A TRIP TO HANOI, 1937

A Missionary Life:
Rev. J. Wesley Day
China, Malaysia, Indonesia

Side Trip: A Trip to Hanoi, January 1937

In Kalgan, China, the long school vacation took place in the winter for a full month or so. I spent these vacations seeing what I could of China.

In January 1937, during that winter's break, I took the train from Kalgan to Beijing, 100 miles south of Kalgan and then took the train on down to Hankow and from there must have taken the bus to Chung Sha where Yale-in-China had its headquarters. It was easy for missionaries to travel, for they could just stop in with other missionaries, paying a small amount to cover the cost of their stay. So I stayed in Chung Sha with a Yale-in-China pastor/teacher, an American family. I planned the next day to take a bus over the mountains to the Methodist work in Fukien province. (Chung Sha is in Central china, and there was a motor road to Fukien, requiring a day or two to get there). However, the day before, the bus I was going to take was held up by robbers, and as a result, there were no buses going to Fukien. Instead, i went to Guei Lin.

While travelling I would carry my little Remington typewriter. As the bus was bumping along, I would write of what I saw and mail it home to my parents. Central China does not speak Mandarin very well, but met a man from Shan-dung, the home of Confucious. Shan-dung means east of the mountains. This man was travelling with his nephew from their store in Shandung province, to a store owned by the family in Kunming. We got acquainted and we could talk the same language, so in Guei Lin he made the hotel arrangements and we saw the sights. Quei Lin is one of China’s beauty spots.

Then we continued to Kunming. There’s a railway from Hanoi to Kunming. My friend made the hotel arrangements wherever we went and in Hanoi we stayed in a Chinese hotel. Being Chinese he got special rates from the hotel so we paid at a commercial discount. Also at the hotel they put us on the train for Kunming. The next morning very early we were at the train station escorted by the hotel people who had bought the tickets.

The tickets they bought were 5th class. The train was a freight car with the doors open, containing benches for people to sit on. The passengers were mainly people going to and from the market, with their chickens to sell, a pig here and there, all country people. Enough were Chinese so we could talk with them. After a while I noticed some sores on the leg of a boy talking to us. I rmembered I had with me some mercurichrome. I asked if he would like some mercurichrome put on his sore. I put some on his sore. Then everyone in the neighborhood with a sore wanted to have it painted with mercurichrome.

Then one man--I looked at his sore and decided my mercurichrome wouldn’t do him any good -- it was too bad. I told him he must go to a mission hospital for attention . I gave him my card and wrote on it, "please take care of this man and send the bill to me." Then I asked my friend, do you know why I am doing this, sending him to a mission place for attention? One of the boys said, "I know, I know. You’re doing good deeds." I remembered a course in Buddhism I had had in Oberlin the year I went to China and in one of the schools of Buddhism they teach that to improve your lot in the world to come you may do good deeds and they will be remembered and improve your standing in the next world. I neither agreed nor disagreed with the boys. Except that it was important for this man’s illness that he get to a hospital.

The French inspector came on the train, saw me with a white face, and he said, this man cannot go fifth class. I don’t speak French. The inspector did not speak English. My frend spoke for me and said, "he has no money." I did not say yes or no. They persuaded him to allow me to stay in fifth class to Kunming.

Kunming is famous for having many tunnels. In Kunming I stayed at the YMCA. Chinese New Year came. I was invited to my Chinese friend’s peoples’ store for the Chinese New Year dinner, so I went. We had watermelon seeds and perhaps peanuts and tea and spent a long time doing that. I wondered when we would get to to eat. Eventually we did, a special Chinese dinner. Then immediately after dinner, we all said pleasant goodbyes and left. This surprised me but everyone else did so I did too. Then I learned that while in the West, we eat soon after arrival and then sit with our hosts enjoying converstion, in the Chinese culture, you sit around and talk before dinner--then when dinner is over, you leave.

From Kunming the problem was how to get home again to north China. In Kunming there was a China Inland Mission, also a British Methodist mission, and also a British and Foreign Bible Society man there and his wife. The Bible Society man invited me to stay with them. The China Inland Mission people arranged for me to take a trip to visit the Meo tribespeople in Kunming, so I spent one night at a China Inland Mission among the Meo tribespeople. I rode a donkey to get there and I had my Chinese fur coat. I remember that the side of me that was in the shade was cold, but where the sun was shining, I was warm, so I covered the shady side with the coat. Among the Meo tribespeople, the unmarried women tie their hair in one know, the married women two. The Meo have a different language and customs than the Chinese.

The language in southwest China is a kind of Mandarin, as is West Chinese--just an accent, but you can communicate. I heard from the Chinese there that a few years before, the Communists had been there and they had marched the missionaries through the streets to embarass them. But one missionary said that he looked with love at the people among wom he was being marched, but the people had looked on them, because of the communist teaching, with hate. However, when he looked with love, they stopped looking with hate.

I wanted to get to the Burma Road, but there wasn’t time. There was an airplane that would fly on a certain day from Kunming to Chengtu and I knew that would enable me to get home on time. So I took the plane. Instead of checking everything, which would have been very expensive, I wore everything I could, including my fur-lined coat, which was uncomfortable because the plane was very hot--but I survived and arrived at Chengtu, where there is a West China Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. I had wired ahead that I would be arriving from Kunming and although no missionary met me, someone did--it looked like a gold plated rickshaw. I then stayed with Dr. Williams at the Chengtu Methodist mission.

I spent just a day or two in Chengtu, then from Chengtu took a bus to Chungking and then a boat down the river. It was a several day journey down the river. On the boat there was no regular way to eat. There was a cook. You cook buy food such as he would cook. Among the people I met was a school teacher; together we dickered with the man who cooked, so we had good food. (As to its cleanliness, I will say nothing). One of the people in our talking group could look hard and coolies would run when he looked hard at them. When we came to a landing and wanted to go somewhere, I would watch the baggage while others did what they needed.

At one town there was a Chinese theater which was having a big performance, so our group decided to go to the Chinese theater. By that time, in our group there was a boy in his teens and his younger brother He said, I will not go. He had heard that there would be women actors in the theater--and it was against Confucian teaching for women to act in the theater. But i went with the group and they did NOT have women actors. I took a mental note that the Confucian boy was very faithful to the teaching of his parents.

The boat went as far as Hankow, then I took the train to Peking. As we went through Peking there was an auction, and on sale was a Victor phonograph, a full sized piece of furniture. It didn’t cost much so I bought it and managed somehow to get it to Kalgan. So I had a phonograph. In a few days there came from our supporters in Maryland some phonographs records ---- Caruso and others, so I now had a means of playing them.

After the war, there was a Central Conference held at Fukien and a delegtion went from Peking. By that time the union of the three branches of Methodism had taken place, so we joined the delegation to Fukien. There I decided that though it was an old and important work, the food was not as agreeable as Chengtu, so when I had to decide later, I chose Chengtu. Those people who were in Fukien did not have too good a time after the Communists came in, but in Chengtu when they came in, they had already won the hearts of the people in their esape from Chianxi province, and they made common cause with the people who were suffering from a corrupt government. We thought we would be in Chengtu two years before they came in but it turned out to be one.

Dictated December 26, 1998
edited by Jackson H. Day