CHAPTER SEVEN Friends and Romances
CHINA perhaps will never again produce a group of young men and women-predominantly men-as idealistic, patriotic, and as sure of themselves as the some two thousand Chinese students in the United States in the 191Os. They knew that they were going to be the leaders of a new China. A whole country of crumbling institutions awaited their return. There was no doubt in their minds that the new society that had to emerge would be one patterned after the American democ racy. Although China was still ruled by warlords and rife with civil wars, they thought it was just a matter of time. And who would be more equipped to effect the transformation than they, an intellectual elite at home both in China and in the West, where they were acquiring the best tools, the most up-to-date knowledge, and the most impressive credentials? By the 1920s, things would have soured somewhat and there would be the competing claims of Communism to contend with; but in 1917, even with the world at war, the mood among the Chinese students in America was ebullient. Before the school year started at Columbia and Union Theological Seminary, Hung participated in a conference of the Chinese Students Alliance. Several hundred Chinese came to attend from all over the United States. There were athletic events and dances; but it was above all a political gathering, an occasion for individuals who saw them selves as future generals in the field of Chinese politics to, in Hung's words, "recruit lieutenants and buy horses." The burning topic of the day was the Vernacular Movement in China, led by Hu Shih, who only a few months earlier had been one of them and had expounded his ideas in the newsletter of the Chinese Students Alliance. His campaign to adopt the vernacular language (essentially spoken Mandarin) in
58 Friends and Romances 59 serious Chinese literature was running into bitter resistance from the older scholar-officials, who viewed the use of the vernacular as a dan gerous departure from fine old traditions. Not all the challenges to tradition came from men concerned with intellectual issues. In contrast to generation upon generation of Chinese scholar-officials who looked down on business, many of the young men being educated in America were eager to enter banking, trade, or in dustry. A man Hung ran into at the conference wore what looked like an oversized Phi Beta Kappa key. Upon closer inspection, he found the inscription to be "Kappa Beta Phi." The man slapped Hung's back and laughed, saying, "It stands for everything opposite to Phi Beta Kappa. You are at the top of the class; we are at the bottom. You are dedicated to learning; we are dedicated to making money. We shall provide you scholars with the wherewithal to build the schools and the libraries." Regardless of their individual ambitions, to the youthful group there assembled, the victory of their generation was all but certain. Little did they know that for much of the rest of their lives, they would be battling not doddering old men, but fiery young ones whose heroes were Marx and Lenin, and by whom men of their liberal persuasion would be ultimately crushed.
IN NEW YORK, Hung fell in with a group of Chinese Christians headed by Timothy T'ing-fang Lew. Timothy Lew was diminutive, less than five feet tall. Moreover, he was afflicted with a sinus problem, which caused him to be constantly sniffling and coughing. But he was charm ing, witty, and forceful as a speaker. He had a vision of a China trans formed by Christianity; and in Hung, he felt he had found someone who shared his vision. Their theology was the kind that was sometimes referred to as the "social gospel." Their Christ was the Christ of Mark 10:21, who said, "Go sell all you have and give to the poor, and follow me." Their hero was Harry F. Ward, professor of Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary, who, when he was accused of being a Communist, replied, "I am not a Communist. I am worse than a Com munist; I am a Christian." There were at that time several fraternities among the Chinese students in the United States. The most snobbish of these was the Flip Flap, which boasted of such luminaries as Wellington Koo and T. V. Soong. Lew and Hung agreed they should organize their own frater nity, the members of which were to be restricted to those who had good