Author: CHUNG Yoon-Ngan
Date: 10-24-03 22:25
Charlie Soong, the father of Soong Meiling
The early life of Charlie Soong
(This article appeared in Hakka Forum in 2001)
The year was 1851, the month January, the date the eleventh, the place a village called Jian Tian (金田村) in Gui Ping county (桂平縣) of Guangxi province (廣西省) in China. Hong Xiu Quan (洪秀全), the leader of an armed band of Hakkas, staged an uprising against the Qing Government (清朝). The motto of their cause was [天下一家﹐共享太平 Under heaven is one family, enjoy the great peace together.] The Hakkas named the uprising Taiping Revolution. They marched eastward along Chang Jiang (長江 the Yangtze River) and captured Nanjing (南京) in 1853. The Hakkas proclaimed the formation of Tai Ping Tian Guo (太平天國 the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom). Nanjing was renaned Tianjing (天京) which became the capital of the Heavenly Kingdom.
Immediately after the establishment of the Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiu Quan dispatched Li Kai Fang (李開芳) to led a Northern Expedition Force with the intention to capture Beijing (北京), the capital of the Qing Government. The Taiping Forces marched through the provinces of Anhui (安徽省), Jiangsu (江蘇省), Henan (河南省), Shanxi (山西省) and Hebei (河北省) to Tianjin city (天津市).
A Hakka family by the surname of Soong (宋) from Shanxi province, fled the turmoil to the south and ended up in Meixian (梅縣) of Guangdong province (廣東省). Finding Meixian was not safe to them the Soong family trekked along the coast on foot to Luichow Peninsula (雷州半島) opposite the island of Hainan (海南島). By junk the Soong family crossed the 30 kilometers Kiungchow Strait to Haikou (海口), the capital of the island. The Soong family settled down in a town called Wenchang (文昌), about 40 kilometers southeast of Haikou. (According to Rewi Alley, a good friend of Rosamond Soong or Soong Qing-Ling 宋慶齡, Madam Dr Sun Yat-Sen, in his essay "My memory of Soong Qing-Ling", in the magazine "China Reconstruct", [the founder of this magazine was Soong Qing-Ling] stating "Very often I went to Hainan Island to spent my winter there. I often passed through Wenchang, the birth place of Soong Qing-ling's father. I noticed there were many Hakka families in Wenchang and majority of them were relocated from Meixian county in the east of Guandong province during the Qing Dynasty").
In 1860, a few years after the Soong family had established themselves well in Wenchang, Mrs Soong gave birth to a baby boy who was named Soong Yao-Ju (宋堯﹖)。
From Meixian a younger brother of Mrs Soong did not follow the Soong family to Hainan Island; instead he migrated to USA. He opened a tea and silk shop in the city of Boston, the first of its kind in America.
In 1872 this prosperous American Chinese businessman returned to the Old Mountain of the Ancestors to visit Mrs Soong, his only relative. The younger brother of Mrs Soong adopted Yao-Ju as his heir and successor, as he was unmarried and without any male children. He took Yao-Ju back to America wanting the child to learn the intricacies of trade.
Soong Yao-Ju had been learning how to become a small businessman for three years. He lived a Chinese life in a Chinese house in the heart of Boston. He was twelve years old and already not happy working in his maternal uncle's shop.
One day, two Chinese boys, both fourteen years old, dropped into the shop and began to talk to Yao-Ju because Yao-Ju was their compatriot. The two boys, one called Wan Bing-Zhong (I lost my Chinese version of the story) and the other Niu Shan-Zhou, were to change his life forever. In later life the three of them were to become brothers-in-law. His new friends were from Shanghai and they were two of the students from the Chinese Education Mission in Boston, organized by Dr Yang Yong a graduate of Yale University.
The two new friends visited the shop frequently. They told him about their life at school and also about the fun they had during the school pinic camping, and also the advantages of getting a good education. They urged him to ask his uncle for permission to attend school like them. Yao-Ju was already attending night classes but, from what his friends told him it was useless to go to night school.
One day, Yao-Ju approached his uncle about attending day school like other ordinadry kids did. His uncle was furious and stopped him from seeing his friends who had influenced Yao-Ju to go against his wishes. Yao-Ju was thirteen years old then and decided to run away from his uncle's shop.
Soong Yao-Ju visited Boston Harbour and decided to stow away in a ship. In 1876 an opportunity arised and he secretly boarded a ship called S.S. Schuyer Colfax which headed for the South.
Soong Yao-Ju was caught by a sailor and was brought before the ship captain, Charles Jones who fortunately was a kind man. Captain Jones did not put him ashore at the next port but wondered how and why a Chinese boy wanted to stow away on board his ship. Yao-Ju told him about his desire to attend school and his uncle's refusal to let him. Yao-Ju begged the captain to
allow him to work in the ship and the captain gave his permission; thus Soong Yao-Ju became a
cabin boy.
On the ship every Sunday, Captain Charles Jones would talk to Yao-Ju about christianity. It seemed that Yao-Ju was quite interested in the stories about Christ.
When the Colfix arrived at Wilmington, North Carolina, Captain Jones went to talk about Yao-Ju to his friends, Colonel Roger Moore and Mrs Chadwick, who were workers in the Southern Methodist Church. Later Mrs Chadwick presented Yao-Ju's case to Reverend T. Page Ricaud, the pastor of the Fifth Street Methodist Episcopal Church of South Carolina. Dr Ricaud baptized Soong Yao-Ju as Charles Jones Soong. Soong Yao-Ju chose this name as a compliment to his benefactor Captain Charles Jones.
Several months later Dr Ricaud took Charlie Soong to see a rich textile manufacturer, Confederate General and philanthropist, General Julian S. Carr. Dr Ricaud told General Carr that Charlie Soong wanted to attend school and General Carr decided that Charlie Soong should have a good education and arranged for his admission to the Methodist Trinity College in Randolph county.
Charlie Soong lived with Professor W.T. Gannaway and studied with Dr Braxton, the president of the college, while Mrs Craven helped him with his English. Charlie Soong was taken into the church; his benefactors were preparing him to go back to China to preach christianity.
During school holidays Charlie Soong would sell books and cord hammocks that were made by him.
After two years at Trinity Charlie Soong was transferred to study at Vanderbit University in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied religion at Vanderbit from 1882 to 1885.
In 1886 Charlie Soong returned to China. He was twenty three years old. He did not immediately return to his parents but when to Shanghai to report for duty as a preacher to Dr Young J. Allen, who was in charge of all the Chinese mission of the Methodist Church in China.
Charlie asked for permission to visit his parents in Hainan Island and his request was refused by Dr Allen on the ground that he could only allow him to travel there on the coming Chinese New Year and not before that. Charlie was not happy with Dr Allen and he applied for a transfer to Japan. His application was rejected and he had to work under the supervision of Dr Allen.
Charlie was posted to a town called Wusong which was at the mouth of Huangpu River which emptied into the Yangtze River. His job was to preach to a small congregation of converted Methodist Chinese and to teach their children at the denomination school. As the students in the school could not understand Hakka dialect he had to teach them in English. One of his student later was to become a well known educationist and he was Dr Hu Shih (胡適).
Several months later after he had mastered the Shanghaiese dialect Charlie was posted hinterland to Kunshan which was about 70 kilometers west of Shanghai. Charlie was a total stranger in his own country as the people in Kunshan disliked him. They called him a "Jia Yang Gui Zi 假洋鬼子 or a fake foreign devil", without a pigtail. Charlie was very unhappy working in Kunshan.
One day, while on leave and walking in the streets of Shanghai, he met his old friend Niu Shan-Zhou who was one of the two boys frequented his uncle's shop in Boston. Charlie told Niu Shan-Zhou about his miserable life in China and that he was lonely and needed a wife. Niu introduced his 19 years old sister-in-law to Charlie.
In July 1887 Charlie Soong got married to Miss Ni Hui-Xian who was a christian and a descendant of Su Kuang-Ki who was one of the earlier converted christian in China in the early 1600s. Su Kuang-Ki was a friend of Jesuit Matteo Ricci who arrived in China at the end of the Ming Dynasty (明朝 1368AD to 1644AD).
After their marriage they lived at Kunshan. Charlie's salary was only $15 per month. However, he received a large dowry as his father-in-law was very wealthy. Charlie and Mrs Soong had six children, three boys and three girls. Soong Zi-Wen (宋子文Paul T.V. Soong), Soong Ai-Ling (宋藹齡 Madam H.H. Kung 孔祥熙 an directed offspring of Confucius), Soong Qing-Ling Rosamond (宋慶齡 Madam Dr Sun Yat-Sen 孫逸仙), Soong Mei-Ling (宋美齡 Madam Chiang Kai-Shik 蔣介石), Soong Zi-Liang (宋子良) and Soong Zi-An (宋子安).
In 1892 Charlie Soong quit his job as a preacher. He became an agent for foreign machinery company in Shanghai. Charlie learned how to install the equipment for flour and cotton mills. He partnered with a Mr Sun and established a flour mill. Later he founded a publishing house which was to become the famous Shang Wu (商務) Publishing Company in Shanghai.......................................
Reference The Soong Sisters
by Emily Hahn first published in May 1942.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
Yoon-Ngan
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