My Life in China and America

by Joseph Hopkins Twichell, Yung Wing, T.S. Wentworth (Foreword)

This book, from the series Primary Sources: Historical Books of the World (Asia and Far East Collection), represents an important historical artifact on Asian history and culture. Its contents come from the legions of academic literature and research on the subject produced over the last several hundred years. Covered within is a discussion drawn from many areas of study and research on the subject. From analyses of the varied geography that encompasses the Asian continent to significant time periods spanning centuries, the book was made in an effort to preserve the work of previous generations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Audiobook, China, Autobiography

322 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Royce Ratterman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice account of the author's life as he unfolds it from childhood.
Read for personal historical research. I found this work of immense interest and its contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
Overall, this work is also a good resource for the researcher and enthusiast.
- Excerpt:
'The people of Canton attempted to raise a provincial insurrection or rebellion entirely distinct from the Taiping rebellion which was being carried on in the interior of China with marked success. To suppress and nip it in the bud, drastic measures were resorted to by Viceroy Yeh Ming Hsin, who, in the summer of 1855, decapitated seventy-five thousand people, most of whom, I was told, were innocent. My residence was within half a mile of the execution ground, as stated above, and one > day, out of curiosity, I ventured to walk over to the place. But, oh! what a sight. The ground was perfectly drenched with human blood. On both sides of the driveway were to be seen headless human trunks, piled up in heaps, waiting to be taken away for burial. But no provision had been made to facilitate their removal. The execution was carried on on a larger scale than had been expected, and no provision had been made to find a place large enough to bury all the bodies. There they were, left exposed to a burning sun. The temperature stood from morning to night in midsummer steadily at 90° Fahrenheit, and sometimes higher. The atmosphere within a radius of two thousand yards of the execution ground was heavily charged with the poisonous and pestilential vapor that was reeking from the ground already over-saturated with blood and from the heaps of corpses which had been left behind for at least two days, and which showed signs of rapid decomposition.
But this human monster did not dream that his day of reckoning was fast approaching. Several years after this appalling sacrifice of human life, in 1855, he got into trouble with the British government. He was captured by the British forces and banished to some obscure and remote corner in India where he led a most ignominious life, hated by the whole Chinese nation, and despised by the world at large.'
- My Life in China and America by Wing Yung

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wing is truly a fastianting case. My fascination towards him stems from reading about the late Qing Dynasty’s Chinese Educational Mission from 1872–1881, which was Wing’s idea. Wing, born in China, had a very atypical experience of a “Chinaman” (as he calls himself, and the society calls Chinese at the time). Born as a son of a vegetable peddler, he was lucky enough to study under western schooling system. He later was sent aboard to the US to a prep school and eventually barely - as he noted - graduated from Yale College, became the first Chinese ever graduated from Yale. Wing had the perspective of an American (in fact, he volunteered to join the civil war for the union), as well as a Chinese (later becoming a bureaucrat for the Qing - or as Wing constantly referred to as the Manchu - Dynasty. Funny enough, since he was educated in the western environment since he was so young, he had to learn Chinese later in his life).

This book has several themes. The first theme I was very curious about was America's attitude towards Chinaman at the time. It appears fascinating enough that America was both racist towards Chinese, as well as welcoming towards Chinese: For the well educated Chinese (Wing being one of them) who are culturally assimilated to the Western culture, being a Chinese was not a negative nor positive. If anything, it gained Wing fame within the well educated sphere, as Wing wrote:

Being the first Chinaman who had ever been known to go through a first-class American college, I naturally attracted considerable attention; and from the fact that I was librarian for one of the college debating societies (Linonia was the other) for two years, I was known by members of the three classes above, and members of the three classes below me. This fact had contributed toward familiarizing me with the college world at large, and my nationality, of course, added piquancy to my popularity.

On the other hand, when Wing was later in charge of the Chinese Educational Mission, he found that American colleges did not allow Chinese students to matriculate, as he wrote:

... some of the students were advanced enough in their studies for me to make an application to the State Department for admittance to the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The answer to my application was: “There is no room provided for Chinese students.”... The race prejudice against the Chinese was so rampant and rank that [...] my application for the students to gain entrance to Annapolis and West Point was treated with cold indifference and scornful hauteur…

But on a side note: those students from China who got sent abroad did not attend regular prep schools. The schools they got sent to were elite prep schools to this date. Obviously as the direct result of the robust financial backings of the mission at the time. Andover, for instance, still maintains a website chronicles their Chinese students of yesteryears: https://chinesestudents.andover.edu/

But the inhuman treatment of Chinaman was more amplified in the human trafficking of the Chinese to Central as well as South America at the time. Wing at one point was appointed by China as an investigator, as he wrote:

... the country people were inveigled and kidnapped, put into barracoons and kept there by force till they were shipped on board, where they were made to sign labor contracts either for Cuba or Peru. On landing at their destination, they were then sold to the highest bidder, and made to sign another contract with their new masters, who took special care to have the contract renewed at the end of every term, practically making slaves of them for life.

(Sadly enough, the said Chinese human trafficking is still happening today.)

The second theme has to do with China. While Wing was disappointed with America at times, he was vastly more disappointed with the Chinese government. Upon his first return to China, he quickly wrote of what he has seen:

The people of Canton attempted to raise a provincial insurrection or rebellion entirely distinct from the Taiping rebellion which was being carried on the interior of China with marked success. To suppress and nip it in the bud, drastic measures were resorted to by Viceroy Yeh Ming Hsin, who, in the summer of 1855, decapitated seventy-five thousand people, most of whom, I was told, were innocent… I venture to walk over to the place. But oh! What a sight. The ground was perfectly drenched with human blood. On both sides of the driveway were to be seen headless human trunks, piled up in heaps, waiting to be taken away for burial. But no provision had been made to facilitate their removal.

On the historical precedents of rebellions and revolutions in China, Wing commented:

There have been at least twenty-four dynasties and as many attendant rebellions or revolutions. But with the exception of the Feudatory period, revolutions in China (since the consolidation of the three Kingdoms into one Empire under the Emperor Chin) meant only a change of hands in the government, without a change either of its form, or principles. Hence the history of China for at least two thousand years, like her civilization, bears the national impress of a monotonous dead level - jejune in character, wanting in versatility of genius, and almost devoid of historic inspiration.

Wing was a huge advocate for reforming China. At the same time period, Meiji Restoration - a revolution that cemented Japan’s position to this date, something many Japanese are still proud of to this day - was gaining steam and Japan was rapidly becoming an imperial power. Yet, the late Qing Dynasty, due to their structural as well as cultural inadequacy, refused to change. As Wing wrote:

the thoroughly corrupt condition of the administrative system of China. From the Dowager Empress down to the lowest and most petty underling in the Empire, the whole political fabric was honeycombed with what American characterize as graft - a species of political barnacles…

Later on in Wing’s life, he saw Japan’s increasing imperial ambition and expansion in the continent. He did briefly mention some of them, but didn’t go into detail.

Overall, indeed a fascinating read. This book, written in early 1900s of someone in 1800s shows that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author was born in South China, but came to the US for high school and college (Yale) through the help of missionaries and benefactors. After years in America, he returns to China to find that his Chinese language has become rusty. He embarks on some business enterprises and ultimately convinces the Chinese government to create a program to sponsor Chinese students to study in the US. I would have liked the memoir to focus more on his time in America. The majority of the book deals with the various ventures he was joined with the goal of improving his home country. I would have liked to know in detail how he met his American wife, what life in college was like for him, etc. Nevertheless, what a remarkable life he led considering the time setting (mid-late 19C) when it took close to 3 months to sail from Hong Kong to New York around the Cape of Good Hope.

[Aokizen · Rating 5 out of 5]

历时37天读完。容闳，出生于190年前的1828年，第一位从耶鲁毕业的中国人，但如果仅仅如此，是不足以称他为“留学生之父”的。在留美期间他就思考自己的未来事业，曾想过当基督传教士，但他的爱国情绪使他萌发了一个送中国学生来美国留学的计划。回国16年后，这个计划在曾国藩的组织下终于能够实现了。其实之前容闳给曾国藩提出的自强提案除了送学生出国留学外还包括：成立中国纯国资的机械工厂（后容闳被委派出国购买机器成功成立了后来的上海江南机械制造局），限制传教士在中国过大的权利等几点。但该提案一直没有通过，直到1870年发生了“天津教案”，我想“限制传教士权利”才是清廷能过接受此提案的真正原因。但是非常遗憾的是，1880年，在第一批留美学子于1871年出国后9年，该留学计划由于政府腐败、清廷党派之争和美国的违约被叫停了，可以说容闳半生的心血付诸东流了。容闳是丁汝昌的好友，马克吐温一生的挚友。他把一生奉献给了中国的自强之路，80岁高龄后仍然为中国革命匿名奔走（已被清廷通缉）。通过他的自传，能够很深切地感受到当时晚清政府的腐败，很多中国保守人士对世界认识的落后，也有大批救亡人士不顾一切为自强中国奉献的勇气。知识开阔眼界，也能间接提升一个人的社会影响力。当然，我个人更为佩服的是他的能力。虽然他在美国留学多年，但回国多年后重返美国为清政府购买军械，替将近100名留学儿童安排生活、申请学校，不仅需要他卓越的个人才华，还需要他自信自尊的社交能力。

[Jeremy Hung · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Little did I realize when in 1845 I wrote, while in the Morrison School, a composition on ‘An Imaginary Voyage to New York and up the Hudson,’ that I was to see New York in reality. This incident leads me to the reflection that sometimes our imagination foreshadows what lies uppermost in our minds and brings possibilities within the sphere of realities.”

[Dr H L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good history book

Bizarre as a memoir... with the exception of recounting a trip to Peru with his future brother-in-law; he does not mention that he was married until he reported her death. He missed her but apparently not so much his children.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

A romantic and patriotic man. He is the first educated China man in western culture. His stories are both inspiring and sentimental!

[Kendra Kasper · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was like reading a dusty journal from an old man…and really not in a good way. It was a step-by-step travel itinerary at times and a really cool journal of life in China at the time which bumped it up from 1 star. Yung Wing had created huge waves of change in China, Cuba, Peru, America and elsewhere. My fiancé wanted me to read it, but he was able to articulate the history WAY better than this book. It also bothered me how the cities and provinces in China were written, I kept having to reread those parts and guess where they meant. “Kiangsu” is for Jiangsu, “Kwangsi” for Guangxi…it was hurting my brain. It told some really interesting history from a very important man’s journal…it was just SUCH a hard read.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is always a weird feeling to rate someone's memoir. I found Yung Wing's story on Hoopla and since I love reading first-hand accounts of historical times I decided to read it. I'm glad I did as he lead a very interesting life. He talked a lot about his schooling, the details of his work, and China's political ups and downs that happened in his lifetime. One thing I thought was missing from his memoir was his personal life. He really doesn't talk about his wife or their children until his wife dies. It was odd to leave out, but maybe he thought his private life was private and people were more interested in his work.

[Chris Coon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the best autobiography of anyone who grew up around opioid addiction but had his life changed by getting into Yale. Plus, he’d be so proud if he knew how many Chinese people got into Yale these days. Couldn’t put it down.

[Jack Meng]

A lot of information to present the history from a different angle. It gives readers a plain feeling of what happened back then. It is not a history book but more like a history presentation.

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story. The best piece concerns his journey inland and meeting members of the Taiping Rebellion. The eulogy in the appendix, which summarizes the autobiography we just read, is unnecessary.

I do wish the author had spent more time on the everyday details - how did he find reintegrating into China after such a long absence? Which cuisine did he prefer? How did he court his wife and what was an interracial and intercultural relationship like? - rather than his various (and consistently unsuccessful) professional schemes.

[Kalani Scarrott · Rating 5 out of 5]

old book but holds up extremely well

[Vincentjones · Rating 4 out of 5]

He is so special. I am more interested about the first 5 chapters, but I can not stop and finished the whole book in one day.

[Yibin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe it is an underrated book. The narration is old-fashioned. But still thought-provoking

[Amario]

it for my brother school