Silence on Islam & slavery.
Rudeness to the Dali Lama.
Silence on Egypt, Libya, & Syria.
Inexplicable paralysis on Iran & N. Korea.
Bumbling with Chinese dissidents.
“with the Obama presidency, human rights has completed its passage away from the political left, across the center and into its home mainly on the right—among neoconservatives and evangelical Christian activists.Conservatives didnt capture the issue. The left gave it away.”
I recall a small, but significant moment in a taxicab ride in Changsha about twelve years ago. My oldest daughter and I had been in Changsha, Hunan Province for about a week, and I had noticed that every cab we got into had a pendant hanging from the rearview mirror with a portrait of Mao in a red-and-gold frame.
The cult of Mao had largely receded in the rest of China. The only place to find copies of The Little Red Book of Chairman Mao was at flea markets and souvenir shops. So I asked our driver why every taxi cab had a picture of Mao hanging from the rearview mirror. His reply startled me. He explained that the cab drivers believed Mao had proved himself to be a powerful figure – in fact, more powerful than the older, more traditional local gods and Buddhas of China. After all, explained the driver, he had challenged all of the older gods – closed their temples, attempted to rid China of superstition – and yet had not been struck down. Mao had, in fact, lived a long, full life. Ergo, he must be more powerful than all of the gods he had challenged and beat.
Thus, the taxicabs all had a picture of Mao as a sort of talisman – to invoke his spirit and power for protection and favor.
Changsha is in the south of China. It is the capital of Hunan province, Mao’s home. The taxicabs in Beijing, far to the north, do not show the same universal reverence for his image.
I mention this as a way to introduce two books on China, one just re-published, which I recommend.
The first is Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom by Katherine Paterson. Paterson is one of the most gifted authors of children’s books over the past 50 years. She has twice won the Newbery Award (in 1977 for Bridge to Terabithia, and in 1981 for Jacob Have I Loved). Paterson was born in China and spent her early childhood there.
In 1983, she published Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom, which is a historical novel set in the years 1850 to 1853. The backdrop is the great Taiping Rebellion – a civil war which rocked China for 14 years and left 20 to 30 million dead. It is the American Civil War times twenty. It is almost unknown outside of China. Americans are preoccupied with the history of our own Civil War (which occurred at almost the same time).
The Taiping Rebellion was led by Hong Xiuquan (in Paterson’s novel referred to as Hung Hsiu-Ch’uan). In China the family name is the first character and is usually the shorthand way to refer to someone. Hong (or Hung) lived at the time and place where western missionaries were first entering China and making the first attempts to translate the Bible into Chinese. Hong was a young 22 year old teacher and student when he first encountered translations and summaries of the Bible in Chinese. Over the next several years, he had a series of vivid dreams in which he saw Confucius being punished for not teaching about the one God, and saw God the Heavenly Father on his throne, with Jesus standing beside him. In his dreams, Hong reported that they commissioned him to rid China of demon worship. Hong began to preach throughout the county where he lived, gained a following, and followed through on his exhortations by destroying idols and temples throughout the countryside.
Paterson’s novel opens as a young boy (Wang Lee) is kidnapped from his impoverished rural village by bandits (former soldiers, deserters from the Imperial army) and then sold into slavery, only to be purchased by a kindly young gentleman who turns out to be a follower of Hong and part of a rebel group. Actually, the young gentleman turns out to be a young lady, Mei Lin, who in a very effective disguise had been recruiting followers for the Way of Heavenly Peace (the Taiping).
The rest of the novel is the odyssey of these two improbable friends and followers of Hong (Wang remains skeptical, Mei Lin is more fervent) as the Taiping Rebellion grows, fights and defeats the Imperial armies, and eventually captures the important Imperial capital city of Nanking and makes it the center of their Heavenly Kingdom. The horrors of war are real and grim. There is death, both in battle and from intrigue. Soldiers and civilians are killed. The strange religious teachings of Hong are taught and repeated throughout the Heavenly Army. So strange, so similar to the teachings of the Bible and yet so tragically different and misused by the leaders of the Taiping.
The book has a reassuring, if slightly improbably ending. But after all the horrors that Wang and Mei Lin experience (both together and apart), it seems churlish to begrudge them some measure of happiness. Some of the incidents, implied and alluded to, will be disturbing to some readers. They should be disturbing. The realities of war and rebellion (and this particular war and rebellion) cannot be glossed over. In the end, to have read this book (and to have re-read it now ten years later) is to understand China and the Chinese reaction and reception to Christianity perhaps a bit better. The first encounter went so tragically awry. The subsequent events of the 20th century, from the violent attacks on Christians in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 to the expulsion of all western missionaries by Mao’s People’s Republic in the 1950’s are in part explained by the horrible consequences of China’s first encounter with Christianity.
The survival and explosive growth of the Chinese house church movement in the 1970s and later is all the more remarkable, and all the more unexpected, given what had preceded it.
What is also remarkable is that Paterson crafted her tale 13 years before Jonathan Spence published his award-winning history of Hong Xiuquan in 1996: God’s Chinese Son.
I read Spence’s history of the leader of the Taiping rebellion when it was published, and then had the great good fortune to be able to visit the palace of Hong Xiuquan in Nanjing in 1999 when my oldest daughter and I journeyed to China to complete the adoption of our daughter Sarah. We had quite an adventure attempting to navigate Nanjing completely on our own and were astonished to discover that we were the only westerners in Nanjing visiting the museum on that particular day.
The entrance to the Taiping palace is dominated by a large bust of Hong Xiuquan. The Chinese communists judge him favorably for having led an early rebellion against the Imperial government of the Manchu. They largely gloss over the religious dimensions of the rebellion.
I commend both of these books to anyone who has an interest in China and who wishes to understand China better, especially the difficult history of Christianity in China.
Paterson’s tale is haunting and personal. The events of the rebellion seen through the eyes of two young people. It would be a thought-provoking read for students high school up through adult.
Spence’s history has a bit more emotional distance, but is a riveting tale none-the-less. Western missionaries were puzzled by Hong – and could not quite decide whether to endorse and encourage him for his appreciation of God and invocation of Jesus as God’s son, or to denounce and reject him for his heretical, megalomaniacal pronouncement that he himself was Jesus’ younger brother. 150 years later, it is still difficult to understand Hong Xiuquan and to decide what to make of him.
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom, by Katherine Paterson, has just been re-released after being out of print for a number of years. It is a 263 page paperback and sells for $12.95.
God’s Chinese Son, by Prof. Jonathan
Spence,
remains in print, 12 years after it was first published. It is a paperback, 430 pages and sells for $17.95. Either (or both) can be purchased directly from Greenleaf Press by clicking the links in this review. Or you can browse the selection of books on China on our website.
– Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press
PS: Readers of this review may receive a 10% discount on the purchase of either or both of these books by entering the coupon code CHINA during the checkout process. The coupon can only be redeemed once per customer.
Wise Guy is one of the more unusual children’s books I’ve ever run across. The illustrations and narrative are written for young people aged 8-12, but there is a deceptive depth to this book that will delight older students as well as helping the occasional adult who is reading it out loud (or to themselves). Along with the engaging illustrations – which make life in ancient Athens look quite pleasant there is a second boxed narrative in smaller type which complements the larger font story. These smaller boxed notes give a little deeper and fuller account of the ideas presented in the pictures. One of the unusual features of the book is that is based entirely on the ancient sources from classical Greece. We get a nuanced introduction to Socrates personality as well as the key ideas and outline of his thought on knowledge and ethics, as well as his attitude towards the Greek gods and mythology. His skepticism about the gods is, of course, what led to his trial and execution, presented (without being morbid or maudlin) on the last two pages of the book. The final two-page spread is a delightful caricatured rendition of Raphael’s School of Athens, with Socrates and a host of modern thinkers whom he influenced arrayed on the steps around him. Most younger readers won’t recognize them at first, but adults and older students will enjoy seeing the connections that are made. Wise Guy is a hardback, 32 pages, 9″ x 11″ color on glossy stock. $16.00 directly from Greenleaf Press.
The Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman is a well-written, carefully balanced assessment of one of the most controversial writers from the Middle Ages. Marco Polo’s tales were so outlandish that they were dismissed by many at the time (and by many still today) as wildly exaggerated or even fabricated. For example, he said he had seen rocks that burned – a fantastic tale that Europeans dismissed. Of course, what he had seen was coal – which was plentiful in China, but virtually unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages. Still many of his claims remain unsubstantiated. Marco (and his cousin and his uncle) spent twenty-four years in China, learning the language, making a living as merchants, and winning the favor and confidence of The Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan ( a descendant of Ghenghis Khan). Freedman does an excellent job of describing their journey, and the remarkable adventures they had while in China. And Freedman includes a page-long discussion of the influence that Marco Polo had on a later explorer, Christopher Columbus. Here is what Freedman has to say: “Marco’s book seems to have fired the imagination of Christopher Columbus. He used his well-thumbed Latin translation as a guidebook, scribbling notes in the margins and underlining passages about gold, jewels, and spices, when he sailed west across the Atlantic, expecting to rediscover the land described by Marco Polo. When Columbus reached Cuba, he believed that he was at the edge of the Great Khan’s realm and would soon find the Mongol kingdom of Cathay.” Freedman’s forte is young adult biography. He has twice had books finish as finalists for the Newbery Medal (The Wright Brothers and Eleanor Roosevelt) and in 1988 won the Newbery Medal itself for Lincoln: A Photobiography. He and his publisher do not neglect the visual in this book either. The full-page chapter-heading paintings by Russian painter Bagram Ibatoulline are stunning. Ibatoulline is able to adapt his style in masterful fashion as he moves from medieval illumination to Chinese silk painting. Also included in the text are dozens of archival illustrations which appeared in the numerous hand-written copies of Marco Polo’s book that circulated in the century before printing. The Adventures of Marco Polo is a hardback, 64 pages, 10″ by 10″. The text junior high to high school and adult. $17.99 direct from Greenleaf Press.
– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press
I spent last night re-reading the 1933 Newbery Medal Winner, Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze. I don’t think I can improve on the judgment of Katherine Paterson: “Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze won the Newbery Medal in 1933, not only because it was historically and culturally accurate, but because it was and is a really good read.”
The story is set in and around Chunking, China in the 1920s. There is a reference to the death of Sun Yat Sen (which occurred in 1925) midway through Fu’s three-year apprenticeship. Our protagonist is Fu, and the story begins as he and his mother are moving from the countryside to the city of Chungking. Fu is an only child, and his father has recently died. He is fourteen. His mother, seeing only poor prospects for them in the country, has arranged for him to be apprenticed to the coppersmith Tang. Tang proves to be both a skilled craftsmen and a shrewd businessman. He is also wise in his dealings with the apprentices and journeymen who work for him.
The story arc of the book is Fu’s growth from an impulsive youth of fourteen to a confident and skilled journeyman of eighteen. The three anchors in his life are Tang, his mother, and the scholar Wang who lives in the room above and kindly agrees to teach Fu. Together they practice the difficult skills of reading and writing the characters of Chinese by studying the teachings of Confucius. Fu grows through a series of small but significant incidents that test his handling of money and time, his control of his temper and tongue, and his self-discipline in mastering the skills of a coppersmith. Some tasks he revels in, some he finds tedious. Tang watches and misses nothing and helps Fu to face his own tasks with discipline.
Also playing a significant part in the story is an un-named “foreign lady” – who works in the foreigner’s hospital in Chungking. Fu bravely helps in fighting a fire at the hospital when others are fearful and superstitious. His friendship with the “foreign lady” helps him in two subsequent incidents – once when his best friend among the other apprentices becomes ill – and can only be saved by the foreigners medicine; and once when Fu is seeking refuge for himself and an older couple from a sudden flash flood of the unpredictable Yangtze River.
It IS a really good read. It is a classic tale of growing up. Fu, his mother, the coppersmith, and the scholar are all richly drawn. We learn the details of their lives and we understand why and how they are able to help Fu. The ending is upbeat and quite satisfying.
This particular Newbery winner was unavailable for some years. Last year, a hardback edition was re-released. And just last month, a new paperback edition was published by Square Fish, an imprint of MacMillan. The continued publishing history of Young Fu, in print again 75 years after its first release is testimony to the quality of all the Newbery Medal winners. The paperback edition has a number of nice additions. In addition to the new foreword by Katherine Paterson (who is also a Newbery winning author born in China) there is the original introduction by Pearl S. Buck. At the end of the book are 18 pages of cultural notes by Professor Daniel J. Meissner of Marquette University. And not to be missed is Elizabeth Foreman Lewis’ Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech from 1933 – worth reading in its own right.
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze is a 306 page paperback, $7.95. It can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press (along with all of the other Newbery Medal winners through the years).
– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press
Many of you may know that we have two adopted daughters from China. One of our daughters was adopted from the orphanage in Hengyang, China in Hunan Province. This province is the one which has been hit hardest in the current weather crisis in China. The plight of the orphans (overwhelmingly abandoned girls) is far more serious than has been reported in the media anywhere.
Our oldest daughter, Micah, spent a year working with a British mission agency that works with the orphanages in Changsha and Hengyang. Today, she received this urgent email appeal.
Please read it, and if God moves you, click on the link provided to make a donation. I can vouch for the integrity and diligence of ICC. 100% of the donations will be used to directly assist the orphans in China.
– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press