Returning To China

Life truly takes unexpected turns, and you should never assume you know what lies just around the corner. Since I last wrote and wondered what it would be like to follow in my relatives’ footsteps in China, I’ve actually had the chance to do so, though on a much smaller scale.

Through my job, I recently had the opportunity to visit China for a few days. I haven’t been in China for over 40 years, so I was naturally very interested in seeing it again. (You can read a bit about the trip to China in 1983 here.) We were headed to a smaller city (well, small by Chinese standards, as Wuxi in the Jiangsu Province has nearly 7.5 million residents). My stay lasted three intense days, which weren’t at all related to mission history, but during which I still got a sense of the environments my relatives must have encountered during their time in China.

Among other places, we visited the city of Jiangyin, which lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze River – a river that my ancestors actually traveled on when they journeyed from Shanghai deeper into China to reach their mission stations.

It was lovely being by the river, feeling the light breeze and enjoying a lunch that included, among other dishes, some fish supposedly caught right there. I could not help thinking that maybe the missionaries got to taste the same kind of fish during their boat trip from Shanghai to Wuhan (previously Hankow)? After reaching Wuhan, the food would become less varied as they traveled inland with ox carts or mules, set on reaching the Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces where the Swedish Mission in China had their stations.

In her own book “Amongst the Chinese people”, my great grandmother Olga described her first journey on the Yangtze River like this:

“A boat trip on the Yangtze River up to Hankow. We were dressed in Chinese clothes and therefore traveled in the Chinese class. It was very crowded and not particularly pleasant, but we had the opportunity to see and experience a little of what travel was like for the Chinese. Many lay in their partitioned sleeping berths, smoking opium, and as we often had to pass by them, the pungent, stifling odor made us quite ill. Others lay on their bundles out on deck, packed tightly together.”

I did not have the opportunity to go on a boat trip on the Yangtze river myself, but during our visit, we got a taste of some ancient Chinese culture. We watched a Chinese opera performance, and I can imagine my ancestors might have experienced something similar during their time in China – just like they might have listened to the beautiful sounds of traditional instruments like the Erhu and Guqin.

But what really felt like walking in my relatives’ footsteps was the short time we had in Shanghai. For just over an hour, I got to stroll along The Bund and admire the beautiful buildings lining the city’s waterfront.

These buildings have been standing here since my ancestors arrived more than a hundred years ago, and this is where I know they spent at least some time. They first landed in Shanghai by boat and stayed at the China Inland Mission to settle in and get fitted for Chinese clothes before heading inland. Maybe they passed by the historic Peace Hotel or visited one of the banks along the waterfront. Perhaps they stood by the side of the river at night, feeling that this was their adventure, their mission that was about to finally get started. They visited Shanghai several times during their many years in China, and saw how the city changed over time.

Inside the Peace Hotel, there were reliefs showing what the Bund looked like in the early 1900s.

Even though it was such a short visit, it was an amazing feeling to walk where I know Dagny, Robert, Olga, and Nils walked all those years ago. Of course, China looks completely different today compared to back then, but at least these buildings have stood the test of time. Everything else is a whole different world – not just compared to a century ago, but even to forty years ago when I last visited China.
When I was there in 1983, there were many more bikes than cars on the streets, foreigners were a rare sight, and the range of shops and goods was very limited. That is very different today, when you can shop anything you like and I did not see anyone riding a bike in the dense Shanghai traffic… not to mention all the tourists that were visiting Shanghai this time around.

Dagny wrote about her first encounter with Shanghai in her book “Memories and impressions”:
“The passengers on the large ocean liner had their eyes fixed on the land. A few missionaries, standing together, remained completely still. Prayers rose silently from the depths of their hearts, asking for grace to be a blessing to the people to whom God had sent them. Everything was observed with great interest. Small houseboats passed by. A Chinese woman, surrounded by her children, was eating a meal.”

Olga also recounts her first encounter with Shanghai:
“On November 4, 1905, we – that is, Miss Judit Gustafsson (now Mrs. Högman) and I – arrived in Shanghai. One of our missionaries met us there. Everything was so new and fascinating to us. During the journey, we had traveled with a young Chinese girl who had spent two years at the China Inland Mission in London and spoke English very well. She was also a devout Christian. (…) We stayed in Shanghai for several days, as we needed to purchase fabric and have Chinese-style garments made for us, along with shoes – for at that time, we were not allowed to wear foreign shoes with Chinese clothing.”

My relatives arrived in China in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a time when the experience was vastly different from what we know today. Arriving in Shanghai by boat must have been quite an experience, especially after weeks at sea. It’s hard to imagine that kind of journey when, in today’s world, one can simply board a plane and be in China within a day.

Returning to China after more than forty years, and getting a small glimpse of the path my ancestors once walked, was a very interesting experience. It will take some time to fully process everything I have seen and felt. In any case, I think he impressions from this short journey will be valuable when I continue to explore my relatives’ adventures in China, and I will surely get back to this visit in blog posts to come.