Friendship in Fenghuang, West Hunan, China.
Introduction by Fr. Rob Carbonneau, C.P.
The story is familiar in the China Catholic
missions of the 19th and 20th century. So-called Chinese pagans
approached the mission gates to seek physical assistance or food.
On the one hand, both parties knew that spiritual assistance or
reception of the Catholic sacraments was not the priority. On the
other hand, both parties had confidence in the blind faith of the
moment. It was a story told monthly in Catholic or Protestant
mission magazines once the end of the 1842 Opium War opened the
treaty ports to foreigners. This in turn led generous American and
European Catholics to donate money and offer many a prayer for
anonymous Chinese people.
Kindness and relief work changed lives forever. The ensuing essay
by Dr. Dali Tan reminds us that the people in the mission magazines
then or now were not anonymous. In fact, the essay once again
extols the value and importance of missionary archives.
In September 2002 I received a letter from Dr. Tan. She wanted
information to make a meeting between her father and a Passionist
priest missionary, Jeremiah McNamara, in Fenghuang, Hunan, China
comes to life. I suggested she consult the Passionist archives
website. Finding that helpful, the China collection of the
Passionist Historical Archives was able to produce a back issue of
"With the Passionists in China" and other resources about West
Hunan, China. Her contemporary story of friendship in Fenghuang,
West Hunan is a living legacy of trust, study, reconciliation, and
cross-cultural guangxi or relationships. In other words, the
acknowledgments which begin her essay are an important contemporary
historical record.
Since 1999 Dr. Tan has been on the faculty of the Landon School,
Bethesda, Maryland. She has taught or is currently teaching Chinese
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII. She has also worked as the
Director of the six-week Landon-in-China summer language immersion
program in 2001 and 2002. Due to the SARS outbreak, the 2003 summer
program had to be cancelled. In 1982 she obtained a B.A. in
English, Heilongjiang University, China. An M.A. in English and
American Literature, Liaoning University, China followed in 1985.
In 1997 she graduated with a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature,
University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Tan has published and
lectured widely. In June of 2003, Dali Tan was selected as the most
influential teacher by 2003 Maryland Presidential Scholar, Raleigh
Martin and received the Teacher Recognition Award from the U.S.
Department of Education.
The Passionist Heritage Newsletter thanks Dr. Tan for permission
to publish this friendship story. Originally, the essay printed
below was part one of a 2003 two-part paper entitled "Tracing a
65-Year Old Tie of Friendship between a Chinese Family and Two
Americans." Made possible by a grant from the Schinnerer family,
the second section was entitled "My Uncle Yingke Tan and Mr. Joseph
E. Stepanek." You may contact Dr. Tan at Dali_Tan@landon.net.
-Editor, Father Rob Carbonneau, C.P.
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