China and the West

Letter from John Dewey to Alice Chipman, Evelyn, & Lucy Dewey
Nanking, April 14 [1920]
Dear family,
Thanks especially to mamma for full and good letters. You probably know more about the strike than I do; it begins in Shanghai for one week today, here to morrow the students have no enthusiasm for it. There is certainly politics connected with it, more politics than there seemed to be in the Peking movement. The general opinion here is that it is the Shanghai students who are most back of it—that and the fact that having a general conference of delegates from all over, they had to find something to do. As to the politcs, so far as I can make out the student leaders think that they can use the 8 Tuchun leuague to help overthrow the present Anfu club domination—and I dont kno doubt the Tuchuns think they will use the students for their ends. The gossip is that the President [Hsu Shih-chang] is now in favor of the student movement. This sudden turn is said to be that due to the fact that the rivalry with Tuan [Chi-jui] has now reached a pointe where he wants popular support for himself and Ching [Chin Yun-peng]. Quite as likely the whole rumor started in the mere fact that the president received the Ymcas after Tuan had attempted to prevent the convention from meeting—the officials woill now be sure that the stirke is a consequence of the Tientsin meeeting. Another rumor said to be influencing the students is that Lamont has promised them financial support if they show they have the courage to do something! He may be interested in this rumor. Of course I cant say how widely circulated or believed these stories are, any more than the one that the students adopted from me the slogan that militarism must go. Its a good sentiment, but I havent the pride of originality about it. Mr Roy Anderson4 called on ment the other day with a Korean rebel conspirator and a local Chinese, and said that Mr Lamont was the first man who had been over here who had been big enough to see and talk to everybody, gave the students in Shanghai half an hour appointment and then talked to them two and a half and once when he asked them what they wanted he should do, one of the students replied "Go home", and Mr L took it goddnaturedly and said he would if he found he couldnt do something of benefit to the people. Also that the officials tried to keep him cornered but he wouldnt be. Nothing was said however about our friend Sokolsky; it would be interesteding to know if in his itch for sensationalism he had been stirring up the strike. The Korean was bound for Vladivostok and told with pride about the millions of yen the Koreans were subsrcibing to start patriotic newspapers, and also the number of indutrial companies, over 250 which had been started in the last year for encouraging Korean industry. He had been in prison several years so he must be old at the game. Mr Anderson think that if the Allies dont interfere to protect Japan an alliance between Koreans, Chinese and Russians in Siberia and Manchuria which will in time by guerilla warfare drive out Japanese is inevitable. The present reports from Siberia put Mr Ono's remarks about desire for cooperation in Siberia in the unfortunate light which events have a way of placing Japanese propaganda.
I am living in a missionary house under the hill you spoke of, and maybe Mrs Malone is the one you spoke of; she is in America. However I have heard of two others who sometimes do that business and am on their trail. Tuesday afternoon and evening I teaed and dined at Mr Williams, the acting presidents—he is more cultivated than Mr Bowen, but also I think more conservative. He knows lots about Chinese and China tho. In 1900 spent a year in Japan with C T Wang and the Chinese students, of whom there were then 15000—he says that Chinese brought home a lot of new ideas, and evidently thinks that in spite of everything their going to Japan has been a great factor in producing the present new tendencies. Says Chinese were exploited in every posiible way; men used to get them into their homes, entangle them with their wives and daughters and then blackmail them. At the tea there were several Chinese women, among them the kindergartner, Mrs Wang and a cunning two year old girl, Mrs Won and the two celebrated boys that came in answer to prayer as a miraculous proof of the truth of Chritianity etc. The boys were about the size of "us boys" in the picture of the four of us, and their clothes were so like ours in the picture, and their hair cut the same way, that it was funny. They have two new semi Chinese buildings about up, the big administrative one rather ugly, the small one for a chapel is going to be quite lovely. At Mr Plimpton' suggestion they are going to set up a few of the old examination stalls Thursday, the 15th in the campus. Yesterday is my offday for work. Mr Tao and Liu cam around about nine, with a young brother of C T Wang who is on his way back to Shanghai and took me off for the day. We went to the Rain Blossom Hill whence come the pebbles, lots of peddlars, children with the coarser ones, like ours, following you around with baskets and finally offering to sell the whole lide for ega mau [illeg.], up to the aristocratic ones who have their stands and their best speices under glass with fancy names attached, the moon in the sea, etc, and prices according—one with a Chinese character like happiness on it for sixten dollars I came home with some pretty ones; then we went to the examination halls again, to the public gardens, to a lake we didnt go to before, in whose tea house the first Ming emperor used to play chess with his prime minister, a Chinese restaurant on the canal opposite the exam halls where we ate in The Flowery Boat on the canal, and to a big buddhist monastery, where we saw the sutra scriptures, 7000 vols, as well as the usual ten thousand buddhas; also we we were leaving there was service in the temple, so we waited. At first the music sounded to my ears much like negro chanting; its more hypnotic than catholic mass, more soothing to the nerves; if I were near Id go in everyday.
Our weather is evidently cooler than yours. No hot days, rather chilly on the whole; the ewather we had here last May much the hottest of whole summer they say, also hottest ever. Strike begins today, but they say they will go on with my lectures
There are single beds here for everybody. But bring sheets and pillow cases for your beds also a comforter or quilt apeice. A few towels would probably come in handy, but there arent sheets enough to go around, and bringing your own is part of the recognized scheme of living with missionaries. Also they dont drink coffee which means it is pretty bad; it wouldnt be a bad idea to have a couple of cans accidentally left over and bring em. Sorry to hear about Evelyn; quite likely the damp her and absence of dust will be a good thing for her, tho there isnt much to do here, except that wandering the streets one gets much more insight into life here than in Peking, things more open, and women much more in evidence, keeping shop, working with men etc. Better bring two tennis rackets, one for me as I think Ill have to start playing.
Lots of love to everybody John