AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Yingxia Yao for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in History, History, and English presented on March 18, 2014. Title: Exile in One’s Homeland: Yung Wing and the Chinese Educational Mission. Abstract approved: ______________________________________________________ Hung-Yok Ip This thesis examines the influence of Christian missions on Yung Wing (1828-1912) during the nineteenth century, when China was beginning to encounter the West. Yung was the first Chinese graduate student to enter an American institution of higher education (Yale College, 1854). As a Westernized Christian intellectual, he strove to reshape China by following the American model he learned at Yale. His main project was the Chinese Educational Mission or CEM (1872-81). The CEM was an early initiative of the self-strengthening movement (1861-1895), an experiment in America supported by the Chinese government. Unfortunately, the CEM was cut short in midstream and recalled in 1881. This mission itself was a cross-cultural phenomenon aimed at connecting two different cultures. To examine the causes for the revocation of the CEM, I focus on the cultural and personal conflicts between the Qing officials and Yung Wing. Yung Wing’s life was a paradox with respect to his knowledge of the West. His identification of Western culture was both his strength and his weakness. On one hand, his Western-oriented view helped him perceive China’s weakness and initiate a reformist project. Yet on the other hand, his pro-Western attitude became an obstacle that prevented his plans from being carried out completely. He experienced deep alienation when he returned to China. Though Yung’s educational project of Americanizing China was not completed, Yung’s life was fulfilled through his students’ continuous contribution to China’s modernization. Yung’s protégés made crucial contributions to the Chinese state, as they were very active in the New Navy, the Customs Administration, the mines, the railways, and the consular and diplomatic services. Some of them rose to prominence through the fine products of the Chinese Educational Mission, and through them Yung’s dream lived on. ©Copyright by Yingxia Yao March 18, 2014 All Rights Reserved Exile in One’s Homeland: Yung Wing and the Chinese Educational Mission by Yingxia Yao A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies Presented March 18, 2014 Commencement June 2014 Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies thesis of Yingxia Yao presented on March 18, 2014 APPROVED: Major Professor, representing History Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program Dean of the Graduate School I understand that my thesis will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my thesis to any reader upon request. Yingxia Yao, Author ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have many people to thank for their help and support in completing this work. I am grateful to have had Hung-yok Ip as my advisor. I thank her for reading my very first rough draft, as well as the continuous revisions and reviews of many drafts until the end. My deep thanks to her for much valuable advice, patience, and devotion to this thesis. Gary Ferngren, my mentor and friend, provided many corrections to my second draft. I thank him for being an example for me. His encouragement and support in many ways sustained me through both good and hard times. I am grateful to Wilma Hull, whose generous financial support made it reality for me to study at OSU. I am grateful for being awarded the Provost’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship by the OSU Graduate School on the nomination of David Bernell, director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, and with the strong support of Hung-yok Ip and Gary Ferngren. This generous fellowship enabled me complete my study. I also thank Raymond Malewitz for being on my committee and helping me revise my paper. What I learned from his class will, I believe, benefit me for the rest of my life. I also thank Jack Higginbotham for serving as Graduate Council Representative. I thank too Yanwan Huang for helping me with Chinese documents, which I was not able to have access to in the United States. Many thanks to my dear friends, Jeffery Wolf, Hongmei Wolf, Ethan Wolf, Haejin Kim, Paul Cheong, Sarah Song, the Griffiths family, Piawah Sim, Kok Meng Lam, Quan Zhou, Liping Hu, Huayu Li, Yanqin Zou, Jennifer Miller, Catherine Fang, Yayu Guo, Mahdieh Tavakol, Jindan Chen, Wanda Mitchell, Amy Stutzman, Tina Mills, and Carol Meyer, for their long-lasting support and encouragement. And finally my very special appreciation to my husband Chaoqiang Zhang, whose selfless love and support for all these years is the most beautiful blessing to me. Without him this work would not exist. I dedicate it to my husband and my nine- months-old baby son Samuel, whose coming into this world brought me tremendous joy and forever changed my life in a way of being both grateful and humble. And my endless thanks to my aging parents, who are my everlasting love. Writing is a lonesome journey, but it is a sweet comfort to know that Someone is there, always, to listen to and be with me. I am grateful for being known by Him. Y.X.Y. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Yung Wing’s Western Education under Christian Influence ......................................... 6 2.1 Primary Education in Macao and Hong Kong ...................................................................... 8 2.2 At Monson Academy and in Yale College .......................................................................... 15 2.2.1 Yung Wing and Samuel Robbins Brown ..................................................................... 15 2.2.2 As a Yale man of 1854 ................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 3 The Chinese Educational Mission ................................................................................ 24 3.1 Preparations for the Chinese Educational Mission ............................................................. 24 3.2 The Chinese Educational Mission ....................................................................................... 32 3.3 Recall of the Chinese Educational Mission ......................................................................... 36 Chapter 4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 54 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 59 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Since 1978, when China began pursuing the “reform and opening” policy, there are about 1.2 million Chinese students and scholars studying abroad, most of them studying in the United States. This constituted the third wave of overseas Chinese students. The second wave was made up by those, whose studies were paid for with the Boxer Indemnity funds that the United States remitted in 1908. By the mid-1920s, there were about 1600 students and scholars in America.1 The first wave consisted of the students of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM, 1872-81), supported by the Qing government, in which 120 Chinese boys were sent to America for learning Western military techniques and science. In 1850 there was only one Chinese student, Yung Wing (1828-1912), who studied in American higher education system. This thesis examines Yung Wing and his main project, the CEM. In China today Yung Wing’s name is well known as the first Chinese student who graduated from an American institution of higher education (Yale, 1854). Both Yung’s western education and his career in westernizing China, have been the subject of several studies. More particularly, Western influences on him, his role in the short-lived CEM to the United States and its recall have been considerably explored by previous writers.2 However, not as well described are the 1 Edward J. M. Rhoads, Stepping Forth into the World: The Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, 1872-81 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011), introduction, 1; Shu Xincheng 舒新城, Jindai Zhongguo liuxue shi 近代中国留学史 (A History of Overseas Students in Modern China) (Shanghai shudian, 1989), 7-13. 2 Cf., Bill Lann Lee, “Yung Wing and the Americanization of China,” Amerasia 1(1971): 25-32; Edmund H., Jr. Worthy, “Yung Wing in America,” Pacific Historical Review, 34(1965): 265-287; Rhoads, Stepping Forth into the World; Thomas E LaFargue, China’s First Hundred: Educational Mission Students in the United States, 1872-1881 (Pullman: Washington State 2 Christian influences on him and his career and his Christian faith. Though once Yung Wing refused an opportunity to serve as a missionary in China, as a Christian layman, he sought to live out of the commands of Jesus in the sermon on the Mount through his career as an initiator and promoter of the CEM and later as a Chinese minister to the United States. Hence he maintained his intellectual and familial loyalty to the West and his patriotism to China as a nation rather than to the Manchu emperor.3 On one hand, there is little doubt of Yung’s earnest love for China. Previous writers had done a considerable research on Yung’s patriotism.4 Scholars