The Soong Sisters

by Emily Hahn

  Never in my life have I felt such a thrill of righteous charity as when Florence and Hattie Henderson, Flossie Additon and I decided a few days before Christmas that the true spirit of the season demanded the making of someone else happy. We each went the whole hog in our charitable intentions, produced twenty-five cents each, and with that sum of one dollar bought potatoes, milk, hamburg steak, apples and oranges for a destitute family across the railroad. We tried to be modest and keep to ourselves our noble deed, but so great was our excitement that Mr Hunt, at the store, heard us chattering and arguing about the advisability of certain articles of food. I remember — physiology being my favorite subject — that I insisted that we should buy sugar and plenty of it so that the carbohydrate values could keep the puny youngsters warm, and give the mother plenty of energy, whereas one of the other charitably-minded contributors to the great investment was strongly for potatoes as the most filling and warmth-producing foods. Mr Hunt was listening curiously and amusedly to the excited debate, and settled the matter by generously contributing some of each of the articles, but he also gave us and the great philanthropic enterprise away. When we were trudging across the trestle with the parcels in our arms we felt like blossoming Joan of Arcs proceeding upon a sacred mission. However, when we reached the ramshackle wooden shack that the intended recipients called home, and faced the discouraged worn-out mother, with her brood clinging to her hands and peeking out from behind her skirts, we were stricken dumb and none of us could speak a word. We dropped the bundles and fled. When we had run a sufficient distance to feel brave once more one of us dared to shout out “Merry Christmas,” and we ran faster than ever.

  One of our favorite pastimes was to go hazel nutting. I can see now the long, dusty roads that we used to tramp on Sunday afternoons to get to the woods. Sometimes we were lucky enough to have an obliging farmer driving our way in a wagon pick us up and share with us his lunch of cornbread, occasionally offering us a leg of a frier, but as we were little girls we were too shy to accept the chicken. I invariably came in for quite a bit of gentle teasing. Can’t you hear these men of the mountains, trying to confuse the little Chinese girl with such an old chestnut as this: “Where do the nuts come from?” It is obvious that my brilliant answer would be: “From the trees, of course.” “And what kind of a tree does a doughnut come from?” would be the jubilant retort. That would floor me. “On a pantry,” they would roar, and that would floor me. Dropping us at the edge of the wood the kind farmers would go on with the usual admonition: “You girls better start for home before dark.” We then would scamper into the bushes to gather hazel nuts, or blackberries. We ate to our hearts’ content and probably consumed more than we took home with us.

  At Piedmont I used to do a great deal of reading. A favorite place was a wooden bench between two trees beside the house I lived in. It was at Mrs Moss’ house. She was the head of the boys’ dormitory. I lived with her in a suite downstairs — she, and her daughters, Rosina and Ruby. Rosina initiated me into the intricacies of quavers and semiquavers, chords, and the five-finger exercise. At that time I learned to play little ditties such as “The Little Mouse Runs Around the Field.” Every little piece had a story attached to it, “The Little Shepherd Boy,” or something. I remember a big, lumbering girl who said the ambition of her life was to be able to play hymns by Christmas time so that she could dazzle her beau. I then thought the object was praiseworthy, but I wondered if the beau was worth all that effort? Most of the boys in the dormitory were twenty years of age or more. Some were country teachers seeking education in the college. Mrs Moss used to invite some of them to dinner each Sunday night. I used to marvel at the plates of hot cakes and blackberry jam that those boys could make away with. The hot cakes disappeared like magic, as did the platters of fried ham, but Mrs Moss and Rosina could produce them with wonderful deftness. In apportioning the ingredients they seemed to know by instinct just how much baking powder and other things to put in, so fast they worked. When Mrs Moss wanted to be very nice to me she used to let me make biscuits. They never came out right. I did not appear to be blessed with the instincts of a cook at all.

  In my memory, Piedmont is famous for one thing. It was there that I had the only earache in my life. It was on my twelfth birthday. It was so bad that Dr Lamb had to be called in, and he amused himself with my consternation as he made hot oil to drop into the aching orifice.

  I left Piedmont for Fairmont, North Carolina, where my sister had decided to go for summer school. Mrs Moss took me as far as Atlanta, where I met my sister. I never went back to Piedmont, but I remember with pleasure the time I spent in its environment.

  One summer when the girls were at a northern summer school, the history tutor asked Mayling to describe Sherman’s march through Georgia. Mayling said, “Pardon me, I am a Southerner, and that subject is very painful to me. May I omit it?”

  A theme of Chingling’s, written and published in 1911, indicates an interest in her country’s problems — and in her own — unusual in an adolescent,

  THE INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN EDUCATED STUDENTS ON CHINA

  China, realizing the great need for modern educated men and women, is sending large numbers of boys and girls abroad every year to study in the Western institutions, and assimilate Western ideals, in fact, to acquire whatever is worthy and good for the progress of that ancient contemporary of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria. The influence of these students when they return extends to almost every sphere of the Chinese National life, especially in Politics, in Education, and in Social Reforms.

  Chinese politics, for many hundred years, have been characterized by nepotism and dishonesty. The government positions have been generally filled by literary scholars, by favorites of the court, and by those who secured these desirable positions by means of “Political Simony.” They were entirely ignorant of the science of government, without even a pretended ability for the administration of the country. The miserable conditions of the people, and the frequent riots and rebellions are some of the results of these disgraceful ways of selecting “competent officials.” But now the conditions are changing and gradually growing better with the dismissal of these office-seekers, and the promotion of the broadly educated returned students to such offices as they can serve best. Graft or “squeezing” is not carried on in open daylight as it used to be. In fact, the ethical standard of the governors and magistrates is much improved through the exemplary conduct of these foreign educated officials. It is largely through their influence, and untiring efforts, that a National Assembly has been formed and an edict issued by the Regent that China will have a Parliament in 1917.

  Education has always held a prominent place in the ideals of the Chinese, but for many centuries education has meant proficiency in the Chinese Classics. But after the Boxer troubles, thinking Chinese began to realize that there was a broader culture than their classics could offer them to be obtained from the more modern education of the West. The Government accordingly invited from abroad eminent professors to lecture in the universities and colleges. Interpreters were employed to translate the lectures into the vernacular, but frequently they proved incompetent, and misrepresented the lectures through ignorance of the subject, and the ridiculous results can be easily imagined. The students returning from Western colleges, competent to present Western ideals to the Chinese in their own tongue, have therefore been welcomed with open arms.

  What these men have done for education in China is almost past belief. Realizing that a sound mind should have a sound body, they have introduced Western athletics and gymnastics into the colleges, and now athletics play an important part in the education of the Chinese youths. A new interest in debating has also sprung up, and in the debating societies the students have learned that “Liberty” and “Equality” are not secured by strikes, riots and political disturbances, but by more general education and enlightenment. By the wise counsel of these men, normal colleges are being established all over the northern and eastern provinces f
or the training of future teachers, with the American and European educated Chinese as professors.

  As for their influence in social reforms, it has been and is great. They have been instrumental in establishing organizations in China for the opium-smokers, who wish to rid themselves forever of their habits. In cities, they have organized the Y.M.C. Associations which have become the social rendezvous of the people. The Chinese boys no longer consider deformed feet beautiful or desirable as they used to, and now refuse to marry girls with maimed feet; they even go so far as to break their childhood engagements, which is a serious thing for China. Who infused such notions into the minds of the boys and men? Not the Government, though it has done much, nor the missionaries alone, though they have played such a great part in this movement. But it was the impression and influence of the returned students. The discarding of the queues all over China is another social reform which is widely agitated by them.

  Sociological reforms are undertaken by all the foreign educated students. They are trying their best to better the conditions of the slums in the cities. The moral condition of slums is everywhere alike, and China is unfortunate in having this part of the population always presented to Americans in missionary lectures and superficial talks of tourists, who seldom see the life of the better classes. Therefore these returned students are now putting all their energies toward lessening the existing evils and reforming the lower classes.

  Thus we have seen how influential the foreign educated students are in China, and what reforms they have already accomplished. China offers a wide field of work, and unlimited opportunities to these returned students, who have proved that they are equal to the task set before them, and are competent to grapple with the great problems of China of today. [From The Wesleyan, student literary magazine, November 1911.]

  In Shanghai, Charlie Soong was working harder and harder at his chosen task of keeping unbroken contact with Sun Yet-sen and his followers in China. Tension was growing. It was almost an open secret that a revolution was soon to take place, and in Chang’s Garden excitement rose to white heat.

  Chang Hsu-ho, that same Chang who had once teased Charlie at the McTyeire kindergarten term play, was owner of a large and lovely garden on the Bubbling Well Road. Today this district is a commercial center, and “Ch’ing An Sz” runs by between the Majestic Apartments and the glass fronts of Arts and Crafts, Dom-bey and Son, and the Chocolate Shop. Then, though, a wall kept Chang’s Garden from the gaze of the non-elect, and those who drifted up to lounge about the gate were country folk, for the Garden was on the very outskirts of town. It was the first even almost-public park in Shanghai for Chinese, though it was maintained for their society people. There was an entrance fee of ten cents to keep out beggars and the poor. Every afternoon at four o’clock they began to arrive: men, women and children in their best clothes, driving or strolling along the paths around the lake and through mazes built of spongy rock. Ladies came from the great walled houses, enjoying their escape from the rigid conventions that were at last relaxing. Young men of fashion brought their “express carriages,” light pony-carts, to show off their stubby little mongolian animals. Out on the roads beyond the Settlement’s residential streets they were accustomed to race one another, treating their occasional arrests and fines by the Municipal Police as a great joke and making the neighborhood perilous for quieter vehicles. But in Chang’s Garden the wildest young rake tempered his spirits and behaved himself. Rare flowers and trees imported from foreign countries, pavilions where tea was consumed, curious rocks scattered about to give a “natural” impression, a little pond and famous flower shows: chrysanthemums in the autumn, plum blossoms in spring, lotus in summer, orchids — Chinese Shanghai delighted so much in the Garden that many people lingered within its walls until midnight. On the slightest provocation there were fireworks from a special platform. Occasionally there were lantern slides or sing-songs.

  Sometimes even at midnight the gates were not closed. That was when the revolutionists held meetings and explained to increasing audiences the aims and ideas of Sun Yat-sen. As his character gained in reputation, so the crowds of Shanghai swelled, listening to his lieutenants expound his arguments and ideals. By the time Eling returned from Georgia to help her father in the endless work of organizing, collecting funds and tabulating the rapidly increasing roster and resources of the Society, these meetings were an open secret.

  It must be remembered that Shanghai is a long way from Peking, and that the Chinese residents of this city were in a peculiarly safe position to contemplate revolution. There were among these merchants and workers few adherents to the Manchu circle. Traders whose livelihood was threatened by the restrictions of the Government, taxpayers from the interior, coolies and petty clerks, and above all the students of China, the eager beginners fresh from their schools and full of confidence and hope — they all listened to Sun Wen’s doctrines and fell under the spell of the little Doctor’s ideal. Already they had had a taste of reform when Kang Yu-wei had for a short time influenced the Emperor Kuang Hsu. Though the old Empress Dowager checkmated the immediate effect of the Hundred Days, she could not wipe out all memory of that swift and tragic adventure. Sun’s men brought more radical hopes to the ears of the Shanghai Chinese, and as they listened they saw how it might be possible to make of their corrupt old country a new nation modeled on the admired United States of America, a government built upon the idea of justice. Most important of all, the poor people heard the Doctor’s promise of the equal distribution of land, and perhaps for the first time learned of a past period when the Manchus had not ruled China. A wave of new hatred for the Manchus swept them. For decades Chinese and Manchus together had forgotten that ancient race discrimination and had been merging. Now the old shame was recalled; the old resentment flared up in the hearts of a new generation; people demanded of themselves why this race should monopolize all the positions of influence. Everything wrong in China was blamed on the Manchus. It had happened before; it has happened since; but those who went to Chang’s Garden at midnight came home in the early morning with what they thought was a new vision.

  For a long time Mrs Soong had remained in peaceful ignorance of her husband’s real work, considering Dr Sun merely his very good friend. She had not joined in the hour-long discussions and political conferences that so absorbed these men — night after night. Perhaps she sometimes cast a worried glance at the clock when she felt that they were chatting too late, and that her husband might be overworking himself, but the subject matter of those long talks was outside her sphere of influence and she did not meddle in the world of men. It had nothing to do, she knew, with the family or the church or Good Works, so she did not pursue the matter. Incredible as it may seem, Mrs Charles Soong was taken completely by surprise when it flashed upon the Chinese public — though many people had been expecting the catastrophe — that Dr Sun was considered by the Throne a dangerous revolutionary and a menace to society. There was a price on his head, on the head of that good Sun who was so gentle with the children and such a pleasant house guest.

  Further shocks were in store for her. It was not enough that she should have been ignorant of the Doctor’s activities, she who was his hostess, while the whole city of Shanghai evidently knew more than she did. The danger came even nearer home. Charles himself, her husband, was threatened. He had not been named in the first list of “traitors,” but he watched the reports alertly, and bade her be ready for any emergency . . . . Where an American woman would have stormed and accused her husband of jeopardizing his family, she absorbed the shock in intelligent silence and made plans to follow him if he should be forced out of the country. He, Soong Yao-ju, model citizen, pillar of the church, excellent husband and the best of providers, was actually in danger of being exiled or even — a thought almost incredibly horrible — executed, and for treason!

  Fortunately for the Soongs’ family life, the Empress had missed his name during the first crisis of 1898. Sun fled to Japan, and Mrs So
ong got over the shock and even began, to support her husband’s cause. In the next years they had been always under the shadow of danger; Mayling and the two younger boys, Tseliang and Tsean, were born into a house where the trunks, figuratively speaking, were never closed and put away. Now these years were perhaps drawing to a close. Soon they would know if the many false starts and alarms, the toil, the endless routine, would mean everything or nothing. There had been such hopes and frights before, many times . . . .

  CHAPTER VII

  China in 1910

  Eling had stepped out of the lazy, pleasant, warm life of a southern United States college into the tense, medieval atmosphere of pre-revolution. To return at all was a terrific change; to come into Shanghai in 1910 was a greater one.

  It is always a tragedy for the overseas Chinese student that he must make not one, but two difficult adjustments. Hardly has he adapted himself to an entirely new life far away from his home and family than the years have passed by, swiftly as they always do for the young, and he must go back to a land grown strange and unsympathetic.

  Eling had left Shanghai a child in ill-fitting clothes and her hair in a braid; she returned six years later a fashionable young woman. Perhaps she had a chip on her shoulder: there is no doubt that the good people of Shanghai carried chips on theirs. For six years she had been imbibing the ideas of America, and like her father she felt that she must now take up the burden of changing Chinese civilization in order to bring it as near as possible to her heart’s desire, which was modeled on the United States of America. She was shocked, too, by the attitude of the foreigners. Just as Charlie had been, she was now subjected to a first sight of their arrogance abroad.