APPENDIX

CHRONOLOGY OF LIN YUTANG (林语堂)

1895 Born “Lin Hele” (和乐), on October 10, at Banzai, a remote mountain village in Zhangzhou (Longxi) county, Fujian province, China, the fifth child to a frugal Chinese Christian pastor’s family of eight children (six boys and two girls). His father, Lin Zhicheng, is a second generation Chinese Christian.

1900–1905 Attending mission school at his home at Banzai, taught by his father, the pastor.

1905–1911 Leaves hometown at the age of ten, attending primary and then sec- ondary education at Xunyuan Shuyuan (Union Middle School), a free missionary school (Principal: Rev. P. W. Pitcher), at Gulangyu, Amoy, Fujian province; school name: Lin Yutang (林玉堂).

1911–1916 Attending St. John’s University in Shanghai—an Episcopalian mis- sionary school (President: Dr. F. L. Hawks Pott, 1864–1947), where classes are taught exclusively in English. Member of the Editorial Committee of Echo, an English-language student journal of the St. John’s University. “A Life in a Southern Village,” his first piece of literary work, a short story in English, published in Echo in 1914. First reads about Gu Hongming’s writings in English-language newspapers, and Gu became one of the most important intellectual influences on him. Granted BA degree from St. John’s University in 1916, graduating with distinction. 242 appendix

1916 English-language Instructor at Tsinghua College (later Tsinghua University) in Beijing. Tsinghua College was set up by the so-called American Indemnity Fund as a preparatory school for sending Chi- nese students to American universities for further study. Serving as an English Instructor at Tsinghua makes him also eligible for government scholarship to study in the US. Conducting voluntary Sunday Bible classes at Tsinghua College.

1917 English Instructor at Tsinghua. Meets Hu Shi for the first time in the welcome reception for Hu’s heroic return from the US as a leader of the New Culture Move- ment. Undergoes through a “culture shock” during the heyday of the New Culture Movement, because he was not familiar with Chinese classics the New Culturalists were revolting against due to his Christian educa- tion, so he plunges himself into learning Chinese classics and folklore traditions.

1918 English Instructor at Tsinghua. One of the editors for Chinese Social and Political Science Review, an English-language journal. “Hanzi suoyinzhi shuoming” (A Note on the Index System for Chinese Characters), his first Chinese-language article, published in La Jeunesse (The New Youth), prefaced by Cai Yuanpei.

1919 Marries, for life, Liao Cuifeng, a graduate of St. Mary’s College—a mission school for women in Shanghai, from a well-off merchant fam- ily in Xiamen (Amoy), Fujian province, in summer. Leaves in August for Harvard University for graduate study on a half government scholarship. Majors in Comparative Literature at Harvard, his professors include Bliss Perry and Irving Babbitt. Residences at Harvard: 51 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge, MA; and 85 Trowbridge Street, Cambridge, MA.