”2 Transmission of the Lamp is the most important classical text in Zen studies, but there was, as yet, no English translation. Richard De Martino, a Columbia graduate student who was studying Zen Buddhism with Suzuki, wanted to take on the translation project. He got Suzuki’s endorsement, which suggested that he collaborate with Yee. In the fall of 1957, the two met several times to work on the project, but Yee soon decided to discontinue the collaboration in order to concentrate on his own work. He probably sensed that translating such a monumental work was too exacting a task and that De Martino, a novice in the subject area, could not be much help. In fact, Transmission of the Lamp, a multivolume work, is extraordinarily profound and abstruse. Yee could comprehend only about half of it after reading the entire work twice. Suzuki, an undisputable world-class master in Zen studies, was prolific in scholarly and popular works on religion but also a skilled English translator. In Yee’s opinion, the translation of Transmission of the Lamp should be completed by no one other than Suzuki. If Suzuki were the chief translator, he and De Martino could capably serve as assistants. Yee informed Suzuki, “I am for it whole-heartedly and am even ready to give up my teaching in Columbia after June, 1959, and to do the work for it.” Since his Harvard appointment would end that summer, he could travel to Japan in October 1959, if necessary, to be fully immersed in the project for a year.3 Working and living at Harvard made it convenient for Yee to take advantage of the Harvard-Yenching Library and collect material for the Zen poetry book. It also enabled him to meet Yang more frequently. Yang’s academic career was thriving. Harvard was to promote him to full professor, and he would get a pay raise as a result. The Academia Sinica of Taiwan had nominated him as a candidate for academician. Unexpectedly, misfortune dealt him a blow: he suffered a nervous breakdown. For several weeks, he experienced insomnia and moodiness, and he even contemplated suicide. Yee noticed the changes in him and was deeply concerned. From November 10, he went to visit Yang almost daily. He spent time with Yang, chatting and reading, or they would admire paintings together. They also went with McCord for a drive to the beach in Winthrop. Yee was strongly opposed to the shock treatment that Yang’s physician recommended and therefore urged Yang to stay away from the mental hospital. On November 20, however, Yang’s mental condition deteriorated even further, and he was admitted to McLean Hospital for treatment. Yang remained hospitalized for five months. Jean, whose social circles and English-language skills were limited, felt helpless and distressed. Lily was a student at Radcliffe College, and Tom was only eight years old—too young to understand

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the gravity of the family situation. Yee put aside his work and generously lent his hand to assist. He accompanied Jean to the hospital to visit Yang, and, since neither of them could drive, they usually rode with the family physician, Dr. Shen. On April 17, the day Yang was released, Yee sent him a short letter. We have not written each other for a long time, and this is the first one. First, congratulations on home returning. We are all happy for you. Second, please enjoy peace and a good rest, and take it easy with everything. Third, as you excel in both calligraphy and painting, I hope to get a piece of your artwork. Fourth, please excuse my not coming to see you in ten days.4

He also added, “we might not speak to each other in person for three to five weeks,” and the two began to write and exchange dayou poems again. Yang’s ailment had a profound impact on Yee, who was mentally and physically exhausted. It became nearly impossible for him to concentrate on research, and the Zen poetry book began falling behind the promised schedule.5 All the while, Yee maintained a calm appearance. Even close friends, such as Whitehill and McCord, could have overlooked his disturbed mind. In addition to coping with Yang’s mental health problems, he also dealt with the losses of several close friends. Although deaths and illnesses were heartbreaking, alienation among friends could be deadly unnerving. Alan White, who had been Yee’s dear friend since 1934, suddenly discontinued correspondence with him—as well as with Whitehill and Lunt—a year earlier. It was disheartening to Yee, a sensitive soul, who truly cared for friendship. He always kept up correspondence with his friends. White’s erratic behavior caused him considerable pain. He suspected that his four-year stay in America might have inadvertently alienated himself from friends in England. He knew many people around him, but he could not discuss issues such as this with any of them. The only person he could trust and share his pains with was Whitehill, yet, paradoxically, he tried to avoid mentioning them for fear of bothering Whitehill, whose schedule was already packed with administrative, social, lecturing, and writing obligations. On February 8, however, he poured out his painful feelings in the postscript to a letter, which was almost six times longer than the letter itself: Up till now I must say that I cannot really understand Alan White not answering any of my letters for the whole year, nor yours neither Storer’s. How could a human mind become so bitter or so haughty for something I don’t know what I have done. I feel very discouraged and disheartened at my association with friends. You know that I know Alan since 1934 and that we have been very good friends all along. Perhaps my 4 years’ stay outside England make me to lose all I know there. Many have died since I left there in 1955. I have tried to keep up with letters as often as I could.6

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It turned out that White was dating another woman and got remarried in June. Nevertheless, his mysterious “silence” had caused much uneasiness in Yee. Establishing a foothold and earning a good reputation in the United States had been Yee’s goal since 1955. However, the four years he spent there were, in his own words, “fruitless.”7 His only major publication was the Paris volume, which was actually completed when he left England in 1955. In the late 1930s and 1940s, he had published new books every year or every other year. His creative energy seemed to have waned. The Boston manuscript took far too long to finish, and he had nothing published in the interim except for a few book reviews. In addition, his work relationship with Norton did not always run smoothly. In midFebruary, the manuscript for the Boston book, read by Jane and Whitehill, was sent out to George Brockway of Norton. Two months later, Brockway returned the manuscript with many edits that upset Yee: “I can see his aim at being strictly Boston, but I love a little diversion here and there. My other books are all like that.”8 In early June, he signed the contract for the Boston book with Norton, and ten days later he was dismayed with the black-and-white drawings in the galley sheets. The size reduction distorted some of the images, and many details were not recognizable. Writing and publishing seemed to have become increasingly formidable challenges. Yee saw hope when he was asked in mid-February to start the course “Chinese Brush and Calligraphy” for 1959–1960. With two other regular courses, he would thus be taking on a full teaching load; it appeared as though he might finally qualify as full-time faculty. He soon realized, however, that Columbia’s offer was only one extra course. The Chinese and Japanese Studies program at Columbia was undergoing vast expansions, and the administration was planning to hire full-time Chinese faculty. Yee learned that the department was actually looking for younger people. Doors seemed to be closing on him, and the future appeared bleak. Tormented with uncertainty, he lost patience and was ready to offer his resignation: I still can work as hard as anybody can. I only want to have a small job (never hope to have big salary) in office work to keep me going while I can work. When I reach the age not allowed to work or when I am unable to work, I can probably rely on the little I can save. I need my daily-keeping fixed for a few years, so that I may produce something in painting and writing worthwhile. Can I get a job as a clerk or cataloguer somewhere?9

Whitehill approached Agnes Mongan, acting director of Harvard’s Fogg Museum, with a long letter that summarized Yee’s experience and accomplishments. He hoped that Mongan could find a curatorial position for Yee at Fogg. “He is not only a very learned and literate person, but one who adapts himself with singular skill to any surroundings.”10 Competition for the museum job, as it turned out, was also very keen.

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In spring, Suzuki sent two books from Japan. One was his English translation of The Lankavatara Sutra, a major Zen text originally written in Sanskrit, and the other was an autographed copy of his scholarly work Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra. Suzuki still wanted Yee’s cooperation in translating The Transmission of the Lamp. Yee quickly replied. He estimated that one year would be adequate for him to complete a preliminary translation of the whole book, leaving some difficult parts to tackle afterward with Suzuki’s consultation. Since he had recently agreed to teach at Columbia for the academic year 1959–1960, he would thus be available after June 1, 1960 for a year-long stay in Japan to work on the translation project.11 In the midst of teaching, writing, painting, lecturing, and socializing, Yee managed to complete four scroll paintings of Harvard scenes, approximately thirteen by forty-seven inches each. He showed them to Whitehill and McCord in early February before sending them to Hong Kong to be mounted on silk. These “poetry-paintings” were intended to be his gifts to Harvard as a token of his “gratitude” for his stay and a proof of his “being not-too-unworthy” for the Emerson Fellowship in Poetry.12 I would like to call these scrolls my poetry-paintings of Harvard, for each is a piece of poetry not in words but in water-colours. They represent my poetic mood about the place. I thought it would not be right for me to write poetry about Harvard in Chinese for few will read them, nor would it be fair to expect me to write my poetic mood in American language. Therefore here they are in paints.13

Having lived in Oxford for many years, Yee was familiar with the many copperplates and line drawings that depict panoramic views of Oxford University with distinct architectural details. His own scrolls gave a fresh and delightful presentation of Harvard from a Chinese perspective. Each of the four scrolls presented a Harvard scene in a different mood. One was a springtime view of the houses along the Charles River, from Eliot to Dunster. Another was the western side of Harvard Yard from Mower to Lehman, seen on an early spring morning completely free of traffic and pedestrians. The third was set inside the Yard on a snowy winter day. In the early days, Harvard buildings were confined to one end of the Yard. Alvan Fisher and other artists had painted such general views of the college. Since Harvard’s expansion in the nineteenth century, however, hardly any artists had attempted to convey a general impression of its buildings. Yee’s scrolls were, in Whitehill’s words, “the first modern effort” to make an ingeniously proportioned rendition of those selected architectural scenes in Chinese watercolor. 14 Yee eventually presented three of these scrolls to President Nathan Pusey on May 26, and they were put on display during that year’s commencement. The charm of Harvard Yard is enhanced by trees which bring the red-brick buildings into harmony with each other. “Harvard Yard with its trees has made Harvard University,” Yee stated. Whereas the colors of the trees during different

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seasons lend different tones to the Yard, the dark trunks and branches of the trees in winter “form intriguing interlaced patterns in the center of the Yard, while the red brick of the building sprays a reddish hue over the white snow on the ground.”15 To some people, however, the painting of Harvard Yard in snow looks gloomy. The historic red-brick halls—Harvard, Hollis, Stoughton, Holworthy, and a corner of Thayer—stand under a heavy, dark sky, against which are “intricate” tree branches that are “dramatically silhouetted.” Whitehill, who offered a spirited appreciation in an introductory essay for the Harvard alumni magazine, eloquently, passionately, and convincingly argues otherwise: Yee has evoked an almost apocalyptic vision of a Puritan Harvard. The external lineaments of the buildings are familiar, but the bleakness of the scene dispels any suggestion of comfort within. The brick against the cold cold [sic] snow, the somber sky and the blackness of the trees suggests something that has survived into 1959 from the early inheritance of Harvard, that could be sensed only by a highly perceptive observer, and could be conveyed in printing only by an Oriental artist.16

With the support of Harold Hugo, five hundred copies of “Harvard Yard in Snow” were printed by the Meriden Gravure Company later that year. When Harvard Library failed to come up with sufficient funds for the printing, Yee volunteered to pick up with the whole cost. He was soon pleasantly surprised as sales outperformed his expectations. The cost was quickly recovered, and it has been reprinted a few times since. On June 26, Yee boarded a ship for England. He sailed along with Jane and Whitehill, who were traveling to Europe on vacation. It was sweet to be back, much like a homecoming. His room at 28 Southmoor Road in Oxford was still lined with bookshelves and many of his belongings. He was happy to see the Keene family again, as well as Chien-kuo and Barbara. He was also happy to see Stephen, to hold him in his arms, and to hear him calling “Grandpa.” The Whitehills and the Brookses happened to be in London on their tours through Europe, so Yee introduced them to Chien-kuo’s family on separate occasions. He also found time to visit Herbert Read, the Herdan family, A. E. Allnatt, and many other friends. After a trip to Rome, Yee went to Antigny, France on August 19. Whitehill and Jane picked him up at the Dijon railway station, and they visited the Tylers at their summer house. After their visit, the Whitehills drove him back to the railway station. Chien-kuo and Stephen greeted him at Victoria Station upon his return to London, and they later saw him off at St. Pancras Station, where he boarded a train to visit his friend William Milner in Yorkshire. In a letter dated August 22, Yee thanked the Whitehills for the wonderful visit to the Tylers, and he told them about his stay in Parcevall Hall: The whole household greeted me with warmth and a most welcome dinner was on the 30 ft. long table with the lovely silvers (the Milner family treasures and

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many came from the English Royal family). Last evening event brought back all my memories at Parcevall Hall for the past 20 years or so.17

He concluded the letter with the line, “Everyone of the staff of this Hall wants to talk to me. We chat like old days.”18 England, though, had changed. Yee’s physical absence during the previous four years left a chasm between himself and his second home. For example, a fracture seemingly developed in his relationship with Alan White. He had looked forward to meeting White and his new wife and had written White about his upcoming trip. Immediately after his arrival, Yee made several calls and sent dinner invitations in writing, but White was evasive and unresponsive. Yee found White’s response puzzling and disappointing. “I feel very sorry at myself for I have never wanted to do wrong to anybody in my life. . . . Well, England is not the same to me as I looked forward to being in it again before I left Boston,” he told Whitehill. “After a great deal of thinking for two whole days, I now decide to return to your country in the beginning of September for sure.”19 The Boston book was set for publication in October. Norton planned to organize a special event for its release on Monday, October 12. Eugene Healey of Norton wrote to ask Whitehill for advice. In his reply, Whitehill noted that it was foliage season, and October 12 also happened to be Columbus Day. Since many people would likely be visiting the woods to view the leaves over that long weekend, Norton might not be able to attract enough people. Whitehill further mentioned that his own book, Boston: A Topographical History, was scheduled for an October 19 release by Harvard University Press. The publisher had planned for him to take some newspaper journalists on a bus tour, entertaining them with anecdotes, stories, and humor along the streets and byways of the city. The trip was to end with some gin at the Club of Odd Volumes on Mount Vernon Street.20 Norton took his advice and pushed the formal publication date to October 27. It rescheduled the Boston event for October 20, and changed the venue to the Parker House, which was illustrated on the cover jacket of the book. Local trade and newspaper people would be entertained with gin that evening. Norton worked meticulously to orchestrate these and other events to promote Yee’s Boston book. Reviewers were asked to hold their reviews until October 13, in order to maximize the effect. The colored plates from the book were exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum for a fortnight and then shipped to Beekman in New York for another exhibition set to open on October 27 and to coincide with an autographing party. The book certainly attracted a lot of media attention. Major newspapers in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the country published reviews. To some, it was “the best book of the series.” Indeed, Samuel T. Williamson wrote in the New York Times: “This not-so-silent travel book is more than a pleasant guide for perceptive, leisurely tourists, more than an attractive piece of book making; it is a guide to understanding. For this visitor from halfway round the earth has caught and described not the stereotype or the caricature but the enduring

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meaning of the Boston spirit.” Literary critic Edward Wagenknecht stated that Yee “sees—and understands—a remarkable amount, more than many natives do, and his errors are mighty few.” “For one who wishes to escape from ‘the grumpiness and quarrelsomeness of human nature,’ in Yee’s expressive phrase,” according to Van Wyck Brooks, “there is no better refuge than this highly civilized Chinese, with his deceptive simplicity and peaceable humor.”21 The American edition of the book is dedicated to Walter and Jane Whitehill.22 It begins with a Boston dialogue among an Irish, an Italian, and a Chinese on Boston Common. Both the Irish and Italian are immigrants who have been in the city for forty years. They are proud of their cultural origins, yet they don’t want to be called Bostonians. The Chinese, who has been living in England since 1933, explains that he is a traveler, interested in observing new things in new places. To that, the Irish answers, “We are all travelers. You come from China, he from Italy, and I from Ireland. None of us has gone back home for a long time. We are all friends. Friends outside our homelands. The world is a place for all travelers.”23 The Irish man tells the Chinese that he cannot see Bostonians in Boston because they do not live in Boston anymore. “They live outside Boston now. . . . They are queer ducks. . . . They talk queer. They walk queer. They don’t laugh much. If they laugh, they laugh queer. Just like a China man.” The words made the Chinese man happy because, if Bostonians were indeed like his countryman, he came to the city “just to see myself.”24 Boston appeared to be a perfect subject for the author. The city boasts many American “firsts”: the first piece of ground for a Common in 1634, the first public school in 1635, the first newspaper in 1690, the first public library in 1848, the first telephone call in 1876, and the first subway in 1897. For Yee, who searched for similarities underlying conspicuous differences, Boston was rich with features that recalled China, especially its respect for ancestors and devotion to tradition. Standing in front of the family portraits at the Museum of Fine Arts or gazing at the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, he felt the city’s overwhelming interest in history and tradition. Ancestor worship in China was world-renowned, but Yee proclaimed that “I had never seen so much reverence for ancestors anywhere in China as I saw in Boston.”25 In the Boston book, the Silent Traveller takes the reader with him in his search for Bostonians: Beacon Hill, Boston Athenaeum, Faneuil Hall, Harvard Yard, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Plymouth, Cape Cod, Concord, and Salem. He discovers the secret why this young nation, which has inseparable connections with the old world, could “remain good and flourish.” It is the Boston heritage, that is, the “Boston spirit,” embodied by the Mayflower and continued throughout subsequent centuries by immigrants who came to the country to find freedom and fight for universal liberty.26 The Boston book was a huge success. The Associated Press published a short piece by Hal Boyle, who listed nineteen books that would make worthy gifts for famous people or organizations. Among the recommendations were A Rockefeller Family Portrait for Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Happy Families Are All

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Alike for the Democratic Party, and What’s Wrong with U.S. Foreign Policy for Fidel Castro. Interestingly, The Silent Traveller in Boston was recommended for Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. The Boston book made the local bestseller list on December 13, 1959. It jumped from the sixth spot to the second the following week and stayed there until late January. In January, it also appeared on bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly and the New York Times. It is interesting to note that Whitehill’s Boston: A Topographical History, published nearly simultaneously, also sold very well and became a local bestseller in early January. Unlike Yee’s impressionistic presentation of the modern city, Whitehill’s book offers a tour around the city, illustrating the detailed evolutions and vicissitudes of the city over the course of three hundred years. These two books, taking different approaches to the same subject, complemented each other: one was poetic and artistic from a foreign traveler’ eyes, and the other was historical and scholarly from a native son’s eyes. “It is a beautifully produced book,” Yee graciously acknowledged of Whitehill’s book on October 9. “Though I have not yet had the pleasure of reading it, I wish your book has come out before I started to record my travel around the city. It would have supplied me much food for thought. I find many of the illustrations fascinating.”27 Whitehill told Yee on October 12 that Jane was “completely surprised and greatly pleased by the dedication, which she knew nothing about.” Whitehill, who had previously read the text several times in various forms of completion, was delighted with the beautiful result. In addition, Whitehill commented that he had briefly introduced his own book at the Massachusetts Historical Society meeting and “added a few words” about Yee’s as well.28 Like all the other titles in the Silent Traveller series, the Boston book owed its success partially to the exquisite illustrations. The sixteen colored plates, about twenty by twenty-eight inches, greatly enhance the charm of the book. New England natural scenes are gracefully presented in “The Fenway Rose Garden,” “A Common Sight at Thanksgiving Time,” “Ducks in Jamaica Pond,” and “Concord Bridge in Indian Summer.” The last painting depicts the famous wooden bridge where the Revolution’s “shot heard ’round the world” was fired. The autumn trees in the background, some with bare branches raised and others with a vibrant display of varied colors, dance in the light of the bright sunset. The composition and delicate execution add grace and an Oriental flavor to it. Nine of the plates focus on famous architecture in the Boston area, such as Faneuil Hall, Park Street Church, Louisburg Square, Church of the Advent, Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, and Salem Custom House. Yee experimented and explored new technical possibilities with these illustrations. The huge crowd shown at a concert on the Charles River in “Outdoor Concert at Night” is an audacious attempt in Chinese art to depict a large crowd. The dark ink dots and powerful strokes, interspersed with blue, yellow, brown, and white, produce an effect reminiscent of Jackson Pollock and expressionist paintings. These colored plates and line drawings are now in the topographical collection of the Boston Athenaeum, thanks to Whitehill, and they have been exhibited in

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the Athenaeum, the Club of Odd Volumes, and the Boston Public Library. All the illustrations of the previous titles had been sold to individual collectors and dispersed. J. B. Claff of Beekman, Yee’s art agent, wrote to Whitehill, suggesting that a museum in Boston should consider buying the complete set of illustrations from the Boston volume. The assessed value of the paintings, according to New York artists and art dealers, was as much as $10,000, and Claff was willing to sell them for a lump sum of $5,000. Whitehill concurred with Claff and began raising funds at once. On November 30, he informed Claff that the Library Committee of the Boston Athenaeum had approved the plan and decided to purchase the paintings for $5,000. Incidentally, on that same day, Yee, unaware of this transaction, wrote to Whitehill expressing his feeling that “writing is not a way for a living.” He felt that it was not only difficult and demanding but also costly. “I hope I can get my capital back, which I spent for my trip in 1953 to collect material to do a book on Boston, etc.”29 The Boston book was far more successful than the Paris book. It sold so well that a fourth printing of three thousand copies was ordered in late January 1960, which brought the total to 20,500. “The healthiest thing about the orders is that they come from all sections of the country,” Eugene Healey wrote in an internal memorandum. “The Chiang Yee books are proving real properties, and we have his San Francisco book ahead of us. That will be a knockout.” Norton was going to put more ads in the New Yorker, the Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.30 In addition, The Chinese Eye was to be reissued in April. Since John Day had assigned the U.S. rights to four titles—A Chinese Childhood, and the Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York titles—to Norton, a surging interest in the author and his books was predictable. Eager to capitalize on the momentum, Norton drafted the contract for the San Francisco book, offering to pay 10 percent on the first ten thousand and 15 percent thereafter. However, Yee refused to sign or even consider it before the manuscript was ready. From Lunt’s point of view, the San Francisco book was “of first importance,” and he wanted Yee to “say ‘no’ to further time-consuming engagements” in order to focus on that project. Yee knew very well that to complete the book by the end of the year would be extremely difficult. He adamantly refused to promise “an assured date of delivery.”31 He needed adequate time to produce the very best book that he was capable of. Time was a most precious treasure that Yee coveted. He deliberately chose not to install a telephone in his apartment, since it saved him time and was “a bless” to him while, as he confessed, it had caused “a lot of inconvenience and annoyance to friends.”32 He reminisced and pondered on the evanescent nature of time in a letter to Whitehill: I just cannot help recalling the days we were together during my visits to the Boston area in 1953 and then in 1955. We seemed to have ‘time’ to meet often then. Where has ‘time’ gone to? It takes me to live long in the midst of a big

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American city and to have friends like you to realize how important the ‘time’ factor is in modern life. I want to go somewhere in search of ‘time.’33

Yee’s success transformed him into “the most useful westernized Chinese in the U.S.”34 The U.S. Information Agency was to schedule a one thousandword feature article on Yee in its publication. It contacted Whitehill in early February, and the latter quickly completed the assignment before setting out on a two-month trip. Titled “Chiang Yee,” the article tells about Yee’s background, his accomplishments, and numerous recognitions. “Such academic distinctions have come, unsought and unsolicited, to a modest man, who, more than a quarter of a century ago, left China to follow the arts as a wandering scholar. They are of less significance than the affectionate personal esteem in which he is held by an extraordinary variety of people wherever he goes. In Boston he is as much at home as in Oxford!”35 The article, along with a set of photographs of Yee with friends and students, was later translated and disseminated in Taiwan and several East Asian countries. Being at home, nevertheless, does not guarantee the feeling of settlement at home. To say that a full-time job offers a sense of security like an anchor might not be an exaggeration for the Silent Traveller in this case. He was looking for “regular work, not occasional lectures.” “I feel that I waste most of my time in just keeping on rolling with life here.”36 Without a Ph.D. degree, a full-time appointment appeared only remotely possible. Some opportunities arose, yet none of them were entirely desirable. He could, for example, go to Japan for three years to work with Suzuki on translations of Zen classics. He could try teaching full-time or taking a museum director position in Pittsburgh or Hawaii in the fall, but neither was a long-term appointment. A permanent solution was nowhere in sight. Given the bleak outlook, returning to Oxford was the option that Yee seriously weighed in early 1960.37 It was by no means an easy decision. “I feel more attached to this country now,” he realized. In the United States, he could be more creative, and most importantly, he could keep his mind “undisturbed from any political and international situation.” No one bothered him with political questions, and he was able to focus on teaching, writing, and painting. “This is the true advantage of my being here,” he stated, and that was why he was paradoxically confused and indecisive.38 On May 21, his final decision was made. During the previous few months, he was negotiating with the University of Pittsburgh concerning a full-time teaching opportunity. Between the Pittsburgh offer and returning to England for good, the former was clearly a more favorable choice. In addition, teaching at the University of Pittsburgh might help to bring Chien-fei to the United States. By taking up the Pittsburgh appointment, he could get Chien-fei enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology through the help of a friend at the Mellon Trust. Once accepted by a U.S. college to study science, Chien-fei should have little problem in obtaining a passport from the Taiwan government and a visa from the U.S. consulate.

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Nevertheless, the excitement quickly subsided. In less than a week, he again sounded depressed and extremely unhappy about Pittsburgh’s plans for the coming year. The news reached Whitehill in Starksboro, Vermont, where he had just returned three days earlier to discover that thieves had broken into his summer cottage and stolen several items, including a radio, a toaster, and some canned food. Fortunately, Yee’s bamboo picture and other treasured family items were not even touched. “To be an efficient thief,” Whitehill humorously reasoned, “a man should not be diverted by beauty, but should concentrate on the current vulgarities that are easily saleable, as this one did.”39 The knowledge of his friend’s excessive stress and distress brought him deep grief. In the midst of dealing with the havoc in his own house and preparation for trips and writing, he replied right away, offering his sincere, heartfelt advice in a long typed letter. It is a pleasing fault and a generous one, but you are always too kind to other people and not kind enough to yourself. Two years ago you sacrificed yourself to helping the Yangs. This year you have been concerned with In Chen and your son in Formosa. It is now time for you to think of Chiang Yee, as exclusively and single-mindedly as you can, if only because, by becoming weary and bowed down by troubles, you reduce your own effectiveness and, thereby, reduce your power to help others.40

Whitehill believed that Yee should consider taking a year off to recuperate. It would help to restore his health and energy, and it would also give him time to stay in New England to complete the San Francisco book. Yee wrote again before Whitehill’s reply reached him. He announced that, after much deliberation, he had “decided not to go” to Pittsburgh. He was unmistakably confused. “I cannot tell the reason and I just don’t want to go. This is too bad . . . for I have more or less committed to go there. Now I just cannot go. . . . Now I am really mentally ill. I don’t know what to think.”41 The cause that triggered such a great confusion was in fact news that should have been celebrated. Columbia, after learning of his possible departure for Pittsburgh, formed an ad hoc committee, which approved a new position to retain him as associate professor of Chinese with a pay of $8,000 for ten years. This was certainly a dramatic turn for the better and should have come as a relief to Yee. “Definitely Columbia wants to keep me.” Rather than evoking a felicitous mood, the outcome instead created shame and guilt in Yee. Tied up with grading examination papers and preparation for the trip, he wrote to Whitehill two days after his arrival in Hawaii on June 12. He was indebted to his close friends, such as Whitehill and Julian Boyd, who had searched for job opportunities for him at Marlboro College and Princeton University. He truly felt ashamed and “very bad” about the “mess” he had created, in particular, with Pittsburgh.42 James Liu, a Chinese scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, was instrumental in Yee’s hiring, but his abrupt withdrawal following a firm acceptance with Pittsburgh had

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left Liu stunned, bewildered, embarrassed, and upset. For months following his decision, Yee appeared tongued-tied and wistful, wishing to win compassion and exoneration from his friends for his irresponsible behavior. While the Columbia appointment guaranteed job security for Yee, it simultaneously jeopardized Chien-fei’s much-dreamed-of chance to come to the United States. Since Carnegie Institute was ruled out as a valid option, Yee resorted to a different channel. He sent Chien-fei $2,500, of which $1,500 was for air tickets. In August, Chien-fei, with air tickets and a passport, applied for a visitor’s visa at the U.S. Embassy. As he had neither a regular job nor relatives in Taiwan, his application was rejected. It was “an open secret” that many Chinese who came on a visitor’s visa adjusted their status later into permanent residency after an extended stay in the country. Indeed, this was exactly what Yee intended for Chien-fei. In his eyes, “Formosa is no good place” for his son, a young aspiring artist, but there was really nothing he could do to help.43 He consulted Whitehill to see if the latter could bring Chien-fei over as a specialist with exceptional abilities, perhaps through the employment of the Peabody Museum. Whitehill refused to help, reasoning that both the Peabody Museum and he had already done the same thing for Yee and it would be “prejudicial” for them to assist two members of the same family. Yee returned to New York in late August. The Columbia University housing agent reserved for him a two-bedroom apartment at 520 West 123rd Street. The street was on a gentle slope, and Columbia’s main campus was within walking distance. The freshly-painted apartment had good light, a new refrigerator, a new stove, a new bath tub, and a new toilet. The rent, $120 per month for this spacious unit, was perfectly reasonable. Yee quickly moved in. The fall semester began with a good enrollment, and teaching was progressing to his satisfaction. Nevertheless, it did not induce in Yee a cheerful mood. He felt empty and at a loss. He admitted privately to Yang that he began to be afraid of sickness and loneliness—feelings he never experienced during the years he spent in England. On top of this occurred yet another heartbreaking incident: Yee discovered that his niece, In Chen, from Manila was an imposter. She was only two years old when Yee left China, but she had since become a writer with eight published novels. As a staff writer for several Chinese newspapers in Southeast Asia, she came to America in the spring of 1960 to observe social life and write about “her impressions” for those newspapers. Yee was very excited about her visit. He made special arrangements, introducing In Chen and her brother, In Shi, to the Brookses, the Whitehills, and the Yangs, all of whom welcomed and entertained In Chen at their homes. Everyone took a liking to her; she appeared lovely though somewhat strong-minded. In October, however, Yee revealed to Whitehill and Yang that In Chen was nothing but a “calculating adventuress of a horrid sort.”44 She was using his name and connections for her own advantage. He declared that In Chen was not related to him, and that he had severed all connections with her.45

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About two weeks later, his emotions plunged into an abyss of despair, angst, and pain. His letter to Whitehill dated October 30, 1960 was typed but with a scribbled note: “Please read it entirely by yourself.” He was staying at Brooks’s house in Bridgewater over the weekend, and he had something very important which he hoped to discuss with Whitehill. “This can only be discussed between you and me and nobody else.” “I cannot stand any more painful attacks just now.” As he wanted to avoid seeing friends in Boston, he pleaded for Whitehill to consider flying to New York for a meeting, and he would cover the cost. Well, you as my good friend in this country can no doubt see what a state of mind I am having now. . . . I dread myself to be in the condition like what my Cambridge friend was more than a year ago. I realize that that year, 1958–1959, in Boston affected my mind terribly. I don’t think I have forgotten it completely.46

Whitehill, however, was so preoccupied that it was virtually impossible for him to make the trip to New York. He requested that Yee either come to Boston or explain the matter in a letter. Yee ranted in his reply on November 9 that the issue “can only be discussed face to face.” He resolved not to “go out of New York City for the next four months.” The human entanglement I got myself involved in it, though not all of my own making, is getting deeper and deeper each day. I have tried to solve them myself for the past three months without any success. They become worse. But I feel proud of myself that I have managed not to let anybody know it for almost three months so far. It was a great effort. If I don’t have any chance to tell the detail to you or if I find that you will not be able to advise much, I shall just go on keeping them to myself. I am struggling for my survival. If I get through the next four months, I shall be all right. I shall prove myself that I have a very strong character.47

He installed a phone in mid-November. Whitehill subsequently called, so the two spoke on the phone. In December, Yee went to Penn Station in New York for a brief meeting with Whitehill, where the latter and Jane were waiting for a train connection on their way to Cincinnati. Whitehill respected Yee’s wish. He did not speak of the matter with anyone else, nor did he leave behind any written evidence about the content of their conversation. The agony and despair Yee had experienced were frightening. An iron will and resolve for success alone, without timely support of his closest friends, might not have been enough to sustain his pain and loneliness. For several weeks in October, Yee was utterly dejected. By chance, he caught sight of the poem Yang had sent him right after the latter was released from the hospital. It touched his heart, and he put it on the wall as a constant reminder of hope and love he should cherish:

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The clouds in the sky are close to each other; Good friends in the world offer mutual support. Willows in Cambridge are all well and safe; Admire the spring season, and do not travel far.48

Yang visited Yee whenever he came to New York to meet with Hu Shih or attend various meetings at Columbia. He sometimes stayed overnight in Yee’s apartment. On January 27, 1961, after the birthday party at the Faculty Club in honor of Goodrich, Yee and Yang had a long chat. Yee told him that he had just managed to get rid of In Chen after her return from Hong Kong. He spoke of his loneliness and desire to buy a television set. Yang suggested that he should consider a new marriage within the next couple of years. Yee appeared willing, though discreetly, to give the idea further consideration.49 Meanwhile, Whitehill’s steadfast trust and unshaken faith helped him sustain morale and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Advice and encouragement from Whitehill—sincere, warm, consoling, and inspiring—were invaluable gifts Yee could always count on. Your writing can never be futile. What I admire most about you is the controlled balance and the rock-like sense of what is really worthwhile that has made it possible for you to leave your own world and find a respected (and similar) place in two others. When a man has been able to do that so superbly over a quarter of a century, nothing, however distressing, should be upsetting enough to make this unique accomplishment seem futile. You have more to say, more to give than you can ever realize, so do not lose heart, whatever happens.50

Seemingly frank and candid, Yee retained his privacy and protected it fiercely. While undergoing this extraordinary crisis, he maintained a calm appearance. No trace was left behind of the specifics concerning what generated the traumatic experience that rendered him nearly delirious and debilitated. Nevertheless, he felt comfortable talking to Whitehill about most of the subjects, including things that he normally would not mention to his Chinese friends. Even so, the cultural gap still existed. The nature of what happened to him that year, he believed, was “beyond the apprehension of the Occidentals.” After his talk with Whitehill about the issue, he suddenly regretted, “Well, I should have not exposed myself too freely. Perhaps I have been getting on in years and cannot put things aside easily. I am still trying.”51 Since 1955, Whitehill had been negotiating and corresponding with Methuen, John Day, Norton, Harvard, and various other publishers on Yee’s behalf. Whitehill also managed Yee’s bank accounts at the Warren Institution for Savings, depositing royalties and transferring funds for Yee’s use whenever needed. He provided all of these services without any remuneration. After Norton’s royalty payment for 1960 arrived, Yee asked Whitehill to take off 10 percent as an agent’s fee. He later

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enclosed a check for $1,000. Whitehill acknowledged his generosity but returned the check with the reasoning: I hate to do any business with friends where money benefiting me is concerned, for I feel that most of what I may be able to accomplish for you, or any other friend, is dependent upon the fact that I am able to speak my mind with complete freedom from any question of self-interest. In any arrangements with John Day or Norton I have had a freedom that an agent in the ordinary sense would lack. What I have done has, I hope, been helpful to you, and I want to continue to help you in any way that I can with such business arrangements. But this in no sense entitles me to the conventional 10 per cent agent’s commission, for I want only to get the best possible return on your work for you.52

He added, at the end of the letter, “Please believe that I am grateful for your thought, but that the only way that I can work is without recompense.”53 In February 1961, the American Academy of Arts and Letters held a dinner party in the Academy library, celebrating the seventy-fifth birthday of Van Wyck Brooks, who was saluted as “our chief living man of letters.”54 Over sixty eminent writers, artists, and musicians, including Pearl Buck, John Wheelock, Louis Untermeyer, George Biddle, Mark Van Doren, Glenway Wescott, and Lewis Mumford gathered against a background of books to pay homage to this literary giant. Dressed in a Chinese gown, Yee sat next to Pearl Buck. As a close friend of Brooks’s, he gave a short speech and praised Brooks for “following the dictates of his own heart within the frame of righteousness”: One of the Confucius’ disciples described his master as being cordial, upright, courteous, temperate and deferential. I have often searched among my fellow countrymen for one who followed Confucius example as we were all taught to do. But it is in Van Wyck that I have found the above five virtues. I can only make this comparison and I hope you will not mind. Confucius is to all of us Chinese a wise man. Van Wyck is a wise man to me. May I wish you, Sir, good health and many more years.55

That summer, Yee made another visit to England. On June 14, he took a flight and landed at London five and a half hours later. From there, his friend A. E. Allnatt’s secretary took him to Doughty House in Richmond Hill, Surrey, where he stayed overnight. On the following day, he took the midnight train to Oxford. He “slept and slept and slept day after day.” The weather was beautiful, and he managed to find time to stroll along the familiar paths in Oxford “to trace [his] own footprints.” He soon felt “refreshed and returned to be my own self again.”56 Two days later, feeling that he was “fit to travel” again, he began a tour of Italy, Greece, and Turkey—countries known for their ancient civilizations. He visited Corfu and Athens with Chen Chi, a Chinese artist from New York. The two walked around the city and joined a bus tour to Delphi to see a Greek play.

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Yee was somewhat disappointed. Unlike his “former way of travel,” he had read a lot about Greece and had “great expectations to see many, many important things in Athens,” the center of Western civilization. His past readings bred this illusion which ultimately generated his disappointment. Nevertheless, the trip was worthwhile. He especially enjoyed “seeing the people going on in the old ways and also the lovely surroundings of rocky mountains that help to preserve the original setting of the greatest civilization of mankind.”57 Upon returning to England, he was again taken from the London airport to stay in Allnatt’s house in Richmond Hill. Three days later, Allnatt took Yee to a four-day beatnik party on the island of Osea at the mouth of the Black River in Essex. Approximately fourteen people attended the party. They enjoyed old English games and pastimes, drinking, dancing, singing, and playing cricket. The party ended with a costume dance where everyone dressed up in the beatnik fashion. Winners of the beatnik dress and dance contest were Polly and Donald Hall, an English writer, who dressed like a Marseilles longshoreman in a French beret and striped T-shirt. Yee did not bring anything with him to dress up, nor could he dance. He excused himself and instead made some sketches. Though still exhausted from the trip, he enjoyed every minute of his stay on the island.58 Yee’s patron-friend Allnatt was a wealthy entrepreneur who owned Allnatt London Properties and other well-known businesses in England. He was also the owner of the famous “Allnatt” diamond, which weighed 102.07 carats. A noted art collector of many masterpieces, he purchased the Rubens painting The Adoration of the Magi in 1959 for £275,000, and then donated the piece to King’s College, Cambridge. He had also given an El Greco painting to New College of Oxford. As a longtime admirer of Yee’s writing and artwork, he had been continuously persuading Yee to return to England, where he believed Yee “would enjoy more” and “do work of a quality far above” his previous works.59 In 1959, to free Yee from any financial worries, he offered to provide £2,000 annually for the remaining years of his life, but Yee did not accept the offer. On December 23, 1960, after learning that Yee would not spend Christmas in England, Allnatt wrote to express his sad feelings. “When you come, whether sooner or later, we shall receive you with great joy, and we shall not willingly or easily let you go again.”60 As soon as Yee arrived in England in June, Allnatt seized every opportunity to talk him into staying. On the Island of Osea were twenty cottages and a mansion—all Allnatt’s property. He promised to give one cottage to Yee, and he increased the annual offer to £2,500, an assurance of financial security as well as freedom if Yee agreed to stay. It was an offer that few could resist. Yee sent the news to Whitehill and Brooks, both rejoicing and grieving over this superb gift of generosity, yet manifesting his dilemma and coveting sympathy and admiration from his friends. This whole issue cost him several sleepless nights, but he finally decided not to accept the offer. He wanted to return to the United States to honor his commitment to Columbia. He had his own “principle for life” to follow, that is, “to live from my own earning.”61 It became apparent to Allnatt that further persuasion would be

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nothing but futile. He conceded on August 2, 1961: “I am now convinced that, for some reason or other which I do not understand, you are going to spend the rest of your life in America” He vowed that he would get Yee a post at Oxford should the latter change his mind at any time in the future.62 One marked difference between this trip to England and the previous one was the loss of his two dear friends, the Earl of Longford and Sir William Milner. To offer his condolences, he made a special trip to Dublin to visit Christine, Countess of Longford. He also met with Milner’s nephew Lord John Hope. Parcevall Hall had always been such a comfortable and inviting place for Yee, but it was donated to a church after Milner’s death. “So I could not go,” Yee told Whitehill. Just as V. S. Pritchett once remarked, “The great distress of old age is the death of friends, the thinning rank of one’s generation; the air grows cold in the gaps.”63 Yee valued friendship. “These hit my mind terribly!”64 The void left by the losses of these dear friends was augmented by Chien-kuo’s unexpected move. News soon came that Chien-kuo had sold the printing business, relocated to Jersey Island, and purchased a house there. Barbara had insisted on the move, and Chien-kuo obeyed. For a month and a half after Yee arrived in England, there was no news from Chien-kuo. Barbara had always held a strong opinion against America. Yee attempted to change her mind by introducing the couple to his American friends, including the Whitehills and the Brookses. He even offered to invite them over to visit New York at his expense. However, the chasm between Yee and Chien-kuo’s family was too deep. “Brought up under the rigid Confucian tradition of family attachment and continuance,” Yee used to cherish the hope that he would one day work together with his sons and teach them the lessons he had learned from life. He expected respect and appreciation from them, but the recent occurrences were simply too harsh. He felt disappointed and hurt. “That was why I had so much invisible pains within me for the past years.” He knew that the best way to deal with unpleasant incidents like these in life, as he had tried in the past two decades, was “not to brood” and “try to be happy as much as possible.” He had made his decision, that is, “to live the next few years of my life for myself and to do and to enjoy as much as I can.”65

chapter 13



Home

China faced a wide range of global confrontations in the early 1960s while struggling with domestic issues. The Great Leap Forward plunged the whole country into a terrible economic and political ordeal. There was famine on a massive scale between 1959 and 1962. In the international arena, the country faced an American government that was committed to containing communism by enforcing an economic blockade, arming Taiwan with its latest weapons, and supporting the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause. The Chinese government condemned the Americans who would never “lay down their butcher knife and become Buddhas.” At the same time, the relationship between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated. The ideological conflict between these two giant socialist states deepened, resulting in the Sino-Soviet rift when all Russian experts and advisers were summoned home and hundreds of projects and contracts were abruptly cancelled. For overseas Chinese in the United States, however, returning home remained a dream.1 Yang Lien-sheng became a naturalized U.S. citizen in September 1961. On December 10, he composed a short poem after waking up from a dream: The plum trees in my hometown have blossomed many times, And their lingering fragrance touched me in my dream at the world’s end. Pursuing official titles might be other people’s ambition, I am content with my home, caring for my wife and children.2

Many Chinese believe that one’s hometown is more than simply an essential element in human life; it is a sacred entity that they all respect and cherish. It is the place where their homes and families are located—its water, air, and earth providing them with life, identity, and social connections. For those who have no choice but to stay away from their hometown, bittersweet homesickness becomes a part of life, more pungent as time goes by. Though far from his hometown, Yang still had a home in which he was father and husband. Chiang Yee, now nearly sixty 208

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years of age, was separated from both his hometown and his family. A self-abasing attitude became his only effective means to fight the pain of loneliness. I am no Sun Traveller though also on a journey to the West; Hometown in my dream is nothing but an illusion. I have realized lately that my life is full of failures: I fail to be a husband, a father, and a grandpa.3

Yee’s tone was not merely self-deprecating or, to use Yang’s term, “pedantic.”4 The poem was about his identity in relation to his home, hometown, and accomplishments. He admired birds and used to envy them “for the matchless freedom which their wings give them.” “No bird has ever caged itself,” he once commented; by comparison, “men cage themselves—in homes and offices and labour camps.”5 However, this poem expresses a pungent bitterness contradictory to his earlier manifested inclinations. Like a tired traveler, Yee found himself looking for a “home,” a haven for serenity and closeness. The University of Virginia was planning to create a new arts center, and it appointed Frederick D. Nichols as chairman of the development committee. Whitehill, who was Nichols’s friend, was invited to serve on the committee, and he recommended Yee to join as well. Yee accepted the invitation and made an unequivocal statement about his theories in art: he favored “art with discipline” because “art and craftsmanship are inseparable.” To him, “mere ‘form’ or ‘idea’ will not be enough for a great piece of work of art.”6 At the time, abstract expressionism was in fashion. Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, and Franz Kline, for example, were exploring spontaneous expression of their subjective selves. They believed that only in the seemingly irrational form can a modern painter correctly reproduce the modern world. Yee’s statement clearly manifested his taste and criterion. The committee, a small but congenial group, met in Virginia and visited the proposed site. They strongly recommended that the new center be placed at a site near the original Jefferson buildings and Alderman Library. The university accepted their recommendation, and the center was completed in 1970. This external service proved beneficial to Yee. Professors at Columbia were encouraged to engage in more activities both on and off campus, and Yee had been “pestered” by this all the time. He always replied, “I have no honors!” This service at the University of Virginia was apparently welcomed by Columbia. English writing was still laborious and strenuous for Yee, even after so many years of practice with so many publications. Travel writing also entailed research and trips, which were time-consuming. In that spirit, Whitehill suggested that Yee consider collaborations with friends who would work on the text while Yee took care of the pictures. For example, he could work on a book on Quebec with McCord, one on Washington, D.C., with Whitehill, and even one on Texas with American folklorist James Frank Dobie.7 Such collaboration would be more productive. Yee welcomed this “wonderful idea” and indicated that he would be

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“happy” to do those books as suggested. In addition, he would love to do a book on Harvard with McCord and one on Princeton with Julian Boyd. “Much can be done this way. If no one writes the text, I shall just produce picture-works.”8 Ultimately, however, these conceived collaborative Silent Traveller projects never came to fruition. In July, Yee took a trip to the West Indies. In New York, he fully immersed himself in his work on the San Francisco book, without answering telephone calls or seeing friends. It came as a drastic change, then, to be in the West Indies, where it was natural, peaceful, and quiet. In Barbados, it seemed as though everything had stayed the same “since the first Cromwell sailors defeated the Spaniards in the 17th century.” Since he did not know anyone in the area, there was no need to talk except for ordering meals. He loved the beach, and he “sat by the sea the whole morning and afternoon and evening . . . watching the Barbadians, old and young, bathing and swimming in the sea.” It is interesting to note that his writing rarely touched upon racial issues. Though his social circles mostly consisted of whites and Asians, he was not unaware of race relations that had come to the forefront in the last decade. With the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955–1956, and then desegregation in Little Rock in 1957, the momentum of the civil rights movement grew in force and speed in the 1960s, leading to the March on Washington in August 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. On the beach in Barbados, he noticed that only a few white people were in the area. The surrounding dark-skinned locals made him color conscious and somehow “uncomfortable.” He felt “too white and even pale all over.”9 The University of Hawaii, where Yee taught in the summer of 1960, had repeatedly expressed its interest in having Yee back to teach summer sessions. He wanted Whitehill and McCord to join him. McCord had recently retired, and it became feasible for them to go and spend time together in Hawaii. “There is no formality there at all. One needs not put on his jacket to go to the class ever!” Yee assured them. “But I did.”10 Whitehill agreed to join him the following summer but inadvertently missed the deadline for course proposal submissions. When the summer 1963 course catalog came out in November, Whitehill’s course was not listed. It was too late to add his course at that point, and Dean Shunzo Sakamaki offered his apologies for the oversight. Whitehill was not particularly keen on teaching at Hawaii. In fact, summer was the only time available for him to “breathe and think and work.”11 The change of plan, however, left Yee disconcerted. Not willing to go alone without the company of Whitehill or McCord, he cancelled his own commitment. “The Happiness of the Fish" is a painting that Yee completed in the summer of 1963. The painting depicts a school of fish leisurely swimming, and along the left side is an inscription of a Chuang Tzu passage: Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were strolling along the dam of the Hao River when Chuang Tzu said, “See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That’s what fish really enjoy!”

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Hui Tzu said, “You’re not a fish—how do you know what fish enjoy?” Chuang Tzu said, “You’re not I, so how do you know I don’t know what fish enjoy?” Hui Tzu said, “I’m not you, so I certainly don’t know what you know. On the other hand, you’re certainly not a fish—so that still proves you don’t know what fish enjoy!” Chuang Tzu said, “Let’s go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy—so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao.”12

This inscription, dealing with the happiness of fish, explores nature, freedom, and our epistemological relationship with the world. It sheds philosophical light on our appreciation of the image of fish. In the lower right corner of the painting is a seal that contains a couplet from Yee’s 1933 poem: I watch the early sun rising from the ship And feel as if I were reading an unfamiliar book.13

This painting beautifully exemplifies the unique features of Chinese art with its emphasis on the unity of calligraphy, poetry, and art. The reader’s aesthetic appreciation is enriched and stimulated by a simultaneous encountering of multiple aspects, such as literature, history, philosophy, and various experiences in the West. Yee painted “The Happiness of the Fish” soon after he turned sixty years old—supposedly a time of peace and contentedness with one’s life and the world. On his sixtieth birthday, he wrote a self-celebratory poem: Everyone laughs at me, Dried-tofu Chiang; Being semi-deaf and silent, how could I possibly be frantic? With two extra years, I have lived longer than Du Fu; But I am still thirty years short of Qi Baishi.14

One of his favorite foods was dried tofu. Since tofu products were not readily available overseas, he learned to make dried tofu by himself. Tasting dried tofu became a way to reconnect with his culture and ease his homesickness. Sometimes he treated friends to this specialty, which gave rise to the nickname Dried-tofu Chiang. Despite his age, peace and contentment seemed remote. “I am still alone”—the statement underlined a dark conviction tinged with a disappointing sentiment of loneliness and futility. He had lived outside China for exactly half his life. “I have fought a lonely battle, single-handed, thus far,” in promoting mutual understanding between the East and West, and “I realize that nothing noticeable has [been] achieved.” The assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy six months later added an even darker layer onto his troubled thoughts: “Life is so limited

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in time, yet one just cannot do what one wants to do. When one could do all he wanted to do like JFK, yet he was not allowed to live.”15 On top of his demanding teaching schedule, Yee gave nine lectures during the semester, the last scheduled on May 20. In addition, he had to deal with the loss of his dear friend Brooks early that month. Brooks had been very frail, and his death, though not entirely a surprise, hit Yee hard, as the two had been especially close. In response to the mounting stress, Yee proclaimed, “I feel very much pressed all the time.”16 Excessive stress might have contributed to his rather erratic response to Marlboro College’s invitation to deliver its commencement speech. Whitehill, who was on the trustee board of Marlboro College, attempted to establish a connection for Yee with the school, first by finding him a teaching position there in 1960 and then by nominating him as the commencement speaker. Yee sounded happy in his reply to Whitehill on May 11, and acknowledged that it would be an honor to speak at the commencement. He suggested the subject “Problems on Chinese Studies” and promised to do research if the subject was considered acceptable.17 Two days later, a formal invitation from the president of Marlboro College arrived, which conveyed warm wishes and a respectful request: “We should like you to speak on whatever seriously concerns you at the moment.” This line, however, generated a strangely frenzied response from Yee, who wrote to Whitehill for clarification and abruptly turned down the invitation. The last line “ . . . whatever seriously concerns you at the moment” disturbs my mind. Does this word “you” mean “me personally”? I have always refrained from saying anything which has a direct concern to myself in my writings and in my public speeches. Please give me a hint to clear my head! I want to know “an honorary degree of what.” I sincerely hope this does not intend to ease my position here.18

This was a rare instance when Yee acknowledged his double persona as exemplified in his writings and private life. He had been hiding a private self from the surveillance of the public and rarely spoke about his political past in order to avoid unnecessary inquisition and trouble. For about a month, there was no communication between the two. On June 17, Whitehill wrote, explaining that he had been traveling during the previous few weeks and had also become a silent traveller. He understood Yee’s reluctance to speak at Marlboro, so he later nominated Louis Zahner, a retired English master at Groton School, who eventually delivered an excellent commencement speech. The letter crossed Yee’s, in which he offered his apologies and an explanation. Writing, as always, was a comfortable medium for him to express his emotions and feelings: Nothing could make me more unhappy than to say ‘no’ to a friendly and kind invitation. My recent declination to a kind invitation, along with which comes

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an honour, all through your friendly suggestion, has undoubtedly caused you unhappy and unpleasant feeling. But you would have no doubt realized that this has made me feel even more unhappy and unpleasant than on your side. This is the unexpected turn of my few good years of living in the United States since 1955. Harm is done and I cannot make any excuse for myself. If you can forgive me, please do so.19

Whitehill, a genuinely kind and generous soul, harbored no ill feelings and their friendship continued. On October 24 and 25, 1963, Utah State University hosted its second annual conference to foster improved understanding between the East and West. Yee was invited to give two lectures, “Chinese Painting and Its Relation to Chinese Philosophy, Poetry and Calligraphy,” and “China: Her Art, Poetry and Life.” The university offered to send its own airplane to pick him up, but he declined. He also declined an appearance on a local television program simply because he “did not want to talk about politics.” About two thousand students attended his first lecture, and almost four hundred local residents, including all the university trustees, attended his second. He was treated like a celebrity. “They made a great fuss over my visit,” he reported. “At my age of 60 I prefer to go by easily now and to have as little publicity as possible. Unfortunately I am living in a modern era.”20 Accompanying the lecture series at Utah State University was a solo exhibition which included animal paintings, landscape paintings, and calligraphy. In England, he exhibited a solo show almost every year, but this was his first in the United States. After Utah, the show went to St. Joseph’s College in Maryland, Oregon State University, St. Lawrence University, and the University of Virginia. In the summer of 1964, Yee took a trip to Peru and Mexico. He was on a passenger ship from July 11 to 23, and then stayed at the Hotel Riviera in Lima for two weeks. From there, he flew to Mexico City on August 6 and stayed at the Hotel Ambassador until August 27. The sea voyage proved to be a perfect recuperation for him. By this time, the San Francisco book was completed and scheduled for publication in mid-October, in order to target the Christmas season. He was so exhausted that he did nothing but sleep for the first few days. He intended to explore the famous trading route of the Manila Galleon. Between 1565 and 1815, Spanish vessels averaging 1,700–2,000 tons with 700–1,000 people aboard sailed from Acapulco, Mexico to Manila, Philippines. They brought food, spices, and precious materials such as silver coins to Chinese traders; in return, they carried almost every conceivable good from the Far East, particularly from China, such as silk, tea, and chinaware, to sell in South America and Europe. Yee had read Manila Galleon by William Lytle Schurz and cited it several times in his San Francisco volume. The subject of the China trade and early cultural exchange between the East and West captured his attention. He was seriously considering Mexico for the next Silent Traveller book, and the month-and-half long trip ended with a much anticipated visit to Acapulco. In his childhood, a favorite New Year

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gift from his grandmother had been an eagle dollar wrapped in red paper, which was actually a Mexican dollar that Chinese merchants traded with the Spanish via Acapulco. He was enthused and anxious for his visit to this fascinating city which was key to the history of Spanish-China trade. He wanted “to imagine what it would look like in the 17th and 18th centuries when the Chinese junks arrived there from Manila.”21 After spending a night in Taxco, he arrived in Acapulco on August 25. Unfortunately, reality turned out to be a terrible disappointment. “Modern Acapulco is not the one known to the early Cantonese in the 17th and 18th centuries. I have found no trace of the old anywhere.”22 On October 16, China detonated its first atomic bomb, and the successful test placed China in the nuclear family; it was the fifth world power—after the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France—to acquire the weapon. Yee was very emotional. He went to Times Square in New York and took a stroll along the street. He did not eat or drink the whole day. “No matter how humble one’s birthplace may be, one always thinks of it affectionately as one grows older,” he stated. Nevertheless, returning for a visit still seemed out of the question. It led to his wistful realization that “The remaining years of my life can hardly find me back home.”23 November 1964 saw the release of the San Francisco book. Over a year earlier, after reading the manuscript, Whitehill praised Yee for his “perfectly inspired performance” and “a superb thing.” Storer Lunt predicted that the book would be “a lovely publishing opportunity”: “Wonderful stuff. I’ll crow from the roof tops and even the bridge tops.” Norton was optimistic, confident, and enthusiastic. George Brockway predicted that the book could bring the author at least $20,000 between publication and 1966 or 1967.24 Yee granted a rare interview to John Barkham in his uptown Manhattan apartment after the publication of the San Francisco book. He explained his method of writing. “When I come to a place,” he said, “I make a point of reading nothing about it in advance. I deliberately keep my mind blank for my own first impressions. Then I put away my notes and sketches. Three or four months later I read up the subject at length and return to my notes, taking from my reading whatever is useful to me. But already in the words and pictures I have begun to sort out what I need and to discard what I don’t.”25 He also discussed the differences between writing and painting in his travel books: The word “writing” brought a frown to his forehead. A major problem for Chiang Yee is the great gulf between the Chinese and English languages. He explained it thus: “Unlike English, Chinese is not alphabetical, but pictorial and tonal. It is not precise, but concise. It is not descriptive, but reflective. Remember, too, that—unlike most travel book authors—I am not writing for a distant audience which cannot judge the accuracy or otherwise of my statements, but for an audience on the spot in New York or Boston or San Francisco.” None of this applies to painting. “Whereas my writing reflects my feelings, my painting provides the atmosphere for the scene I am recording. My painting

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is not realistic, but atmospheric. I prefer to catch a scene in the early morning or evening, when the light is gentler and the lines softer.”26

The San Francisco book, characteristically charming and engaging, though longer than his previous volumes, presents his impressions of the city from varied angles. “Walking Reflectively,” “Climbing Perilously,” “Smiling Unconditionally,” “Eating Customarily,” and “Mooning Non-Mooniacly” are some of the examples. His discoveries again never fail to surprise and amaze even San Franciscans. He writes about the three distinct sounds of the city: the fog-horn, the cable-cars, and the sea lions. He lists the three marvelous accomplishments of the local people that he respects most: they have leveled hills, they have built cable cars, and they have made everyone drive up steep hills and park in the middle. “They created possibility out of impossibility and made us all forget the existence of such impossibility and instead regard the result as an absolutely natural occurrence. In other words, they created Nature.”27 This last point leads him into a discussion of Golden Gate Park. In each chapter, Yee dexterously weaves together local history, cultural anecdotes, personal experience, and fascinating observations which help highlight his central idea. His pace is measured, and the included details are carefully chosen and beautifully connected. However, his tone seems to be more inclined toward rambling and digression than it previously was. A distinct feature that sets this book apart from all previous Silent Traveller volumes is a clear focus on the cultural contributions of Chinese immigrants. The author appears unreserved in his commendation of Chinese immigrants, criticism of racial discrimination, and commentary on world politics. During his first visit to San Francisco in 1953, he attended the Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown, which he records in the book. It was “the largest and best New Year’s welcome in Chinatown’s history, with an estimated hundred thousand persons joining in the fun.”28 Lights and fanciful lanterns hung overhead. Cantonese music floated through the air, mixed with the bangs and sputtering of fireworks. Eventually, the parade came, led by Scottish bagpipes and followed by the mayor, Miss Hong Kong, and Miss Chinatown of 1952. The dragon dance and lion dance also figured prominently in the festivities. Most significant to Yee was the fact that the celebration was not confined to Chinese and American-born Chinese inhabitants of Chinatown. San Francisco’s Chinatown had developed from an enclave of “slave girls, opium fiend, devil’s kitchen” to a place where Chinese cultures were celebrated and everyone was welcome to take part in the festive atmosphere.29 San Francisco’s Chinatown, the earliest and largest in North America, was the setting of two recent books, both by Chinese-American writers: The Fifth Chinese Daughter, a memoir of a Chinese-American woman by Jade Snow Wong, and The Flower Drum Song, a fiction about Chinese immigrants by C. Y. Lee. Both works successfully countered the stereotypical view of Chinatown as a place populated with slave girls, opium addicts, sword dancers, and fortune tellers. Yee takes a slightly different approach as a sympathetic and humane commentator. When the first groups of Chinese came to work in the gold mines or on the transcontinental

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railroad, they were exploited and did not receive sufficient pay. They “had to live in a subhuman manner within a limited area” without knowing at the time they were “infuriating Americans by preferring their own way of life to the American one.” Frequent cries for their removal led to a “Chinese Massacre” in Los Angeles on October 24, 1871 and the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. However, those anonymous early immigrants successfully “created towns with the startling qualifying word ‘China,’ the country where they were born. No other country or human race has managed to create its own towns in a foreign land like that.”30 To counter the stereotypes created by narratives about the Tong Wars and Dr. Fu Manchu, Yee offers three stories about Chinese immigrants who made exemplary contributions to American society: Dean Lung, a humble Chinese, who was honored and recognized for his faithful service to General Horace W. Carpentier and for his moral integrity; Lee Quon’s family and relatives, known as “China Boys,” who were distinguished for their discipline and congeniality through their excellent cooking skills and reliable service at Mills College; and Lue Gim Gong, a “Chinese Burbank,” who developed a new type of orange resistant to frost, which ultimately led to the rapid growth of Florida’s citrus industry. The most striking fact about Dean Lung, Lue Gim Gong and the Mills China Boys is that they were all uneducated people, and yet they managed to achieve something of lasting benefit to others. What about us educated ones, who have spent much money and energy on learning? Each time I strolled into San Francisco’s Chinatown I could not help admiring that first group of ill-fated fellow countrymen of mine, who stood fast with their indomitable spirit and tireless energy for work, and created a town-within-a-town—a community that has grown and endured. At the same time I despise those, including many of my compatriots, who look down at the town-creators for being uneducated.31

Yee’s tone immediately switches to indignation, as he begins to make a political comment on international politics: Lately there has been some talk about all the Western countries, even including Russia, joining hands to crush the Chinese. What for? To eliminate all the Chinese from the earth? Such wishful thinking and irresponsible words even from some responsible bodies make me realize that our present era is not yet so sane as it might be. Mere force without sound cause can never be victorious for long.32

The book ends with a chapter on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, which, since its discovery in 1775 by Juan Manuel de Ayala, has been used as a prison, a dueling ground, and an immigration center where Asian (chiefly Chinese) immigrants were examined and processed. Yee never had the opportunity to visit the island, but only viewed it from a distance. At the time, he probably was not familiar with the “Paper Son,” the interrogation and detainment of Chinese

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immigrants on the island, or of the Chinese poetry carved on the wooden walls of the detention barracks. Nevertheless, the island, because of its celestial name, its location, and its role in the racial history of the country, served as a symbol of hope, redemption, and promise. It was Yee’s “dream” that “Angel Island may become a famous Art Center for the Twentieth Century and that the rest of the Bay region—Belvedere, Sausalito, Treasure Island, Alcatraz Rock, etc., each contribute to the formation of a great National-International Park.”33 Though it may appear like an idealistic dream, this vision epitomizes the ultimate goal of his travel writing: to encourage mutual exchange, understanding, and peace among the peoples of the East and West. Yee defines his own painting as “not realistic, but atmospheric.” He liked to capture a scene in the early morning or evening, when the light was gentle and the lines were soft. More importantly, he does not use his paintings to illustrate lines from the text. Instead, he resorts to visual representations only when words cannot effectively describe the scene. His painting, in that sense, is supplementary to his writing.34 The colored plates—“A big shroud of white fog entering the Golden Gate,” “Sunrise from Mount Tamalpais,” “A mirage-like scene from Twin Peaks,” and “An Oriental in Union Square”—beautifully convey the atmosphere that language cannot deliver. The drawings in the San Francisco book are mostly Chinese ink-sketches, rather than line drawings, and they are masterfully executed on absorbent paper. During his childhood, following his father’s admonishing, Yee learned to paint on the most absorbent type of paper. He was not allowed to retouch, nor could he hesitate even for a brief moment in executing his strokes. It prevented “cheating” and demanded finesse; it was a training that helped him build a solid foundation.35 The ink sketches in the book contain figures, architecture, landscape, flowers, birds, and animals. Executed with varied levels of water and ink, they beautifully present depth, light, and dimension. “Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park,” “Waterfall and Stow Lake,” “Bison in Golden Gate Park,” and “Vernal Fall, Yosemite” are just some examples. The book made the best-seller list in mid-December and stayed on the list, in the nonfiction category, for the first month and a half of 1965. It shared the list with My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin, The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre, Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld, and Reminiscences by General Douglas MacArthur. A “great misfortune” befell Yee just before Christmas that year. He attended the departmental Christmas party at Columbia and returned home one hour later to find that his apartment had been broken into. The burglars did not touch his “valuable books,” but they took his gold watch with two jades, the Phi Beta Kappa key, two cameras with four lenses, his portable television set, and clothes, among other things. He called the police, but they could not find any clues. He contacted the insurance company to buy insurance for his books and other belongings, but the request was denied because of the area in which he lived. Even though the building was a property of Columbia University, its location was in close proximity to riskier neighborhoods. The insurance company deemed the area unsafe and offered no service. Yee’s loss was considerable, yet the fear, confusion, helplessness,

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loneliness, and anger born out of this incident were far more substantial. The delicate illusion of security was shattered completely. I think I want to move and I must move, but I cannot have the time to move at the moment. I dread moving again. What shall I do? What can I do? My plan for the coming summer must be changed for the moment. I must admit that nothing has shaken me more than this, perhaps it is because I have become older.36

Yee deliberately held this news from Whitehill until after the Christmas season. Upon finally hearing about it, the latter wrote immediately to express sympathy and solace: “I fully understand the crisis of mind caused by your burglary. Such things make one feel completely unsure, uncertain and adrift . . .”37 Whitehill’s own houses in North Andover and Starksboro, areas generally deemed safe and peaceful, had been burglarized three times. Moving, however, would not be a complete solution since there were no truly safe places anymore. Yee stayed and, many months later, he was still saddened and troubled with the thought that the burglars were crouching nearby in his neighborhood. Yee knew that they were probably people he knew and trusted and passed by daily, and they might strike again. He found the whole situation very unnerving. He had been discreet in dealing with the rather delicate subject of his retirement from the Department of Chinese and Japanese at Columbia, which had been chaired by William Theodore de Bary since 1960. A tall and sharp-minded young scholar, de Bary was a rising star. He started elementary Chinese with Goodrich as an undergraduate in 1938 and then served in the Pacific arena during World War II. Having already published on Chinese and Indian cultural history, he demonstrated administrative talents in running the department and overseeing several major projects that promoted Asian studies and boosted the department’s profile. He was later promoted to serve as the university’s provost. At the time, the department was undertaking a monumental project—the Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644—which involved over one hundred scholars from Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America. Yee was one of the contributors. De Bary played a key role in persuading Fang Chaoying and his wife Tu Lienche, two leading Ming scholars, to join Columbia’s editorial staff in 1963. Yee could not get along well with de Bary. For Yee, it was probably the age difference or simply his being “a China-born Chinese” that caused this strained relationship. He wanted to stay, but the “rough and rude” treatment he sometimes received “bothered” him so much that it made him think of “returning to England a great deal.” It was against his nature to confront anyone or trade harsh words. Yang Lien-sheng knew de Bary fairly well. He frequently attended committee meetings organized by de Bary on Asian studies at Columbia and was consulted on various projects. Instead of seeking Yang’s help in this matter, Yee resorted to Whitehill. He arranged to have lunch with Whitehill on March 21, 1963 and he told Whitehill that Clifford Lord, Dean of the School of General Studies, would be

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present. He specifically requested that Whitehill send Lord a note, wishing to have Yee stay at Columbia so that Lord “may step up his backing” in that regard.38 He juggled teaching obligations and other academic duties with outside lectures, art activities, and book events. He completed institutional obligations as required by serving departmental representative and attending various meetings. Even so, he never felt comfortable. When he heard that the department was planning to hire someone to “take on” his post after his retirement, the news made him feel anguished, as though he were worthless and unappreciated.39 He handled this delicate situation with discretion; he wanted no enemies or distractions. A month later, in his letter to Whitehill, he mentioned de Bary again but in a cheerful mood: Ted de Bary and I were together in a dinner party last night. I told him that you and I thought he had built an empire for Oriental Studies—Chinese, Japanese and Korean. He knows you. When you next meet him, please tell him so. He likes the idea. I want you to know that he and I get along quite well, for I never want to be unfriendly with anybody I know.40

When de Bary vacated his position to serve as chancellor the following year, Yee presented him with a calligraphy piece at the farewell party. He copied a quotation from Huang Zongxi (1610–1695), a Ming Dynasty historian and thinker. To de Bary, Yee was “a courtly gentleman, with Chinese mind, not aggressive and pushy.”41 Yee went to England again in summer of 1965. In addition to visiting Chien-kuo and his family, he intended to see Allnatt, who was getting older and becoming rather sick. Allnatt never ceased trying to persuade Yee to return to England. There was never any question about the genuine sincerity in Allnatt’s admiration and his promises of financial assistance. Yee simply could not accept the invitation. To Allnatt, Yee had the ability to “create better work, perhaps a great piece of work.” Nevertheless, Yee could not entertain such high expectations. He knew his own limitations. It was not humbleness when he remarked, “I know that I cannot be a great one, but would like to learn how to be a near-great one!”42 He was also aware of his own niche, however, and had his own goals in mind: What I like to do for the remaining years of my life is to give what I have learned by comparison during the past 30 years outside of China. I think I may be able to declare myself as the only Oriental who has actually penetrated right inside of the Western life without having lost my own identity. I have spent many days in a Scottish Duke’s castle, many English aristocrats’ homes, and a Welsh miner’s cottage as well as a cockney’s grocer’s basement apartment. Many Chinese who came out of China either spent their days in the libraries or dormitories or in his business offices, usually boasting to know Western life by guess work. That is why there are [sic] still much misunderstanding among peoples. I do not say that I know better than others. But it will not be easy to get one studying Western life

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for another 30 years like what I did. Therefore I hesitate to waste the rest of my life in an easy and more comfortable circumstance. I want to do something for others—something might be a help to promote mutual understanding through my personal contact.43

During the summer trip, Yee spent approximately ten days in Cambridge, taking dozens of pictures, mostly of its architecture and of surrounding scenes. He may have planned this trip to be a preparation for a future title on Cambridge. A Silent Traveller book on Cambridge, a companion piece to the Oxford book, had been Allnatt’s long-term wish. Yee stayed at the Doughty House for a week. The visit not only confirmed his view of Allnatt as “an overwhelmingly kind man” but also exposed the other side of the man: “very bossy, domineering and highlyopinionated. . . . No one of his circle could object him, nor dare do so.” If patronization exacted an exchange of dignity for humiliation and freedom for subordination, it would be the last favor Yee would ever covet. “My decision to take up Columbia’s post 6 years ago is a correct one,” he exclaimed. “I am really glad that I am not told to do what he wants me to do. It is a blessing to me!”44 Though unwilling to retire yet, Yee had to begin his preparations, and the trip to England was partially to explore post-retirement opportunities. It was in England that he concluded, “I now know that I cannot come to live in England, for London is as expensive as New York if not more.”45 At the time, he did not know that this would actually be his last trip to England. He never set foot in England or Europe again. It was in England that he began contemplating American citizenship. Discussions about immigration reform had been underway since the Kennedy years, and Congress finally passed a new immigration law that fall. President Lyndon Johnson signed the historic Immigration Act of 1965 in a ceremony held on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in the background. The new immigration law abolished discriminatory quotas based on national origins. With its “family reunification” and other provisions, which took effect in 1968, immediate family members of American citizens could come without regard to their nation of origin. Yee applied for naturalization in early 1966. American citizenship would undoubtedly help in regard to his future travels, but his major concern was reunification with his son Chien-fei. After an interview with the U.S. Department of Justice in late February, his application was approved on March 28, 1966. “I am sure that this is the right thing to do, as you are staying here,” Whitehill congratulated him upon the news. “Few men have been citizens of three countries in as complete a sense as you have of the old China, of Great Britain, and now, the United States.”46 In this rare and extraordinary case, his three citizenships marked three distinct stages: the first was a natural status, one that endowed him with an ethnic identity, including skin color and cultural upbringing; the second was a necessary choice of a country that warmly welcomed him and nurtured his literary and artistic identity; and the third was a voluntary choice of a country that

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generously offered him space and opportunities that led to his ultimate accomplishments and recognitions. Yee took a sabbatical leave for the 1966–1967 year. He accepted an invitation to serve as the external examiner at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. From June 1966 to March 1967, he planned to make a round-the-world trip, including visits to Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, New Guinea, Tahiti, Australia, and New Zealand. In May, a change was made to his itinerary: the addition of a visit to Chien-fei in Taiwan. His feelings were mixed. “I do not possess the same happy expectations as I did in other trips before,” he noticed. He even suspected that “there must be something changing within me.” He had not been to Asia for more than three decades. Many changes had taken place in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. No one could predict what troubles might be awaiting. Nevertheless, he was getting older, and he sensed the urgency to do what he called the “last round of some parts of the world” while he was still physically capable. In addition, it was a trip toward, not to, home. “My homesickness has been acute these past few years.” Such a trip, hopefully, could somewhat quench his homesickness at some level.47 Yee arranged for a Chinese graduate student to live in his apartment during his absence. He would not collect rent, but the student’s presence gave him some sense of security. Leaving New York on June 2, and after short stops in Honolulu and Japan, Yee arrived in Taipei on June 8. Chien-fei was less than three years old when Yee left for England. Through his mother and relatives he heard many stories about his father. It was his childhood dream to go abroad, like Sun Wukong in the classic novel Journey to the West, and search for his father. Yee’s first letter arrived when he was in middle school. The letter, with a foreign stamp and English words on the envelope, was specifically addressed to him. He treasured it and carried it all the time until he later lost it in a battle in Taiwan. Yee’s paternal affection, trust, and endearment registered in a way that Chien-fei would never forget. On one occasion, he met Shih-I Hsiung in Taiwan, who commented, “Your father works very hard. I became famous first, but he caught up and has published so many books since then.”48 He gestured with his right hand near the waist to indicate the amount of publications. Chien-fei was teaching art at Taiwan Normal University. Yee’s visit was, for Chien-fei, a dream come true. He was recently married, and he lived in a small apartment with his wife, Chiao-wen, and their newborn baby daughter, San San. Yee stayed with them in their apartment instead of a hotel and slept in a camp cot. For four days, torrential rain kept pouring down; inside the apartment, Yee held San San in his arms, and they sat together chatting. He told them about his experiences overseas, and he listened to their stories. “I don’t have any family member with me if you don’t come,” he told Chien-fei. To dispel their misgivings, he added, “How did I survive in England in those days? You can survive if you are determined, too.”49 Yee thoroughly enjoyed being a father and grandfather, aspects of life that he had missed for many years.

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Before setting out on his trip, Yee specifically arranged to have Whitehill send him a telegram requesting his immediate return to the United States after finishing his work in Hong Kong. As predicted, there were as many as forty people waiting to greet him at the Taipei airport when he arrived, and many friends came to see him afterward. It was a serious concern that he might not be able to leave for Hong Kong on June 12 as scheduled. Whitehill’s telegram, therefore, arrived just in time, and Yee left Taipei without any delay. He stayed in Hong Kong for three weeks. More friends from other educational institutions entertained him and, by his own calculation, he attended twenty-four banquet dinners and luncheons during his short stay. To experience traditional Asian hospitality after living in the West for three decades was a cultural shock, but it also gave him ample reason to celebrate. Indeed, he had been “very careful about eating, otherwise I could not have survived at the moment.”50 The respect and kindness he received in Hong Kong, as well as in other South Asian countries, were obviously very pleasing to him. Among his friends was Lo Hong-lit, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. They began to communicate with each other through their mutual friend Tsun-jen Liu, who left Hong Kong to accept an offer in Australia. Lo specialized in classical Chinese literature, he helped Yee shop for Chinese merchandise, and he occasionally remitted money to Yee’s family in China. In Hong Kong, Yee made an arrangement with his friend Pun Chiu Yin for the printing of the booklet The Silent Traveller’s Sayings. It consisted of quotations Jane Whitehilll had collected from his Silent Traveller volumes, as well as a foreword prepared by Walter Whitehill. Yee brought the manuscript to Hong Kong because it was cheaper for printing and production. Pun Chiu Yin, an editor of Sing Tao Daily and a program manager for a local broadcasting company, helped produce the book, and Yee shouldered the entire production cost of $623 for two thousand copies. The small thread-bound booklet later became a gift he sent to his friends. The eight-month trip was not without adventures. In mid-August, he took a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Penang and stayed in the Ambassador Hotel. After a good meal, he took a taxi and rode along the Penang coast. There was rain that morning, and some areas were still fairly wet. At a scenic spot, he stopped the taxi and walked down the beach toward the water. He saw a huge rock on the beach, took out his sketchbook, and stepped onto the rock. Covered with thick moss, it was unexpectedly very slippery, and Yee fell off. He hit his head on the rock and lost consciousness. The taxi driver, having waited for some time, came down to search for him. He dragged Yee into the taxi and, after checking several hotels, finally located Yee’s hotel and left him with the manager at the front desk. Fortunately, Yee did not suffer any serious injuries, but he learned a lesson, stayed at the hotel for a thorough recovery for two weeks, and “did not accept any invitations.”51 He never forgot the taxi driver who saved his life. He later sent a letter to a local newspaper in Penang, requesting assistance to find the taxi driver so that he could offer him remuneration.

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The most thrilling part of his trip was the three–week journey through the jungles of Sarawak and North Borneo in Malaysia and Indonesia, an eye-opening adventurous experience he described in a letter to Whitehill: The movements on the swamp-land as well as on the sandy water were tough and rough. Sometimes I had to walk over a single tree-trunk bridge, long narrow and slippery, with no handles, while the muddy water flew fast beneath my feet. And sometimes I had to ride on a long, narrow boat made of one piece of tree-trunk zig-zagging in the much twisted small river with nipah palms growing thickly on both sides. Without the natives as the boatmen and guides I could have never been able to come outside again. I have seen all I could have seen within the 3 weeks, though nothing of them could have ever entered my dreams before. A few English men who I met on the journey called me a “Mostadventurous Chinaman.” I must tell you that I would not try to go in the jungles again if I can help it.52

He also told Ernest Dodge about the same trip, but focused on the tribal tradition and ceremonial festival he observed: Not only that I spent two nights in two different longhouses, I had also attended a big GAWAI-ANTU FEAST—a traditional head-hunting ceremonial festival—with a thousand attendance, including many chieftains and their own tribes in their own tribal costumes. The feast started from 5 p.m. till 6 a.m. the next morning. I wanted to witness the whole procedures, so I did not sleep one minute. I was actually put to sit between two bravest men of the land with a few heads to their credits. I managed to take some pictures with no flash light. . . . However, I am glad to tell you that my head is still on my shoulders.53

After returning from Sarawak, Yee stayed in Singapore for a few months. “The important Chinese here have been all very kind to me and begged me to give lectures in the universities, colleges and learned societies.”54 He was delighted with the public’s overwhelming enthusiasm. In addition to informal talks, he gave two lectures, one on Confucianism for the Society of Confucius Teaching, and the other on his trip to Sarawak for the Association of Southeastern Asian Studies. He traveled through Australia and Papua New Guinea, where he spent Christmas, and then arrived in Christchurch in New Zealand on December 31. His stay in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea started him contemplating the meaning of civilization and challenging so-called social progress. He decried that “the modern civilization of the 20th century is crashing down the earliest way of life far too drastically and fast too.” All the natives looked so bewildered in their eyes and hopeless. Among all the tribes the most dreaded one is the Kukukukus, none more than five-feet tall and a semi-nomad, who are still practising what their forefathers did. Most of them

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saw the use of steel only 6 or 7 years ago. They could never have anything to match the rifles and shotguns; they would soon vanish no doubt. On the other hand I am glad that I have managed to get myself to Mt. Hagen, the highland of New Guinea, and to see something of the native people before the stone-age way of life disappeared from the earth completely. This reflects in my mind that the earliest people who lived in the Far Eastern corner of Asia—my great, great, great forefathers—did disappear centuries ago. Progress? Improvement? Where are we going now?55

The visit to Papua New Guinea’s highlands reminded him of his own ethnic identity and helped him make a connection with global migration in ancient civilization. Such thoughts made him suspect that, to his friends, he might appear to have “undergone a drastic change.”56 On New Year’s Eve, he made a resolution to write down and paint all that he had seen during this world tour; it would be a daily record different from any of his earlier travel books. He also resolved to make another short trip to Japan for a book on that country. There was another part of his resolution: to reunite with Chien-fei. The immigration office granted him permission to bring Chien-fei and his family to the United States. Yee subsequently sent dozens of letters to the Whitehills, Harold Hugo, Parker Allen, and Bill Tyler, meticulously planning for Chien-fei and his family in regard to visa applications, finance, employment, and lodging. Hugo was to employ Chien-fei, whose skills and training in art could be utilized at the Meriden Gravure Company. The Whitehills were to have Chiao-wen and San San temporarily stay in their North Andover home while Chien-fei began his job in Meriden, Connecticut. The beginning of their life in America was crucial to a successful future in the country. Yee wanted to keep Chien-fei separated from Chiao-wen for a few months—a temporary separation that would eventually help the young couple “stay away from the Chinese” and “get along with the American way of living easier later on.” “Please help whatever you can regarding their first few months’ stay. I shall bear all the cost,” he pleaded.57 The Whitehills, like all his other friends, did everything they could to make his plan work.58 They generously extended their hands to welcome Chien-fei and his family from Taiwan and make them feel at home in a new country.

chapter 14



Family and Love

The freighter S.S. Hong Kong Banner, after stopovers in Kobe, Yokohama, and Nagoya, sailed through the Panama Canal and docked in Boston Harbor. It was June 14, 1967. Workers’ strikes in Asia caused the ship’s multiple extended stopovers at various ports, and Chien-fei’s trip from Taiwan to New York lasted nearly twice as long as originally scheduled. Chien-fei and Chiao-wen had just cleared inspection at customs when the first mate approached with a woman who carried toys, baby food, and a stroller. She introduced herself as Jane and told them that she and her husband were Chiang Yee’s good friends. She gave Chiao-wen the items she had brought along and welcomed them to come and stay in their home in North Andover. A few days later, Chien-fei, Chiao-wen, and their baby girl arrived in New York. Yee had departed for Japan a couple of months earlier, but he left a letter that was delivered to Chien-fei: My Son Chien-fei: Since your ship’s arrival date has been postponed several times, I am not able to wait for you any longer. I have to depart for Japan, where I’ll stay for a year. I am absolutely delighted that you have made up your mind to immigrate to America with the whole family. This will be the beginning of your new life. The fact that you cannot speak English will be a major obstacle. Language is the sole determining factor for survival here. You need to understand what other people talk about, and you can relate what you know in response. I won’t and cannot offer you any help except for introducing you to a Mr. Whitehill in Massachusetts, if you are lucky enough. He has said to me that he wants to invite you all to live with him for a few weeks. He knows a lot of people in New England, so he might find some job for you. I know you have friends in New York, but you’d better not look for them. Otherwise, you might lose the courage to move ahead to Massachusetts.

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Confining yourself to the Chinese social circles is not a way to survive here. It is detrimental to your future in terms of language learning. Your family can have a short stay in my apartment for a few days, absolutely no more than a week. If you don’t know how to get to Massachusetts, seek help from a friend. Since you told me that you have some money, I assume it will be enough to sustain you for some time. Remember: never ever borrow money from other people. Wish you and your whole family happiness. Father1

Chien-fei subconsciously reached in his pocket for his wallet. The colorful dream he had woven and cherished was suddenly and completely crushed. It was a difficult decision to immigrate to America. Chiao-wen had given birth to their second child, Ton Ton, the previous December. They did not tell Yee for fear of reproach, and they left the baby boy behind in Taiwan. On their journey to the United States, they spent most of the money Yee sent them for souvenirs and gifts, and $160 was all they had left. Glancing at his wife, he uttered a hushed note of despair. Chien-fei suddenly sensed the seriousness of the ordeal ahead of them. The large living room of Yee’s apartment served as both the study and studio. Paintings and calligraphy hung on the walls. Built-in bookcases along the walls were packed with English-language books, and several shelves were devoted to thread-bound Chinese classics. A long wooden table, set on stands, was the working table, on which were spread brushes, paper, and ink. It was pleasantly disorganized: a cultural and artistic ambience that suggested assortment of art and literature, East and West. What immediately caught Chien-fei’s attention was the Chinese character 忍 (ren), meaning “forbearance,” written on varied sizes of paper and posted everywhere in the apartment—on the wall, near the desk, and by the bed. Sitting on the chair for a brief rest, Chien-fei felt surrounded by all these “forbearance” signs. It dawned on him that his father, respected and recognized by the world for his achievements, had quietly endured pain and loneliness in this private space while maintaining a perpetual worry-free public image. He learned later that his father would write the character ren every time he encountered something unhappy, as a form of restraint from anger, disappointment, despair, and distress.2 Four days later, Chien-fei was on his way to North Andover, Massachusetts. Yee was in Hawaii at the time. The East-West Center granted him a senior specialist award to conduct a research project on South Pacific arts and literature from May 15 to September 15. After returning in February from his aroundthe-world trip, he took a short break to visit friends and wait for the arrival of Chien-fei. However, because of the boat’s delay, he had to set out in late March for Japan where he was to stay for six weeks before going to Hawaii. He visited thirty-six different places and collected much material in Japan for a new volume which he was confident and optimistic would “be a good sellable one, perhaps

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next to SAN FRANCISCO.”3 He was as ambitious as ever. While in New York, he discussed three volumes of Chinese art with Robert Farlow—figure painting, landscape painting, and flower-and-bird painting—that he would complete within the next few years. He was also considering future projects on Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand, in addition to the Japan volume. Yee graciously acknowledged the generous help that his friends offered. He wrote to Whitehill from New Zealand: “I realize that I could travel by myself without any worries, simply because I have such good friends like you and Harold to help me.” Later, from Hawaii, he wrote: “I always feel that I am rich in my life for I am so rich in friendship with many good friends like you, Harold, Parker, John Peckham, David, and many, many others.”4 He knew that without their help he would not be able to travel in Japan or stay in Hawaii, and he would not be able to write or paint. He also confessed that he was so touched by Whitehill’s letter that tears streamed down his checks. “This is a rare thing, for I have become hardboiled after having been outside of my homeland for the past 34 years!”5 North Andover is a small town about twenty-five miles north of Boston. The Whitehills’ residence at 44 North Andover Street was a big house with seventeen rooms. Their two daughters, Jane and Diana, were married and living away from home. Rooms were prepared for Chien-fei and his family. Since Hugo’s printing company was temporarily closed for the annual vacation, the Whitehills told Chien-fei that he could stay with them until July 17. They all then traveled to Vermont where they spent two weeks in the Starksboro country house and made a short visit to Montreal for Expo 67. The Whitehills enjoyed the young couple’s stay and felt that they were “admirable,” “industrious,” “adaptable,” and “agreeable.” “Jane and I are increasingly happy to have them with us,” Whitehill reported. Chien-fei’s artistic skills were extraordinary. He painted four paintings in Vermont and gave two to the Whitehills and the other two to Jane Garrett, Whitehill’s secretary at the Athenaeum.6 After they returned to North Andover, Chien-fei was introduced to Hugo, who came specially for that purpose. A few days later, the Whitehills drove Chien-fei to Meriden to start his new job there while Chiao-wen and San San stayed in North Andover. On the left side of the house was a corridor leading to a barn in the back, which was Whitehill’s study and where he prepared speeches and wrote articles and books. The spacious barn-converted study was filled with a massive collection of books, comparable to a small public library. Jane advised Chiao-wen that, while she should feel at home in the house, she must keep San San from touching the items in the study. Books were Whitehill’s treasure, and he treated them with utmost tender care; he never left any notes or marks in them. Among the many photos and pictures on the walls, two attracted Chiao-wen’s attention. In one photo, she saw Whitehill giving a speech, and President John F. Kennedy sat in the front row of the audience. In another photo, she saw Whitehill and Yee in Harvard Yard. She soon learned that Whitehill, a renowned historian, had won the affectionate nickname of “Mr. Bostonian” for his extensive study of the city and his contributions to the preservation of its local history. In addition to serving as

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director of the Athenaeum and a history professor at Harvard, he was on many committees and trustee boards and often traveled for lectures and meetings. Jane Whitehill, who was a graduate of Vassar College with a master’s in English from Radcliffe, retired early to accompany her husband on his trips and to assist him in organizing manuscripts and caring for their home. She was the niece of President Calvin Coolidge and a descendent of President Thomas Jefferson. She grew up in the North Andover house which she inherited after her uncle passed away. Yee never mentioned these details to Chien-fei or Chiao-wen, nor did he mention his frequent communication with Whitehill in preparation for their successful transition to a new life in America. The Whitehills took the couple in and treated them like their own children. In their eyes, the young couple was “admirable and singularly industrious, and adaptable,” and “they have an extraordinary number of the qualities that one thinks of as deriving from happier times.”7 Their brief stay in North Andover offered the couple a firsthand opportunity to observe American life from a unique perspective, as well as notice some of the many cultural differences between the East and West. Most importantly, Chiaowen learned the democratic spirit and self-reliance through Jane’s life philosophy and practice. Even though she grew up with a privileged social background, Jane was never ostentatious or extravagant. She was well-to-do but never wasteful, frugal but not stingy.8 Chiao-wen grew to respect and trust “Auntie Jane,” who had become a rich source of maternal affection and encouragement. In the meantime, Chien-fei started working at Hugo’s printing press in Meriden. He learned new job skills during the day and studied English at night. After a month and a half, he saved up enough money to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Meriden within walking distance of the shop. Chiao-wen and San San left North Andover and reunited with Chien-fei. In September, Yee returned. “I thought I could count on you to back me up when I came,” Chien-fei complained. To this, Yee answered, “You may rise to the top of society only after you are able to stand the hardest of hardships.” With a big smile, he continued, “If you had gone to Chinatown instead, you might have ended up running a restaurant there.” Chien-fei said, “I have given up a privileged career in Taiwan.” Yee countered, “I’ve given up county magistrate.” Based on his own experience, Yee offered the advice: “Be forbearing when you are confronted with difficulties; be diligent when you are at work.”9 Chien-fei’s arrival put an end to Yee’s Puritanical routines. On Thanksgiving, he spent the night with Chien-fei, Chiao-wen, and San San in their Connecticut apartment. At Christmas, Chien-fei and his family went to visit Yee in New York. Yee, meanwhile, had fallen head over heels in love. He confessed that he “had never been in this state before.” He had found “his ideal person.” Deeply mired in love, he felt unexplainably and helplessly debilitated. “I just cannot keep her off my head. I don’t know what I am going to do myself. I must work but how!”10

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His dream girl was Yiau-min Huang, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution. She was born and raised in China and moved to Taiwan with her parents in 1949. After college, she came to the United States for graduate study at the University of Wisconsin in 1960. Yee first met her in New Guinea and then again in Hawaii during the summer of 1967. She had recently received her Ph.D. and was applying for a job at the Smithsonian’s Southeast Asia Mosquito Project.11 Young and vivacious, she always had a smile on her face. She appeared confident and ready to meet any new challenge. At the time, there were very few Chinese graduate students in the United States, not to mention female Chinese with a Ph.D. Yee later revealed to Yiau-min how impressed he had been when he first met her in New Guinea, where she was doing research with biologist Peter Mattingly. Six months later, when they met again at a mutual friend’s home in Hawaii, Yee recognized her instantly. He greatly admired Yiau-min’s skills and success in her research field.12 There was apparently mutual admiration and attraction which drew the two close. Yee gave Yiau-min a copy of A Chinese Childhood and told her, “This is my autobiography. . . . It is for you to keep. You may read the book for a diversion of mind after intense research. My books are all light readings.”13 Yee called her for a brief chat every night. Whenever she went to New York for visit, Yee was well prepared and entertained her with trips to the opera or circus. She felt relaxed and comfortable with him. However, the considerable age gap seemed to have imposed an insurmountable hurdle between them from the very beginning. Yiau-min was thirty years old when Yee was almost sixty-five. Because of this age difference, many of the stories in A Chinese Childhood seemed remote and unfamiliar to her. Yee sensed early on that Yiau-min’s parents would oppose to their relationship because of traditional Confucian values. As expected, Yiau-min met “much opposition” from her parents in the spring of 1968. She was “terribly upset” with their negative response, and, as an obedient daughter, she felt helpless. Yee also felt very “disturbed” and could not concentrate on his work.14 Jane and Walter Whitehill were the only confidantes with whom he shared his predicament. In fact, a few months earlier, at his request, Whitehill arranged a meeting with Yiau-min in Washington, D.C., during his business trip there. Whitehill invited Yiau-min to lunch at the Navy Club. It was a congenial and cordial meeting, and he had an absolutely favorable impression of her. However, there was little anyone could do to move the relationship forward. The love rekindled Yee’s youthful passion, yet it simultaneously caused “a terrible agony” and “acute pain at heart.”15 The nation had been in turbulence since the early 1960s. The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War caused unrest across the nation, and more than three hundred college and university campuses had sit-ins, building takeovers, riots, and violent confrontations. It was especially violent in 1968, which was subsequently called “the year of the barricades” and “the year of fire, blood, and death.”16 The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April initiated riots in 125 cities. Two months later, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was also assassinated. The epidemic of

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violence paralyzed the academic world. In late April, more than one thousand student activists at Columbia University stormed major campus buildings, took administrators hostage, and occupied the university president’s office. They demanded that the university administration resign its institutional membership in the Institute for Defense Analyses. After negotiations failed, Columbia President Grayson Kirk called the New York City police to come in and end the protest. Because of the riot on campus, exams were cancelled and professors gave most students final grades of either “pass” or “fail.” The Columbia strike, as President Richard Nixon complained, was the “first major skirmish in a revolutionary struggle to seize the universities.” Some politicians feared that the radicals might target “City Hall, the State Capitol, or even the White House.” In the following months, between January 1969 and April 1970, young radicals bombed five thousand police stations, corporate offices, military facilities, and campus buildings designated for ROTC use. Twenty-six thousand students were arrested and thousands were injured or expelled.17 As always, Yee eschewed politics, and he made no discussion of the Columbia strike in his writings except for the complaint that he had to attend many meetings every day. Immunity from politics, however, was not a viable option. Yee was terribly shaken by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: “The news about Robert Kennedy was too sad for words. It shatters my mind and I don’t want to do anything at the moment. There are too many sad happenings in this world these days.”18 Columbia formally agreed to let Yee postpone retirement until 1971. This assurance offered him peace of mind, so he could continue writing for at least another three years. That summer, he taught for a month in Hawaii and then spent the rest of the season in Japan, working on the Japan book; Yiau-min went to London and then to Asia for her research. Gustav Herdan passed away in December 1968. Yee sent a long letter to Innes on December 26, offering his sincere, sympathetic, and compassionate condolences. “Life is so difficult from one stage to another. I have constantly come to adjust myself to each new stage I reached too.” He told Innes that she should be proud of her “three wonderful children,” who were, in his words, a “good girl,” a “good boy,” and an “intelligent fellow.” “All what I have said now is to show my envy of your blessing with wonderful children around you. That is the reality you are facing.”19 Yee remembered that, in the 1930s, Innes had dreamed of becoming “a writer with China as background.”20 Family chores and other responsibilities after marriage occupied most of her time, and pursuing her dream being virtually impossible. Even so, she managed to assist Gustav, who was lecturer at the University of Bristol, in his numerous publications in statistics and mathematical linguistics, and they co-translated The World of Hogarth (1966). In addition, she had recently completed a translation of classical Chinese poems. Yee encouraged Innes to cheer up and move on. “[E]verything will come to you in the right moment as you expect it to be.”21 After Innes confessed that she was

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tormented with “inner emptiness,” he expressed sympathy and made a suggestion that she should write a novel about China. He even provided a detailed synopsis: You can use my life as a base. My young days were confined in an old Confucian family. Then family’s income dwindled by the flood of foreign goods. I met [sic] teaching of new things, so I studied chemistry. Then I had to fight the warlords and became civil servant to fight against the overwhelming corruptible odds (I can give you many little details of Chinese corruptions within Chinese governmental personnel). Then came the Japanese invasion. (Though I was not there, my elder brother was in it and killed. My old house was ransacked. You can make out all stories, not necessarily being my experience. Your own experience of having lived in Wu-han and Peking would help your description terribly). I think you can add the victory of Mao’s against Chiang’s. Then came the Cultural Revolution and the young man, supposed to be me, now an old man had been severely examined and then put in prison. Happily he managed to escape to Hong Kong, then to England and then tried to practice his socialistic idea in Checoslavokia [sic] but met the Russian invasion. He had to hide again and to run too. Finally China and Russia got to quarrel. The knowledge gained in Checoslavokia [sic] was useful for the Chinese and he was called back to China . . . till the ending whether good or bad you can use your brain to think what you like to see the world to be.22

Yee advised Innes to work out a plot carefully, and he would be delighted to offer his assistance. “I want to make this book of yours as if written by a Chinese, for it has to be very Chinese in feeling.” The project, he believed, would occupy her mind so that she would not feel “empty” or “lonely.”23 Yee was never satisfied with his own children. In his letter to Innes on December 26, 1968, he poured out his dissatisfaction and disappointment with Chien-kuo: You may like to know that my elder son and his family have recently been emigrated to America. I have found a good job for him as a printer. For years I tried to persuade them to come, but his Jersey born wife refused. Now she is here already complaining against American way of life. I say that one lives where one can find work. They could not find much doing on Jersey Island, yet she would not try to compromise.24

Chien-kuo and his family had moved to the United States a week earlier, followed by the arrival of Ton Ton, Chien-fei and Chiao-wen’s second child, two days later. Yee celebrated Christmas with his two sons and their families for the first time ever. He felt very happy and proud to have them with him for the holiday. “I never thought my life could be fuller as time goes along”; he sounded exuberant and content.25 The pleasure of this family reunion, though, swiftly melted and eroded into an unbearable vexation of “family troubles.” “I just don’t know why I should have come to have this result in life.”26

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Yee and his two sons had each lived separate lives during the previous three decades. Their Chinese upbringing had been invariably compromised with Western and modern cultural beliefs and values. There existed a deep chasm between the two generations. For several months, Yee refused to talk to Chien-fei and would hang up the phone if the latter called. Chien-fei did not realize until later that his remarks had unintentionally hurt his father: “We children would have enjoyed a far better life if you had spared even a tiny bit of love to us.”27 Those words hit Yee’s Achilles’ heel. He knew that his relatives in China had accused him of abandoning his family and having relationships with women overseas. He wanted his children to know the truth: his marriage was not satisfying and going overseas was partially an escape from his unhappy family life. His success had exacted a dear price. For most of the time he spent in the West, he lived alone and was the only person responsible for taking care of his life. “It’s lonely,” he declared.28 He expressed these thoughts in private letters to Jianlan or Deh-I; personally expressing them to his sons, however, was nearly impossible for Yee. He “could not open up—to express love to his family.”29 Both father and sons recognized this dilemma and difficulty. Chien-fei stated bluntly, “Father, there are many issues that I cannot communicate with you.” Yee shot back, unswervingly, “This is true. But I have even more words in my heart that cannot be conveyed to you.”30 Chien-kuo, as eldest son, was expected to be filial and respectful according to Chinese cultural tradition. In Yee’s eyes, however, Chien-kuo had assumed “the English haughty way” of thinking and often went against him. To Yee, this was disappointing and unacceptable. It was very “un-Chinese,” he complained. He blamed Barbara for her influence on Chien-kuo and even for the quarrels between the two brothers. In his mind, she was “a very difficult person” to please.31 At a dinner at Chien-fei’s home, Yee wanted everyone to use chopsticks, but Barbara would not relent—she insisted on silverware. Finally, at Chiao-wen’s suggestion, a compromise was made to place chopsticks to the right of the plate and silverware to the left.32 Coming to the United States was a big decision for Chien-kuo and Barbara. They sold the press and left Jersey in order to stay close to Yee. Through Yee’s arrangement, Chien-kuo met with Hugo during his short visit to the United States in May 1968. Hugo liked Chien-kuo and immediately agreed to offer him a job once he arrived. Hence, Chien-kuo began working for Hugo at Meriden Gravure as soon as the family moved to Meriden; after two months, however, he quit the job and switched to another company in Hartford. He made this decision for a good reason: in the management group at Meriden Gravure, his salary was simply too low to support his whole family. Barbara, a veteran teacher in England, was unable to find a job in the Connecticut public schools because of the different credential requirements in America’s education system. She needed to complete training for a teaching certificate before she could find a job at a public school. After discussing the financial situation with Hugo, Chien-kuo landed a new job which paid twice as much. Yee, however, was outraged at the change. Hugo was his good friend, and Chien-kuo’s decision was no less than a betrayal of his trust.

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Though Hugo did not discuss the situation with Yee, he sensed Hugo’s displeasure. It became an embarrassment to Yee, for he had studiously established a good reputation which he did not want to be tarnished by his children. Yee traveled to Oklahoma to receive the title of “Honorary Mayor of Oklahoma City” on April 1. He was bemused and pleased with the honor. After returning to New York, he sent a copy of the certificate to Whitehill. Deeply immersed in his writing of the history of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Whitehill was “delighted” with the news. He told Yee that he had likewise received similar appointments as Admiral in the Texas Navy and as a Kentucky Colonel. “Therefore by such casual acts,” he reflected, “I have risen higher in (mythical) military and naval rank than I ever did my own efforts. Some of these things really are charming absurdities.”33 The draft of the Japan book was finally completed in early October 1969. The book covered an entire country, rather than a single city, and contained much fresh material, as Yee claimed, never previously presented in any other publications. With fifty-one chapters filling more than five hundred typed pages, it was apparently “much too long.”34 After sending a few chapters to Norton, he began working on the color illustrations and drawings. On January 1, 1970, Nanyang Shangbao in Malaysia published Yee’s essay “My Writing about The Silent Traveller in Japan.” It was the first time that Yee had ever written to discuss a Silent Traveller volume before its publication. The introduction was necessary since anti-Japanese sentiments were still widespread throughout Asia. Like many Chinese, Yee held a rather contemptuous view of Japan since childhood. After teaching at Columbia, however, he became friends with some distinguished Japanese scholars. Their profound understanding and mastery of Chinese cultural history stimulated a curiosity and an urge for him to explore Japan, a country that, since World War II, had moved toward prosperity with astounding speed. His three trips covered more than sixty cities and towns, and he hoped that his new book might induce his Chinese compatriots to shed the long-held view of cultural superiority for a more objective evaluation of this neighboring nation. His mammoth volume, about three hundred thousand words, consumed much of his energy during the following few months. Aside from the preparation of its illustrations, he needed to revise and retype the manuscript—a laborious task that took a heavy toll on him. The subject was intrinsically challenging since he did not know the Japanese language; furthermore, Japanese culture, a mixture of many cultures, is often subtle and sophisticated. To safeguard against technical errors, he sought candid expert advice from specialists, including his Columbia colleagues Ivan Morris and Burton Watson, who were authorities in Japanese cultural history. Yang Lien-sheng was one of the few whose shrewd and insightful comments Yee trusted. Yang offered important comments on Japanese cultural history, as well as on Yee’s approach to the subject. Yang initially refused to read the manuscript as he was too busy. Then, in January 1970, Yee sent him the chapter “Romantic Kyoto” for review. The longest chapter in the book, it includes discussions of The Tale of Genji, Zen Buddhism, dance, kimonos, temples, and the description of a

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visit to Wanfu Temple. Yang agreed to help and spent three hours on the manuscript, marking errors and making extensive comments. Yee was not prepared to receive his manuscript so heavily marked with criticism in red. He was shocked and humiliated. Nearly two months passed before he responded with a letter, in which he listed twenty points rebutting Yang’s comments. He also enclosed his Nanyang Shangbao article and an entry for “Chinese Calligraphy” in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Yang apologized for the use of red ink but stood firm on his opinions. To him, true friends should be candid with each other. He noted in his diary, “This is a man of strong character and talent. Unfortunately, he pretends to be a scholar while not knowing what scholarship is.”35 Yee had hundreds of friends; only few truly knew him and appreciated him. Paradoxically, Yang was one of the latter. Yee was promoted to full professor in May 1970, but the promotion did not bring him much joy. It would have been much more meaningful if it had happened a few years earlier. Now that he was sixty-seven years old and a year from retirement, the full professorship had lost its lustrous halo. In addition, Yee had a lot to consider at the time. He had an offer from Nanyang University in Singapore, and Australia National University in Canberra invited him to teach for a year after his retirement. There was also an opening at Oxford University, and he was planning another trip to Japan in August. The color illustrations for the Japan book were nearly completed, and he planned to finish working on the black-and-white illustrations before the August trip. He was exasperated with the snail-paced progress of the publisher. Robert Farlow, his editor at Norton, took four months to read the three chapters he submitted. It hurt him to see that his “subtle humorous and quaint remarks,” a trademark of his travel writing, had been edited out. He expressed his dissatisfaction in a letter to Farlow, pointing out the erroneous corrections. For example, he indicated that the phrase “without much space” should not be changed to “with insufficient space,” the latter being “too definite a statement.” He also rejected Farlow’s suggestion to add a map of Nikko. “My book is not a guide book and I never go through any place like a guide would lead. My mentionings [sic] are the only centers of interest.”36 To make it a strong case, he asked Whitehill to intervene. “You can tell him to check on grammatical errors in my writing, but not to alter my sentences as if to be written like what English or American would write.”37 Whitehill tactfully relayed Yee’s frustrations to Farlow. For reference, he sent the carbon copy of a chapter with Jane’s corrections and editorial suggestions. Farlow responded, explaining that he had been working hard on Yee’s manuscript. He believed that he and Jane saw eye to eye most times, and he welcomed and respected Whitehill’s intervention. At the same time, Yee’s generally calm temperament flared up over another incident. American Heritage Publishing Company published the two-volume set The Horizon History of China and Art of China in 1969. To his disbelief, the history

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volume had used material, especially some of his hand-drawn illustrations, from Chinese Calligraphy. He was neither cited nor credited anywhere in the book. He was furious after Joseph Thorndike, editor of Horizon Books, arrogantly dismissed this copyright violation as a minor oversight. To Yee, it was a blatant infringement of his copyright, which the publisher should at least acknowledge. He wanted to sue for damages despite his busy schedule. Through Whitehill’s intervention, the publisher finally offered to pay a $100 settlement fee and promised to give him credit in future editions of the book.38 Yee then wrote a strongly-worded letter to Thorndike, dated June 8, 1970, condemning the publisher for this blatantly unethical act. “I don’t see it a slipup,” he wrote. “Now I know that there are unreasonable and discourteous people even among the intellectual groups like those you represent.”39 He was furious because of Thorndike’s unwillingness to acknowledge the mistake, not even “a very simple apologetic letter.” He wrote Whitehill on June 6, with his letter to Thorndike enclosed: I wrote an answer inside the stamped envelop[e]. Please take it out and read. No doubt this answer of mine exposes my temper! You may not think that I could have a temper. Here you are. One has to express one’s displeased feeling to someone who never tries to see our point. He thinks a little money will stamp a Chinaman’s mouth. There are quite a number of mistakes in the two volumes on China which Horizon produced. They still don’t realize that many wrong conceptions about China and the Chinese by writers and publishers have caused so much trouble between the peoples. If you think my answer to Thorndike is all right, please post it for me.40

His explicit condemnation of the publisher, written in such strong language, was unprecedented. His pent-up resentment and furor exploded, and racially charged sentiments were apparent. The incident came to a reluctant conclusion in the wake of a written apology from the publisher several months later. This was apparently an intensely stressful period for Yee. He had been working continuously for fourteen months. In addition to the Japan book and Horizon issues, he wanted to have a satisfying resolution regarding his relationship with Yiau-min. For three years, he had been in touch with Yiau-min, and they saw each other and made phone calls to each other nearly every week. During the previous summer, Yiau-min had returned to Taiwan following a business trip to the Philippines for fieldwork. She tried to persuade her parents to approve of their marriage, but they strongly opposed the idea and refused to give their consent. Yiau-min came back “miserable and unhappy.” Still, she was “determined” to marry Yee. In his words, she was “very devoted to me and would not swerve despite my constant reminding her of my age.” She decided to “accompany me for the rest of my life in order to exercise all her devotion and love for me.” Her love was noble and irresistible, and Yee was perfectly willing to move to Washington, D.C.,

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after retirement so that Yiau-min could continue her career at the Smithsonian. Nevertheless, her parents’ objections stood as the last formidable hurdle on their path to happiness.41 Yee once again turned to the Whitehills for help. On June 5, he sent a long letter, telling them about Yiau-min’s determination and his dilemma. He wanted Whitehill and Jane each to write a letter to make Yiau-min’s parents “see the modern trend of life.” Whitehill, he believed, could “convince the old couple” with good reasoning. “Please use your office note-paper and envelop[e] with all the additional titles you can put on. The Chinese of the older generation still have great respect to those in high positions.” From Jane, he sought “a very sympathetic, but also persuasive, letter to Mrs. Chin-shan Huang from the point of views as mother to mother. . . . Mr. and Mrs. Huang are ardent Christians. Mrs. Huang may take Jane’s words in very well.”42 Whitehill immediately prepared a long letter to Yiau-min’s parents, detailing his friendship with and admiration of Yee, “a man of the highest standards of honor, personal character, and cultivated civility.” He told them that he also had great admiration for Yiau-min, a young scientist whom he met two years before. Now that Yee and Yiau-min desired to get married, they would “make an admirable husband and wife.” He begged Mr. and Mrs. Huang to give their consent to the marriage.43 Their marriage would achieve a union that would, in my view, have the happiest results for both wife and husband, for they are genuinely and deeply devoted to each other. They are mature persons, both of whom have made distinguished places for themselves in the American scene. Together it is my belief that they would be far happier than they can possibly be separated. The only conventional objection that might be raised to their marriage is the difference of age. This I do not consider of importance. I have known several elderly scholars of international distinction who have married young women who might, in conventional years, have been their daughters. These have been happy marriages, for a young woman of genuinely learned inclinations and abilities is more mature than her years might suggest. A scholar, like your daughter, is bound to find those men who are her contemporaries in years immature and unable to understand her serious pursuits. She naturally seeks the permanent companionship of someone who is able to understand, and sympathize with, those disinterested pursuits that mean so much to her.44

Whitehill emphasized that both Yee and Yiau-min shared a mutual interest and wished to establish a household. “This is a hope of happiness in a disordered world, a hope that I believe would create a new household that, notwithstanding the apparent disparity of their ages, would be in conformity both to the ancient civilization of China and to Christian principles.” The blessing of Mr. and Mrs. Huang, in this case, would “give great happiness” to Yiau-min and to “a dear friend” of the Whitehills whom they “greatly respect.”45

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To keep this “very personal family matter” strictly private, Whitehill requested the Huangs use his North Andover home address for future correspondence. Following Yee’s suggestions, he listed all his degrees and institutions at the very end of the letter: “A.M. (Harvard), Ph.D. (London), D.Litt., L.H.D., LL.D., F.S.A., F.R.S.A.” On the same day, Whitehill wrote to inform Yee about the letters he and Jane had separately prepared: “Dear Yee, I hope that these letters may have some useful effect. We feel deeply for your situation. If the Huangs do not understand, I hope you will marry anyway, for the happiness of two people who love each other is more important than anything else in these troubled times. There is too little happiness in the world; you have an opportunity that should not be lost.”46 The help that Whitehill and Jane provided was Yee’s best and last hope to secure the marriage. If all went well, Yee wanted the wedding to take place in North Andover. He was very serious and sincere about the relationship. He introduced Yiau-min to his sons and their families, and they were all fond of her. However, Yee and Yiau-min never married. Chinese traditional beliefs were ultimately too substantial for the Huangs to abandon or reconcile; likewise, Yee was too steeped in Confucian moral values to defy these conventions, even though he had been overseas for nearly forty years. Happiness was finally within easy reach. He met someone whose “understanding nature as a person” and “great determination” and devotion as a scientist he admired. Yet he acquiesced to fate, resolving to endure stoically the pain of unconsummated love for the rest of his life.47 He applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship late that year for a book project titled Chinese Symbolism in Literature and Art. It would be “an encyclopedia of things Chinese—which I must write before I leave this world.” With the fellowship, he could concentrate on the book after retirement. He was reading many related studies on the subject, and the book would mark the culmination of all the knowledge he had gained since his earliest days at the Wellcome Museum in 1938.48 The Guggenheim was a prestigious research award. His Columbia colleague Chih-tsing Hsia had won the award earlier that year. Almost twenty years younger than Yee, Hsia joined the Columbia faculty in 1962 and was promoted to full professor in 1969. Sharing the same office in Kent Hall, the two were strikingly different in personality and background. Hsia was sharp, blustering, and vigorous; Yee, on the other hand, was poised, mellow, and cool-headed. Hsia earned a Ph.D. in English from Yale, but Chiang had no advanced degree beyond college. Nevertheless, they both had admirable accomplishments. Hsia had published two monumental studies in Chinese literature—A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (1961) and The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (1968)—which had become classics in Chinese studies. However, these scholarly works were never bestsellers and were never as popular as the Silent Traveller books. Hsia admired Yee’s talents in art and poetry and sincerely praised his Chinese translation of Coca-Cola, yet he did not shy away from bragging about his own brilliant rendition of Kent Hall: Ken-de Tang (“Cultivating-Virtue Hall”).

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Yee applied for major fellowships on several occasions since the 1950s, but he was consistently turned down. His academic background and age were probably the major disadvantages. Now, as a Columbia full professor with many years of writing, teaching, and art practice, he felt confident that he had “the qualification entitled to receive help from some Foundations.”49 He asked Whitehill and McCord to write to Gordon Ray at the Guggenheim Foundation about his application. Hsia also sent a recommendation letter for him. Unfortunately, chance eluded him once again. The disappointment was inimically biting. In May 1971, Columbia University approved the nomination of Yee’s appointment as Professor Emeritus of Chinese. William J. McGill, university president, wrote to congratulate him on the honor, which was a recognition of his intelligence and valuable contributions and was also an official acceptance of him as a “permanent member of the Columbia community.” “Your prospective leisure may take you away from the campus more frequently than previously,” McGill wrote, “but your friends on Morningside hope that the University will still claim some of your time and interest.”50 On June 13, Hofstra University awarded Yee the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. Clifford Lord, Hofstra’s president, made laudatory remarks about Yee: “Chiang Yee is a rare and versatile man, honored equally as master of poetry and prose, as painter and designer, as scholar of the arts and of science, and as master teacher of the young and the mature.”51 Chien-kuo and Hsia joined him at the ceremony. Even though this honorary degree had no practical power in attaining fellowships or obtaining teaching posts, it was a milestone that brought his teaching career to a delightful and graceful conclusion.

chapter 15



China Revisited

“Ping Pong diplomacy” caught the world’s attention in April 1971 when the Chinese government gave a warm reception to the U.S. ping pong team, an unmistakable sign that Sino-American relationships were improving. Within a year, two historic events happened: China was granted a seat on the United Nations Security Council in October 1971, and President Richard Nixon visited China in February 1972. Also, with the Shanghai Communiqué, the United States and China normalized diplomatic relationships after twenty-two years of hostility. To overseas Chinese, these developments were especially significant. Yee was teaching in Hawaii in the summer of 1971 when President Nixon made a dramatic announcement that he planned to visit China before the following May. That evening, Yee wrote a letter to Whitehill, declaring, “I just heard that Nixon will visit China (mainland) soon. What a new development? I feel cut off here.”1 Retirement offered Yee some level of freedom. He wanted to continue teaching Chinese art and poetry, and there was an offer by a university in Singapore, but he turned it down because he wanted to stay in either New York or Washington, D.C. The Chinese University of Hong Kong invited him to be a visiting scholar for the 1971–1972 academic year. He accepted the offer but only for the spring semester of 1972 since his Japan book would be released soon. In September, he was extremely disappointed to learn that the book was not on Norton’s schedule for release during the Christmas season. This meant that he could have spent the entire year teaching in Hong Kong; it cost him $8,000 to miss the semester. He spent Christmas with Chien-fei, Chien-kuo, and their families. Yiau-min went to New York to spend one night with him on New Year’s Eve. Since January 1 was Yiau-min’s birthday, Yee arranged to go to a show with her. A couple days later, he left for Hong Kong. Known as the “Pearl of the Orient,” Hong Kong was world famous for its hybrid culture. Ever since the Chinese government ceded Hong Kong to Britain after the Opium War in 1842, Eastern and Western cultures conversed, clashed, and converged in the region. In the 1950s and 1960s, geopolitics brought economic 239

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prosperity to the region, which was Chinese territory but occupied by a British authority. Owing to its unique cultural and economic tradition and geographic location, Hong Kong acquired a dual aspect: both home and away from home. Being so close to his homeland stirred up intense emotions in Yee. He wrote about his yearning for home in the following dayou poem: I have been talking about returning home year after year, And the fragrance of the harbor greets me before I reach my home. In the distance I can see white clouds, unchanged as before, And there underneath those white clouds stands the Chiang Village.2

Everything in Hong Kong—seafood, vegetables, tea, temples, festivals, and even mountain climbing—evoked cultural memories and the taste of home, which were strangely tantalizing. “I have been absent from China for forty years; / Does China still remember the Silent Traveller?”3 During his stay in Hong Kong, there was a lot of discussion, both public and private, about Nixon’s visit to China and the Sino-American relationship. He met some of his Columbia students who stopped to see him on their way to China. In May, highly acclaimed abstract artist Zhao Wuji delivered a lecture on modern art and gave art demonstrations at the Institute of Chinese Studies. He had recently returned from a trip to China, and, like Yee, he had been stranded overseas since 1948 when he left China to study art in France. For the past thirty-eight years, Yee had always taught in English outside China. The opportunity to teach in Chinese at the Institute of Chinese Studies was incredibly appealing to him, but it soon proved to be a “rather strenuous” task because many terms in art came more naturally in English. He often had to search for a proper Chinese rendition in his lectures. In addition, his students were not able to converse with him. Even though they could understand his Mandarin, he could not comprehend their Cantonese, the most popular southern dialect in the region. He felt so frustrated that he even began to wonder if his students really understood his lectures.4 Aside from teaching, Yee gave eight public lectures in Hong Kong. In “The Future of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting,” he predicted that both Chinese calligraphy and painting were to have a better and brighter future in the modern era, and a number of new masters would emerge. He proposed the following eight points for the development of Chinese painting: it should convey some meaning to the audience; it should not copy, nor stick too closely to, the old; it should portray refined subjects as well as those concerning social activities and life problems; it should not discard the Chinese media; it should create individuality in the work; it should be representative of the time; it should have a detectable and understandable meaning; and it should aim for the quality of permanence.5 Chinese tradition, though dominant in Hong Kong, seemed to face a daunting challenge from capitalism and consumerism. Yee became concerned with the corrosive impact of commercialism on Hong Kong’s cultural identity. He ridiculed

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the trend of blind emulation of Western cultural practice there. In a zhuzhi poem, he satirizes those who imitate hippies: “Chinese men also yearn to follow the fashion; / Heavy smokers and cart drivers grow mustaches.”6 In another, he jeers at the dreadful appearance of those who apply excessive makeup: Drinking coffee instead of Wulong tea, And dabbing blue on eyes as well as eyelids— As the saying goes, the face has been smacked blue by the demon; Who can tell right from wrong in today’s world?7

He emphasized that such unconditional acceptance of Western culture was doomed to fail. As he noted on another occasion, in reference to miniskirts and the “big bushy” hairstyles of the 1970s, Chinese girls were generally short in stature, so adopting such fashion styles would only make their heads resemble an enormous “bird’s nest” and their legs two “thick flesh pillars.”8 All these observations and reflections led to his articles “Hair and Beard” and “Foreigners and Dogs,” both published in Chinese-language journals in Hong Kong after his trip. Some Chinese admired Westerners who grew thick hair and beards without realizing that Westerners, who had a genetic advantage in this respect, actually considered it a nuisance to trim and shave regularly. Some imitated the hippies, without knowing that the latter grew long hair and beards in order to “reduce the trouble of shaving and haircutting as well as avoid the expense of cutting them short.” Since many Chinese were genetically incapable of growing a long, full beard, as Yee stated, “the beard that is forcibly grown will inevitably be a grotesque scene.”9 Uncritical acceptance or imitation of Western culture often led to an undesirable hybrid culture, resulting in a consequential loss of one’s own cultural and individual identity. It should be noted that the Chinese language brought out Yee’s exuberant and audacious anti-foreign ethos, rarely manifested in his English writings. “Foreigners and Dogs” discusses the term yangren (“foreign people”) and is a short essay that exposes the author’s ostensibly uncompromising nationalistic stance. The term “foreign people” does not suggest any negative meaning literally. However, the term “foreign people,” rather than born as such, has actually evolved from the term “foreign devils.” When foreign devils first came to China, they did a lot of things that humans would not have done, so we considered them non-humans or devils. Cantonese called them fangui. However, after being ruled for nearly a century, some Hong Kong people neither address them as fangui nor switch back to the term “foreign people”; instead they call them loudly “foreign master.”10

Yee had a solo exhibition at Hong Kong’s City Hall during the week of May 29. It consisted of one hundred artworks, including calligraphy, landscape, flowerand-bird, and figure paintings. Over fifty of the pieces were brought over from

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the United States, and the rest were prepared in Hong Kong in order to fill the space. Among the latter were scenes of Hong Kong landscapes and daily life. These paintings reflected Yee’s theory and practice: be original but with classical training; present life experience but with refreshing innovations. During a visit to Lamma Island, one of his friends suggested that they buy fresh seafood directly from fishermen, since that was rarely possible in America. This particular experience led to the creation of his painting “Buying Fish at Lamma Island.” Yee generally painted what he observed and experienced. Though preparing for the exhibition occupied much of his time, it was a success. With twenty-five pieces sold, he got enough to cover the expense of the exhibition. It was his first exhibition in a Chinese-language community since 1933, and the pressure was obvious. The show attracted many visitors and caught the media’s attention. As a Chinese saying goes, “A tall tree catches the wind.” Yee sensed some negative response to his art. He did his best to shrug it off, “Too much noise invites jealousy, which no one can help without.”11 As Chien-fei later commented, his father, who had long been in the West, underestimated Hong Kong’s academic and cultural development, and this was a misjudgment that led to harsh criticism of his teaching and artworks.12 Indeed, attacks surfaced after Yee’s Chinese essay “Picasso Is Dead” was published in a major Hong Kong journal. Yee was in Australia at the time, and the essay, written after Picasso’s death on April 9, was hastily prepared without thorough research and deliberation. The essay, short and relatively cursory, includes as many as twenty-two Picasso paintings, through which Yee meant to illustrate Picasso’s evolving style from 1901 to 1957. Beneath each illustration is a brief caption. In the essay, Yee candidly acknowledges that he does not understand many of Picasso’s Cubist paintings, such as Nude Dressing Her Hair, Night Fishing at Antibes, or The Women of Algiers, after Delacroix. He also confesses that he could not fully comprehend Guernica except for the bull’s head, which symbolizes the popular bullfighting culture in Spain. While he admires Picasso’s innovation in style and creative energy, it is his hope that Chinese artists would never blindly worship and imitate Picasso because his subject, style, and social setting are different from theirs.13 This essay became the target of venomous attacks. One critic wrote that it “exposed” Yee’s “superficial understanding of art” and “his frivolous attitude.” Another critic saw it as a proof of his being “really muddleheaded.”14 Both referenced his Hong Kong exhibition as a huge disappointment. The most vicious attack, however, came from Shi Shangqing’s article “Does Chiang Yee Understand Art?” Shi offered valid arguments for and explanations of Cubic style and Picasso’s paintings. For example, Las Meninas (after Velázquez) was a reproduction of the famous painting The Maids of Honor by Diego Velázquez, and Massacre in Korea was the artist’s expression of the antiwar sentiment and a criticism of modern civilization. Nevertheless, the overt antagonistic contention and language of the essay was relentless and humiliating. It even labeled Yee as an ignorant and oldfashioned swindler.15

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Chien-fei spoke with his father about those attacks. They must have hurt his father’s feelings terribly; even he himself could feel their effects. He wanted to hear his father’s counterattack or, at least, self-defense. Yee was fully aware of the negative criticism, but he did not want to dwell on the subject or even offer any explanation. There was so much for him to accomplish in the little time he had left. He trusted that history would make the best and fairest judgment in the end. He appeared very calm in his reply, “You are an artist, too. It is normal and helpful to take criticism and make criticism. However, one should never be overemotional and wage personal attacks, which would only deviate from the original purpose and benefit of criticism.”16 Yee left Hong Kong in early June. After a stay in Honolulu, he came back to New York in early July. The Silent Traveller in Japan, published the following month, was dedicated to Yiau-min. Measuring 9.25 by 7.25 inches, it was larger than the usual size. An extra inch in width created space for the illustrations. Yee anticipated this to be “a controversial book.”17 Very few Chinese had written about Japan since Huang Zunxian’s forty-volume study in the late nineteenth century. The subject had been “an unwritten taboo” during the twentieth-century because of the tense relationship between the two countries.18 Backed with plentiful evidence gathered during his four trips and extensive reading, Yee came to appreciate Japanese culture, particularly its strength and eagerness to pursue new knowledge in order to further advance the nation. He “admired the dexterity of their hands, their inventive minds, and receptive powers.”19 His book aimed to dispel the widespread notion that the Japanese were merely imitators of China and the West. However, the book was simply too long. Even though 120,000 words had been trimmed off of the original manuscript, it was still a massive 430-page volume. The book contains interesting details and anecdotes, such as legends about Yang Guifei and Jesus Christ, and refreshing ink drawings, but the writing overall is flat and verbose, lacking the charm of his earlier work which engaged and stimulated readers. He also incorporates many names, most notably those of his Japanese scholar friends as well as Columbia colleagues, such as Ivan Morris, Donald Keene, Burton Watson, Paul Varley, Arthur Danto, and Chih-tsing. Hsia. It is obvious that Yee ignored Whitehill’s advice to write short volumes, relying “more heavily upon the illustration than upon the text.”20 The book did not generate enthusiastic reactions. Yee asked Whitehill to write a review but was turned down. Whitehill believed that, given their long friendship and his role as literary agent, his involvement as a reviewer “would smack of impropriety.”21 For nearly two decades, Whitehill rarely refused to help except in situations that he deemed inappropriate. This was one of those few occasions. On August 6, Yee took Yiau-min to visit the Whitehills in North Andover. Several weeks later, he was to depart for Australia as a visiting professor of Chinese at Australian National University. There was a sense of urgency in his letter to the Whitehills for the arrangement of the visit. Yee and Yiau-min stayed overnight and then returned to New York the very next day after a short

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visit with Yang Lien-sheng and McCord. It was Yiau-min’s first trip to North Andover and her first meeting with Jane. The Whitehills, who had just returned on August 5 from a long trip, amicably welcomed the guests. “I still feel quite uncomfortable about Yiau-min’s and my visit with you,” Yee apologized a week later. “I did do it in a wrong time, but I hope you both can understand that I don’t have much time left to be here.” He couldn’t help bragging: “You see that she is still much attached to me, despite her parents’ opposition.”22 On September 8, the Australian National University conferred on Yee an honorary Doctor of Letters for his distinguished eminence in learning. His friend, Professor Tsun-jen Liu, who was Dean of the Faculty of Asian Studies, gave the citation, in which he credited Yee for “tremendous contributions to East-West cultural understanding.” Yee then delivered his speech on Australia and the future world culture. In his view, what Western scholars discussed was the world of Western culture, while their Eastern counterparts discussed the world of Eastern culture. Predicting that Eastern and Western cultures would continue to merge, he heralded Australia, a nation geographically set in Eastern culture yet historically rooted in Western culture, as a hope for the model of world culture. Though a world culture is in the making in many lands, Australia is the melting pot of both western and eastern cultures, where the centre for the growth of a world culture can be foreseen. With her great hidden treasures of mineral wealth, her rich rolling farmland, as well as her friendly, kind and enterprising people, Australia’s future importance for the world as a whole can also be foreseen and world culture may materialise first in this continent.23

On October 11, Yee gave a public lecture titled “The Principles and Technique of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy.” Dressed in a Chinese robe, Yee walked to the lecture theater. It was a windy and cold evening, and the rain had just stopped. To his surprise, the lecture hall was full. After an introduction by Sir Rutherford Robertson, master of the university, Yee began his lecture with a demonstration and some eighty slides. “It was memorable and showed not only artist and scholar but also showman,” Sir Rutherford remembered. He used two impressive tricks on his audience: one was a lightening [sic] sketch in which he invited the audience to guess what it was as it progressed but only when the last three strokes were in place was the local magpie, so common on the University campus, revealed; the other was to dispel the impression in the west where so many people thought Chinese artists had formalised the trees on the rocky hills so that they looked unreal. He showed several slides of such hilltop paintings and then put another similar one on the screen. “And where is this?” he asked. It was the background to the Mona Lisa which when suitably enlarged looks just like a Chinese hilltop. That lecture was a fascinating performance and I have seldom heard such prolonged applause as followed that lecture.24

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As a visiting lecturer, Yee taught classes on Chinese poetry and Chinese art and introduced Chinese calligraphy and painting to Australian students. The sophisticated and exotic ancient Chinese culture, through his interpretation, was quickly transformed into an intriguing subject. His students, stimulated and excited, were eager to experiment with and explore it. At the end of the year, the department organized a student exhibition to showcase the beautiful calligraphy and artworks that students had created. During the year, Yee also seized every opportunity to travel and view the country. During holiday vacations, he traveled far and wide. After a lecture tour around western Australia in June 1973, he proudly claimed that he had, by then, “lectured every university in Australia and was very well received everywhere.”25 As always, wherever he went, he recorded his daily activities in his journal, mostly about conversations he had with friends, anecdotes he learned, and local history or scenes he observed. His interest was to unearth unique characteristics of the people or places he wrote about. His sketchbook became the material source of his future book, The Silent Traveller in Australia. One of the most interesting examples was the magpie. His October entries had several references to magpie attacks. On October 20, he wrote in Chinese that he went to the university at 10 a.m. “When passing under a tree, a magpie suddenly came down from the tree from behind and attacked my head, causing somewhat severe pain.” Next to the entry was a newspaper clipping dated October 7, with the title “Attacker Magpie Shot.” “One of two magpies which have kept schoolchildren and home gardeners in Deakin at bay for about six weeks was shot yesterday by a ranger from the Department of the Interior.” The nest was removed, and the second magpie never returned. This unique Australian experience fascinated Yee. “I was amazed that a bird could be so bold as to attack instead of flying away as most do.” The bird was entirely different from those he knew in China, England, and America. He later transcribed the experience in The Silent Traveller in Australia, with these additional comments: The Australian magpies show great bravery in defense of their nest, particularly their young ones when anyone was walking near their home area. It is common knowledge in Australia that some magpie’s attack could be dangerous and the most aggressive ones may be killed with impunity. On open golf courses and public gardens, warnings are sometimes erected “Beware of the magpies.” Many Australians, scientists and laymen, have tried to analyze this strange behavior, for the magpie never attacks horses or cattle when they wander near their nests.26

Yee, however, loved magpies because they were songbirds, singing together “in the dawn chorus.” He concluded his description with a humanistic touch. One morning, as he was walking near the administration building, he noticed a magpie perched on the grass.

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I then noticed it had some trouble with one of its feet. Almost every morning it was perched there in the same place, so I began to take some seeds with me to feed it. After four successive mornings it suddenly broke out singing when I came up to it as if it recognized and welcomed me—a most touching sensation. After the eighth morning it had disappeared; I wondered if it was the baby of the parents which had attacked me. I only stayed in the University for one of their breeding seasons, this was my only experience of magpie aggression.27

Yee’s Chinese essay “In Memory of Beihong” was written during his stay in Canberra. After his retirement in 1971, Yee had free time to sort through his old files and packages, and, in doing so, he discovered many letters from Xu Beihong since the 1930s. These letters triggered Yee’s memories and led to the essay in January 1973. The essay starts with his remembrance of their friendship, but it is more than just a recounting of their relationship: he expresses deep admiration toward the talented and important Chinese artist, he reiterates some of the major artistic views that they both share, and he mourns the loss of a dear friend who shared similar aspirations and ideals. Yee once again stresses that Chinese artists should not blindly imitate modern Western artists without tracing their artistic achievements to a rigorous classical training. He also states that Chinese artists should cultivate a deep understanding and thorough mastery of the Chinese artistic tradition and skills before incorporating Western art to create a new style. Like Xu, Yee claims to be a realist or an intensified realist. However, so-called realism is not the same as a photographic presentation of the world. “Our eyes are not the camera because our heart is also functioning, commanding our hands. The object in the painting may not necessarily be an exact representation of the real object.” The birds in Bada Shanren’s paintings sometimes stand on one leg or have square eyes. As Yee argues, they are realistic but in the form of intensified realism.28 The end of the essay strikes a deep emotional chord when Yee recalls how Xu used to urge him to return home. He recalls the past and remembers his friend with tears streaming down his cheeks. Yee had always been in touch with Innes Herdan. Her able assistance in editing his manuscripts was critical to their quality and propriety. As he prepared the third edition of Chinese Calligraphy a couple of years earlier, for example, he added two new chapters: “Calligraphy and Painting” and “Aesthetic Principles.” The latter chapter contained a translation of nineteen ancient criteria for calligraphy styles. Innes’s skillful revision unequivocally improved the translation, resulting in a terse, lucid, and smooth rendition: “This type means luxuriant or flourishing in look full of feeling which is called mao” was changed into “An exuberant work is one full of feeling and vigor;” “This type means its achievement not to be sought of but perceived by instinct which is called shen” changed into “A divine work is achieved not through human understanding but by intuition.”29 Obviously, Innes’s review and corrections were crucial to Yee’s publications.

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In return, Yee did his best to help Innes whenever he could. The publication of her English version of Three Hundred Tang Poems was one such example. It was the first time that anyone attempted to translate into English the entire volume of this famous classic, because the level of the challenge was nearly insurmountable. Innes, who had training in both Chinese and English literature, took on the task. Her translation “had considerable success in preserving and reproducing” the essence of the original, in both language and rhythm. 30 Yee offered constant encouragement and advice. He introduced Innes to Yang Lien-sheng, who provided “invaluable information and opinions on points of translation and historical allusions.” It was also Yee who, after various attempts, finally secured the Taiwan publisher, Far East Book Company, for the manuscript and then negotiated the cost and royalty on Innes’s behalf. His suggestion that Chinese originals be printed alongside the translation turned out to be an ingenious idea that earned the book great sales. In addition, he contributed, as Innes graciously acknowledged, an “able introduction” and dozens of “delightful” illustrations to the volume.31 The book came out in the spring of 1973 and went through five subsequent printings. Yee started working on The Silent Traveller in Australia as soon as he returned to New York in August. The thirteenth volume in his Silent Traveller series, it was to be arranged geographically with each chapter covering a different part of the country, such as “Around the Top End,” “Around the Northeast,” and “Around the West.” Two episodes in his personal life around this time delivered significant jolts, and he was terribly shaken. The first was related to his eldest son. Chien-kuo and Barbara wanted to move back to England for the sake of their own careers and Stephen’s education. They wanted to send Stephen, an outstanding student, back to England for college, where education was free and better. Yee, very fond of his grandchildren, strongly disapproved of their decision and suggested that Stephen should attend Columbia instead. To his disappointment, Chien-kuo sent Stephen back to England in 1973. Not long after, in the spring of 1974, Chien-kuo moved the whole family back to Jersey. Yee felt abandoned. “While I was in Australia he wrote me a note denouncing his Chinese heritage which meant not to recognize me as his father, which hurt me and pained me to the bones. He wrote so simply because he could go back to England. . . . As he did not have me for his father, I cannot continue to have him for my son.” Yee was so perturbed and saddened that he was never able to get over this betrayal. From his perspective, he had done everything he could for his son, but his good intentions and expectations were smashed and betrayed. He immersed himself deep in his work, an imaginary kingdom of language and art which, he hoped, might shelter him from the wrenching agony he had to confront. A year later, he was still bemoaning, “I just could not get over this painful feeling all the while.”32 The second tragedy in his life was the death of his sister. It was Yee’s sister who looked after him “most carefully and lovingly” like a surrogate mother during his

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childhood. After her marriage, she still came to see him and made him clothes and food. Widowed at twenty-eight, she single-handedly raised her three children and never gave a single thought to remarrying. In later years, Yee provided her with financial support whenever possible, but, since the end of World War II, they had lost contact. He knew that his sister-in-law, Cai Fen, had died in 1969, but he never had a clear picture about his sister’s situation. He still hoped to see her some day. To his regret, his sister passed away in August 1973, when he was on his way back from Australia. Upon hearing this news, which came many months later, tears streamed down his face. He wailed remorsefully over the bitter loss. He was most sympathetic to his sister, who had suffered quietly in her long widowhood of fifty years due to Confucian moral concepts.33 His sorrow, anger, pain, and suffering gushed out like a torrent in a letter to Hong-lit Lo: Only recently did I learn that she had passed away all alone. My sister became a widow at twenty-eight. About seven or eight years my senior, she never remarried due to the feudal moral code of China (I myself, forced to marry my cousin, was also a victim of the feudal moral code). Her daughter and two sons dispersed during the war. Chiang Kai-shek, self-willed and perverse, came to an ignominious end himself and induced us innocent people homeless. He could not evade responsibility for guilt. In the midst of deep sorrow, I cannot help but curse him. If the leader of the country had been a wise one, I would not have been on exile overseas over forty years.34

The sense of doom was psychologically oppressive yet real. Yee asked for advice about making changes to his will in the fall of 1974. Many of his friends were of advanced age or deceased. Whitehill, who retired in 1973, had just had prostate surgery. Their mutual friend, Storer Lunt, had undergone multiple surgeries and was often hospitalized. Dean Shunzo Sakamaki, who ran the East-West summer program at the University of Hawaii, had passed away. Yang Lien-sheng’s condition recurred a few times during the past decade. At the same time, Yiau-min was busy working on her research, and her parents, now in the United States, were as adamant as ever. Yee was unable to see her often, though they still talked on the phone weekly. “My head is cold now. . . . I feel she is still quite young.”35 In that sense, proximity to Chien-fei’s family offered Yee invaluable hope and a counterbalance to his lonesomeness. They met on holidays in New York or Connecticut. His grandchildren were a source of joy that kindled hope in his sorrowful heart. It was no accident that Yee made frequent references to “homebirds” in his discussion of Chinese culture at this time. He once told an Australian audience that the Chinese have always wanted to go home wherever they were. This same concept was elucidated in his introduction to Innes’s book as well: In China’s Tang period, communication and transport from one place to another were not easy; every Chinese was a home-bird under the Confucian family system. And each was attached to his home life above everything else. If

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some member of the family had to leave home, it was his chief desire to return again as soon as he could.36

His new interest in this concept of the Chinese tradition was an unconscious but important revelation of his intense desire to return home. He wanted to apply for a visa to visit China. With the improvement in relations between the two countries, many Chinese-American scientists, engineers, medical doctors, economists, and scholars had visited China, including Yang Lien-sheng, Yang Chen-ning, Chao Yuen-ren, Wu Chien-shiung, and Jen Chih-kung. For some time, he had been somewhat fearful as he explored the possibility of a visit to China. He had distanced himself from politics all these years, and he had refused to accept an honorary degree that a Taiwan university planned to confer upon him. He never became a revolutionary communist and never supported the Communist government. He was fearful that his past political experience under the Nationalist government might cause his execution in China, and he expressed his misgivings and apprehension to a friend. He obtained a copy of Chinese American Scholars on Their Visits to China (1974), a collection of speeches and essays by thirty prominent Chinese Americans who recently visited China. Most of them had left the country before 1949, when it was still under the Nationalist government. Even though their political opinions and affiliations differed from each other, they unanimously expressed admiration for the unprecedented progress and changes they had witnessed in China. Exhilaration, amazement, and excitement prevailed in their speeches and writings.37 Sir Rutherford Robertson, who was then president of the Australian Academy of Science, visited China that spring. It was, in his words, a “most interesting and very successful” trip. He held scientific discussions with the Chinese and visited some fascinating tourist sites. He also helped Yee seek the whereabouts of two old friends. When Sir Rutherford and Lady Robertson came to visit that fall, Yee arranged a dinner party for them at the Chun Cha Fu Restaurant in New York on November 10. He also invited Lee Tsung-dao, T. C. Yu, Wu Chienshiung, Yuan Jialiu, and former Australian National University faculty professor Hans Bielenstein. The conversation at the dinner was largely about China. The impressions were overall favorable except for “the Cultural Revolution and its impeding effects.”38 Many people wanted to visit China, but the Chinese government, in consideration of the shortage of tourist facilities and interpreters, issued only a limited number of visas. Yee tried various ways but failed to obtain one. Fortunately, he found help from Hou Tong, an economic adviser to the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China at the United Nations. They were schoolmates in London in 1934, and the two were reconnected in New York after forty years. Yee expressed his fervent wish to visit the new China, his longing to see his family, and his hope to travel around his homeland by himself. He told Hou that he did not need an interpreter and did not care for luxurious accommodations. He explained that he had traveled in dozens of countries and could adapt to any

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living conditions. Such reasoning was in fact superfluous. As old friends, they understood each other, and Hou agreed to help. Yee obtained a visa in March. As the visit to China drew near, Yee’s mixed emotions and feelings surfaced in a private letter to the Whitehills: Well, my dear Jane and Walter, you both could not have imagined how hard I struggle to go through my dreadful life up till now. Any Chinese born in my generation has no complete home life. I blame all these to the mal-administration under Chiang Kai-shek’s rule. He had all the power to put China in good order, but his selfishness and narrow-mind have rushed all Chinese to die in one way or another. I could have never left China if he were a good superior for me. My married life has never been good but I still have two daughters in China. I could never tell anybody about this when I first came to this country. Now I want to see them after 42 years of separation. Both daughters married school-teachers and both are teachers themselves. Each has several children. And I have applied to go back to Peking on April 15th if a visa could be granted to me. I do hope so. Though I long to go back, I dread to find all my relatives and friends died or otherwise. You and Walter can imagine what sort of life I have gone through. But I have to keep smiling to anybody. Many friends take me as a happy-golucky man. Can it be?39

In the midst of making travel arrangements, Yee completed the illustrations for the Australia book and entrusted Whitehill to forward them, along with the completed manuscript, to Norton before his departure. He wanted the book to be “published, in any way, even with black-and-white illustrations.”40 He had been working on the book for a year and a half, yet Norton was not enthusiastic about the project from the outset. George Brockway, now president of Norton, predicted that the book would not have a big market in America, a factor that could drive up the cost of production and eventually make it harder to sell. The Japan book had been a disappointment, with only four thousand copies sold; this was a possible indication of Yee’s loss of popularity. Therefore, Norton, concerned with the market and profit, was reasonably cautious about the new book. At Yee’s persistent request, Norton explored various means to help him. It proposed to use only black-and-white line drawings with no colored plates, and it suggested co-publishing the book with British and Australian partners. Racing against time, Yee focused almost exclusively on writing the book. He wanted to dispense with it and could not afford to waste time—or just spend time—on searching for another publisher, as this entailed much uncertainty and unpredictability. He preferred Norton so long as they could help publish the book. “If you feel you could do the proposed book on Australia,” he pleaded to Brockway on May 7, 1974, “I shall not mind having no color plates at all. You need not give me any advanced royalty and I can even put two or three thousand dollars towards the cost of publication if need be. I really prefer your

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firm to handle this new piece of my writing.”41 His tone was unusually subdued; he was seemingly desperate to get this book in print. As part of his travel preparations, Yee typed a will on his own stationery. Among the five articles in his will, two are noteworthy: he wanted his estate to be divided among Chien-fei, Xiaoyan, and Jianlan; and he bequeathed five thousand U.S. dollars to Yiau-min. The document was not notarized. Yee signed his name in English, brushed his Chinese signature vertically next to it, and add a short note penned in English: “No one can forge this signature of mine.”42 It was left in a sealed envelope with Whitehill, who was designated as one of two executors. “Will you please keep this little envelope for me? Please don’t open it. You can give it back upon my return.”43 This was a rather extraordinary move since he already had an existing will. He had been on much longer trips before, but for this two-month-long trip he specifically updated the will, a fact that reflected a certain level of anxiety and dubiousness. “Though many friends thought happy about my trip, I cannot say whether I am happy or not,” he mused in a rather solemn tone, as if prepared to meet inevitability. “Anyway I have to go.”44 He arrived in China, via Hong Kong, on April 15, 1975. After a short stay in Guangzhou, he took a flight to Beijing, and it was already completely dark when his plane landed. As he walked toward the entrance of the airport, he heard the call, “Father, Father.” He could tell that two or three people were calling him, but the voices were strange and unrecognizable. His heart began to thump and his whole being became agitated. In a few seconds, he was surrounded by Xiaoyan, Jianlan, their husbands, and their children. His friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hou Tong and Dr. T. T. Li, were there as well. He stood still, looking at his daughters and grandchildren for a long, long time. Tears rolled in his eyes, and he eventually let out a broken sentence: “Hard to believe. . . . Hard to believe.”45 It was ten o’clock when they reached the hotel. Yee went to dinner with his daughters’ families. Jianlan and Liu Naichong, who lived in Beijing, brought along their two sons, while Xiaoyan and Tan Jusheng had taken their youngest son from Nanchang. It was the first time they had ever gathered together with Yee. Shifting his eyes from one person to another, and looking at his three grandchildren, Yee had so much to say yet did not know where to start. Suddenly, one of the children asked, “Grandpa, you are not going to return, are you?” Yee threw his arm around the boy. “I wish I could stay. But I have many things to do. I want to tell people in America about what I see here so that they will have a better understanding of the new China.”46

chapter 16



Homeward Bound

Beijing, an ancient capital city, is the very heart of China. It has a rich cultural history with numerous historic landmarks. Almost two decades earlier, Chiang Yee had expressed his love of this ancient city in a letter to Jianlan, after she moved to Beijing: Jianlan, you are lucky to be able to live in Beijing, a city rich in history and the most beautiful in the world, and enjoy the “most humanistic” Chinese cultural atmosphere every day. How I envy you! . . . For all these thirty years, it has been my wish to visit Beijing and to spend the last part of my life in Beijing. . . . Jianlan, please remember, I was born in Jiujiang. I will definitely make a trip back to Jiujiang and then live till death in Beijing.1

This dream now came true. During his two-week stay in Beijing, Yee visited the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, and many other famous sites. China had changed into an entirely different country from the one he remembered. “The feeling of peace and prosperity in the air everywhere was the most striking change from the past.” He strolled through Beijing’s streets and lanes with his children whenever he had spare time in order to experience life there. Once, after a couple of hours’ walk, he stopped near the People’s Culture Palace and sat down on the sidewalk. His daughters thought he was tired and asked him to have a cup of tea in a nearby teahouse. “No, I am not tired. I just want to see the people here,” he explained. For two hours, he sat there, observing pedestrians and bikers. It gave him such enormous satisfaction. The poor, ragged, and malnourished had disappeared; in front of him were happy and healthy people, dressed in clean and decent clothing.2 It was immensely pleasurable for him to watch people’s smiling faces and listen to their conversations. He enjoyed taking the bus or waiting in line to get into the eateries. When he saw a farmer who was selling vegetables from a small pushcart loaded with carrots, cabbages, 252

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turnips, and spinach, he stopped to have a chat. He asked the farmer what would happen to the vegetables if they were left unsold at the end of the day. The farmer answered that he would go home in the evening, leaving all the items behind. It was perfectly safe to leave them there, even though no one would stay and guard the pushcart at night. Yee was “amazed that not even a small carrot would be stolen in the night.”3 He attended the festive Labor Day celebration at the Summer Palace on May 1. Colorful ornaments on the trees and platforms were seen everywhere. There were a variety of martial arts demonstrations, and around forty thousand people participated in the celebration that day. Gaiety and merrymaking filled every corner. Formerly a royal garden built for the Empress Dowager and the royal family, the Summer Palace was now a public park. Yee was amazed by the fact that so many people assembled and mingled together “in such an orderly way without the slightest disturbance anywhere.” In his opinion, the Summer Palace’s Labor Day celebration was a remarkable success. “I cannot believe my eyes,” he remarked. “It seems as though that people in China have had fundamental changes in their temperament.”4 To him, the social order and peace were indicative of a government that served its own people and took their interest as its priority. As a poet and artist, Yee was sensitive to important cultural changes. He observed that all big stores in Beijing—not just department stores, but also bookstores—were crowded with customers in the afternoon. “They told me that the people now had money to spare for some extra food or clothing. They were also interested in reading. What a different attitude and situation now from what I knew of the masses before 1933.” When he was a county magistrate in the early 1930s, many could not read and write, and most could not afford to send their children to school for elementary education. At that time, only 20 percent of four hundred million Chinese were literate, but now elementary and often middle school education was mandatory and popular. Approximately 90 to 95 percent of eight hundred million people had some education.5 He appreciated the government policy of sending educated youths to work in the countryside or at factories to broaden and raise the level of knowledge and science. Indeed, universities often ran factories on campus and sent students to work in the countryside. Higher education had thus “become a useful social and economic means to combine study and production.”6 A short trip was specially arranged for him to visit the famous caves and stone sculpture in Yungang, and the many historic sites in Xi’An, including the Dayan (“Big Wild Goose”) Pagoda and the Forest of Steles. Archeologists in China had recently excavated a number of important sites, including Ban Po, a Neolithic site, some six thousand years old, in Xi’An, which belonged to the Yangshao culture and represented a remarkable example of a prehistoric tribal-communal settlement. These remarkable discoveries were especially exciting to Yee. Ban Po, which had a significant role in the development of early Chinese cultures, was the pride of the Chinese people. Yee got a small pin with a Ban Po ceramic image, put it on his lapel, and kept it on him until the last moment of his life.7

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Huxian, a small county near Xi’An, was known for its peasant artists. Few Chinese farmers in the past had an education, let alone knew how to handle a brush. Yee wanted to meet these talented artists. At Huxian, he was shown around two exhibition rooms. Most of the artwork depicted countryside activities and life in the communes. He “readily acknowledged their merit, for they possessed the gift of rendering their subject matter explicitly with artistic arrangement.” Two or three pieces could be compared with Women in the Field Working by Jean François Millet or Vincent Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters. Yee had a discussion with the artists there and admired their talent, dedication, and supportive environment. “How much has changed in China during the past twenty-five years,” he remarked.8 After Beijing, he visited Dazhai and Zhengzhou before traveling south to Nanjing and Shanghai. A world-renowned industrial city, Shanghai was divided into various concessions controlled by Western powers. Cotton mills were mostly owned by English and Japanese entrepreneurs, and many foreign products could be found in the markets. Poverty and venereal diseases had been widespread, and prostitutes and foreign sailors were seen in some parts of the city. Such a phenomenon, however, had become a remnant of the past since China grew independent and self-reliant. It was now capable of producing cars, tractors, cameras, bicycles, and many other goods for both domestic consumption and export. It increased its agricultural production, and the government successfully eradicated prostitution. When Yee arrived in Nanchang, his daughters and relatives greeted him at the railway station. His eyes grew wet, and “the acute pain of the bitter-and-sweet sensation” resurfaced.9 He tried to control his emotions and keep a smile on his face. After leaving his luggage at the hotel, he set out to see his wife who was living with their eldest daughter. Zeng Yun had become paralyzed in 1969 and was bedridden ever since. There were many things he wanted to ask about, particularly how they had survived all those years, yet he did not know where to begin. His recounting of the moment of the reunion with his wife is as follows: All the time I sat there looking at everyone, I had acute pain inside me, yet I could not show it in my face, for this reunion of us all was a miracle such as I had never dreamed of. After dinner I stayed on till the late hours. Fortunately my five grandchildren, the youngest of whom was only eleven years old, kept me occupied with one story after another and they could all sing too. So the whole afternoon and evening passed. My head was full of thoughts and became even more so when I retuned to the hotel. I could not sleep at all the whole night. I thought of my many friends in Europe and America who always regarded me as a happy-go-lucky man. None of them imagined what I had been through in my forty-two years outside China.10

Zeng was overtly happy and excited in anticipation of Yee’s visit. Xiaoyan advised her not to lament too much when she met Yee, and she replied, “You are

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right. People tended to blame their husbands on occasions like this, ‘How come you have been away for so long.’ I wouldn’t do that. It would only make things worse. If I complain, he might get upset and leave. There is no need to lament.” Indeed, her sorrow and pain were so deep that, as she affirmed, it could run on and on if she unleashed them. She received Yee amiably. Yee, who treasured the reunion, spent as much time as he could with Zeng at her bedside, and he had dinner with her every evening during his stay in Nanchang.11 A reunion with his family had been a long-cherished dream. He chatted with his wife and children. He listened to his grandchildren singing, and he entertained them with stories and drawings. He fondly stroked his grandchildren and murmured, “You have all grown up, and I belong to the old generation now.”12 Looking at the family members around him, he spoke with deep emotion: “You have suffered a lot, and I have also suffered. Let bygones be bygones. After all, we are all alive and well.” He had a set of dentures made at the Hospital of Nanchang Medical College. After losing all his teeth in England, he had two sets of false teeth made in England and then again in Hong Kong, but they did not last long. During his visit to the hospital in Nanchang, Chinese dental specialists treated him. They were kind, dedicated, and skilled. Following a careful examination, they made plastic molds of his upper and lower jaws. A few weeks later, he went to the hospital for a final check. The new denture fit precisely, and he was completely satisfied. In New York, such denture treatment would cost about $1,000, but he was charged only thirty Chinese dollars in Nanchang, which was approximately two or three hundred times less than the cost in New York. “It was incredible,” he claimed.13 The Chinese doctors, who provided high quality service, were consistently courteous and responsible. Yee related this incident over and over after his return to the United States. In total, Yee visited approximately twenty cities in eight provinces. China seemed entirely different—yet with some degree of strange familiarity—from what was registered in his memory. In his hometown of Jiujiang he searched for the sites of his childhood home and old official residence, but both had been destroyed by the Japanese during the 1930s and no trace could be found of them. Gazing at the stones on the road and at the walls of the new houses, he realized that his past “had gone forever.”14 Like Rip Van Winkle in Washington Irving’s story, he felt totally disoriented with the drastic transformation that had taken place in his hometown. The formerly small town, where a textile mill was the only industry in the early 1930s, had metamorphosed into “a sort of cosmopolitan place” with tools, machine parts, and other light industries making products such as fertilizers, matches, and toothpaste.15 To Yee, the transformation was astounding, spectacular, and miraculous. On June 15, Yee departed for New York. His two daughters and their husbands saw him off at the railway station. They were all very quiet. “Take good care of your Mom, and I will be back again in two years,” Yee bid farewell to his daughters.16 He then turned and quickly wiped his eyes.

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Not long after returning to New York, he fell ill. He felt discomfort in his stomach and lost his appetite. At the suggestion of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wango Weng, he went for a medical check-up. The doctor detected colon cancer, and Yee was hospitalized for surgery in mid-August. In forty-two years, he had never been sick nor even entered a hospital on account of his own health. Therefore, this was a startling experience, and he learned what life was like inside a hospital. After his release, he stayed in Chienfei’s Connecticut home for another two weeks to recuperate. He was not ready to give up yet. Ten days after his surgery, still in the hospital, he wrote a proposal for a new book on his China trip. His unique background and experience qualified him for a better and more accurate account of China. According to Yee, those who visited China could be divided into three groups: Chinese-American intellectuals who were born in China and came to the United States at a young age; American-born Chinese; and European and American intellectuals. In his opinion, none of them had a solid understanding about what China experienced in the past to merit a valid comparison and contrast; even those in the first group mostly grew up in cities and had little contact with the peasants in China before 1949. Though many books had been written and published on China in all languages, Yee believed that they all failed to touch on the “real and characteristic problem,” that is, how to feed and care for the immense population.17 As a former governor of three counties in the Chiang Kaishek government, he had firsthand experience dealing with this difficult problem. This was a unique niche few writers could claim. Beggars, the malnourished, and people dying of starvation had been common sights in those days. His recent trip to China was “solely to see how the immense mass to be fed and cared for as well as how they were employed—not to touch any ideological point.” Interestingly, he observed not one single beggar nor any unemployment. The new communist Chinese government under Chairman Mao had brought a fundamental change. Yee would tell the world about his observations under the title China Revisited after Forty-two Years.18 Through Whitehill, George Brockway was informed of this new book. Both of them were enthusiastic about the project, which they wanted to be relatively short, fewer than two hundred pages, with line drawings for illustration. In Whitehill’s opinion, Yee should get the book written and published as soon as possible. Yee set out to work on China Revisited immediately. In February 1976, the first chapter “Why I Left China for England,” which covers his experience in China up to 1933, was completed. He sent it to Whitehill with a note: “You will find many things that you don’t know of me. . . . Ever since I know you, I have not talked much about my life forty-three years ago. Now you know it.”19 Since his return from the China trip, Yee seemed to have transformed into a different person; he was now outspoken and unrestrained. It was the first time that he spoke publicly and candidly about his invalid wife and political past in China. Those recently revealed details came as a surprise to friends and the general public, and even to long-time friends Whitehill and Yiau-min. His past, especially

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his political experience with the Nationalist government, was always discreetly guarded and rarely specified. Except for his position as county magistrate, few details were ever disclosed or discussed, not even with his close friends. It was also the first time that he brought to light many previously unknown details as a governor in China, his wrath and disappointment with Chiang Kai-shek, and his admiration for and opinions about Mao. These facts were meant to illustrate the past for a comparison with the present. This dramatic transformation revealed a new being, cloaked patiently and quietly under a disguise during the previous four decades. Yee actually wanted to make his life story known to the world. He had written in Chinese about his life experience up to 1940 and sent the manuscript to Professor Hong-lit Lo, hoping that Lo or his Hong Kong University graduate students could work on a biography. He offered to give talks on his China trip at public institutions, such as Wesleyan University, Columbia University, the Century Club, and the Peabody Museum. He showed slides of China at his friends’ homes as well. To a group of friends gathered at Arthur Danto’s home, he began with these remarks: “Nobody knows who I am. Do you want to know who I am? I am a revolutionary.”20 As many of his friends noticed, he had indeed become a revolutionary. He was brimming with zealous excitement about the new government under the leadership of Mao. In China, he visited Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi, where he spent two days admiring Mao’s wisdom and foresight in establishing the first revolutionary base there in 1927. He perceived that the revolutionaries’ solid determination to do good for the people enabled them “to eventually overcome every obstacle.” In contrast, the Chiang Kai-shek government had been negligent of people’s welfare, a fault that predestined its failure. He criticized Chiang for maladministration, which led to the nation’s suffering. “I never had a good word about Chiang Kai-shek and his silly young wife.”21 Chih-peng Yin, a recent Columbia graduate, met with Yee and recorded his talks about the China trip, which were published in North America and Hong Kong. Yee summarized his observations into the following eight points: the new government in China had admirably transformed the nation into a stable and prosperous one; it successfully dealt with the population issue and improved education nationwide; there was no more poverty and hunger; with developments in agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, China became self-reliant and well-balanced; women and men were treated equally; universal healthcare was available to all Chinese; a “common language,” or “a standard form of speech,” was established and popularized; and archaeology was flourishing.22 Poor health, stress, and time constraints caused his occasional short temper, which led to some dire consequences. As he confessed with some degree of forlornness to Chien-fei, he had made many friends but had lost quite a few as well. A brief argument with his friends sometimes resulted in the permanent rupture of a long-term friendship. In early February, he wrote to ask Yang Lien-sheng to recommend Hong-lit Lo for academic promotion. It was just “a format,” he explained. He sent Yang a recommendation letter he had drafted and

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was confident that Yang, a longtime friend, would consent and sign. However, Yang was a historian; he was not familiar with the accomplishments of Lo, whose specialty was Chinese classics. As a man of strong personality, he refused to be a rubber stamp. He suggested that Yee contact C. T. Hsia or James Liu instead. In the midst of his preparations for a trip to Hong Kong, Yee quickly sent in some of Lo’s poems and publications, as well as a long letter of explanation, yet Yang still refused to compromise. This outcome was utterly unexpected and infuriated Yee. When the two met again a week later at the Columbia faculty club, they got into a verbal altercation. Yee stood up and, to Yang’s astonishment, “strode away in a huff, as though leaving behind a stranger.” There was no more communication between them afterward, and Yang was never able to get over this.23 It was Yee’s perpetual regret that his children did not have sufficient English skills to read and fully appreciate his writings. Chien-fei was about the same age as Chih-peng, and both graduated from Taiwan Normal University. Chih-peng won a scholarship for graduate school at London University in 1962, and came to the United States two years later to study at Columbia. Through Chen Yuan and Lin Shuhua’s introduction, Chih-peng became acquainted with Yee. Ever since, Chihpeng was frequently mentioned in his letters to Chien-fei: “How come Chih-pen could get a scholarship but you could not?” “How come Chih-pen could transfer from England to America to work on his doctorate but you could not?” After his trip to China, Yee had more contact with Chih-peng, who had received an Ed.D. at Columbia. Eventually, Chien-fei could no longer take his father’s adulation of Chih-peng. He flared up and shot back: “There is at least one thing which Chihpeng is not capable of. I can paint, but he cannot.” This parry caught Yee off guard. He was angry and stopped talking to Chien-fei for a whole month.24 In early 1976, Yee was preparing for another trip to Australia. He was to teach at the University of Western Australia for two months. Chien-fei and some of his friends attempted to dissuade him. They wanted him to stay in New York for a complete recuperation, but Yee was determined. The trip, which was initially planned for the spring of 1975, had already been postponed because of the China trip, and he did not want another delay. On March 10, he departed from New York. He stayed in Hong Kong for a week, during which time he received an honorary degree at Hong Kong University and ran a calligraphy and painting exhibition from March 11–15. For the next three months, he was in Australia, teaching at the University of Western Australia and then giving as many as fourteen lectures about his China trip in other parts of Australia. The prospect for an Australia book appeared dim. One of the reasons why he accepted the invitation to teach in Australia was to “boost the sale of the [Australia] book while there.”25 However, he soon came to the conclusion that most Australians were more interested in their politics than art. “I can see why they would not find attraction from my Australia book.”26 Yet the quality of the new volume may have contributed to the failure as well. Its lengthy narrative was often excessively detailed and tedious, not as refreshing and engaging as his earlier

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works. Collins Publishers in Sydney, after reviewing the manuscript, rejected it with a polite but crushing note: “While your paintings are, if anything, more delightful than ever, our readers felt that the text unfortunately does not match the same high standard as your previous works and we feel that this book would not be a publishing proposition for our list.”27 Despite his repeated tries, the manuscript never went to the printer. He came back to New York in late July and continued working on China Revisited. In September 1976, Mao Zedong passed away in China. Yee contributed a long article to the Hong Kong student association’s newspaper, expressing his admiration of the Mao government. “China is now an independent country, which resulted from the Chinese people’s great efforts along the socialist movement under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China. To keep the country independent and respectable in the world is a task we need to carry on,” he wrote. “People in and outside China should make concerted efforts to support a powerful and independent China.”28 A few months later, the Chinese Consulate in New York planned to host an event commemorating Premiere Zhou Enlai on the anniversary of his death. Yee was invited to deliver a speech. It was an honor to speak on such an occasion, but the thought of other invited speakers, especially Chen-ning Yang, a world-famous Nobel Prize winner, made him rather anxious. He discussed the matter with Chihpeng, who commented, “Truly Yang is a renowned physicist, but you are a poet. You may prepare a poem, which would distinguish you and help you excel.”29 Yee followed this suggestion and composed a classical poem conveying his profound admiration of Zhou and his confidence in China’s prosperity. To the audience that filled the hall, he stated, “Whenever we think of those miraculous developments in China, we couldn’t help but remember Chairman Mao Zedong and Premiere Zhou Enlai for their monumental accomplishments in leading the revolution and nation-building.” He then recited the poem with deep emotions. It was very touching, and Yee was pleased with the outcome. He later invited Chih-peng out for a dinner as a token of his gratitude.30 Yee sent his manuscript of China Revisited to Arthur Danto for a review after the first draft was completed. A philosopher and an art critic at Columbia, Danto was Yee’s close friend and colleague for two decades. Danto’s response was favorable, and he considered China Revisited “a most unusual book” in which Yee’s personal story and the modern history of China were beautifully intertwined. In his opinion, Yee’s book, unlike other books on the same subject, took his reader to see the inside with “a Chinese eye.” “So the book in that sense carries out a very long project of yours about Chinese culture, and continues to broaden everyone’s vision.”31 Yee had high hopes for this new book and believed that it would be “a reference book for all students of Chinese politics as did the other book A Chinese Childhood.”32 More importantly, it would be a book about his past history, and he wanted to let people know why he named himself “The Silent Traveller” and what

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his personal experience had been. “I want my readers to know me what I was in the past, not only as a happy-go-lucky traveller now.”33 I do hope you can see that I attach much hope in the MS of CHINA REVISITED. Mr. Alan White always urged me to write my 2nd volume on my life from 16 to 30 after “A Chinese Childhood” which I could not do, for most people connected with me were all alive and would try to kill me if possible. Besides, nobody would be able to understand what I have passed through then. Now it is time that people in the West should know how much China was under their powers to have become so miserable. Our past rulers were the saddest, horrible ones. I have to keep my mouth shut and could not say anything. Therefore I pick up the name “The Silent Traveller”! I think my tortured mind has endured enough and all my friends should know what I was before. Had Chiang Kai-shek run the country well, I would have never come out to live in Europe and America for so many long years. I am now an American citizen!34

He deliberately avoided sensitive political vocabulary throughout the entire book, such as “Marxism,” “Leninism,” and “Maoism.” He claimed that he was not an ideologue and the book was not intended to be ideological, but his outspokenness had incurred the attention of the F.B.I., and he had visits from the agency on a few occasions.35 The publication of the book did not proceed smoothly. Even though George Brockway considered it an “unusual” book and wanted to make it a success, he refused to print the illustrations in color. The only exception was the dust jacket, which would be a colored print of Yee’s Chinese painting of Mao Zedong, sitting on top of the mountains and appreciating the surrounding landscape of the country. During his preparation of the book, Yee ran into various unpleasant exchanges with Brockway on politics, royalty, content, and the use of cartoons. The manuscript was finally completed in July 1977, but Yee’s mood was anything but triumphant. “I now seem to have lost my respect from the publisher.”36 He complained that Norton had not treated him “fairly and respectfully.” He was well respected while in England and still had respect from Harvard University Press and other institutions. It puzzled him as to why he should get such poor treatment near the end of his life.37 He paid two hospital visits to Julius Teller, a mutual friend of his and the late Brooks’s. Teller was not able to speak. “I feel terribly unhappy to see him like that,” Yee declared. Storer Lunt, now nearly eighty, seemed in great shape not long ago, and Whitehill was impressed with his good health. However, Lunt soon suffered a stroke and stayed in the hospital, not able to recognize anyone or anything; he was technically still alive but actually “out of our world.”38 When Yee wrote this line, a sense of imminent mortality was unmistakable: “I am still in New York—a few more years yet I think.”39 Yee never desired a birthday party for himself in the past, but he made a request that year. “I will be 75 years old this May,” he said to Chien-fei, “and I

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want to have a party.” Chien-fei readily complied, “I will plan a party in my house. You and I should each invite our friends.”40 He organized a birthday party in his Meriden home, and over one hundred friends gathered on that day to show their affection toward a man they respected and admired. Their cars lined the streets of an otherwise quiet neighborhood, and musicians from Meriden performed at the party. The event was very well organized, and everyone had a joyous time. Yee was greatly pleased. In July, he made arrangements for a second trip to China. According to the plan, he was to stay in China for about three months and come back to the United States during the second week of November. The travel preparation consumed much of his time, and he promised to pay Whitehill and David McCord a visit after his return. One of the main purposes of the trip was to prepare for a book on Chinese art, a subject that he could not let go. At his retirement a few years earlier, he sensed that it was time for him to crystallize his learning and teaching into a grand project titled History of Chinese Art. He taught courses on the subject for many years and collected more than three thousand slides of various Chinese artworks. He wanted to “make this book a monumental one on the history of Chinese art with copious illustrations, different from any other books appeared on the same subject so far.”41 According to Yee, the Chinese University of Hong Kong would publish it in Chinese first, and the English version would follow. However, the project was put aside for various reasons. He now wanted to spend the next couple of years writing this book. China and the Soviet Union had been engaged in territorial disputes, and the Chinese government used ancient archeological materials to substantiate its claims. Yee hoped that the book, with substantive evidence, would aid China in refuting Russian scholars’ theories. Most of the books he had published were travel writings about foreign countries, and he wanted to conclude his writing career with a book of substantial value about Chinese culture. “I will go to many places to search for the material, especially the artifacts excavated after 1949,” he told Hong-lit Lo. “This will probably be my last book, after which I will return to Lu Mountain for the rest of my life.”42 On August 8, he went to the Pan American Airline office to confirm his flight to Hong Kong on August 10. On his way home, he wanted to buy vitamins. As he was getting off the subway train, he was caught in the door, lost his balance, and fell on his back. Fortunately, he suffered no injury. After he finished shopping, he went home and took a nap. Yee recorded the incident that evening in his notebook. The entry was his last before the trip. He recounted the incident and then noted: I felt somewhat shocked after the nap. If I got injured, I would not be able to fly to Hong Kong on August 10. It is amazing that I am so well physically, virtually intact after the incident. At my age, falling may result in serious consequences. But it is a miracle that I fell and then got up and moved as usual. I did not tell

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Yiau-min; otherwise, she would do everything she could to stop me from the trip. I did not tell Chien-fei, Chiao-wen, Walter, and other people; otherwise, they would not let me go. Otherwise, this last effort that will have the energy of my lifetime would come to no avail. How lucky and lucky I am!!!!!!!!43

Following this, he added near the bottom of the page a piece of rather ominous news, an eerie story seemingly unrelated, yet frighteningly gloomy: At night I heard a man in coma for twenty-three years finally died. His wife took care of him every day for twenty-three years, hoping for his recovery, but she failed eventually.44

Chien-fei and Chiao-wen were unaware of the incident when they saw Yee off at the airport two days later. The only visible oddity they noticed was Yee’s unusual silence that day. He was uncharacteristically quiet and appeared as though in a trance. After a short stay in Hong Kong, Yee arrived in Beijing. He visited museums and some archeological sites in the suburbs, met with his artist friends, and exchanged ideas with archeologists and scholars. On August 19, he sent a postcard of Beihai Park to Whitehill. The huge white pagoda atop green trees in the distance seemed serene and attractive. “Best wishes and greetings from The Silent Traveller in Peking,” he wrote on the back.45 For twenty or so years, he had always sent postcards to close friends when traveling across the country or overseas. A week later, accompanied by Jianlan, he went on a trip to Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Shandong. He explored archeological sites and discoveries, took pictures and notes, and spoke with local specialists. At his request, they made a short visit to Zhengzhou to see the Yellow River, famed to be the cradle of the earliest Chinese civilization. Yee visited the site during his first trip in 1975, an experience that he related with an inspiring anecdote in China Revisited: I remembered a curious touching story that I heard in Canberra, Australia, about the youngest daughter of my good friend Wang Hsin-wu, the librarian in charge of the Chinese Section in the National Library of Australia. When her mother and elder sister made a trip to China, she asked them only to bring back for her some water from the Yellow River, no other present. This young girl, called Chu-sun, was not born on Chinese soil, but her reading of Chinese history had made a deep impression on her mind about the Yellow River. I had a good dinner in her house and she showed me the tiny bottle of water from the Yellow River. How moving was this love for the country to which she and her parents belonged. I could not forget it, so I walked down to the edge to touch the water of the Yellow River myself.46

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This visit was specially arranged at his request as he intended to retrieve a bottle of water from the Yellow River. He carried the bottle with him and intended to bring it back for Chien-fei’s children. He wanted them to remember their roots and that, as Chinese, they should strive to bring honors for the Chinese.47 In mid-September, he visited Zeng Yun and Xiaoyan’s family in Nanchang. He had, as promised, come back to be reunited again with his family. He seemed very tired and frail, but he assured everyone that he had undergone a physical exam before the trip and was perfectly fine. Zeng, however, said to Xiaoyan quietly: “Your father doesn’t look well. He might be sick, seriously sick.”48 Yee left Nanchang at 6 p.m.; three hours later, Zeng had a seizure and was hospitalized the following day. As though she had a premonition that this would be an eternal departure, she said to Xiaoyan before leaving for the hospital, “I will not return this time.”49 She stayed in the hospital for ten days and repeatedly mentioned and asked for Chien-fei, her dearest son. He grew up with her during the war and after Chienkuo left home. Having borne two sons brought her a strong sense of honor and gratification among the community. How she wished to have a final look at her own sons near the end of her life. On September 25, Zeng clenched her right hand into a fist, a sign of summoning her five grandchildren. Each of them went to the bedside and called her, and to each she responded. An hour later, she passed away. At the time, Yee was in Shandong, hundreds of miles away, unaware of Zeng’s death. Having traveled across ten provinces, he felt exhausted and weak. He insisted on climbing Tai Mountain, which was the best-known and most-revered mountain in China. The first Qin Dynasty emperor, who united the country and built the Great Wall, climbed it to watch sunrise. Confucius, born in the region, mentioned the mountain in the Analects. It was Yee’s wish since childhood to climb the mountain and watch the sunrise. Now that the opportunity had finally arrived, he could not let it slip by. However, his body and stamina were rapidly diminishing. A seasoned traveler, he had walked so fast during his first visit to China two years earlier that some young people could not keep pace with him. This time, however, he had to turn around after reaching only half the height of Tai Mountain. That night, he sent a postcard to Hong-lit Lo with a poem he had just composed: With long-held aspiration, I climbed the mountain, But it was so difficult with my weak knees and an aged body. Tai Mountain has been paramount since ancient times; I regret my failure to reach the top to view the new world.50

He reached Beijing in time for National Day celebrations. On September 29, he paid homage to Mao Zedong at the newly-built Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. He fainted inside during the visit.

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The next day, on the eve of National Day, he attended a state banquet hosted by Deng Xiaoping, who had been rehabilitated only a few months earlier. Deng was a legendary leader who had survived the Cultural Revolution and brilliantly eliminated the Gang of Four after Mao’s death. Yee was received by Deng that night. On October 3, Xu Deheng, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, entertained Yee with a banquet. Also a Jiujiang native, Xu was Ji’s schoolmate and very close friend. These tightly-scheduled activities exhausted Yee, whose health deteriorated daily. He had been living on milk and sugar water. On October 5, he finally agreed to go to a hospital for a medical examination. That night, he dictated a letter, with the assistance of Jianlan, to Hong-lit Lo. “I was extremely tired” after two major events following a long trip. “I don’t know when I will recover, but it is probably nothing serious, just feel tired all the time. I believe that I should be recovered soon.” He conceded that he could no longer pursue his original plan. He would arrive in Hong Kong around October 20, and he asked Lo to help book a hotel. “I will arrive sooner or later.”51 Yee, however, was never able to leave the hospital. The doctors discovered that his cancer had returned and spread to his liver and lungs. Yee greeted the advent of his death with graceful serenity. There was no trace of fear or anxiety. He told Jianlan as early as the 1960s that he wished to have a chance to visit Jiujiang and then move to Beijing for the rest of his life. As if conceding to the design of fate, he resigned himself to it with contentment. Indeed, a traveler overseas for forty-four years, he was finally at home and surrounded by his children. He continued to work from his hospital bed, reading and sorting through the material he had gathered. There was still so much that he wanted to accomplish, especially this book which he aspired to dedicate to his motherland. He longed for extra time to travel a little longer. On October 17, 1977, he reached the final destination of his journey. He was buried at the foot of Lu Mountain, side by side with his wife, Zeng Yun. He finally returned to the site of his birth, his childhood, and his dream for an eternal rest in the surroundings of nature and the blessing of peace: Since I was born at the foot of Lu Mountain, one of China’s most famous mountains, from my earliest childhood I grew up in the companionship of rocks, hills, mountain-peaks, streams, waterfalls, pines and every kind of tree. While I was among them I quite forgot the existence of towns and cities. The musical murmuring of the drifting streams, the drizzling of rain on the leaves, and their beautiful fresh green afterwards, the clouds steadily rising up from the valleys to the peaks, the mists hiding distant villages and tree-tops—all of these made me tireless of wandering, and brought a great tranquility of spirit; I seemed to feel my breath coming deeper and longer while face to face with them.52

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As a world traveler, he established multiple homes in London, Oxford, New York, Boston, Cambridge, and Canberra. His passing was an irreparable loss to many of his friends who regarded him like a family member. At the memorial service Columbia University organized on November 15 at St. Paul’s Chapel, William Theodore de Bary, executive vice president of the university, remembered Yee in his eulogy as an exemplary teacher, Chinese scholar, accomplished writer, and world traveler. He proudly claimed that Columbia was a congenial place that Yee had adopted as his home: We who became his adopted family mourn our loss today, but our sorrow is lightened by the thoughts that our departed colleague has only departed in the way the Silent Traveller often did, and that he will still be going and coming in our lives as the embodiment of the Chinese scholar, poet and painter who made China live in New York and grafted something of himself onto our common life at the University.53

To many of his friends, the sudden loss of this energetic traveler—witty, charming, and full of life—was simply too difficult to accept. Many still believed that he was traveling somewhere or writing and painting in his New York apartment, half-expecting that he would show up soon and share with them his stories and travel experiences. When China Revisited was posthumously published in November 1977, dozens of Yee’s friends around the world received a complimentary copy from Norton, along with a letter from George Brockway: “As you may know, Yee died in the People’s Republic of China on October 17th. Before he left New York, however, in anticipation of the November 28th publication of his new book, China Revisited after Forty-two Years, he specifically requested that we send you this complimentary copy with his special greetings. We are pleased to honor his wishes.”54 Each copy included a sheet of best wishes Yee had previously prepared in his characteristic handwriting for insertion. Some reasoned that Yee prepared the autograph in advance so that the copies could go out immediately upon his return. Some speculated that he already suspected, prior to the trip, that he might not be able to return for autographing. Perhaps this tireless traveler was simply on yet another journey at Lu Mountain, where he was enjoying a long rest, surrounded by trees, grass, flowers, and clouds. From far, far away, he was once again conveying his appreciation of friendship and inviting his friends to follow his eyes and admire his beloved homeland.

NOTES

preface 1. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in San Francisco (NY: Norton, 1977), 197. 2. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 34. 3. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953), 557. 4. Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin, eds., The Edward Said Reader (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), 224–225. 5. Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, trans. E.F.N. Jephcott (London: Verso, 1978), 33–39. 6. Robert E. Cantwell, “Chiang Yee’s Travels,” Newsweek, 4 January 1954, 63. 7. Bayoumi and Rubin, eds., The Edward Said Reader, 227. 8. Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands (New York: Penguin, 1991), 10–11. 9. Jan Borm, “Defining Travel: On the Travel Book, Travel Writing and Terminology,” in Perspectives on Travel Writing, eds. Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 13–26. 10. Chiang, China Revisited, 49. 11. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York (New York: John Day, 1950), 130. 12. Chiang, New York, 77. 13. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (London: Country Life, 1937), 56. 14. Chiang, San Francisco, 245. Jiujiang is the modern spelling of the city Kiukiang. The author has made the change here and a few other places in the book 15. Ibid., 245. 16. Ibid., 246. 17. F.S.C. Northrop, Meeting of East and West: An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding (New York: Macmillan, 1946), ix–x. 18. Ibid., 318. 19. Ibid., 320. 20. Cantwell, “Chiang Yee’s Travels,” 62–63. 21. Northrop, Meeting of East and West, iv. 22. Chiang, New York, 4. 23. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh (London: Methuen, 1948), 103. 24. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales (London: Methuen, 1941), 80.

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chapter 1 — chinese childhood 1. Chiang Yee, A Chinese Childhood (London: Methuen, 1940), 12. According to his unpublished memoir, the four Chinese characters are “Zhong Hou Ren Ai.” See Chiang Yee, “Memoir” [ca. 1972], Lo Hong-lit’s collection. 2. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 29, 2000. 3. Chiang, Childhood, 206. 4. Ibid., 48. 5. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 16. 6. Chiang, Childhood, 1. 7. Ibid., 90. 8. Ibid., 9. 9. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938), 157. 10. Chiang, Childhood, 56. 11. Ibid., 62. 12. Ibid., 79. 13. Ibid., 72–73. 14. Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1990), 155–160. 15. Ray Huang, China: A Macro History (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), 201–202. 16. Ibid., 214–215. 17. Spence, Modern China, 231–235. 18. Ibid., 238–244. 19. Chen Wenhua and Chen Ronghua, eds., Jiangxi tongshi [A comprehensive history of Jiangxi] (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1999), 710–712. 20. Ibid., 721–724. 21. Ibid., 594–604, 643–652. 22. Ibid., 727–732. 23. Chiang, Childhood, 50–51. 24. Huang Runxiang and others, eds. Lushan Luyou shouce [Tourists’ guide of Lu Mountain] (Nanchang: Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1985), 148–150. 25. Chiang, Childhood, 50–51. 26. Ibid., 96, 240. 27. Ibid., 98. 28. Ibid., 103–110, 133–139. 29. Chen and Chen, Jiangxi, 695–698. 30. Chiang, Childhood, 31–35. 31. Ibid., 119. 32. Ibid., 115–120. 33. Ibid., 18–20, 56–60, 233. 34. Chiang Yee, Birds and Beasts (London: Country Life, 1939). 35. Chiang Yee, “Yangren yu gou” [Foreigners and dogs], Dacheng [Panorama Magazine] 6 (1974):16. 36. Chiang, Childhood, 193. 37. Tan Danjiong, Xunyang jiangtou [On Xunyang River] (Taizhong: Yinshua chubanshe, 1995), 72. 38. Chiang, Childhood, 160–164. 39. Ibid., 164–166. 40. Ibid., 167. 41. Ibid., 272–276; Chiang, “Memoir.”

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42. Chiang, London, 115. 43. Ho-an Chiang died at age fifty-two. See Chiang, Childhood, 45. He committed suicide by drowning himself in the river, and the cause was unknown. According to family members, it was probably related to financial disputes inside the family. His death must have been devastating to Chiang Yee, who was fifteen at the time. With the loss of his mother, paternal grandfather, and father, Yee literally became an orphan, even though he was living with his brother and uncles.

chapter 2 — revolutionary era 1. Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 46. 2. John King Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1992), 266–267. 3. Chiang Yee, A Chinese Childhood (London: Methuen, 1940), 302–303. 4. Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1990), 310–312. 5. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 19. 6. Chiang Yee, “Yangren yu gou” [Foreigners and dogs], Dacheng [Panorama Magazine] 6 (1974):16. 7. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou” [A perpetual dream about China], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 163. 8. Chiang, China Revisited, 21. 9. Tseng Shih-yu, In Memory of Chiang Yee (Changsha, n.d.), 7. 10. Ibid., 8–9. 11. Chiang Yee, “Memoir” [ca. 1972], Lo Hong-lit’s collection. 12. Keiji Furuya, Chiang Kai-shek: His Life and Times, abridged English Edition by Chun-ming Chang (New York: St. John’s University Press, 1981), 120. 13. Jiang, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou,” 165. 14. Leo Ou-fan Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 34. 15. Spence, Modern China, 294. 16. Chiang, Childhood, 228–235. 17. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller’s Sayings, ed. Jane Whitehill (Hong Kong: Sing Poh Amalgamated Printing Department, [ca. 1966]), 31. 18. Chiang, China Revisited, 20. 19. Chiang Yee mentioned the essay in China Revisited. The tone of excitement was noticeable in the line, “I still feel happy whenever I think of this first publication of mine.” See Chiang, China Revisited, 20–21. 20. Yi Lu, “Qiongya diaocha ji” [A report on Hainan Island], Eastern Miscellany 20:23 (December 10, 1923): 48–58. 21. Chiang, “Hainan Dao” [Hainan Island], Eastern Miscellany 22:10 (May 25, 1925): 56–57. 22. Ibid., 57. 23. Robert E. Cantwell, “Chiang Yee’s Travels,” Newsweek, 4 January 1954, 63; Chiang, China Revisited, 15, 20, 21. 24. Chiang, “Memoir.” 25. Ibid. 26. Chiang, China Revisited, 22.

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27. Ibid., 21–22; Chiang, “Memoir.” 28. Chiang, “Zhuinian Mao Zedong zhuxi” [In memory of Chairman Mao Zedong], Xuelian bao [Student association newspaper], September 1976. 29. Donald Jordan, Northern Expedition (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976), 104–105. 30. Chiang, “Memoir.” 31. Ibid. 32. Spence, Modern China, 347–348. 33. Chiang Yee is likely to have been a member of the Nationalist Party, though he rarely mentioned his party affiliation in the past. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, July 9, 1999. 34. Jiang Tingfu, Jiang Tingfu huiyi Lu [Jiang Tingfu’s memoirs], trans. Xie Zhonglian (Taipei: Zhuanji wenxue chupanshe, 1997), 110. 35. See Chiang, “Memoir.” 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Chiang, “Yangren yu gou,” 16. 40. Chiang, China Revisited, 23. 41. Chiang, “Memoir.” 42. Furuya, Chiang Kai-shek, 243–245; Chiang, Revisited, 23–24; Chiang, “Memoir”; Huang Yonglian, Shesheng quyi [Sacrifice life to righteousness] (Taipei: Jindai Zhongguo zazhishe, 1988), 165–175. According to Chiang Yee, Cai Gongshi left for Jinan early on May 3, and was arrested and murdered right after his arrival that very night. See Chiang, “Memoir.” Huang Yonglian, however, believes that Cai and other delegates arrived on May 1 at about 3 p.m. and were not allowed to leave the envoy building until the night of May 3, when they were arrested and then murdered. See Huang, Shesheng quyi, 165–175. 43. Furuya, Chiang Kai-shek, 245–246. 44. Chiang Yee, Cai Gongshi bei ribenren shahai de jingguo [Cai Gongshi’s murder by Japanese], in Zhuanji Wenxue [Biography], 31:3 (1977): 85. 45. Chiang, “Memoir.”

chapter 3 — civil servant 1. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 25. 2. Chiang, “Memoir” [ca. 1972], Lo Hong-lit’s collection. 3. Chiang, China Revisited, 25. 4. Chiang, “Memoir.” 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Chiang, China Revisited, 27. 12. Chiang, The Silent Traveller in Dublin (New York: John Day, 1953), 110. 13. Chiang, China Revisited, 28. 14. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938), 222–223.

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15. Chen Ji (Deputy Director of the Lu Mountain Library), in discussion with the author, August 4, 2001. 16. Chiang, London, 233; Chiang, “Memoir.” 17. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou” [A perpetual dream about China], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 172–173. 18. Chiang, “Memoir.” 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. R. Keith Schoppa, Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 158. 22. Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 550. 23. Chen Wenhua and Chen Ronghua, eds., Jiangxi tongshi [A comprehensive history of Jiangxi] (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1999), 785–787. 24. Chiang Yee, preface to Jiujiang Zhinan [Guide to Jiujiang], ed. Qin Shanseng (Zhonghua shuju, 1932). 25. Shen Bao, April 4, 1932, 5. 26. Chiang, China Revisited, 30; Chiang, “Memoir.” Chiang Yee’s accounts in these two sources and some other writings seem quite consistent. However, according to the newspaper report in Shen Bao, Lord Lytton, General McCoy, and Count Aldrovandi took General Zhang Xueliang’s personal plane, Ford, from Beijing to Shanghai on September 4, and they departed for Geneva aboard an Italian ship on the following day. See Shen Bao, September 5 and September 6, 1932. I have not been able to locate the said report on Lord Lytton’s departure to Geneva nor Chiang Yee’s speech in the newspaper. 27. Chiang, China Revisited, 30. 28. Chiang, “Memoir.” 29. Chiang, China Revisited, 31–32. 30. Ibid., 32. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., 33. 34. Chiang Yee was publicly humiliated at a meeting when a military officer of the region threatened to punch him. As military power superseded law, there was nothing he could do, even though he was the county magistrate. This was one of the reasons why he chose to resign and leave the country. Chien-fei Chiang, “In Memory of My Father” (speech, China Institute, New York, October 20, 2007). 35. Chiang, China Revisited, 34. 36. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh (London: Methuen, 1948), 1–2. 37. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, May 30, 1999. 38. Chiang, “Memoir.” 39. Tseng Shih-yu, In Memory of Chiang Yee (Changsha, n.d.), 13. 40. Chiang, China Revisited, 34.

chapter 4 — no longer in need of a bench 1. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York (New York: John Day, 1950), 14. 2. Ibid., 14–15. 3. Ibid., 14.

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4. Chiang Yee to George Brockway, 16 September 1976, Walter Muir Whitehill papers, Massachusetts Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS). 5. Chiang Yee, “Memoir” [ca. 1972], Lo Hong-lit’s collection. 6. O. Edmund Clubb, 20th Century China, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 183, 200–201. 7. Chiang Yee, Jiang Zhongya shi [Poems by Chiang Yee] (Privately printed, [1935]), 18. 8. Gongjiao Bao [Public education newspaper], April 20, 1984, 12. 9. Tan Danjiong, Shenjing zhiliu [Sojourning in Shenjing] (Taizhong: Yinshua chubanshe, 1995), 84. 10. Ibid., 85. 11. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938), 163. 12. Chiang, “Memoir.” 13. Ibid. 14. Shih-I Hsiung, trans., The Romance of the Western Chamber (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), xxxviii. 15. Chiang Yee, The Chinese Eye (London: Methuen, 1935), dust jacket. 16. Chiang, “Memoir.” 17. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, July 9, 1999. 18. Ibid. 19. Chiang, Jiang Zhongya shi. 20. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 35. 21. The Men of the Trees: First International Exhibition of Tree Pictures, 1934. An exhibition catalog and program. 22. Chien-fei Chiang, “Wo de fuqing Jiang Yi yu Xu Beihong” [My father Chiang Yee and Xu Beihong], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 150. 23. Chiang, “Memoir.” 24. Chiang, London, 245–246. 25. Ibid., 153–155. 26. Ibid., 154. 27. Ibid. 28. Chiang, “Memoir.” 29. Chiang Yee, “Yi Beihong” [Remembering Beihong], Daren 34 (1973): 8–11. 30. Chiang, “Memoir.” 31. Festival Theatre Programme, no. 49 (June 10–15, 1935). 32. Chiang, London, 243–244. 33. Reginald Johnston to his secretary, 14 October 1934, Chiang Yee file, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (hereafter cited as SOAS). 34. E. Dora Edwards to Reginald Johnston, 17 January 1935, SOAS. 35. Robert A. Bickers, “‘Coolie Work’: Sir Reginald Johnston and the School of Oriental Studies, 1931–1937,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Studies 3rd ser, 5:3 (1995): 386. 36. Bickers, “Coolie work,” 387; Calendar for the 20th Session 1935–1936 (London: School of Oriental Studies, [1935]), 63–65. Prospectus 1938–1939 (London: School of Oriental Studies, [1938]), 13. The school underwent a dramatic restructuring process as departments merged, separated, or expanded almost every year, at least in the mid-1930s, and it was relocated from Finsbury Circus to the current location. 37. Robert A. Bickers, “New Light on Lao She, London, and the London Missionary Society, 1921–1929,” Modern Chinese Literature 8:1–2 (1994): 21–39; Calendar for the 22nd Session 1937–1938 (London: School of Oriental Studies, [1937]), 246; Hsiao Chien, Traveller Without a Map (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 72–78.

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38. Denison Ross to E. Dora Edwards, 6 March 1931, Edwards papers, qtd. in Bickers, “Coolie Work,” 389. 39. Bickers, “Coolie work,” 388–396. 40. Ibid., 395. As for the reason why Reginald Johnston offered to pay Chiang Yee “from his own pocket,” Bickers attributes that to the increased “teaching pressure.” But the fact that Chiang Yee was referred by Lockhart, who was Johnston’s long-time friend, I believe, might have also been a major part of the reason. 41. Chiang, China Revisited, 36–37. 42. Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 30, 45. 43. Lytton and William Llewellyn, preface to Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art 1935–6, 3rd ed. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1935), iv. 44. Chiang, China Revisited, 36–37. 45. Ibid., 37. 46. Ibid. 47. Innes Herdan, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000; Bickers, “Coolie work,” 397. 48. Chiang, China Revisited, 37. 49. Innes Herdan, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000; Chiang, China Revisited, 37. 50. Chiang, China Revisited, 37. 51. Innes Herdan, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000. Herdan stated that the title was her suggestion. 52. Chiang Yee, The Chinese Eye (London: Methuen, 1935), ix-x. 53. Ibid., 5–6. 54. Ibid., 13. 55. Ibid., x. 56. Innes Herdan, in discussion with the author, August 26, 2004. 57. Chiang, China Revisited, 37. 58. Chiang, Jiang Zhongya shi, 21. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., 35. 61. Ibid., 5, 31; Chiang, London, 12. 62. Chiang, Jiang Zhongya shi, 44. This translation is based on that by Tseng Shih-yu. See Tseng, In Memory of Chiang Yee (Changsha, n.d.), 20. 63. Chiang Yee, Zhongya jueju baishou [A hundred poems by Chiang Yee] (Privately printed, [1955]). 64. The essay “Zhongguo lihun wenti zhi yanjiu” [A study of the divorce issue in China], by Shen Dengjie and Chen Wenjie, was published in Eastern Miscellany 32:13 (1935): 305–316. The essay discussed the socioeconomic changes in China which led to changes in marital relationships and to a rise in divorce. It pointed out five main reasons that brought about this phenomenon: new concepts regarding family and individual freedom; changes in women’s social status; efforts to break from arranged marriages; development of metropolitan centers; and higher living standards. Chiang Yee clipped and saved the essay. It indicated that divorce was probably an issue that had caught his attention. Zhong Yu’s essay “Qixi gushi” [The legend about the July 7 festival], published in Guowen zhoubao [National news weekly] in 1936, was also clipped and saved. Therefore, there is room for speculation in regard to the relationship between the legend and divorce as implied in the poem.

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chapter five. “another c. y.” 1. Chiang Yee, a note written with a brush pen, Chien-fei Chiang’s collection (hereafter cited as CFC). 2. According to Chien-kuo Chiang, his father made this new name immediately after his resignation in China. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 28, 2000. 3. Chiang Yee, “Yi Beihong” [Remembering Beihong], Daren 34 (1973):8. 4. Chiang Yee, The Chinese Eye, (London: Methuen, 1935), viii. 5. Luo Kanglie, “Zatan Yaxingzhe qiren qishi” [Some thoughts on the Silent Traveller], Mingbao Monthly, no. 77 (1973):64. 6. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 3 January 1936:a, Innes Herdan’s collection (hereafter cited as IHC). 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., 3 January 1936:b, IHC. 9. Innes Jackson, China Only Yesterday (London: Faber and Faber, 1938), 12–13. 10. Ibid., 129–138. 11. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 3 January 1936:b, IHC. 12. Hugh Gordon Porteus, n.t., The New England Weekly, January 30, 1936. 13. “Two More Exhibitions in London,” Morning Post, January 23, 1936; “Modern Chinese Paintings,” Truth London, January 29, 1936. 14. “Chinese Paintings,” Times, January 22, 1936. 15. Porteus, n.t. 16. W. W. Winkworth, “A Note on Mr. Chiang’s Work,” in James Cahill Papers, Freer Gallery of Art archives (hereafter cited as Freer Gallery). 17. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938), 150. 18. Chiang Yee to James Cahill, 21 October 1971, James Cahill file, Freer Gallery. 19. SOAS Calendar for the 21st Session 1936–1937 (London: School of Oriental Studies, [1936]), 64–65. 20. E. Dora Edwards to G. W. Rossetti, 20 April 1936, SOAS. 21. Chiang Yee to Reginald Johnston, 30 April 1936, SOAS. 22. Reginald Johnston to G. W. Rossetti, 2 May 1936, SOAS. 23. Chiang Yee file, SOAS. 24. Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 451. 25. James, British Empire, 464–465; Fred M. Leventhal, ed. Twentieth-Century Britain: An Encyclopedia, rev. ed. (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 505. 26. Paul Preston, The Spanish Civil War (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1986), 49, 58–59. 27. Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1990), 420–421. 28. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 14 June 1936, IHC. 29. Innes Herdan, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000. 30. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 14 June 1936, IHC. 31. Ibid. 32. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 19 September 1936, IHC. 33. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (London: Country Life, 1937), 3–5. 34. Ibid., 2. 35. Chiang, “Memoir.”

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36. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou” [A perpetual dream about China], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 181. 37. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 39. 38. Ibid., 39–40. 39. Chiang, Lakeland, xi-xii. 40. Ibid., 7, 41. 41. Ibid., 11. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 42. 44. N. L. Carrington, “The Chinese Idiom,” Country Life (4 December 1937): xxxvi. 45. Chiang, Lakeland, 36–37. 46. Ibid., 39–40, 49, 54. 47. Chiang, China Revisited, 40. 48. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 19 September 1936, IHC. 49. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 19 January, 3 February 1937, IHC. 50. Ibid. 51. Violet Hawkes to Chiang Yee, 12 March 1937, author’s collection. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Spence, Modern China, 443. 55. Jackson, China Only Yesterday, 18. 56. Ibid., 20. 57. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 5 March 1937, IHC. 58. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 1 April, 20 May 1937, IHC. 59. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 20 May 1937, IHC. Violet Hawkes to Chiang Yee, 12 March 1937. 60. Robert A. Bickers, “‘Coolie Work’: Sir Reginald Johnston and the School of Oriental Studies, 1931–1937,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Studies 3rd ser, 5:3 (1995): 387. 61. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 19 January 1937, IHC. 62. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 26 July 1937, IHC. 63. Yiheng Zhao, “Wode laotongshi Zhuangshidun” [My old colleague Johnston], China Times, March 19, 2001, 3. 64. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 26 July 1937, IHC. 65. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 4 August, 23 August 1937, IHC. 66. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 26 July 1937, IHC. 67. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 23 August 1937, IHC. 68. Reginald Johnston, typewritten document, IHC. 69. Chiang, London, 253–254; Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 4 August 1937, IHC. 70. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 1 April 1937, IHC. 71. Jackson, China Only Yesterday, 277. 72. Ibid., 5. 73. S. F., “London Is like This to Him,” Daily Herald, November 2, 1937; William Hickey, n.t., Daily Express, November 2, 1937. 74. Donald Boyd, memo, November 12, 1937, BBC Written Archives Centre, RCONT1 Chiang Yee—Talks File 1 (hereafter cited as BBCWAC). 75. Ian Cox, memo, November 26, 1937, BBCWAC. 76. Cox, record of telephone conversation, December 6, 1937, BBCWAC. 77. “Another Poet’s World,” a script, December 7, 1937, BBCWAC.

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78. Chien-fei Chiang, “Wode fuqing Jiang Yi yu Xu Beihong” [My father Chiang Yee and Xu Beihong], in Jiang and Liu, 148. 79. “Broadcasting Features,” Yorkshire Post, January 24, 1938; “North,” Radio Times, January 28, 1938. 80. Chiang, “Memoir.” 81. W. W. Winkworth, “China in Microcosm,” Country Life (22 January 1938): 88–89. 82. “Chinese Art Exhibition at Bournemouth,” Bournemouth Daily Echo, April 19, 1938; “Works of Art Auctioned,” Bournemouth Daily Echo, April 22, 1938. 83. E. Dora Edwards to Chiang Yee, enclosed in Secretary to R. L. Turner, 8 April 1938, SOAS. 84. William Milner to R. L. Turner, 7 April 1938, SOAS. 85. Hugh Gordon Porteus, n.t., The New England Weekly, January 30, 1936. 86. Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy (London: Methuen, 1938), 3. 87. “The Fifty Books of 1938,” Times Literary Supplement, June 10, 1939. 88. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 3 January 1937, IHC. 89. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 3 February 1937, IHC. 90. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, 23 February 1937, IHC.

chapter 6 — “the thing has come at last” 1. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1985), 2. 2. Chiang Yee to P. J. Johnston-Saint, 30 March 1938, Wellcome Library. 3. P. J. Johnston-Saint to Chiang Yee, 3 May 1938, Wellcome Library. 4. Chiang Yee to P. J. Johnston-Saint, 19 April 1938, Wellcome Library. 5. Harold Balme to P. J. Johnston-Saint, 13 May 1938, Wellcome Library. 6. Ibid. 7. Chen Wenhua and Chen Ronghua, eds., Jiangxi tongshi [A comprehensive history of Jiangxi] (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1999), 872–878, 895–898. 8. Jiang Xiaoyan, in discussion with the author, August 2, 2001. As for the cause of Chiang Ji’s death, Chiang Yee attributed it to a heart attack, but Xiaoyan said that it was a cerebral hemorrhage. Jiang Xiaoyan to author, 20 December 2003, author’s collection. 9. Jiang Xiaoyan, in discussion with the author, August 3, 2001. 10. Jiang Xiaoyan, in discussion with the author, August 2, 2001. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 38. 14. Paul Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 15. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in War Time (London: Country Life, 1939), 1–2. 16. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938), 212. 17. Chiang Yee to Innes Jackson, c. 1938, IHC. 18. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 19. Chiang, London, 93–100. 20. Chiang, London, 253–254; Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York (New York: John Day, 1950), 263. 21. Chiang Yee to P. J. Johnston-Saint, 11 September 1938, Wellcome Library. 22. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales (London: Methuen, 1941), 84. 23. “Duke of Kent at Book Fair,” Aberdean Press and Journal, November 9, 1938; “Duke of Kent Delighted by His Surprise Visit to the ‘Sunday Times’ Book Fair, Buys 50 Volumes,” Daily Sketch, November 9, 1938.

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24. Ibid. 25. “Duke of Kent Delighted by His Surprise Visit.” 26. Ibid. 27. Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy (London: Methuen, 1938), 122. 28. “National Book Fair: First Week Sets Up New Records,” The Sunday Times, November 13, 1938. 29. It was dated “November 9” on the copy of The Silent Traveller in London, Chien-kuo Chiang’s collection (hereafter cited as CKC). 30. Chiang, London, xiii. 31. Ibid., 186. 32. Ibid., 47. 33. Ibid., 46–47. 34. Ibid., 85. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., ix. 37. Ibid., 255. 38. Ibid., 111–112. 39. Ibid., xvi. 40. Ibid., 157–158. 41. Ibid., 61–62. 42. Innes Herdan, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000. 43. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 44. Chiang Yee, Zhongya jueju baishou [A hundred poems by Chiang Yee] (Privately printed, [1955]). 45. Ramona Morris and Desmond Morris, Men and Pandas (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 101–107; Chiang, China Revisited, 81. 46. Chiang, New York, 119. 47. Chiang, China Revisited, 82. 48. Chiang Yee, Birds and Beasts (London: Country Life, 1939). 49. Ibid. 50. “Mr. Chiang Yee,” The Times, February 18, 1939. 51. C. H. G-S., “In Oriental London.” 52. Chiang, London, 161. 53. “Zwemmer Gallery,” Studio, May 1939. 54. Malaya Mail, Februrary 22, 1939. 55. Book Society News, May 1939. 56. Xiao Shufang, “Yi qingnian shiqi de huayou Jiang Yi xiansheng” [Remembering my artist friend Chiang Yee in early years], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 108–109. 57. Chiang Yee, introduction to Chinese Children at Play, by Yui Shufang (London: Methuen, 1939). Yui Shufang is the English name that Xiao Shufang used for the publication. 58. Chiang Yee, Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas (London: Country Life, 1939), 80. 59. Chiang Yee, Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas (New York: Studio Publications, 1943), 83. 60. Chiang Yee, Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas (London: Country Life, 1939), 46–48, 61. 61. Ibid., 37–39.

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62. Ibid., facing page 48. 63. Chiang, War Time, 13–14. 64. Ibid., 28. 65. Ibid., 20. 66. Ibid., 20–21. 67. Chiang Yee, Zhanshi Lundun [London in the War Time], (Shanghai: Shijie wenhua chubanshe, 1940), 15. 68. Chiang Yee to Innes and Gustav Herdan, 3 September 1939, IHC.

chapter 7 — “my own world” 1. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in War Time (London: Country Life, 1939), 57–62. 2. Ibid. 3. “Through Chinese Spectacles,” Punch, 24 January 1940; “This War-time London,” Evening News, December 22, 1939; n.t., Sketch, 10 January 1940; Basil de Selincourt, “Chinese News,” Manchester Guardian, January 16, 1940; V.H.F., “Chinese Observer,” Country Life (10 February 1940). 4. Chiang, War Time, vii. 5. Ibid., 1. 6. V.H.F. “Chinese Observer”; n.t., New Statesman, February 17, 1940. 7. Chiang Yee, Lundun zhanshi xiaoji [Sketches about London in war time] (Hong Kong: Far Eastern Bureau, British Ministry of Information, [1940]), 5–6. 8. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 22 December 1939, IHC; Paul Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 9. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 22 December 1939. 10. Wang Heming and Ma Yuanliang, Xifangren bixia de zhongguo fengqing hua [Paintings of Chinese society by western artists], (Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1997). 11. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 12. E.H.J., “A Bit of Old China,” Christian World, May 30, 1940; Wilfrid Rooke Ley, “This Man Introduces the World to You,” Catholic Herald, June 7, 1940. 13. Dorothea Hosie, “A Chinese Childhood,” Contemporary Review, June 1940, 114. 14. Chiang Yee, A Chinese Childhood (London: Methuen, 1940), 302–304. 15. Ernest Robinson, “More about Art in Leeds,” Yorkshire Post, February 6, 1940. 16. Wakefield Express, April 27, 1940. 17. “It Is ‘Ladies Last’ in China,” Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, March 14, 1940. 18. Herbert Read, “The War as Seen by British Artists,” in Britain at War, ed. Monroe Wheeler (New York: Arno Press, 1972), 11. 19. Chiang Yee, Canguan Yingguo zhanshi huajia zuopin zhanlanhui ji [A visit to the exhibition of pictures by British war artists], (N.p., [1940]), 30–32. 20. Zhanshi Buliedian [Britain at war] was a booklet “distributed throughout Free China.” See Glasgow Herald, February 13, 1942. 21. Chiang, Zhanshi huajia zhanlanhui, 32. 22. Chiang, Zhanshi Buliedian [Britain at war] (N.p., [1941]), 10–11. 23. Chiang Yee to Lo Hong-lit, 18 June 1974, author’s collection. 24. Chiang Yee, preface to Willow Leaves: Lyrics in the Manner of the Early Chinese Poets, John Irvine (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1941), 9–11. 25. Chiang Yee to P. Johnston-Saint, 14 September 1939, Wellcome Library; P. JohnstonSaint to Chiang Yee, 18 September 1939, Wellcome Library.

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26. Chiang Yee to P. Johnston-Saint, 27 August 1940, Wellcome Library; P. JohnstonSaint to Chiang Yee, 28 Aug 1940, Wellcome Library. 27. Chiang, Childhood, 304. 28. Chiang, Zhanshi Buliedian, 10–11. 29. Ibid., 21–22.

chapter 8 — oxford years 1. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Oxford (London: Methuen, 1944), 45. 2. Ibid., 29. 3. Rita Keene Lester, in discussion with the author, May 15, 2001; Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 27, 2000. 4. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou” [A perpetual dream about China], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 189–190. 5. Chiang Yee, Zhanshi Buliedian [Britain at war] (N.p., [1941]), 2. 6. Chiang, Oxford, 92–93. 7. Ibid., 153. 8. P. Johnston-Saint to Chiang Yee, 5 June 1941, 24 January 1946, Wellcome Library. 9. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales (London: Methuen, 1941), v. 10. Ibid., 84, 86. 11. “Animal Stories,” News Chronicle, December 13, 1939. 12. Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 605. 13. Ibid., 606. 14. Hsiao Chien, Traveller without a Map, trans. Jeffrey C. Kinkley (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 74–75. Hsiao Chien is Xiao Qian’s English name. 15. Chiang Yee, The Men of the Burma Road, (London: Methuen, 1942), 85; Donovan Webster, The Burma Road (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 23–24. 16. Chiang, Burma Road, 85. 17. Ibid., 45–46. 18. N.t., News Chronicle, August 8, 1942. 19. Chiang, Burma Road, 52. 20. Hsiao, Traveller without a Map, 75; Xiao Qian, Wangshi suixiang [Memoirs] (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 2000), 136–137. 21. Chiang Yee recommended Xiao Qian and Shih-I Hsiung to the BBC’s G. H. Payton to give a radio talk when he was not available. G. H. Payton to Chiang Yee, 21 August 1940, BBCWAC. 22. A. D., “Allied Artists,” Catholic Herald, May 15, 1942; “Allied Pictures on Show,” Brighton Herald, August 22, 1942. 23. “Exhibition of Painting by Chiang Yee,” n.d. 24. “Man of the World,” Star, November 26, 1942. 25. Han Suyin, “Huainian Jiang Yi” [Remembering Chiang Yee], in Jiang and Liu, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi, 40. 26. Chiang Yee, preface to Willow Leaves: Lyrics in the Manner of the Early Chinese Poets, John Irvine (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1941), 3–5. 27. James Redfern, “Let’s Face It,” Spectator, November 27, 1942; Mary Clarke, The Sadler’s Wells Ballet (London: A. & C. Black, 1955), 175–176. 28. Chiang Yee, “What Can I Say about Ballet?” The Ballet Annual, vol. 2 (1948): 113. 29. Ibid.

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30. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York (New York: John Day, 1950), 177. 31. Horace Horsnell, “Sadler’s Wells Ballet,” Tatler, December 9, 1942. 32. “Hen in a Ballet,” Evening News, November 25, 1942. 33. “About Ballet,” Stage, July 22, 1943; “Design for the Ballet Exhibition at Brighton,” Brighton, January 15, 1944. 34. Chiang, “What Can I Say about Ballet?” 113–114. 35. Chiang Yee, “Note to the Third Enlarged Edition,” in Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy, 3rd rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), xix. 36. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 43. 37. This is Arthur Waley’s assertion. See Hsiao Chien, comp., A Harp with a Thousand Strings: A Chinese Anthology in Six Parts (London: Pilot Press, 1944), 381–383. qtd. in Wang Gongwu, Anglo-Chinese Encounters since 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 7. 38. Chiang, China Revisited, 43. 39. Barbara Whittingham-Jones, China Fights in Britain (London: W. H. Allen, 1944), 55–64. 40. “The Artists Aid China Exhibition,” Time and Tide, April 10, 1943; N.t., Sheffield Telegraph, April 12, 1943. 41. Chiang Yee to E. Huxley, 20 March 1943, BBCWAC. 42. Chiang Yee, “Chinese Art,” Home Service, 31 March 1943, BBCWAC. 43. “Artists Aid China Exhibition, March 31—May 25, 1943,” a program, BBCWAC. 44. “The Kitchen Front,” Times Educational Supplement, May 15, 1943; H.P.E., “China without Chop Suey,” Punch, 9 June 1943. 45. “Luncheons: The Lord Mayor,” Daily Telegraph, July 22, 1943. 46. Laurence Binyon, preface to A Short History of Chinese Civilisation, by Tsui Chi (London: Victor Gollancz, 1942), 8. 47. Tsui Chi’s marriage was arranged and not happy. Like Chiang Yee, he married his first cousin, and the marriage was arranged by his mother and her sister even before he was born. Leaving his wife and children behind in China, he found freedom in the West so much enjoyable. Dymia Hsiung’s Flowering Exile, an autobiographical fiction, gives a fairly clear picture of Tsui Chi through the character Sung Hua who dies of tuberculosis in the kidneys. See Flowering Exile (London: Peter Davies, 1952), 21–22. Deh-I Hsiung, in discussion with the author, November 25, 2000; Teh-ni Hsiung, in discussion with the author, December 23, 2002. 48. “China Short Story Competition,” Time and Tide, October 23, 1943. 49. “The Chinese Community in Britain,” Great Britain and the East, May 6, 1944; Barbara Whittingham-Jones, China Flights in Britain (London: W. H. Allen, 1944), 47–56. 50. C. L. Sulzberger, The American Heritage Picture History of World War II ([New York]: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1966), 482. 51. “Need for Greater Knowledge of the People in Peace,” Glasgow Herald, July 5, 1944. 52. K. W., “China’s Art on View,” Glasgow Bulletin, July 5, 1944. 53. Ibid.; Onlooker, “High Force and Myself,” The Scotsman, May 26, 1944. 54. “Rotherham Lecture by Artist and Author,” Rotherham Advertiser, October 21, 1944. 55. Gerard Hopkins, “Willow-Pattern Oxford,” Sunday Times, November 19, 1944. 56. Inscription on the front page of Chiang Yee’s own copy of The Silent Traveller in Oxford, CKC. 57. Chiang, Oxford, 2. 58. Helen Darbishire, “Oxford Now,” I.W.S.G. (January 1945): 13. 59. Chiang, Oxford, 9–14.

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60. H. K., “The Immemorial West,” Punch, 8 November 1944. 61. Chiang, Oxford, 23. 62. Ibid., 121. 63. Edith Shackleton, “New Books,” The Lady, November 30, 1944. 64. S.P.B. Mais, “Books,” Oxford Mail, November 22, 1944. 65. Ibid. 66. Chiang, Oxford, 138. 67. Betty Scott to Chiang Yee, 28 November 1944, CFC. It is important to note that Chiang Yee did take the error seriously. In response, he prepared “A Short Note to the Second Edition,” in which he explained that “there have been a few little mistakes in the text of the first edition of the book. . . . I am happy to be able to put the mistakes right in this new edition. I have also taken out some of my superfluous thoughts, which could not be thoroughly explained in the small space and which did not go very well with the rest of the topics. I hope there will now be no more room for misinterpretation.” Interestingly enough, the “Short Note” he had prepared was not used in later editions, nor did he make the corrections to that disputed passage. Chiang Yee’s note, CFC. 68. “Books People Are Reading,” Sunday Express, November 12, 1944. 69. “November Reading,” Liverpool Post, December 1, 1944. 70. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 28, 2000. 71. Ramona Morris and Desmond Morris, Men and Pandas (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 113–114. 72. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Dublin (New York: John Day, 1953), 58. 73. Jacqueline Stanley, “The Story of Ming,” Tribune, March 16, 1945. 74. “Puzzle Solved,” News Review, June 7, 1945. 75. W. D. Ross and others, “A United Nations War Memorial,” Times, August 6, 1945. 76. “Exports to U.S.A.,” Bookseller, March 2, 1944. 77. Hsiung, Flowering Exile, 158. 78. Deh-I Hsiung, in discussion with the author, November 25, 2000. 79. Chiang Yee, “Your Christmas,” Country Life (7 December 1951): 1885. 80. Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 81. Ibid.; Catherine Antoniades, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000. 82. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 21 December 21 1946, IHC. 83. “Book Illustration,” Birmingham Post, November 1, 1945. 84. “Some Author-Artists,” Manchester Guardian, May 30, 1945. 85. P. Johnston-Saint to Chiang Yee, 29 January 1946, Wellcome Library. 86. Ibid.

chapter 9 — “my english christmas” 1. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York (New York: John Day, 1950), 16. 2. Ibid., 102. 3. Ibid., 120. 4. Ibid., 184. 5. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 28 May 1955, MHS. 6. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 28, 2000. 7. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 21 December 1946, IHC. 8. Ibid. 9. O. Edmund Clubb, 20th Century China, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 286. 10. Ibid.

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11. John Fairbank, China (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998), 331–334. 12. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 28, 2000. Even though Chien-kuo was rather unhappy to be third on the list, he understood his father’s reasoning: Chien-min was given priority because he was Ji’s only son; the orderly was second in importance because Yee wanted to reciprocate faith and good service with this opportunity. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. John Cowell, No Profit but the Name (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 1988), 106–107. 16. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Dublin (New York: John Day, 1953), 82. 17. Ibid., 82, 86. 18. Rod Nordell, “Laughter in Dublin,” Christian Science Monitor, December 24, 1953. 19. Chiang, Dublin, 49. 20. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh (London: Methuen, 1948), 2–3. 21. Ibid., 9. 22. Finlay, transcript, “Book Review,” Scottish Home Service, CFC. 23. “The Silent Traveller in Boston,” Athenaeum News 56 (March 1953): 1. 24. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 24 April 1955, MHS. 25. Alan White, inscription in The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh, CFC. 26. Mary Stack McNiff, “The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh,” America, September 15, 1951. 27. Chiang Yee, draft of letter to Mary Stack McNiff, [1951], CFC. 28. Chien-fei Chiang, “Qinqing” [Paternal Love], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 145. 29. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, December 25, 2001. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. “This Week’s Programme,” Sunday Times, November 9, 1949; “Explorers! Remember to take galoshes,” Daily Graphic, November 10, 1949. 33. R. L. Hanson, “Nature Loving Artist’s Musing in London Fog,” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1949; “Silent Traveller,” New York Herald Tribune, September 11, 1949. 34. Andrew Herdan, e-mail message to the author, October 7, 2000; Catherine Antoniades, in discussion with the author, November 30, 2000. 35. Chien-kuo Chiang, “A Short Trip to Switzerland and France,” thesis, CKC. 36. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 27, 2000. 37. Ibid. 38. Van Wyck Books, preface to Chiang, New York, viii-xi. 39. Gladys Brooks, If Strangers Meet (New York: Harcourt, 1967), 146–147; Van Wyck Brooks, An Autobiography (New York: Dutton, 1965), 633. 40. Van Wyck Brooks to Chiang Yee, 14 May 1950, MHS. 41. Brooks, preface, ix. 42. Ibid., x–xi. 43. Brooks, If Strangers Meet, 146–147. 44. Chiang, New York, 146–147. 45. Ibid., 63. 46. Ibid., 219. 47. Lewis Gannett, “Books and Things,” New York Herald, December 11, 1950.

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48. Kelsey Guilfoil, “Chinese Eyes Discover New York,” Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1950. 49. “Clever, This Chinese,” Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1950. 50. Agreement with John Day about The Silent Traveller in New York, signed March 6, 1951, MHS. 51. Walter Whitehill to Alfred A. Knopf, 18 December 1953, Alfred Knopf Papers, Henry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; see also Yang Liensheng, diary, June 3, 1951, Yenching Library, Harvard (hereafter cited as Harvard). 52. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, January 28, 2000; Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 February 1955, MHS. 53. Chiang Yee, “Art,” in Harley Farnsworth MacNair, ed., China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), 348–362. 54. Chiang Yee, “The Philosophical Basis of Chinese Painting,” Ideological Differences and World Order, ed. F.S.C. Northrop (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949) 35–68. 55. Chiang Yee, “Your Christmas,” Country Life (7 December 1951): 1885. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., 1884. 58. Jiang Xiaoyan, in discussion with the author, August 3, 2001.

chapter 10 — to america 1. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Paris (New York: John Day, 1956), 1, 123, 249, 277. 2. Chiang Yee to Gladys and Van Wyck Brooks, 26 December 1951, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania (hereafter cited as UPENN). 3. Chiang, Paris, 5. 4. Ibid., 285. 5. Chien-fei Chiang, “Wo de fuqing Jiang Yi yu Xu Beihong” [My father Chiang Yee and Xu Beihong], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 150. 6. Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 7. Tan Danjiong, Xunyang jiangtou [On Xunyang River] (Taizhong: Yinshua chubanshe, 1995), 74. 8. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 9. Ibid. 10. Donald O. J. Messenger, “‘Silent Traveller’ Sees Hub Clothed with Winter,” The Christian Science Monitor, February 9, 1953. 11. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Boston (New York: Norton, 1959), 16–34. 12. Ibid., 38. 13. Chiang Yee to Mark A. DeWolfe Howe, 29 December 1952. 14. Harold Evans, The American Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 444. 15. Chiang Yee to Van Wyck Brooks, 22 December 1953, UPENN. 16. Jean Miao-chen Yang, in discussion with the author, February 21, 2006. 17. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, January 27, 1953, Harvard. 18. Chiang Yee and Yang Lien-sheng, poems, hand copied, CFC. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., Ton Ton and Shuli are Mr. and Mrs. Yang Lien-sheng’s son and daughter. Lily is Shuli’s English name. 21. This is Yang Lien-sheng’s own English version of the poem. See Yang, diary, May 18, 1953, Harvard. The original Chinese version is recorded in Chiang and Yang, poems.

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22. Chiang and Yang, poems. 23. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 17 November 1952, MHS. 24. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 December 1953, MHS. 25. Walter Whitehill to Alfred A. Knopf, 11 December 1953. University of Texas, Austin. 26. Athenaeum Items, no. 56 (March 1953): 2. 27. Ibid., 2–3. 28. Chiang and Yang, poems. 29. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 2 November 1953, MHS. 30. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Dublin (New York: John Day, 1953), vii. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., 9–12. 34. Grace P. Comans, “Through Eastern Eyes,” Hartford Courant, December 20, 1953. 35. “Willow Pattern,” The Irish Times, January 23, 1954. 36. Elizabeth W. Watts, “Dear Dirty Dublin,” Boston Globe, December 20, 1953. 37. Ernestine Evans, “Perspectives on Ireland’s Capital,” New York Herald Tribune, December 6, 1953. 38. Robert E. Cantwell, “Chiang Yee’s Travels,” Newsweek, 4 January 1954, 63. 39. “Through Chinese Eyes,” Washington Post, December 20, 1953. 40. Walter Whitehill to Alfred A. Knopf, 11 December 1953, University of Texas, Austin. 41. Alfred A. Knopf to Walter Whitehill, 14 December 1953, University of Texas, Austin. 42. Walter Whitehill to Alfred A. Knopf, 18 December 1953, University of Texas, Austin. 43. Herbert Read, preface to Chinese Calligraphy, 2nd ed., by Chiang Yee (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), ix. 44. Ibid., viii-ix. 45. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 Mar 1954, MHS. 46. Chiang Yee, “Acknowledgement to the Second Edition,” in Chiang, Chinese Calligraphy, 2nd ed., xvi. 47. Tan, Xunyang jiangtou, 71. 48. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 27 April 1954, MHS. 49. Ibid. 50. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 1 March 1955, MHS. 51. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 9 February 1955, MHS. 52. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 27 February 1955, MHS. 53. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 March 1954, MHS. 54. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 1 March 1954, MHS. 55. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 March 1954, MHS. 56. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 September 1955, MHS. 57. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 17 Feb. 1955, MHS. 58. Chiang Yee to Richard Walsh, 7 November 1955, MHS. 59. Ibid. 60. Richard Walsh to Chiang Yee, 19 November 1955, MHS. 61. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 9 January 1955, MHS. 62. Plays and Players, Feb 1955. 63. Tan, Xunyang jiangtou, 75. At Robert Helpmann’s recommendation, Chiang Yee was contacted by B. Dean in 1951 to design for Hassan’s Pavilion. He quickly sent in his design. Unfortunately, Dean, after a quick review, deemed it not “suitable” for the stage presentation save for a book illustration, and he quickly decided to look elsewhere for another designer. Chiang Yee to B. Dean, 14 February 1951, author’s collection.

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64. Chiang Yee to Robert Helpmann, 1 January 1955, MHS. 65. Ibid.; Chiang Yee to Gladys and Van Wyck Brooks, 4 February 1955, UPENN. 66. Chiang Yee to Robert Helpmann, 1 January 1955, MHS. 67. Yang, diary, January 20, 1955, Harvard. 68. In November 1953, Chi-chen Wang was to add a course at Columbia in order for Chiang Yee to teach, one course per semester, 1:20 hours per week, for a payment of $500 per course. The latter replied that he would like to start teaching in 1955 rather than 1954. Clearly unsure whether Chiang Yee’s “natural defect,” that is, his Jiangxi accent, could potentially be an impediment in teaching first-year Chinese, Wang wrote Yang for consultation. Yang replied immediately on July 9, 1955, offering his support by assuring Wang that it should be OK. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, November 27, 1953; July 9, 1955, Harvard. 69. Richard Critchfield, An American Looks at Britain (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 379–384. 70. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 3 February 1955, MHS. 71. Alan White to Walter Whitehill, 3 August 1955, MHS. 72. Ibid. 73. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 3 February 1955, MHS. 74. Ibid. 75. William R. Tyler to Walter Whitehill, 18 February 1955, MHS. 76. Chiang Yee to Leonie Chon, 4 April 1955, in BBCWAC. 77. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 11 March 1955, MHS. 78. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 22 March 1955, MHS. 79. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 12 April 1955, MHS. 80. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 18 December 1953, MHS. 81. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 24 April 1955, MHS. 82. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 17 April 1955, MHS. 83. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 28 May 1955, MHS. The Whitehills later changed their plan and purchased their summer house at a different site near Starksboro, Vermont. 84. Walter Whitehill to Agnes Mongan, 10 March 1959, MHS. 85. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 5 July 1955, MHS. 86. Chien-kuo Chiang and Barbara Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 28, 2000. 87. Ibid.; Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, May 9, 2001. 88. Chien-kuo Chiang, in discussion with the author, November 28, 2000. 89. Abel William Bahr to Chiang Yee, 27 February 1954, CFC. 90. Chiang Yee to Chi-chen Wang, [ca. 1955], CFC. 91. Chiang Yee to Rose-Mary Sands, 4 February 1955, BBCWAC. 92. Chiang Yee, “Yi Beihong” [Remembering Beihong], Daren 34 (1973):13. 93. Chiang Yee to Chi-chen Wang, [ca. 1955], CFC.

chapter 11 — americanized 1. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 12 September 1955, MHS. 2. Chiang Yee, “With an Appeal to the Heart,” review of The Art of Beatrix Potter, by Anne Carroll Moore, New York Times, November 13, 1955, BR54. 3. Chiang Yee, Zhongya jueju baishou [A hundred poems by Chiang Yee] (Privately printed, [1955]). 4. Gladys Brooks, If Strangers Meet (New York: Harcourt, 1967), 276–277. 5. Raymond Nelson, Van Wyck Brooks: A Writer’s Life (New York: Dutton, 1981), 223.

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6. Ibid., 265, 274. 7. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 29 March 1956, IHC. 8. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 23 November 1955, MHS. 9. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 17 April 1955, MHS. 10. Chiang Yee’s application statement, MHS. 11. Walter Whitehill to Alan White, 17 October 1955, MHS. 12. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 19 January 1956, MHS. 13. Walter Whitehill to Storer Lunt, 27 February 1956, MHS. 14. Richard Walsh to Walter Whitehill, 20 March 1956, MHS. 15. Walter Whitehill to Storer Lunt, 21 March 1956, MHS. 16. Walter Whitehill to Alan White, 26 March 1956, MHS. 17. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 22 February 1956, MHS. 18. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 29 February 1956, MHS. 19. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Boston (New York, Norton, 1959), 213. 20. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 29 March 1956, IHC. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Yang Lien-sheng to Chiang Yee, 5 June 1956, CFC. 24. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 8 June 1956, MHS. 25. Chiang Yee, “The Chinese Painter,” in Daedalus 86:3 (May 1957): 244–445. 26. Ibid., 242. 27. Ibid., 252. 28. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 26 June 1956, MHS. 29. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 21 September 1956, MHS. 30. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 25 September 1956, MHS. 31. Evelyn to Edith Cunningham, 18 August 1956, Boston Athenaeum Collection. 32. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 12 May 1956, MHS. 33. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 1 November 1956, MHS. 34. Storer Lunt to Walter Whitehill, 16 November 1956, MHS. 35. Gerald Sykes, “A Paris without Fireworks,” New York Times, November 18, 1956, BR42. 36. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 17 November 1956, MHS. 37. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 20 November 1956, MHS. 38. Sterling North, “Paris Seen Anew by Wise Oriental,” New York World-Telegram and Sun, n.d. 39. “Paris Seen through the Wise Eyes of Artist-Traveler Chiang Yee,” December 19, 1956. 40. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Paris (New York: John Day, 1956), 118. 41. Ibid., 27–39. 42. Ibid., vii. 43. Ibid., 80. 44. Walter Whitehill to Storer Lunt, 27 February 1956; Walter Whitehill to David McCord, 14 February 1957, MHS. 45. Yang Lien-sheng to Chiang Yee, 24 February 1957, CFC. 46. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, March 26, 1957, Harvard. 47. Ibid., May 16, 1957. 48. Chiang Yee, Chinese Ch’an Poetry, TMs, CFC. 49. Yang Lien-sheng to Chiang Yee, 19 February 1957, CFC. 50. Yang Lien-sheng to Chiang Yee, 24 February 1957, CFC.

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51. Yang Lien-sheng to Chiang Yee, 29 April 1957; 1 May 1957; 8 May 1957, CFC. 52. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 April 1957, MHS. 53. Chiang Yee to Helen Chang, 2 September 1957, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 54. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 13 September 1957, MHS 55. Ibid.; Charity A. Galbreath to Da Zheng, 1 September 2000, author’s collection. 56. Memorandum, September 25, 1957, MHS. 57. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 April 1957; 23 April 1957, MHS. 58. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 21 September 1957; 3 November 1957, MHS. 59. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, November 27, 1957, Harvard. 60. Yang Lien-sheng to Chiang Yee, 2 December 1957, CFC. 61. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 23 April 1958; 18 May 1958, MHS. 62. Chien-fei Chiang, “Qinqing” [Paternal Love], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 145–146. 63. “Zeng-Cai guxi” is the name that Chiang Yee gave to his mother-in-law. Zeng was her surname after marriage; Cai was her maiden name; and guxi, meaning “rarity,” was a reference to people over seventy years old. 64. Chiang Yee and Yang Lien-sheng, poems, hand copied, CFC. 65. Foster Rhea Dulles, American Policy toward Communist China (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1972), 167–187. 66. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 53. 67. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 25 April 1958; 30 June 1958, MHS. 68. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 30 June 1958, MHS. 69. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 July 1958, MHS. 70. Ibid. 71. Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 72. Julian P. Boyd, foreword to Walter Muir Whitehill: A Record Compiled by His Friends (Portland, ME: Anthoensen P, 1958), x; L. H. Butterfield, “A Postscript on the Making,” in Walter Muir Whitehill, 85. 73. Chiang Yee, “Translation,” in Walter Muir Whitehill, following page 80. 74. The Glades Congress, or Operation Vellum Valise (Lunenberg, VT: Stinehour Press, 1960). 75. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Boston (New York: Norton, 1959), 16. 76. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 5 July 1958, MHS. 77. Ibid. 78. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 November 1958, MHS.

chapter 12 — “invisible pains” 1. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 1 February 1960, MHS. 2. Chiang Yee to Daisetz T. Suzuki, 26 October 1958, CFC. 3. Ibid.; Chiang Yee to Daisetz T. Suzuki, 6 March 1959, CFC. 4. Chiang Yee to Yang Lien-sheng, 17 April 1959, CFC. 5. Chiang Yee completed only three chapters. In late December, he updated Crane on the progress of the project, and he sounded defensive and agitated as though he were unjustifiably pressed. The subject of Zen poetry itself was a difficult one, and selection and translation of over one hundred Zen poems for the book was an even greater challenge. Being potentially the first book on the subject, it required a lot of research. According to

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Chiang Yee’s estimate, the manuscript would not be ready for delivery until the following June or even later. See Chiang Yee to Cornelius Crane, 22 December 1958, CFC. 6. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 8 February 1959, MHS. 7. Ibid. 8. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 20 April 1959, MHS. 9. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 8 February 1959, MHS. 10. Walter Whitehill to Agnes Mongan, 10 March 1959, MHS. 11. Chiang Yee to Daisetz T. Suzuki, 6 March 1959, author’s collection. 12. Chiang Yee to David McCord and Walter Whitehill, 31 March 1959, MHS. 13. Ibid. 14. Walter Whitehill, “Chiang Yee’s Harvard Views,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 62:6 (12 December 1959): 249. 15. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Boston (New York: Norton, 1959), 189–190. 16. Whitehill, “Chiang Yee’s Harvard Views,” 249. 17. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 22 August 1959, MHS. 18. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 19 July 1959, MHS. 19. Ibid. 20. Walter Whitehill to Eugene Healey, 24 September 1959, MHS. 21. Louise S. Bechtel, “All Around the Hub with Chiang Yee,” New York Herald Tribune, November 1, 1959; Edward Wagenknecht, “A Naïve Chinese Looks at Staid ‘Bostonland,’” in Chicago Sun Tribune, n.d.; Samuel T. Williamson, “The Past Is Present,” in New York Times, November 15, 1959; Van Wyck Brooks, review of The Silent Traveller in Boston, by Chiang Yee, New England Quarterly 33: 3 (September 1960), 401–403. 22. Only the American edition has the dedication. 23. Chiang, Boston, xi–xii. 24. Ibid., xi. 25. Chiang, Boston, 11. 26. Ibid., 17, 275. 27. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 9 October 1959, MHS. 28. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 12 October 1959, MHS. 29. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 30 November 1959, MHS. 30. Memorandum to Storer Lunt by Eugene Healey, 3 February 1960, MHS. 31. Storer Lunt to Chiang Yee, 12 January 1960, MHS. 32. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 20 January 1960, MHS. 33. Chiang Yee to Walter and Jane Whitehill, 24 January 1960, MHS. 34. U.S. Information Agency to Walter Whitehill, 4 February 1960, MHS. 35. Walter Whitehill, “Chiang Yee,” MHS. 36. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 6 February 1960, MHS. 37. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 1 February 1960, MHS. 38. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill , 21 May 1960, MHS. 39. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 31 May 1960, MHS. 40. Ibid. 41. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 1 June 1960, MHS. 42. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 12 June 1960, MHS. 43. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 August 1960; 16 August 1960; 27 August 1960, MHS. 44. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 12 October 1960, MHS. 45. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 10 October 1960, MHS. 46. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 30 October 1960, MHS.

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47. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 9 November 1960, MHS. 48. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, October 16, 1960, Harvard. 49. Ibid., September 1, 1960; January 27, 1961. 50. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 28 November 1960, MHS. 51. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 21 December 1960, MHS. 52. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 16 January 1961, MHS. 53. Ibid. 54. James Hoopes, Van Wyck Brooks (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977), 296. 55. Chiang Yee, note, CFC. 56. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 21 June 1961, MHS. 57. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 2 July 1961, MHS. 58. Ibid. 59. A. E. Allnatt to Chiang Yee, 2 August 1961, MHS. 60. A. E. Allnatt to Chiang Yee, 23 December 1960, CFC. 61. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 2 August 1961, MHS; Chiang Yee to Gladys and Van Wyck Brooks, 5 September 1961, UPENN. 62. A. E. Allnatt to Chiang Yee, 2 August 1961, MHS. 63. “Reflection for the Day,” Boston Globe, Nov. 22, 2003. 64. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 8 February 1961; 15 August 1961, MHS. 65. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 2 July 1961; 15 July 1961, MHS.

chapter 13 — home 1. Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1990), 581–590. 2. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, December 10, 1961, Harvard. 3. Chiang Yee, “Self-Abasing on January 4, 1962,” in Chiang Yee and Yang Lien-sheng, poems, hand copied, CFC. 4. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, February 7, 1962, Harvard. 5. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller’s Sayings, ed. Jane Whitehill (Hong Kong: Sing Poh Amalgamated Printing Department, [1966]), 17. 6. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 February 1962, MHS. 7. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 19 March 1962, MHS. 8. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 22 March 1962, MHS. 9. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 7 August 1962, MHS. 10. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 6 July 1962, MHS. 11. Walter Whitehill to Shunzo Sakamaki, 27 November 1962, MHS. 12. Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964; 1996), 110. 13. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York (NY: John Day, 1950), 14. 14. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, November 3, 1963, Harvard. Du Fu (a.d. 712–770) is one of the best-known Tang Dynasty poets, and Qi Baishi (1863–1957) was a renowned painter and seal-carving artist in China. 15. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 11 May 1963; 18 June 1963; 5 December 1963, MHS. 16. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill , 11 May 1963, MHS. 17. Ibid. 18. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 13 May 1963, MHS. 19. Chiang Yee to Jane and Walter Whitehill, 18 June 1963, MHS. 20. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 3 November 1963, MHS.

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21. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 23 August 1964, MHS. 22. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 25 August 1964, MHS. 23. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in San Francisco (New York: Norton, 1964), 244–246. 24. Storer Lunt to Chiang Yee, 7 May 1963; Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 5 September 1963; 19 September 1963, MHS. 25. John Barkham, “Books and Authors,” Record, November 21, 1964. 26. Ibid. 27. Chiang, San Francisco, 106. 28. Ibid., 220. 29. Ibid., 216–221. 30. Ibid., 220–225. 31. Ibid., 234. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., 365–366. 34. Barkham, “Books and Authors.” 35. Chiang Yee to James Cahill, 7 August 1963; 18 September 1963, James Cahill Papers, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collections. 36. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 7 January 1965, MHS. 37. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 13 January 1965, MHS. 38. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 6 December 1962; 17 February 1963, MHS. 39. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 31 October 1964; 5 February 1965, MHS. 40. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 March 1965, MHS. 41. William Theodore de Bary, in discussion with the author, October 19, 2000. 42. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 7 August 1962; 14 September 1961, MHS. 43. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 7 August 1962, MHS. 44. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 25 August 1965, MHS. 45. Ibid. 46. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 25 February 1966, MHS. 47. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 10 April; 20 April; 23 May 1966, MHS. 48. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, May 27, 2006. 49. Ibid. 50. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 31 July 1966, MHS. 51. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 August 1966, MHS. 52. Chiang Yee to Jane and Walter Whitehill, 12 September 1966, MHS. 53. Chiang Yee to Ernest Dodge, 4 October 1966, Peabody Essex Museum. 54. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 6 October 1966, MHS. 55. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 31 December 1966, MHS. 56. Ibid. 57. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 18 December 1966, MHS. 58. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 19 May 1967, MHS.

chapter 14 — family and love 1. Chien-fei Chiang, “Zizhi, zixin, zichengjia” [Knowledge, confidence, and accomplishment], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 154. 2. Chien-fei Chiang, “Qinqing” [Paternal love], in Jiang and Liu, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi, 146. 3. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 3 February 1967, MHS.

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291

4. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 12 January 1967; 2 June 1967, MHS. 5. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 26 June 1967, MHS. 6. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 17 July 1967; 4 August 1967, MHS. 7. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 4 August 1967, MHS. 8. Chiao-wen Chiang, “Baishan Shen” [Aunt Whitehill], World Journal, no. 1155 (7–13 May, 2006): 6, 8. 9. Chiang, “Qinqing,” 146. 10. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 9 January 1968; 12 February 1968, MHS. 11. Yiau-min Huang, in discussion with the author, August 14, 2002. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 24 April 1968, MHS. 15. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 12 February 1968; 16 February 1968, MHS. 16. Terry Anderson, The Sixties (New York: Longman, 1999), 110–114; Paul Auster, “The Accidental Rebel,” New York Times, April 23, 2008, A25. 17. Anderson, The Sixties, 110–114; Kenneth J. Heineman, Put Your Bodies upon the Wheels (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 136–142. 18. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 June 1968, MHS. 19. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 26 December 1968, in Paul Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 20. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 12 July 1969, in Andrews, Silent Traveller. 21. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 26 December 1968, in Paul Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 22. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 12 July 1969, in Andrews, Silent Traveller. 23. Ibid. 24. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 26 December 1968, in Andrews, Silent Traveller. 25. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 3 November 1969, MHS. 26. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 March 1969, MHS. 27. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, May 27, 2006. 28. Chiang Yee once advised Deh-I, Shih-I Hsiung’s youngest daughter, to get married if possible. Otherwise, “It’s lonely,” he said. To the latter, it was “fatherly advice.” Deh-I Hsiung, in discussion with the author, November 25, 2000. 29. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 30. Chien-fei Chiang (speech, China Institute, New York, October 20, 2007). 31. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 20 January 1969; 18 February 1969, MHS. 32. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, May 27, 2006. 33. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 22 April 1969, MHS. 34. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 3 November 1969, MHS. 35. Yang Lien-sheng, diary, March 16, 1970, Harvard. 36. Chiang Yee to Robert Farlow, 10 June 1970, MHS. 37. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 8 June 1970, MHS. 38. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 March 1970; Joseph Thorndike to Chiang Yee, 19 May 1970, MHS. 39. Chiang Yee to Joseph Thorndike, 8 June 1970, MHS. 40. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 6 June 1970, MHS. 41. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 January 1970; 5 June 1970, MHS. 42. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 June 1970, MHS. 43. Walter Whitehill to Mr. and Mrs. Chin-shan Huang, 13 June 1970, MHS. 44. Ibid.

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45. Ibid. 46. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 13 June 1970, MHS. 47. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 20 July 1977, MHS. 48. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 13 December 1970; 23 December 1970, MHS. 49. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 15 December 1970, MHS. 50. William J. McGill to Chiang Yee, 3 May 1971, MHS. 51. “Biography for Commencement Program,” Author’s Collection.

chapter 15 — china revisited 1. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 15 July 1971, MHS. 2. Chiang Yee, “Yaxingzhe xianggang zhuzhici” [The Silent Traveller’s Hong Kong zhuzhi poems], (Hong Kong: privately printed, 1972). 3. Ibid. 4. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 January 1972; 9 February 1972, MHS. 5. Chiang Yee, “Zhongguo shuhua zhi weilai” [The Future of Chinese calligraphy and painting], rec. Huang Yunqi, Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong 5:1 (1972): 6–7. 6. Chiang, “Yaxingzhe xianggang zhuzhici.” 7. Ibid. 8. Luo Kanglie, “Jiang Yi he ta de xianggang zhuzhici” [Chiang Yee and his Hong Kong zhuzhi poems], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 77–90. 9. Chiang Yee, “Fa yu xu” [Hair and Beard], Daren no. 41 (15 September 1973): 22. 10. Chiang Yee, “Yangren yu gou” [Foreigners and dogs], Dacheng [Panorama Magazine] 6 (1974):16. 11. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 7 June 1972, MHS. 12. Chien-fei Chiang, “Wode fuqing Jiang Yi” [My father Chiang Yee], Taiwan yishujia (1980): 182. 13. Chiang Yee, Bijiasuo sile [Picasso is dead], Ming Bao Yue Kan 8:6 (1973) 69–77. 14. Shi Shangqing, Jiang Yi dong yishu ma? [Does Chiang Yee understand art?], part one Nanbei ji, no. 41 (16 October 1973): 62. 15. Ibid., 62–65; Shi Shangqing, Jiang Yi dong yishu ma? [Does Chiang Yee understand art?], part two, Nanbei ji, no. 42 (16 November 1973) 82–85. 16. Chien-fei Chiang, “Wode fuqing Jiang Yi,” 182. 17. Chiang Yee to Basil Gray, 26 July 1972, Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs. 18. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Japan (New York: Norton, 1972), 428–429. 19. Ibid., 95. 20. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 1 February 1971, MHS. 21. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 31 October 1972, MHS. 22. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 14 August 1972, MHS. 23. “New World Culture Forecast,” ANU Reporter, September 22, 1972. 24. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 25. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 18 June 1971, MHS. 26. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Australia, TMs, CFC. 27. Ibid. 28. Chiang Yee, “Yi Beihong” [Remembering Beihong], Daren 34 (1973): 5–13. 29. Chiang Yee to Innes Herdan, 3 May 1971; Andrews, Silent Traveller; Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy, 3rd rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 220–222.

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30. Chiang Yee, “Introduction,” The Three Hundred T’ang Poems, 4th ed., trans. Innes Herdan (Taipei: Far East, 1984), xx. 31. Innes Herdan, “Translator’s Preface,” The Three Hundred T’ang Poems, xxix. 32. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 24 June 1974; 12 February; 23 February 1975, MHS. 33. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 169. 34. Chiang Yee to Lo Hong-lit, 17 September 1974, author’s collection. 35. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 April 1974; 14 April 1974, MHS. 36. Chiang, “Introduction,” The Three Hundred T’ang Poems, xxi. 37. Liumei huayi xuezhe chongfang Zhongguo guangan ji [Chinese American scholars reflecting on their visits to China], 2nd ed. (Hong Kong: Qishi niandai zazhishe, 1974). 38. Andrews, Silent Traveller. 39. Chiang Yee to Jane Whitehill, 23 February 1975, MHS. 40. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 April 1975, MHS. 41. Chiang Yee to George Brockway, 7 May 1974, MHS. 42. Chiang Yee, a will, MHS. 43. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 9 April 1976, MHS. 44. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 April 1975, MHS. 45. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou” [A perpetual dream about China], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 197. 46. Ibid., 198.

chapter 16 — homeward bound 1. Chiang Yee to Jiang Jianlan, 31 July 1957, in Liu Zongwu, ed., Wuzhou liuhen [A world traveller] (Beijing: Commercial Press, 2007), 274. 2. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou” [A perpetual dream about China], in Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong, eds., Haiwai chizi Jiang Yi [An overseas Chinese Chiang Yee] (Jiujiang: Jiujiang wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1992), 203. 3. Chiang Yee, China Revisited (New York: Norton, 1977), 86. 4. Jiang, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou,” 202. 5. Chiang, China Revisited, 165. 6. Ibid., 116. 7. Ibid., 74–75. 8. Ibid., 76–78. 9. Ibid., 120. 10. Ibid., 120–121. 11. Jiang Xiaoyan, in discussion with the author, August 7, 2001. 12. Jiang, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou,” 204. 13. Chiang, China Revisited, 149. 14. Ibid., 130. 15. Jiang, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou,” 204. 16. Ibid., 205. 17. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 28 August 1975, MHS. 18. Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 30 August 1975; Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 September 1975, MHS. 19. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 18 February 1976, MHS. 20. Arthur Danto, in discussion with the author, March 9, 1999. 21. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 September 1975, MHS; Chiang, China Revisited, 145.

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22. Ji Weimin, “Jiang Yi jiaoshou fanghua guangan” [Professor Chiang Yee’s thoughts on China], Xingdao Ribao, November 21, 1975; Chiang Yee, Yaxingzhe fanghua guilai hua jinxi [Silent Traveller speaking of the present and past after his China trip], rec. Chih-pen Yin (Hong Kong: Qishi niandai zazhishe, 1976). 23. Jiang Li, ed., Hafo yimo [Yang Lien-sheng’s writings], (Beijing: Commercial Press, 2004), 67. See also Yang Lien-sheng, diary, February 6; February 13; February 15; February 26, 1976, Harvard. 24. Chien-fei Chiang, “In Memory of My Father” (speech, China Institute, New York, October 20, 2007). 25. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 5 December 1974, MHS. 26. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 19 March 1976, MHS. 27. Stephen Dearnley to Chiang Yee, 1 June 1976, CFC. 28. Chiang Yee, “Zhuinian Mao Zedong zhuxi” [In memory of Chairman Mao Zedong], Xuelian bao, September 1976. 29. Stephen Dearnley to Chiang Yee, 1 June 1976, CFC. 30. Chih-peng Yin, in discussion with the author, March 10, 1999; Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou,” 207–208. 31. Arthur Danto to Chiang Yee, n.d., MHS. 32. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 9 February 1977, MHS. 33. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 January 1977:a, MHS. 34. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 January 1977:b, MHS. 35. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 4 January 1977:a, MHS. 36. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 20 July 1977, MHS. 37. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 29 June 1977, MHS. 38. Ibid.; Walter Whitehill to Chiang Yee, 7 September 1977, MHS. 39. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 20 July 1977, MHS. 40. Chien-fei Chiang, in discussion with the author, July 9, 2000. 41. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 12 June 1973, MHS. 42. Luo Kanglie, “Dao Jiang Yi xiansheng” [Mourning Mr. Chiang Yee], Xin wanbao, October 30, 1977, 8. 43. Chiang Yee, notebook, author’s collection. 44. Ibid. 45. Chiang Yee to Walter Whitehill, 19 August 1975, MHS. 46. Chiang, China Revisited, 103. 47. Jiang Jianlan, “Niannian hunmeng rao shenzhou,” 210. 48. Jiang Xiaoyan, in discussion with the author, August 7, 2001. 49. Ibid. 50. Chiang Yee to Lo Hong-lit, 26 September 1977, Lo Hong-lit’s collection. 51. Chiang Yee to Lo Hong-lit, 5 October 1977, Lo Hong-lit’s collection. 52. Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (London: Country Life, 1937), 3. 53. William Theodore de Bary (address delivered at the memorial service on November 15, 1977), Department of Asian Studies at Columbia. 54. Andrews, Silent Traveller, TMs.

PRIMARY SOURCES

archives and collections BBC Written Archives Centre Boston Athenaeum Chien-fei Chiang’s collection Chien-kuo Chiang’s collection Finsbury Library, Local Studies Henry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University Innes Herdan’s collection Massachusetts Historical Society Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London University of Iowa Yenching Library, Harvard University Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, Archives and Manuscripts

interviews Andrews, Paul. Interview, November 26, 2000, in Kent, UK. Antoniades, Catherine Ann Juliet. Interview, November 30, 2000, in London, UK. Bois, Pat. Interview, February 19, 2001, in Massachusetts, USA. Chen, Ji. Interview, August 4, 2001, in Jiujiang, China. Chiang, Barbara. Interview, November 28, 2000, in Jersey Island, UK. Chiang, Chiao-wen. Interview, May 30, 1999, in Connecticut, USA. Chiang, Chien-fei. Interview, May 30, 1999; July 9; September 13; November 3; December 8, 1999; January 28, 2000; December 25, 2001; June 10, 2002; May 27, 2006, in Connecticut, USA. Chiang, Chien-kuo. Interview, November 27–29, 2000, in Jersey Island, UK; Telephone interview, May 9, 2001. Chiang, Stephen. Interview, November 28, 2000, in Jersey Island, UK. Chiang, Sudi. Interview, November 29, 2000, in Jersey Island, UK. Chynn, K. York, and Noelle Chynn. Interview, December 7, 2007, in New Jersey, USA.

295

296

pr im a ry sou rces

Danto, Arthur. Interview, March 9, 1999, in New York, USA. De Bary, William Theodore. Interview, October 19, 2000, at Columbia University, New York, USA. Herdan, Innes. Interview, November 30, 2000; May 12, 2001, in London, UK; August 26, 2004, in Norwich, UK. Hsia, Chih-tsing. Interview, January 17, 1999, in New York, USA. Hsieh, David, and Margaret Hsieh. Interview, March 16, 2008, in New York, USA. Hsiung, Deh-I. Interview, November 25, 2000, in Oxford, UK. Hsiung, Teh-ni. Interview, December 23, 2002, in Beijing, China. Hsiung, Teh-ta. Interview, August 20, 2004, in London, UK. Huang, Yiau-min. Interview, August 14, 2002, in Washington, D.C., USA. Jiang, Jianlan, and Liu Naichong. Interview, July 20, 1999; June 2, 2000; December 22, 2002, in Beijing, China. Jiang, Xiaoyan, and Tan Jusheng. Interview, August 2; August 3; August 7, 2001, in Nanchang, China. Kwok, Daniel. Telephone interview, September 28, 2000. Lau, Grace. Interview, August 20, 2004, in London, UK. Lester, Rita Keene. Interview, May 15, 2001, in London, UK. Liu Tsun-jen. Interview, August 19, 2007, in Canberra, Australia. Lo, Hong-lit. Interview, January 4, 2000, in Hong Kong, China. Szto, Paul. Interview, October 21, 2000, in New York, USA. Tan, Wei. Interview, August 2, 2001, in Nanchang, China. Weng, Wan-go, and Virginia Weng. Interview, October 30, 2000, in New Hampshire, USA. Yang, Jean Miao-chen. Interview, February 21, 2006, in Braintree, USA. Yen, Bernard. Telephone interview, October 21, 2004; interview, November 6, 2004, in New York, USA. Yin, Chih-peng. Interview, March 10, 1999, in New York, USA.

WRITINGS BY CHIANG YEE

books in english 1935 1937 1938 1938 1939 1939 1939 1940 1941 1941 1942 1942 1944 1944 1944 1945 1947 1948 1950 1953 1953 1956 1959 1964 1966 1972 1972 1977

The Chinese Eye The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland Chinese Calligraphy The Silent Traveller in London Birds and Beasts Chin-pao and the Giant Pandas The Silent Traveller in War Time A Chinese Childhood The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales Chinpao at the Zoo Lo Cheng The Men of the Burma Road The Silent Traveller in Oxford Dabbitse The Story of Ming Some Chinese Words to be Learnt without a Teacher Yebbin The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh The Silent Traveller in New York Chinese Painting The Silent Traveller in Dublin The Silent Traveller in Paris The Silent Traveller in Boston The Silent Traveller in San Francisco The Silent Traveller’s Sayings The Silent Traveller in Japan Calligraphy and Paintings China Revisited

297

298

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books in chinese 1935 1940 1940 1940 1941 1955 1972 1973

蔣仲雅詩 倫敦戰時小記 戰時倫敦 參觀英國戰事畫家作品展覽會記 戰時不列顛 重啞絕句百首 重啞東遊絕句百首 啞行者香港竹枝詞

articles in english 1935 “The Chinese Painter.” Listener 14, no. 360 (December 4): 1004–1006. 1935 “Chinese Gardens.” Landscape and Garden 2:4 (Winter 1935): 144–148. 1936 W. W. Winkworth. In collaboration with Chiang Yee. “The Paintings.” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 68, no. 394 (January): 30–36, 39. 1936 Review of The Chinese on the Art of Painting, by Osvald Siren, and Kunst des Fernen Ostens, Landschaften, Blumen, Tiere, by Otto Fischer. Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 69, no. 401 (August): 94–95. 1936 “A Chinese Painter.” China Review 5, no. 1 (January): 13. 1937 “Modern Chinese Art.” Studio 113:529 (March): 175–195. 1938 “A Dream of the English Lakeland.” The Journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District 12, no. 32:20–24. 1938 “Brotherhood of the Weather.” Book Society News (December): 27–29. 1938 Review of Early Chinese Paintings, by Osvald Siren. Country Life (November 26): lxii. 1938 “A Collection of Chinese Painting.” Review of Early Chinese Paintings, by Osvald Siren. Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 73, no. 429 (December): 262–264. 1939 Review of Mi Fu on Ink-Stones, by R. H. Van Gulik. Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 74, no. 430 (January): 47. 1939 “A Letter to Readers.” In Chinese Children at Play, by Yui Shufang. London: Methuen. 1940 “How Chinese Artists Paint.” The Universities’ China Committee in London: Annual Proceedings, 1939–40, by China Institute, 32–35. London: School of Oriental and African Studies; also Asiatic Review no. 36 (1940): 573–577. 1941 Preface to Willow Leaves: Lyrics in the Manner of the Early Chinese Poets, by John Irvine, 9–11. Dublin: Talbot Press. 1943 “Why I like Painting Giant Panda.” L.S.P. Record 2, no. 2: 69–70. 1946 “Art.” In China, ed. Harley Farnsworth MacNair, 349–362. Berkley: University of California Press. 1948 “What Can I Say about Ballet?” The Ballet Annual London 2: 113–114. 1949 “The Philosophical Basis of Chinese Painting.” In Ideological Differences and World Order, ed. by F.S.C. Northrop, 35–68. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1951 “Your Christmas.” Country Life (December 7): 1884–1885. 1955 “With an Appeal to the Heart.” Review of The Art of Beatrix Potter, by Anne Carroll Moore. New York Times (November 13): BR54. 1956 “Golden Orchid and Friend.” Review of The Fabulous Concubine, by Chang Hsinhai. New York Times (September 16): BR40. 1957 “The Chinese Painter, Phi Beta Kappa Oration Delivered at Harvard University on 11 June 1956.” Daedalus 86, no. 3: 242–252; also The Chinese Painter, n.p.

wr itings by chiang yee

299

1958 “From Bric-a-Brac and Curios to a Deep Esthetic Response.” Review of Chinese Art, by William Willetts. New York Times (September 28): BR34. 1959 “Artful Brushwork Distinctly Chinese.” Review of Chinese Painting, by Peter Swann. New York Times (August 9): BR7. 1959 “Introduction to Professor Chao Shao-an’s Paintings.” In Recent Paintings by Chao Shao-an. Hong Kong: Lingnam Art Studio. 1960 “Taking a Long Look Back.” Review of Chinese Art and Culture, by Rene Grousset. New York Times (February 14): BR30. 1961 “An Art that Displays Linear Rhythm in Every Form.” Review of An Introduction to Chinese Art, by Michael Sullivan. New York Times (September 3): BR10. 1964 Review of Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginning of Chinese Books and Inscriptions, by T. H. Tsien. Chinese Culture 5, no. 3 (March): 87–89. 1970 “Chinese and Japanese Calligraphy.” In Encyclopaedia Britannica 658H-658M. 1973 Introduction to The Three Hundred T’ang Poems, trans. Innes Herdan, xiv–xxii. Taiwan: Far East Book. 1976 “Lu Chih” and “Lü Chi.” In Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368—1644, ed. L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, 990–991, 1005–1006. New York: Columbia University Press.

articles in chinese 1925 ，《東方雜誌》二十二卷，十號，44–57頁。 1932 ，《九江指南》，秦山僧編。 1959 ，趙少昂著，《少昂畫集》。香港: 嶺南藝苑, 1959。 1968 ，《慶祝蔣慰堂先生七秩榮慶論文集》。台灣: 學 生書局，213–16頁。 1970 ，《南洋商報》，1970年1月1日。31頁。 1972 （黃孕祺記錄），《香港中文大學中國文化研究所學報》 五卷，一期，1–7頁。 1972 (張漢彪記錄) 74–77 頁。 1973 ，《大人》三十四期，6–13頁。 1973 ，《大人》四十一期，20–22頁。 1973 ，《明報月刊》八卷，六期，69–77頁。 1973 ，《明報月刊》八卷，十一期，12–22頁。 1974 ，《大成》六期， 16–17頁。 1976 （殷志鵬記錄），《七十年代》2月1日；《啞行者 訪華歸來話今昔》。 1976 ，《學聯報》1976 年9 月。 1977 ，《傳記文學》三十一卷，三期，85 頁。

unpublished book manuscripts 1966 Chinese Ch’an Poetry 1976 The Silent Traveller in Australia

INDEX

Note: CY = Chiang Yee. Abercrombie, Lascelles, 52 Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 191 “Activities along High Street” (CY), 157 Adorno, Theodor, xvi The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God (Shaw), 94 “Advocates’ Close at Twilight” (CY), 137 aerial photography, CY’s use of for tax assessment, 40 Ai, Emperor, 1 Alcott, Louisa May, 150 Aldrovandi, Count Luigi, 43, 271n.26 Alexander, William, 103 Allen, Parker, 224 Allied Artists Exhibitions, 115 Allnatt, A. E., 195, 205, 219, 220 Alone in China and Other Stories (Ralph), 103 American Academy of Arts and Letters, 205 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 174 “The American Scholar” (Emerson), 174 “Ancient and Modern in Camera Square” (CY), 123 Angel Island, San Francisco, 216–217 “Another Poet’s World” (BBC radio series), 79 Armlet of Jade (Pakenham), 134 art: Apollonian vs. Dionysian, 55; Chinese (see Chinese art); as universal language, xxi “Art” (CY essay), 145 Artists Aid China Exhibition, Hertford House (1943), 118–119 The Art of Beatrix Potter (Moore), 170 Asia Shell Company, 43

As You Like It (Shakespeare), CY’s costume designs for, 162 Auerbach, Erich, xvi Australian National University, 243 An Autobiography of a Chinese Girl (Xie Bingying), 119 The Autobiography of Mao Tse-Tung, as told to Edgar Snow (Mao Zedong), 131 Ayala, Juan Manuel de, 216 Bada Shanren, 246 Bahr, Abel William, 168 Bai Chongxi, 25 baihua (everyday speech), 17 Bai Juyi, 10, 12–13, 92 Bai Qianshen, xiii, xiv–xv Baker, Richard, 53 Balme, Harold, 84 “Bamboo of Huangchow” (CY), 53–54 bank robbery at Wuhu, 32–33 Ban Po, 253 Bao Gang, 33, 34 Barkham, John, 214–215 Bartholdi, Frédéric Auguste, xviii Barzun, Jacques, 164 Bax, Arnold, 126 BBC, CY’s involvement with, 78–79, 118, 279n.21 Beijing: CY revisits, 252; Treaty of (1860), 8; warlord government in, 20 Bell, Julian, 71, 77 Benthall, Watteau, 162 Betty Joel Gallery, CY’s solo show at, 68 Biddle, George, 205 Bielenstein, Hans, 249 “A big shroud of white fog entering the Golden Gate” (CY), 217

301

302 Binyon, Laurence, 80, 87, 94, 119 Birds and Beasts (CY), 93, 94 The Birds (ballet), 116–117, 162 “Bison in Golden Gate Park” (CY), 217 Black, Mrs. (CY’s landlady), 53 “Black Saturday” blitz (1940), 106–108 Black Ships Off Japan (Walworth), 131 blitz, London, 106–108 Bodhidharma, 33 “Bodhidharma Gazing at the Wall in Meditation” (CY), 33, 34 Bodleian Library exhibition of authorartists (1945), 129 Boston Athenaeum, 154–155, 179, 198 Boston: A Topographic History (Whitehill), 196, 198 Boston Public Library, 199 Bournemouth Aid China Committee, 80 Boxer Protocol, 8 Boyd, Donald, 78 Boyd, Julian P., 188, 201, 210 Boyle, Hal, 197–198 The Bridge of Heaven (Hsiung), 103 Britain: in the blitz, 106–108, 113; declares war on Japan, 113; and Hong Kong, 7, 239; imperial interests in China, 7–8; resumes formal relations with China, 166; treaty with China relinquishes extraterritorial rights, 117 Britain at War booklet (CY), 105 Brockway, George, 193, 214, 250, 256, 260, 264 Bronx Zoo, 131 Brooks, Gladys, 142, 171, 179, 180, 195 Brooks, Van Wyck, xxi, 151, 163, 179, 180, 197; on CY’s character, 157–158; CY’s visits to, 171, 172, 203; death of, 212; at Harvard Phi Beta Kappa convocation, 175; preface for The Silent Traveller in New York, 141–142; 75th birthday celebration, 205 Brown, Francis, 170 Bruce, J. P., 58 Buck, Pearl S., 113, 131, 145, 171, 205 Budai Monk, 68 Buddhist China (Johnston), 58, 70 Bulwer-Lytton, Victor Alexander George Robert, see Lord Lytton Burlington House, International Exhibition of Chinese Art (1935–1936), 59, 134 Burma Road, 114 Burns, Robert, 136 Butterfield, Lyman H., 188 “Buying Fish at Lamma Island” (CY), 242 Cage, John, x Cahill, James, 69 Cai Fen, 11, 19, 84, 86, 98, 100, 128, 146, 248

index Cai Gongshi, 28–29, 270n.42 Cai Hsiang-lin, 2, 3, 5, 11 Cai Jingrong, 85, 86, 100 calligraphy, Chinese, xiv, 6, 81 Calmann, Hans, 78 Calmann Gallery, CY show at, 78 Canton, see Guangzhou Cantwell, Robert E., 151, 166 Cao Rulin, 18 Cao Yu, 132 Cape Breton: Isle of Romance (Walworth), 131 Carpentier, Horace W., 216 Carrington, Noel, 113 Carroll, Lewis (C. L. Dodgson), 129 “Castle in the Summer Haze” (CY), 137 Chamberlain, Neville, 97, 105 Chang, Chung-ho, 171 Chang, Helen, 183 Chang, Shu-chi, 182–83 Ch’an poetry, 181. See also Zen poetry Chan, Wing-Tsit, 145 Chao, Yuen-ren, 171, 249 Chen Chi, 205 Chen Duxiu, 17 Chenghuang Temple, Shanghai, 28 Cheng Ming-shu, 37 Cheng Tianfang, 24 Chen Lijiang, 24 Chen Meng-Chia, 145 Chen Shih-hsiang, 153, 154, 183 Chen Shih-hsiang, Mrs., 183 Chen Wenjie, 273n.64 Chen Ximeng, 50 Chen Yuan, 129, 258 Chiang, Barbara, 167, 186, 195, 207, 232–33, 247 Chiang, Chiao-wen, 221, 224, 225, 227, 232, 262 Chiang, Chien-fei, 36, 47, 85, 86, 111, 133, 138, 139, 146, 185, 186, 200, 202, 220, 221, 224, 225–226, 228, 232, 251, 257, 258, 261, 262; on his father’s critics, 242, 243 Chiang, Chien-kuo, 30, 47, 85, 97–98, 128, 138, 195, 238, 282n.12; birth, 24; birth of first child, 186; comes to England, 133–134; emigrates to America, 231–232; marries, 167; at Meridan Gravure, 232–233; relocates to Jersey Island, 207; returns to Jersey Island, 247 Chiang Chien-min, 85, 100, 133, 146, 282n.12 Chiang Chih-hou, 2 Chiang Chih-hsien, 2 Chiang Chih-kao, 2, 3 Chiang Chih-sheng, 2 Chiang Chung-ho, 50 Chiang Ho-an, 2, 4–5, 12, 13, 16

index Chiang Hsien-chen, 2 Chiang Ji: becomes secretary to General Xiong, 27; and Chinese Calligraphy, 74, 81; and CY’s appointment as magistrate of Jiujiang, 38; death, 84, 276n.8; in Eastern Jiangxi Provincial Government, 26; friendship with Luo Changhai, 50; funds CY’s first trip to London, 46; letters to CY, 63; literary circle of, 5; marries Cai Fen, 11; as poet, 6; serves under General Li, 19, 24; succeeds CY as magistrate of Jiujiang, 47; tomb of, xiii; underwrites CY’s college matriculation fee, 19 Chiang Jianlan, see Jiang Jianlan Chiang Kai-shek: appointed commandant of Whampoa Military Academy, 20; CY erroneously thought to be related to, 85; CY reveals his low opinion of, 257; fails to move against Japan, 42, 71; flees to Taiwan, 139; “ignominious end” of, 248; installs government at Nanjing, 32; kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang, 75; made generalissimo, 24; mismanagement under, 250, 260; moves against Red Army in Jiangxi, 41; nears defeat by communists, 132; orders retreat from Jinan, 29; and the White Terror, 26 “Chiang Nu-tie” (CY pseud.), 25 Chiang, San San, 221, 224, 225, 227 “Chiang Shoudian” (CY pseud.), 23 Chiang, Stephen, 186, 195, 247 Chiang Tsui-chen, 11–12, 247–248 “Chiang Village,” 1 Chiang Xiaoyan, see Jiang Xiaoyan Chiang Xu, 1 Chiang Yee (Jiang Yi): acquires U.S. citizenship, 220–221; and alcohol, 86–87, 100; art exhibitions (see exhibitions); attacked by Australian magpie, 245; attempts to climb Tai Mountain, 263; attends Jiujiang Middle School, 14; awarded honorary doctorate by Australian National University, 244; awarded honorary doctorate by Hofstra, 238; ballet designs, 116–117, 117, 162–163, 284n.63; and the BBC, 118, 279n.21; begins government service, 26–28; besieged by General Bao, 33–34; Betty Joel Gallery solo show, 68; on birth of Herdans’ first child, 102; births of children, 24, 30, 36; book sales figures, 180; in Boston, 149–155, 188–189; Boston drawings purchased by Athenaeum, 198–199; Calmann Gallery show (1937), 78; celebrates 75th birthday, 260–261; on Chiang Kai-shek, 257; and Chien-kuo’s marriage, 167–168; childhood home destroyed by Japanese, 85; childhood love interests, 15–16; at college,

303 19–20; consoles Innes Herdan on death of her husband, 230–231; copyright violated by Horizon, 234–235; as cosmopolitan man, xi, xxi–xxii; critical attention, xx; death, 264; diagnosed with colon cancer, 256; dissatisfied with Chien-kuo, 230–233; on Eastern vs. Western art, 55–56, 61–62, 73; Edwards discourages collaboration with Innes Herdan, 74; Emerson Fellowship at Harvard, 187, 194–195; emotional crisis, 203–204; enters London School of Economics, 53; entertains Lytton Commission members at Jiujiang, 43; exchanges poems with Yang Lien-sheng, 152, 155, 191–192; excursion to Gantang Lake, and first poem, 12–13; as exile, ix, xv, 248; as expert delegate to UNESCO (1947), 147; falls in subway, 261–262; family origins, 1–2; on family quarrels, 17–18; at family school, 5–6; on fate, 2–3; first paintings, 13, 14–15; first visit to America (1946), 130–132; in Geneva (1939), 96; on the George Washington Bridge, 143–144; gets new dentures in Nachang, 255; gets U.S. visa extension, 183–184, 189; gives Phi Beta Kappa oration, xiv; graduates from college, 23; granted British citizenship, 167; Graves Gallery talks (1940), 104; Helpmann breaks contract with, 162–163; hired by Wellcome Museum, 83–84, 106; on his Columbia appointment, 165–166; holds magistracies, 30, 31–34, 34–36, 38–45, 271n.34; on “homebirds,” 248–249; homesickness, 63–64, 111, 185, 211, 221; in Hong Kong, 239–243; illustrations for Lady Precious Stream, 52; in Ireland, 135; on kissing, 143; in Lakes District (1934), 71; last trip to China, 262–264; leaves China for Europe, 47, 48–49; leaves SOS, 80; lectures at Montclair State and Schaeffer School of Design, 177; on liberty, xviii; and the London blitz, 106–108; London life, 49–51; in love, 228–229, 235–237; on love, 22, 64; and Lu Mountain, 10, 16, 37, 63, 264; made fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 174; made professor emeritus at Columbia, 238; as “Madman,” 5, 23; makes will, 251; Marlboro College commencement speech mix-up, 212; marries Zeng Yun, 21; meets Han Suyin, 115–116; memorial service at Columbia, 264; with National Revolutionary Army, 25–27; New Year’s resolutions, 65, 224; New York apartment burglarized, 217–218; Overseas League talk (1940), 104; as “The Panda Man,” xvii; in Paris, 147–148, 149; as Phi Beta Kappa orator, 173–177;

304 Chiang Yee (Jiang Yee) (continued): on poodle shaving, 143; presents Harvard with scroll paintings, 194–195; promoted by Columbia to assistant professor, 200; pursues Ph.D., 69–70, 74, 190; queue cut, 10–11; receives last poems of Chiang Ji, 86; relations with children, 127–128, 148–149; remits money to postwar China, 133; returns to Jiujiang, 255; reunited with Zeng Yun, 254–255; revisits Australia, 258–259; revisits China (1975), x, 251–255; revisits England, 195, 205, 219; rift with Chien-fei, 232; on Roger Fry, 55; rupture with Yang Lien-sheng, 257–258; sabbatical trip to SE Asia, 221; second American trip, 164–165, 169; settles in Oxford, 109–110; signs charter college letter, 126–127; as “Silent Traveller,” ix, x, 46, 65–66, 274n.2; at Stone-Bell Mountain, 15; stunned by rock in Malaysia, 222; takes job at Guanghua Middle School, 24; teaches at Columbia, 163–165, 169, 171, 177–178; teaches at Jinan University, Shanghai, 28–30; teaches at School of Oriental Studies, 57–58, 59; teaches in Australia, 243, 244–246; teaches in Haizhou, 23; tomb, xiii; tours Italy, Greece, and Turkey, 205–206; tours Peru and Mexico, 213; translates “Coca-Cola,” 87, 237; and travel writing, xvii–xviii, 214–215; turns thirty, 48; uncovers Texaco bribery, 44; visits Parcevall Hall, 112, 159–160, 195–196; on Western trendiness in East, 240–241; and William de Bary, 218–219, 265; writes book reviews for New York Times, 170; writes preface for Irvine’s Willow Leaves, 116; and Xu Beihong, 54, 56, 246; youth in the family compound, 2–7; at Yuntai Mountain, 23–24; Zen poetry project, 181–182, 183–184, 190, 287–288n.5. See also individual Chiang Yee works by title “Chiang Yee” (Whitehill), 200 “Chiang Yee at the Age When No Longer in Need of a Bench” (Xu Beihong), 56 China: becomes People’s Republic, 139; Britain and U.S. relinquish extraterritorial rights, 117–118; British relief work for, 118; Chiang Kai-shek kidnapped, 75; Cultural Revolution, xii, xiv, 249; CY returns to, 255; explodes first nuclear device, 214; during the First World War, 14; the Great Leap Forward, 208; Japan’s encroachments on, 63; under the Manchus, 4, 7–8; Marco Polo Bridge incident, 80; Nationalist-Communist struggle, 25, 41; Nixon’s visit to, 239; Northern Expedition, 24, 25–26; postrevolutionary democracy

index and nationalism, 18–19; postwar inflation, 132–133; prewar anti-Japanese sentiments in, 70–71; resumes formal relations with Britain, 166; revolution of 1911, xv, 8–10; Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), 77, 84; Sino-Soviet rift, 208; Taiwan Straits crises, 185–186; the White Terror, 26 China (ed. MacNair), 145 China Campaign Committee, 115 China Fights in Britain (WhittinghamJones), 120 “China: Her Art, Poetry, and Life” (CY lecture), 213 China Institute (London), Red Cross benefit exhibit (1939), 104 China Institute (New York), 171 China Revisited after Forty-two Years (CY), 256–257, 259–260, 265 China’s Millions (Taylor), 103 Chinese American Scholars on Their Visits to China (anthology), 249 Chinese art: Burlington House exhibition (1935–1936), 59, 134; illogicality in, xvii; Kelvingrove Galleries exhibit (Glasgow, 1944), 120–121; Modern Chinese Painting Exhibition (London, 1935), 59; National Gallery Chinese exhibition (1944), 121 “Chinese Art and Life” (CY talk), 121 Chinese Calligraphy (CY), xi, xiii–xiv, xx, 74–75, 81–82, 117, 127, 158–159, 160, 246 “Chinese Calligraphy” (CY’s Encyclopedia Britannica entry), 234 “Chinese Calligraphy” (CY talk), 104 A Chinese Childhood (CY), xvi, xx, 102–103, 107, 127, 137, 199, 229, 259 Chinese Children at Play (Yui Shufang), 94–95, 277n.57 The Chinese Drama (Johnston), 58 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 216 The Chinese Eye (CY), 60–62, 73, 79, 199 “Chinese Gardens” (CY article), 69 “Chinese Henpecked Husband” (CY), 91 “A Chinese Looks at England” (CY talk), 88 “Chinese Massacre,” Los Angeles (1871), 216 Chinese New Year Festival, 6–7, 146 “The Chinese Painter” (CY article), 69 “The Chinese Painter” (CY’s Harvard speech), 174, 175 “Chinese Painting and Its Relation to Chinese Philosophy, Poetry, and Calligraphy” (CY lecture), 213 Chinese Painting (CY), 149 Chinese Symbolism in Literature and Art (CY), 237 Chinese University of Hong Kong, 239 Chin-Pao and the Giant Pandas (CY), 95–96, 113

index Chinpao at the Zoo (CY), xx, 113 chop suey, 89, 90 chrysanthemums, 4 Chu Linsun, 170 Chung-ya jueju baishou (CY), 171 Churchill, Lady Clementine, 119 Churchill, Winston, 105, 113, 137, 139 City Art Gallery, Wakefield, CY show at, 104 Cixi, Empress Dowager, 8 Claff, J. B., 179, 199 Clark, Kenneth, 104, 119 Clarke, D. W., 139 The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (Hsia), 237 “Climbing Perilously” (CY), 215 Club of Odd Volumes (Boston), 196, 199 Cobbold, Robert Henry, 103 Coca-Cola, CY’s felicitous translation of, 78, 237 coeducation, in China, 22 Collections of Chiang Yee Poems (CY), xx Collins Publishers (Sidney), 259 “A Common Sight at Thanksgiving Time” (CY), 198 Communist Party (China), 20, 25; and the White Terror, 26. See also China; Mao Zedong; Red Army Communist subversion, U.S. fear of, 151 Confucius, 205; on the decades of human life, 153, 171; on independence by age thirty, 48; pandas critical of, 95; portrait by Ma Yuan, 61 Connard, Philip, 54 Coolidge, John, 172 “Co-operation and Mutual Help” (CY), 91 The Costume of China (Alexander), 103 Country Life, publishers, 72, 74 Country Life magazine, 145 “Courting on the Little Pond of the Royal Botanic Garden” (CY), 137 Coward, Donald, 114 Cox, Ian, 78–79 Crane, Cornelius, 181, 183 Cripps, Lady Isobel, 118, 119, 120 Cultural Revolution, China, xii, xiv, 249 Cunningham, Evelyn, 177 Curtis, L., 126 Dabbitse (CY), 127 Daedalus (journal), 176 Dalai Lama, 208 Dangtu, CY’s magistracy at, 34–36 Danto, Arthur, ix, 243, 256, 260 Day, John (publisher), see John Day, publishers dayou poems, 152–154, 155, 192, 283n.21 D-Day, 120

305 Dean, B., 284n.63 Dean Lung, 216 de Bary, William Theodore, x, 218–219, 264 “Deer in Richmond Park” (CY), 94 de Kooning, Willem, 209 De Martino, Richard, 183, 191 Deng Xiaoping, 264 Dewey, John, 17, 164, 171 Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644 (Columbia), 218–219 Dionysian art, 55 divorce: Chinese, study of, 273n.64; CY presides over, at Dangtu, 36 Dobie, James Frank, 209 Dodge, Ernest, 174, 183, 223 “Does Chiang Yee Understand Art?” (Shi Shangqing), 242 A Doll’s House (Ibsen), introduced in China, 21 Doolittle, Justus, 103 Dragon-Tiger Mountain, 27 Duan Xipeng, 24, 25 “Ducks in Jamaica Pond” (CY), 198 “Ducks in St. James’s Park” (CY), 68, 72 Dunbar, Evelyn, 105 dynamic equilibrium, in Chinese calligraphy, xiv Eastern Jiangxi Provincial Government, 26, 27 “Eating Customarily” (CY), 215 Edwards, E. Dora, 57, 58, 59, 74, 76, 79, 80 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 120 Elizabeth, Princess, 113 Emergency Power Act, British, 96 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 174 Emerson Fellowship, Harvard, CY’s year on, 187, 190, 194–195 “Encountering Chiang Yee: A Western Insider Reading Responses to Eastern Outsider Travel Writing” (Janoff), xx “The English as I See Them” (CY speech), 104 “An Englishman Looks at Chinese Painting” (Clark), 119 Essays in Zen Buddhism (Suzuki), 181 Ethiopia, invaded by Italy, 70 Eumorfopoulos, George, 78, 87 execution, ordered by CY, 33 Exhibition of Ballet Design (1943), 117 exhibitions, featuring Chiang Yee’s art: Allied Artists Exhibitions, 115; Artists Aid China Exhibition, Hertford House (1943), 118–119; Bodleian Library exhibition of author-artists (1945), 129; at Boston Athenaeum, 154, 179; China Institute, benefit for Red Cross (1939), 104;

306 exhibitions, featuring Chiang Yee’s art (continued): Conduit Street (London), 80; Graves Gallery (1940), 104; at Hong Kong City Hall, 241–242; International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Burlington House (1935–1936), 59, 134; Modern Chinese Painting Exhibition (London, 1935), 59; National Gallery Chinese exhibition (1944), 121; solo art exhibition at Yellow Dragon Monastery, 37; Utah State University, 213; War Artists Exhibition, National Gallery (1940), 104–105; Zwemmer Gallery (1939), 94 exile, ix, xv, 139, 248 extortion and embezzlement, at Dangtu, 34–35 Fang Chaoying, 218 Fan Xiliang, 22 Far East Book Company, 247–248 Farlow, Robert, 227, 234 fate, 2–3 Feng Yulan, 164 “The Fenway Rose Garden” (CY), 198 The Fifth Chinese Daughter (Wong), 215 Finlay, Ian, 137 the “Five Classics,” 6 Fleming, Peter, 88 The Flower Drum Song (Lee), 215 Flowering Exile (Hsiung), 280n.47 foot binding, 21 “Foreigners and Dogs” (CY article), 241 the “Four Books,” 6 “Four Fishermen” (CY), 68 fox-spirit shrine, in Wuhu yamen, 30 “Frogs” (Qi Baishi), 104 Fry, Margery, 125 Fry, Roger, 55 “Fuchun River” (Huang Gongwang), 27 Fujian Movement, 50 “The Future of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting” (CY lecture), 240 Fuzhou, opened to foreigners, 7 Fyleman, Rose, 113 Gang of Four, 264 Gantang Lake, 12 Gaumont British Picture Corporation, 137 “Geese at Kew Gardens” (CY), 94 General Labor Union, Shanghai, 26 George Washington Bridge, 143–144 Germany: conquers Poland, 96, 99–100; initiates London blitz, 106–107; remilitarizes the Rhineland, 70 Gibbings, Robert, 139 “God of Spring” (CY), 91

index “Going to Church in the Rain, Wasdale Hale” (CY), 73 Gombrich, Ernst, ix The Good Earth (Buck), 131 Goodrich, L. Carrington, 163, 218 Graves Gallery, CY show at (1940), 104 Gray, Basil, 110, 148, 188 Great Leap Forward, 208 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, see Cultural Revolution Great World Amusement Center, Shanghai, 28 Green Gang, 26, 28 Guang Wu, Emperor, 25 Guangzhou: First Plenary Session of Nationalist Representatives, 20; opened to foreigners, 7 Gui Yongqing, 27–28 Guomindang, 20. See also Nationalist Party Guo Su, 43 Guston, Philip, x Hacker, Louis M., 163 Haile Selassie, 148 Hainan Island, CY’s visit and essay on, 22–23, 269n.19 “Hair and Beards” (CY article), 241 Hai-wai chizi Jiang Yi (ed. Jiang Jianlan and Liu Naichong), xx Haizhou, CY teaches at, 23 Hall, Donald, 206 Hall, Polly, 206 Hanson, N. R., x Han Suyin, 115–116 “The Happiness of the Fish” (CY), 210, 211 Harbison, E. Harris, 155 Harris, Kenneth, 139 Harvard University Press, 159, 196, 260 Harvard-Yenching Library, 191 Hassan’s Pavilion, CY’s designs for, 284n.63 Hawkes, Violet E., 75, 81 Hayter, William, 179 Healey, Eugene, 196, 199 Helpmann, Robert, 116, 162–163, 284n.63 Herdan, Catherine, 102, 128 Herdan, Gustav, 91, 102, 140, 230 Herdan, Innes (Jackson), 91, 132, 140, 175, 195, 230–231; bears first child, 102; children, 102, 128; in China, 67–68; collaborates on Chinese Calligraphy, 74, 81–82; edits new edition of Chinese Calligraphy, 246; edits The Chinese Eye, 60, 62; edits Tsui Chi’s Short History of Chinese Civilization, 119; and Julian Bell, 71; marries Gustav Herdan, 91–92; returns to England, 75–76; translates Three Hundred

index Tang Poems, 247; works on her travelogue, 77–78; writes CY from Palestine, 66 Herd-Boy, 64 “The High in Snow” (CY), 123 Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, 126 Hisamatsu, Shinichi, 184 Hiss, Alger, 151 Historical Records (Sima Qian), 10 A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Hsia), 237 Hitler, Adolf, 70, 96 Ho, Tze-ko, 133 Hofmann, Hans, 209 Hofstra University, awards CY honorary doctorate, 238 Holmes, John, 174, 175 home, xiv–xv, xvi, xxi; away from home, imaginary, xvii. See also exile “Homely Scene along Granby Dane” (CY), 157 homesickness, xviii–xx, 111, 185, 211, 221 Hong Kong, 239–241; British takeover of, 7 Hongxian Dynasty (1916), 17 Hope, Lord John, 207 Hopkins, Gerard, 121 Horizon Books, 234–235 Horsnell, Horace, 117 Hosie, Dorothea, 103 Hou Tong, 249, 251 Hou Tong, Mrs., 251 “How Chinese Artists Paint” (CY talk), 104 Howells, William Dean, 150 Howe, Mark DeWolfe, 150–151 Hsia, Chih-tsing, 176, 237, 238, 243 Hsiao Chien, see Xiao Qian Hsiung, Deh-I, 119, 127, 232 Hsiung, Diana, 118 Hsiung, Dymia, 119, 280n.47 Hsiung, Shih-I, 50, 62, 66, 78, 103, 110, 119, 145, 164, 221, 279n.21; CY shares London apartment with, 50; family evacuated from London, 96–97; home as salon, 127; host to Liu Haisu, 59; host to Xu Beihong, 54; as playwright, 51–53; writes preface for The Chinese Eye, 61 Huang Binhong, 54 Huang Gongwang, 27 Huang Jinrong, 28 Huang, Mrs. Chin-shan, 236 Huang, Yiau-min, 229, 235–237, 239, 243–244, 248, 251, 256 Huang Yonglian, 270n.42 Huang Zongxi, 219 Hugo, Harold, 158, 195, 224, 227, 232–233 Humphreys, Christmas, 119 The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo), 147 Hu Shih, 17, 131, 145, 164, 171, 180, 204

307 Hu Xiaoshi, 67 Huxley, E., 118 Huxley, Thomas, in Chinese translation by Yan Fu, 8 Ideological Differences and World Order (ed. Northrop), 145 illogicality, in Chinese art, xvii Immigration Act of 1965 (U.S.), 220 Imperial Examination, 12 The Importance of Living (Lin Yutang), 103, 104 In Chen, 202, 204 “In Memory of Beihong” (CY), 246 Innes, Hammond, 139 In Shi, 202 Institute of Chinese Studies (Hong Kong), 240 International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Burlington House (1935–1936), 59, 134 International Press-Cutting Bureau, 123 An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (Suzuki), 181 “In Utmost Low Spirit” (CY poem), 186 Irvine, John, 116 Italy, invasion of Ethiopia by, 70 Jackson, Innes, see Herdan, Innes (Jackson) James Reynolds’ Ireland (Reynolds), 155 Janoff, Ronald W., xx Japan: bombs Pearl Harbor, 113; establishes puppet state of Manchukuo, 42; and the “Manchurian Incident,” 41–42; and the Northern Expedition, 29; post-Versailles protests against, 18–19; prewar Chinese resentment of, 70–71; surrenders (1945), 126; takes Shanghai (1937), 114; Treaty of Shimonoseki, 8; and the Twenty-one Demands (1915), 14 A Japanese Artist in London (Markino), 72 “Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park” (CY), 217 Jen Chih-kung, 249 Jia Ke-sheng, 67. See also Herdan, Innes (Jackson) Jiang Jianlan (Chiang Jianlan), 98, 128, 133, 146, 186, 232, 251 Jiangxi Province, Chiang Kai-shek attempts to crush Red Army in, 41 Jiang Xiaoyan (Chiang Xiaoyan), 30, 47, 85, 86, 111, 128, 133, 146, 186, 251 Jiang Yi, see Chiang Yee Jiang Zhongya’s Poems (CY), 62–63 Jinan Tragedy (1928), 42 Jinan University, Shanghai, 29 Jinggang Mountain, 257

308 Jiujiang, 255; bombarded, 77; CY’s ancestors settle at, 2; CY’s magistracy at, 38–45 “Jiujiang Land Lease,” 9 “Jiujiang Magistrate—Self-Reproach” (CY poem), 42 John Day, publishers, 129, 131, 138, 141, 144–145, 158, 160, 161–162, 172–173, 199, 204 Johnson, Lyndon B., 220 Johnston, Reginald, 57–58, 59, 60, 69, 70, 76, 81, 190, 273n.40 Johnston-Saint, P. J., 83, 106, 109, 111, 129 Joseph, Samuel, 119 Journey to the West (classical novel), 66 Kang Youwei, xvii, 8 Keene, Donald, 243 Keene, Henry, 109, 110, 111, 127 Keene, Rita, 110, 111, 127, 128, 148 Keene, Violet, 109, 110, 111, 127, 129 Kelvingrove Galleries exhibit of Chinese art (Glasgow, 1944), 120–121 Kennedy, John F., 211–212, 227 Kennedy, Robert F., 229 Kent, Duke of (Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund), 87 Kerans, John Simon, 140 King, Martin Luther Jr., 210, 229 Kipling, Rudyard, 129 Kirk, Grayson, 230 kissing, 143 Klee, Paul, 159 Kline, Franz, 209 Knopf, Alfred A., 158, 159 Koo, Wellington, 119, 120, 164 Kuang-she literary salon, 63 Kuang Su, 10 Kuomintang, see Guomindang “Lady Precious Stream” (CY), 91 Lady Precious Stream (Hsiung), 52 Lambert, Constant, 116 Lamb, Harry, 78, 79 Lantern Festival, 6 Lao She (Colin C. Shu), 58, 132, 171 “Lapwings over Merton Field” (CY), 123 Lattimore, Owen, 151 League of Nations, 42; Lytton’s Commission of Inquiry, 43 Lee, C. Y., 215 Lee Quon, 216 Lee, Tsung-dao, 249 Left Book Club, 79–80 Leicester Art Gallery ballet design exhibition (1943), 117 Liang Shanbo, 22 Liao Hongying, 60 Li, Dr. T. T., 251

index Li Bai, 5, 10, 46, 79 “The Life of a Chinese Artist” (CY article), 69 Li Liejun, 12, 19, 24, 26; army disarmed by Gui Yongqing’s Shanghai garrison, 27–28 Li Ma-ma, 7 Lin Sen, 27, 37, 74 Lin Shuhua, 258 Lin Yutang, 103–104, 131, 144, 171 Li people, 22 “Li Po Listening to the Waterfalls” (CY), 68 Li Shizheng, 10 “Literature as Painting—A Study of the Travel Books of Chiang Yee” (Liu), xx Liu, Esther Tzu-Chiu, xx Liu, James, 201–202 Liu Haisu, 59, 81, 104 Liu Naichong, 251 Liu Tsun-jen, 171, 222, 244 Liu Zongyuan, 122 Lo, Hong-lit (Luo Kanglie), 222, 248, 257, 261, 263 Lo Cheng: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Keep Still (CY), 113–114 Lockhart, Stewart, 57, 81, 273n.40 London School of Economics, CY enrolls at, 53 London School of Printing, 138 London Through Chinese Eyes (Tyau), 46–47, 89 Longford, Lord Edward (Pakenham), 134 Lord, Clifford, 218–219, 237 Los Angeles “Chinese Massacre” (1871), 216 love: CY attempts to define, 22; CY’s first experiences of, 15; in Jiang Zhongya’s Poems, 64 Lu Diping, 38 Lue Gim Gong, 216 Lü Fengzi, 138 Lu Jingqing, 50 Lu Mountain, 10, 16, 46, 85, 264 Lunt, Storer, 161, 173, 177, 185, 192, 214, 248, 260 Luo Changhai, 45, 49–50 Luo Kanglie, see Lo, Hong-lit Lute Song (play), 131–132 Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), 8, 21 Lu Yongxiang, 20 Lytton, Lord (Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton), 43, 271n.26 MacArthur, Douglas, 185 Macaulay, Rose, 139 MacFarlane, Mr. (CY’s landlord), 150 Macmillan, Harold, 163 MacNair, Harley F., 145 “Madman” nickname, 5, 23

index “Magpie and Willow” (Xu Beihong), 104 Mais, S.P.B., 123–124 Malcolm, Neal, 87 Manchu emperors, and relations with imperial powers, 7–8 Manchukuo, 42, 59 Manchuria, Japanese domination of, 14 Manila Galleon (Schurz), 213 A Manual of Chinese Quotations (trans. Lockhart), 57 Mao Zedong, 22, 41, 132, 139, 257, 259 Marco Polo Bridge incident, 80 Margaret Rose, Princess, 113 Markino, Yoshio, 72 Marlboro College, commencement speech mix-up, 212 Martin, Agnes, x Mary, Dowager Queen of England, 52, 87, 88, 93, 94, 113, 119, 137 May Fourth Movement, 18–19 May Third Tragedy (1928), 29 Ma Yuan, 61 McCarran Internal Security Act (1950), 151 McCarthy, Joseph, 151 McCord, David, 154, 174, 184, 187, 188, 192, 209, 210, 244 McCoy, Frank, 43, 271n.26 McGill, William J., 238 McKenna, Virginia, 162 McKibbin, David, 154 McNiff, Mary Stack, 138 The Meeting of East and West (Northrop), xxi Mei Lanfang, 56–57, 171 Meng Chih, 172 Mengjiang Nü, 22 The Men of the Burma Road (CY), 114–115, 127, 137 Men of the Trees, 53 Menon, Krishna, 80 Meriden Gravure Company, 158, 195, 224 Methuen, publishers, 72, 76, 103, 110, 111, 112, 121, 129, 141, 149, 158, 159, 161, 162, 164, 165, 173, 185, 204 Mid-Autumn Festival, 53, 146 Mill, John Stuart, in Chinese translation by Yan Fu, 8 Mills China Boys, 216 Milner, William, 77, 81, 110, 111, 112, 113, 160, 179, 195, 207 Mimesis (Auerbach), xvi Mind You, I’ve Said Nothing (Tracy), 155 Ming, London Zoo panda, 92–93, 97, 125 Ministry of Information, British, 104, 105 “A mirage-like scene from Twin Peaks” (CY), 217

309 Modern Chinese Painting Exhibition (London, 1935), 59 Monet, Claude, 136 Money and Credit in China (Yang Liensheng), 151 Mongan, Agnes, 193 Monroe, Paul, 171 Montclair State College, CY lectures at, 177 “Moon and Pine on Lu-Mountain” (CY), 68 Moon Festival, 6; CY’s poem on, xix “Mooning Non-Mooniacly” (CY), 215 Morris, Ivan, 233, 243 Mountbatten, Lady Louis, 118 Mukden, Japanese attack near, 41–42 Mumford, Lewis, 205 Muriel, Barbara, 167. See also Chiang, Barbara My Country and My People (Lin Yutang), 103 Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (Suzuki), 181 “My Writing about The Silent Traveller in Japan” (CY article), 233, 234 Nanjing: Chiang Kai-shek installs government at, 32; “Rape of Nanjing,” 77; Treaty of (1842), 7; White Terror at, 26 Nash, Paul, 105 National Book League exhibit of illustrated books (1945), 128 National Gallery, London, 54–55; Chinese exhibition (1944), 121; Exhibition of Ballet Design (1944), 117; War Artists Exhibition (1940), 104–105 Nationalist Party, 25, 26. See also Chiang Kai-shek; Guomindang National Revolutionary Army, 25 National Southeastern University, China, 19–20, 22 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 80 Nengren Monastery, and the missionary school banquet, 39 nepotism, CY’s resistance to, 38–39 Neville, John, 162 New Army (China), 10 New Life Movement, 43 New Year Festival, Chinese, 6–7, 146 Nichols, Beverly, 124 Nichols, Frederick D., 209 Nichols, Mrs. and Mrs. John, 150 Ningbo, opened to foreigners, 7 Nixon, Richard M., 230, 239 the “Nora phenomenon,” 21–22 Northern Expedition, 24 Northrop, F.S.C., xxi, 145 North, Sterling, 178

310 Norton and Company, publishers, 161, 185, 193, 196, 214, 250, 260, 264; and The Silent Traveller in Paris, 173 “Notes on the Land of Peach Blossoms” (Tao), 10 oil companies, concessions near Jiujiang, 43–45 Olivier, Laurence, 126 One’s Company: A Journey to China (Fleming), 88 “On the Pacific Ocean” (CY poem), 48–49 “On the Pavilion of Ancient Tablets” (Ye Hongyu), 36 “On the Red Cliff ” (Su Dongpo), 15 “On the Suicide of Miss Zhao” (Mao Zedong), 22 On the War Artists Exhibition in England (CY), 105 Opium Wars, 7–8, 118, 239 “An Oriental in Union Square” (CY), xvii, 217 “Outdoor Concert at Night” (CY), 198 Outlaws of the Marsh (classical novel), 66 Overseas League, 104 “Painting and Recording of Yuntai Mountain” (Gu Kaizhi), 23 Pakenham, Christine, Countess Longford, 134, 135, 207 Pakenham, Edward, Lord Longford, 134, 207 pandas: Bronx Zoo, 131; London Zoo, 92–93, 95, 96, 97, 113, 125 Parcevall Hall, 112, 159–160, 195–196 Payton, G. H., 279n.21 Peabody Museum (Salem), 154, 174, 183 “Peacocks at Trout Inn” (CY), 123 Pearl Harbor, attack on, 113 Peking to Mandalay (Johnston), 58 P.E.N. Club, 120 “Penguins” (CY), 93 Perkins, Elliott, 175 Phi Beta Kappa oration, CY’s, 173–177 “The Philosophical Basis of Chinese Painting” (CY article), 145 “Picasso Is Dead” (CY article), 242 Pictures of the Chinese (Cobbold), 103 “Pine of Lu Mountain” (CY), 53 Ping-Liu-Li Uprising (1906), 9 “Ping Pong diplomacy,” 239 pipa (musical instrument), 20 Poland: falls to Germany, 99–100; invaded (1939), 96 Pollock, Jackson, 209 Pomfret, John, 154 Porter, Eric, 162 Porteus, Hugh Gordon, 68, 81

index Potter, Beatrix, 170 Price, Nancy, 52 Priestley, J. B., 139 “The Principles and Technique of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy” (CY lecture), 244 Pritchett, V. S., 207 Pun Chu Yin, 222 Pusey, Nathan, 175, 194 Pu-yi, Henry, 42, 58, 59, 76 Qianlong, Emperor, 4 Qi Baishi, xi, 104 Qiu Xiang, 22 Qiu Zhong, 1 Qi Xieyuan, 20 Quemoy and Matsu, shelling of, 186 queue, Manchu-imposed, 4, 10–11 Rabi, I. I., 164 Racz, Andre, x–xi Ralph, Julian, 103 “Rape of Nanjing,” 77 Raphael, Oscar, 87 Rayden Press, 167–168 Read, Herbert, 73, 105, 159, 195 Red Army, 41. See also Communist Party “The Regent Street Bridge at Night from Leith Street” (CY), 137 “A Report on Hainan Island” (Yi Lu), 23 The Revolutionary Army (Zou), 8 Revolutionary League, 8, 9, 10 Revolution of 1911, China, xv Reynolds, James, 155 Rhineland, Germany’s remilitarization of, 70 Robertson, Rutherford, 244, 249 Robeson, Paul, 54, 57 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, 151 Rossetti, G. W., 58 Ross, W. D., 126 Rothenstein, William, 105 Runabout Rhymes (Fyleman), 113 Rushdie, Salman, xvi Ruskin, John, 129 Said, Edward, xvi Sakamaki, Shunzo, 210, 248 Schaeffer School of Design, CY lectures at, 177 School of General Studies, Columbia University, 163 School of Oriental and African Studies, 76, 115. See also School of Oriental Studies School of Oriental Studies, 57, 69, 76, 80–81, 272n.36. See also School of Oriental and African Studies

index Schurz, William Lytle, 213 Scott, Betty, 124 Scott, E. K., 110 “The Scott Monument from West Princes Street” (CY), 137 Sebastian, Giles, 110 Second Revolution (1913), 14 Sedgewick, Mrs. Walter, 87 Shanghai: communist groups eliminated by Chiang Kai-shek, 26; falls to Japanese (1937), 114; general strike (1927), 25; opened to foreigners, 7 Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, 59 Shanghai Communiqué, 239 Shaw, George Bernard, 52, 57, 94 Shen, Dr. (physician), 192 Shen Dengjie, 273n.64 Shepherd’s Bush film studio, 54 Shimonoseki, Treaty of (1895), 8 Shi Shangqing, 242 Shi Yousan, 33 A Short History of Chinese Civilization (Tsui Chi), 119 A Short Trip to Switzerland and France (Chiang Chien-kuo), 140–141 “Shrimps” (Qi Baishi), 104 Shu, Colin C., see Lao She shuoshu (storytelling technique), 20 “The Silent Traveller” (CY nickname), 46, 65–66, 274n.2 Silent Traveller books, xiv, xvii The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (CY), 72–73, 74, 79 The Silent Traveller in Australia (CY, unpublished), 245, 247, 250–251, 258–259 The Silent Traveller in Boston (CY), xiii, 185, 196–199 The Silent Traveller in Dublin (CY), 155–158 The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh (CY), 135–137, 164 The Silent Traveller in Japan (CY), 233–234, 243 The Silent Traveller in London (CY), 88–91, 102, 140 The Silent Traveller in New York (CY), xviii, 141–145 The Silent Traveller in Oxford (CY), 121–125, 128, 137, 164, 281n.67 The Silent Traveller in Paris (CY), 148, 165, 173, 178–180 The Silent Traveller in San Francisco (CY), 214–217 The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales (CY), 106, 111–112, 118 The Silent Traveller in War Time (CY), 100–102 “The Silent Traveller Press,” 167–168

311 The Silent Traveller’s Sayings (CY), 222 Sima Qian, 10 Simon, W., 76 Sino-Japanese Wars: First (1894), 8; Second (1937–1945), 77, 84 Sino-Soviet rift, 208 “Smiling Unconditionally” (CY), 215 Smith, Adam, in Chinese translation by Yan Fu, 8 Social Life of the Chinese (Doolittle), 103 Some Chinese Words to Be Learnt without a Teacher (CY), 126 “The Song of Peace” (Chiang Ji), 18 SOS, see School of Oriental Studies Spanish Civil War, 77 “spheres of influence” diplomacy, 8 Spring Festival, 6 Standard, Paul, 131, 160 Standard Oil Company (U.S.), 43 Statue of Liberty, xviii Stone-Bell Mountain, 15 The Story of Ming (CY), 125–126 Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (Suzuki), 194 Su Dongpo, 10, 15 Sun Chuanfang, 25 Sunday Times National Book Exhibition, Grosvenor House (1949), 139 Sunday Times National Book Fair, Earls Court (1938), 88 Sun Moqian, 29, 30, 54, 168 “Sunny Afternoon at Chapelizod” (CY), 157 “Sunrise from Mount Tamalpais” (CY), 217 Sun Wukong, 66 Sun Yat-sen, 8, 9 Su Wu, xv Suzhou actors, at Shanghai, 28 Suzuki, Daisetz T., x, 181, 191 “Swans on the River Liffey” (CY), 157 Sweeney, James Johnson, xi Sykes, Gerald, 178 Les Sylphides (ballet), 117 Tagore, Rabindranath, 174 Tai Mountain, 263 Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), 9, 14 Taiwan Straits crises, 185–186 Taixu Monk, 37 The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Potter), 170 Tan Danjiong, 14–15 Tan Daoyuan, 40–41 Tang Yin, 22 Tan Jusheng, 251 Tankardstown (Pakenham), 135 Tao Yuanmin, 10 Tathagata Buddha, CY’s portrait of, 36 tax collection, in China, 40

312 Taylor, J. Hudson, 103 Tee-Van, John, 131 Tehran Conference (1943), 120 Teller, Julius, 260 Tennyson, Mrs. I. G., 118 Texaco Oil Company, 43–44, 45 Thackeray, William M., 129 Thirkettle, Ellis, 141 Thorndyke, Joseph, 235 Three Hundred Tang Poems (trans. Innes Herdan), 247 Three Principles of the People, 20, 25 Tianjin: Treaty of (1858), 7–8, 9; Westerners seize forts (1898), 8 Ticknor, George, 174 “Tide Ebbing along Dublin Bay” (CY), 157 tofu, 211 “Tom Tower in Mist” (CY), 123 Topics in Chinese History (Yang Lien-sheng), 151 Tracy, Honor, 155 “Trafalgar Square” (CY), 91 Transatlantic Arts, Ltd., 127, 140 The Transmission of the Lamp (Suzuki), 191, 194 travel writing, xvi–xviii, 72, 209, 214–215; by Innes Jackson, 77–78 The Travel Writing (Xu), xvi Treaty of Beijing (1860), 8 Treaty of Nanjing (1842), 7 Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), 8 Treaty of Tianjin (1858), 7–8, 9 Trevelyan, G. M., 124 Trilling, Lionel, 164 “A Trip to the Stone-Bell Mountain” (Su Dongpo), 15 Truman, Harry, 185 Tseng Shih-yu, 19, 46 Tsui Chi, 119–120, 168, 280n.47 Tu Lienche, 218 Turner, R. L., 81 Twenty-one Demands (1915), 14 Twilight in the Forbidden City (Johnston), 58 “Twilight over St. Giles” (CY), 123 “Two Cranes Playing by a Spring” (Xia Gui), 116 “Two Sisters near by Smollett’s House” (CY), 137 Tyau, M.T.Z., 46, 89 Tyler, William R., 165, 224 “Under the Moon” (CY), 91 UNESCO, CY a delegate to (1947), 147 United Aid to China Fund, 118, 120

index United States: attacked by Japan, 113; social upheaval of 1960s, 229–230; strengthening postwar book market, 129; treaty with China relinquishes extraterritorial rights, 117 University of Virginia Fine Arts Center, 209 Untermeyer, Louis, 205 “Untitled” (CY poem), 92 U.S. Information Agency, 200 Utah State University, CY solo exhibition, 213 Van Doren, Mark, 164, 205 Varley, Paul, 243 “Vernal Fall, Yosemite” (CY), 217 Versailles Conference, and Chinese protests, 17–18 Vevers, Geoffrey, 93, 95 Wagenknecht, Edward, 197 Waley, Arthur, 76, 119 “Walking Reflectively” (CY), 215 Walsh, Richard, 131, 160, 161, 162, 173 Walter Muir Whitehill: A Record Compiled by His Friends, 188 Walter, Richard, 158 Walworth, Arthur, 131 Wang, Chi-chen, 168, 169, 185, 285n.68 Wang Chu-sun, 262 Wang Erzhuo, 26 Wang Hsin-wu, 262 Wang Li-xi (Shelley Wang), 50, 122 Wang Tao, xvii Wang Zhaojun, xv War Artists Advisory Committee, 104 War Artists Exhibition, National Gallery (1940), 104–105 warlordism, 24, 29, 41 Wartime Britain (CY), 140 Wartime London booklet (CY), 105 “Waterfall and Stow Lake” (CY), 217 Watson, Burton, 233, 243 Weaving-Maid, 64 Wei Tao-ming, 131, 132, 133, 146 Wellcome, Henry S., 83 Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, 83, 106, 109, 111, 129 Wells Ballet, 116 wenyan (classical writing), 17 Wescott, Glenway, 205 The Western Chamber (Hsiung), 52 Whampoa Military Academy, 20 “What Can I Say about Ballet?” (CY essay), 117 “What I Saw in St. James’s Park Last Spring” (CY), 68

index Wheatley, John, 110 Wheelock, John Hall, 154, 180, 205 When Fun Begins (Buck), 113 White, J. Alan, 60, 62, 74, 105, 121, 131, 135, 137–138, 149, 173, 179, 192–193, 196, 261 White, Marjorie, 137–138, 179 Whitechapel Art Gallery, 55 Whitehill, Jane, 155, 160, 165, 188, 195, 203, 222, 225, 227, 228, 229, 236, 237 Whitehill, Walter Muir, 151, 154, 177, 192, 195, 203, 256; assists CY in obtaining U.S. visa, 165; begs off on reviewing The Silent Traveller in Japan, 243; burglarized, 201, 218; and CY commencement speech mix-up, 212; and CY’s book reviews for New York Times, 170; and CY’s courtship of Yiau-min Huang, 236–237; on CY’s English life, 166, 167; as CY’s literary representative, 160–161, 172–173, 204–205; given birthday festschrift, 188; helps CY with visa problems, 183–184; hosts Chienfei’s family, 227–228; recommends CY to Knopf, 158–159; and release of The Silent Traveller in Boston, 196; and the University of Virginia Fine Arts Center, 209; and William de Bary, 218–219; writes “Chiang Yee” for USIA, 200; writes foreword to The Silent Traveller’s Sayings, 222 “White Lotus” (Liu Haisu), 104 White Terror, 26 Whittingham-Jones, Barbara, 120 “Why Does Man Always Keep His Eyes on Girls?” (CY article), 36 Wilbur, Richard P., 174 Williamson, Samuel T., 196 Willow Leaves (Irvine), 116 “The Willow Tree of West Lake” (CY), 53 Wilson, Tom J., 159 Winkworth, W. W., 68–69 The Wisdom of Confucius (Lin Yutang), 103 “With an Appeal to the Heart” (CY review), 170 Wong, Jade Snow, 215 Wood, Frank, 114 World Cultural Press, 102 World War I, and China, 14; postwar protests, 18–19 Worsley, J., 105 Wuchang Uprising (1911), 9 Wu Chien-shiung, 249 Wu Hsiu-chuan, 144 Wuhu County, CY’s magistracy at, 30, 31–34 Wu Shichang, 154 Wu Song, 66 Wu Tingfang, xvii Wu Youxun, 24

3 13 Wuzhou liuhen (ed. Liu Zongwu and Jiang Li), xx Xia Gui, 116 Xiamen, opened to foreigners, 7 Xiao Hong, 15 Xiao Qian (Hsiao Chien), 58, 78, 115, 119, 279n.14, 279n.21 Xiao Shufang (Yui Shufang), 94–95, 277n.57 Xie Bingying, 119 Xie Tao, 36 Xinhai Revolution, 9, 10–11 Xiong Shihui, 27, 42, 43, 45 Xuanzang, monk, 66 Xu Beihong, 52, 54–55, 56, 65, 104, 121, 168, 246 Xu Deheng, 264 Xu Sheng-hua, 13 Xu Xiake, xvi, 10, 72 Xu Zhimo, xvii yamen (magistrate’s residence), 30 Yan Fu, 8 Yang, Jean, 152, 153, 191 Yang, Lily, 191 Yang, Tom, 191 Yang Chen-ning, 249, 259 Yang, Lien-sheng, 151–154, 163, 170–171, 177, 180–181, 244, 285n.68; becomes U.S. citizen, 208; declines to join CY in Zen poetry project, 185; exchanges dayou poems with CY, 152–154, 155, 192, 283n.21; has nervous breakdown, 191–192; introduced to Innes Herdan, 247; marks up first chapter of CY’s Japan book, 233–234; recurrent illness of, 248; revisits China, 249; rupture with CY, 257–258; sends wedding present to Chien-kuo, 168; suggests that CY remarry, 204; writes letter of recommendation for CY, 184 yangren (foreign people), 241 Yang Weiyi, 23 Yang Zhong, 1 Yan Jici, 28 Yan Ziling, 25 Yeats, Jack, 134 Yebbin: A Guest from the Wild (CY), 134 Ye Gong-chuo, 81 Ye Hongyu, 36 Ye Junjian, 78, 110 Yellow Dragon Monastery, 37 Yenching Library (Harvard), 191 Yetts, W. Percival, 60, 119 Yihetuan (“Boxers”), 8 Yi Lu, 23 Yin, Chih-peng, 257, 258, 259

314 Young, Francis Brett, 124 “Your Christmas” (CY article), 145–146 Youth (journal), 17 Yuan Jialiu, 249 Yuan Shi-kai, 9, 14, 17 Yue Weijun, 32 Yui, Shufang, see Xiao Shufang Yuntai Mountain, 23–24 Yu, T. C., 249 Zahner, Louis, 212 Zen Buddhism, 33 “Zeng-cai guxi” (CY’s mother-in-law), 287n.63 Zeng Yulin, 36 Zeng Yun, xiii, 2, 21, 84–85, 86, 98, 128, 146, 254–255, 263, 264 Zeng Zhaoyu, 60 Zen poetry, Chinese, 181. See also Ch’an poetry Zen Studies Society, 183 Zhang, Master, 27 Zhang Xu, 5

index Zhang Xueliang, 75, 271n.26 Zhang Zongxiang, 18–19 Zhang Zongyin, 28 Zhao, Magistrate (CY’s predecessor at Dangtu), 34, 35 Zhao Wuji, 240 Zhengze Art School, 138–139 “Zhong-ya” (CY epithet), 65 Zhou, schoolmaster, 6 Zhou Dunyi, 10, 14 Zhou Enlai, 259 Zhou Shuren, 8 Zhou Yu, 12–13 Zhuang Zhou, 88 Zhu De, 41 Zhu Peide, 26 Zhu Xi, 10 Zhu Yingtai, 22 Zhu Yuanzhang, 4 Zhu Ziqing, xvii Zou Rong, 8 Zwemmer Gallery, CW show at (1939), 94

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Da Zheng, a native of Shanghai, China, came to the United States in 1986 to pursue graduate study at Boston University, from which he received an M.A. and Ph.D. in English in 1994. He is currently a professor of English at Suffolk University.