China and the West

Ferdinand Weinbrenner ist Missionar der Basler Mission in China.

Arnold Weissenbruch ist Missionar der Basler Mission in China.

Heinrich Wyder ist Missionar der Basler Mission in China.

Gustav Bernick arbeitet in Kobe, dann in Harbin bei Bernick & Münster Company.

Hermann Bohner ist als Missionar der AEPM, der späteren Ostasien Mission in Qingdao.

Leo Duvenbeck ist für das Seaside Hotel in Qingdao tätig.

Wilhelm Haupt ist Angestellter der Firma Seidel, Siebold & Co. in Qingdao.

Rückreise von Hermann Hinzpeter nach Hamburg.

Karl Kappler ist für die Firma Tsinan Trading Co. tätig und kehrt 1924 nach Deutschland zurück.

Johannes Müller gründet und leitet eine eigene Speditions- und Kommissionsfirma in Qingdao.

Herbert von Borch leitet die deutsche Kommission in Beijing. Verhandlungen mit China über einen Friedensvertrag. Kurt Schirmer ist Mitglied der Kommission.

Katharina Voget ist Leiterin der chinesischen Mädchenschule und 1924-1927 nebenbei Lehrerin für Französisch und Englisch an der Deutschen Schule in Qingdao.

Carl August Kollecker gründet eine Seminarvorschule in Guangzhou.

Paul Reissig ist Missionar der Berliner Mission in China. 1920-1926 in Lukeng, 1926-1936 in Qingyuan, 1938 in Guangzhou-Xiafancun als Lehrer der Mittelschule und der deutschen Schule.

Heinrich Wahl ist Missionar der Berliner Mission in Shixing (Shaoguan, Guangdong).

Lungenpestepidemie in der Mandschurei. Heinrich Manfred Jettmar wird mit der Pestbekämpfungsabteilund der obersten Sanitätsbehörde betraut.

Wilhelm Seufert studiert Sinologie in Hamburg.

Letter from Lucy Dewey to Dewey children
135 Morrison Street, Sunday, Jan 4 [1920]
Dear Folks.
Its been perfect ages since I have written but I have inumerable alibis. In the first place when we first decided to furnish the flat ourselves I went with Mamma to furniture street to look for stuff. I got so cold running around their old stone houses that I was laid up in bed with tonsilitis for two days. I rose from my bed of pain to go to Mrs Hortons dance and it quite cured me. Also I had a very nice time. There are a lot of Italian officers here arranging for D'Annunzios Rome Tokyo flight. They are like Italian officers every where and most amusing. Also Admiral Gleaves and all his staff were there, much gold lace and uniforms.
The next day was spent in frantice packing, moving, and buying furniture and a tea dance in the afternoon by way of a rest. I see Dad has writ[t]en numerous letters and told about Shantung. We had an interesting time there and in some ways quite entertaining. You should have seen us chummig with the savage Ma Liang. I sat next him at the Governors dinner and as he is a Mohamedan he couldnt eat anything. I couldnt converse with him very well and neither did the man on the other side so he amused himself by brushing his mustache with a cunning little brush he carries in his pocket. He has the best manners and seems the most amiable of any of those people we have met except Tuchun Yen of Shansi. He may put his old family doctor to death by torture but he doesnt act that way in public.
We stopped for three days in Tientsin, got there New Years Eve with our trunk delayed and so were exiled to a remote place outside the dining room for diner. There are street cars in Tientsin and we were so thrilled by the sight that we promptly jumped on one and rode. There isnt a great deal there in the way of sights, just the concessions, like any small town, and the Chinese city.
It was very interesting, the first place in China where the Chinese women get out-and-do things that Ive seen. They say Tientsin and Shanghai are the only two. They men and women students work together on committees and in a small audience of about thirty that Suh Hu [Hu Shi] spoke to they sat together. The girls that came to receive us were the nicest and most interesting that I have met in China. They can talk, which is a great relief, start conversations of their own accord and not have things pulled out by questions all the time. And they talk about everything that a girl at home talks about. Two of them, cunning little mites of things, are going to America next year to prepare for college and are planning to go about the same time we do, so we may come home with them under our arms. I hope so.
Poor Mamma has been out all morning buying dishpans and things so we can have something to eat without sponging off the neighbors.
6.30 p.m.
Mother and I have been in the house about half an hour now after a wild afternoon hunting for a parlor table and soem cooking things. The rickshaw man has just come up to say that the soldiees are looting out un the Chinese city and all the shops are shut. We seem to have got in just in time that is where we were. It all looked peaceful enough then. There have been rumors of an attempt to restore the boy emperor and we are wondering if this is the first act. I have just been out in the kitchen to tell the boy to go down and see what he could find out from the people in the street and the cook informed me Liu go down side. So as soon as Liu go top side again I shall continue this and tell you what he has found out.
Ha says that last night the soldiers roobeed a Chinese bank and tonight are robbing more. They Belong to Feng Kuo Chang an ec-president now deceased. He died a few days ago and omitted to pay the soldiers before so doing. They haveny been paid in four months and now apparently they are collecting. This afternoon when Mamma and I first went out we passed a lot of soldiers taking a huge gun along the streets and this explains it. There may be no end of trouble now as the whole administration is in a mess from the teachers strike. Chancellor Tsai has resigned and disappeared again and it looks as tho the whole educational system had gone kersmash. Now the rest may go too. The soldiers are recruited f[r]om the brigands and the brigands from the ex-soldiers, so there isnt much choice. On the whole the soldiers behave pretty well when they are paid, but nobody in China has been paid now for several months. This mornings paper had an awful story about the soldiers in Tsinanfu, which we seem to have left just in time. There they enteres a theater where the studenys were celebrating New Years with some plays they gave themselves. The soldiers boke in and attacked the students, beating them down, two were injured so badly that they may die. The girls were attacked and robbed, some even of their clothes. The military police finally came to the rescue and drove out the police and recovered some of the stolen property. The city is under martial law, I never saw so many soldiers standind around with their bayonets fixed in my life nd hope I never do again. It gives you creepy feeling, not at all pleasant to come on a large bunch of bayonets every tim[e] you go round a corner.
Well, I must finish this and get it off or it will hang on forever. We found a lot of mail waiting for us and it sure was welcome. Loads of love to all and I hope Elizabeth had a nice birthday.
[Lucy Dewey]

Letter from John Dewey to John Jacob Coss
135 Morrison St Peking Jan 13 '20
Dear Coss,
Our letters crossed each other, so I hope mine, with the statement of courses, reached you in season. The day it yours came one of my Chinese friends brought up the question of my staying another year I am anxious to get home, and yet age has crept upon me enough so that the ease of living here, to say nothing of more intrinsic values, is tempting, especially as letters are full of the high cost of living, the difficulty of getting "help" etc. In a small and modest flat, with a family of three we have three servants for less than one would cost at home in wages—and they feed themselves, except of course for sqweeze on us, and we pay the highest going rate. Doubtless one smart man could do the work of these three, but the large population of China has to be kept alive and going somehow, and everything in China, tempo of work and the sobiability of numbers as well as the rate of pay is adapted to that fact. Well I started out to say that the question of our remaning another year had been tentatively raised. It will take a month or six weeks to have anything definite come of the suggestion, but Im mentioning it now so if a cablegram comes from me you will have some word. It has been a worth while experience, not so much for things specifically learned as for the entirely new perspective and horizon in general. Nothing western looks quite the same an[y] more, and this is as near to a renewal of youth as can be hoped for in this world. From this distance our sectrain differences in philosoph[y] look as technical and unreal as our similar differences in religion. Whether I am accomplishing naything as well as getting a great deal is another matter. China remains a massive blank and impenetrable wall, when it comes to judgment. My guess is that what is accomplished is mostly by way of "giving face" to the younger liberal element. Its a sort of outside reinforcement in spite of its vagueness. Other times I think Chinese civilization is so thick and selfcentred that no foreign influence presented via a foreigner even scratches the surface. However some of the younger Chinese, among whom our Suh Hu [Hu Shi] is a marked leader are keeping things stirred up. At present the war is on on the old family system, with a demand for the emancipation of women—which doesn[t] mean the vote which amounts to nothing as yet for the men, but breaking down the truly Oriental seclusion and subjection. Most foreigners her[e] are more conservative here than the liberal Chinese. A large part of the missionary elecent, especially the older ones, have compensated for their temerity in introducing new religious ideas and rites by outdoing the Chinese in social conservatism. in other lines. Some of the younger men are marked excpetions. The Rockefeller medical foundation here has coeducation and its head Roger Greene (not a physician but administrative head) is urging coeducation on all the missionary colleges.
I was much interested in your college news which is the first Ive had, especially of course in the new course which sounds most promising, also oin the salary matter. The younger married men must have been in an awful condition with the hcl[High cost of living]. If there is anything printed about the mental test etc matter I wish you would have it sent me. I hope go out to the Boxer indemnity college once a week, Tsing Hua and can use it there. The "college" has in reality but about a year's college work; many of the men are disconcerted because some American colleges give two and even three years college credit, except in engineering lines where but the one year is given. This is producing internal friction in the institution as the engineering, or rather scientific men, think they are discriminated aginst, not in America but at home. The problem of sending students to America and what to do with they return de[f]inite[?] and exact idea of the problem. I wish [Adam Leroy] Jones could get a meeting of the some of the representative at Chinese students there, especia[l]ly those with a Tsing Hua background, and get their ideas of the problem and of the defects in the present method. Illogically [p]erhaps without a clear idea of the elements of the problem I have come to a conclusion about one element in its solution—that Tsing Hua should become a four year college and send to America a smaller number, but more mature and advanced, for specialed graduate work. One of the great questions is the demand for technical studies at the expense of students getting much real idea of western civilization. Looked at from this end, it wouldnt be a bad idea to have all Chinese students (and Japanese too) required to take your new frsshman course, even the graduate and technical students. This is meant seriously. I dont belive the problem of Oriental students ca[n] be dealt with satisfactorily till some especial arrangements are made for them in spite of its upsetting uniformity of administration. Over here they would probably strike before they would go back into a freshman course, but the losing face element wouldnt be so strong there…
Sincerely yours, John Dewey.

Letter from John Dewey to Albert C. Barnes
135 Morrison St, Peking Jan 15 '20
Dear Barnes,… On account of the intepretation I have to write my articles lecture notes out much more fully than ever before, several a week, and whe[n] I have written home and the articles I contracted for with N R and Asia, I have am more than satiated with writing. Howver that doesnt apply the last few weeks, for Ive been on strike—dont let [A. (Alexander) Mitchell] Palmer know or Ill be deported. The Peking teacher went on strike late in Dec because they were behind in pay three months and were getting paid fifty percent in depreciated notes, worth fifty on the dollar at that. The minister of Education with a truly American fatuity of officials instead of least appearing to sympathize with them rather ridiculed him so they demanded his scalp too. Then he tried to set the students against the teachers and the former then demanded his scalp also. Up to this time many of the teachers had been quite consrvative and opposed to the student movement. Now they are rather solidified. The teachers got this week everything they were after except the dismissal of the minister. That would have broug[ht] the whole cabinet tumbling down. My strike was rather an enforces sympathetic, as I have no grievances at all, but it makes a good story just the same. All countries are alike tho the level differs. Here any liberal sentiment at all, say as much so as the platituudes of the N Y Times on the liberalism of the past that has become orthodox, [pencil comma] is regarded as out and out Bolshevism, I see from the cables that the latest form of propaganda is that Japan must again intervene in Siberia ifn order to prevent the Bolshvising of China. Land is divided here and the farmers are the real country and factory industry is in its infancy. There is as much danger of Bolshevizing China as there is of the farmers of Berks Co turning Bols. But verything goes when it comes to propaganda. The only question left is the depths of human gullibility. If the Japanese try to hold Siberia, it is the beginning of the end in my opinion and there is that [in pencil w. caret] much reason for hoping the propaganda will succeed. There is one danger. Gt Britain and France may promise J something and get tied up to back her. It is disgusting by the way what a pawnbroking business the big nations do over here—making China loans of a few millions dollars conditioned often on her buying something she doesnt want at a big discoun | high rate of interest, and with a view to getting a mortgage on something in the future. Then, while the western powers wouldnt dream of doing such things nearer home where there is publicity, the Chinese naturally conclude this is the general western standard
I was interested in your suggestion about a seminar in esthetics. But I cant rise to my part in it. I have always eschewed esthetics, just why I dont know, but I think it is because I wanted to reserve one region from a somewhat devastating analysis, one part of experience where I didnt think more than I did anything else. And now I have a pretty fixed repulsion agt all esthetic discussion. I feel about it precisely as the average intelligent man feels about all philosophical discussion, including the branches that excite me very much…
I recd a letter the other day asking me to join the Leuage for Oppressed Peoples. Im thinking of writing back and saying I will when they include the U S among the oppressed peoples—its shameful that about the only U S news we get here is raids, deportations, semi-officials lynchings, strikes etc.
China is in many respects the Europe of the 17th century. The rest of the world wont give her two centuries in which to develop in her own way. Meanwhile the Asia of Russia, China and India is a tremendous fact. At bottom the situation is much like two locomotives plunging at each other—the distance between them is great but they are both getting momentum—or rather the smallest one has great momentum and the big one is beginnin[g] to get it. This sounds pessimistic. Meantime, China is a most interesting spot to live in and also, compared with reports of hcl and lack of service in America a delightfully easy one. I wrote somebody the other day it had the nearest effect to a renewal of youth conceivable. It places everythin[g] in a new perspective so nothing looks alike as it did before. The other day we had the opportunity to see some of the best old Chinese paintings still remaining in China, Sung dynasty and in perfect conditions. Sorry you werent along. To my surprise, in the best the technique was so wonderful that it seemed to get ahead of the feeeling. But I think that is because from lack of background and of [in pencil w. caret] sufficiently long acquintance with the pictures, [in pencil w. caret] it is easier to get the technique than the feeling. Howver there is no doubt the Chinese are virtuosos all right, the cultivated ones. Their devotion to handwriting, to characters shows that. Lots of them devote an hour or two a day to it, just making the characters for practise, and it is my impression they regard it as a higher art than painting or anything directly representative in art. For handling of strokes—that word seems better than lines—both in themselves and in spacing, [pencil comma] I dont believe the world has naything finer to show than two or three of these paintings we saw—men whose names I didnt recognize—which is fairly typical of our general provincialism with respect to Asia.
We have engaged passage home for next August. Evelyn is now on her way to Vancouver and will join us in about a month. Please give our regards to Mrs Barnes, and with the same to you,
Sincerely yours, John Dewey