What Was it Like to be a Chinese Student in 19th Century America? | Voice of America - English
Imagine the scene:?This group of boys, dressed in silk gowns, their queues flapping, was too much for New Englanders, be they small-town folk or city dwellers, to ignore.
Imagine the scene: In 1872, when 30 Chinese students arrived on America?s east coast as part of an educational program sponsored by the Chinese government, they attracted quite a bit of attention. They weren't the first to study in the area though. The first Chinese student ever to receive a degree in the U.S. was Yung Wing, who came to America for high school in 1847 and received his diploma from Yale University in 1852. Yung then spearheaded an educational mission to send 120 Chinese boys to study in the U.S. for 15 years, arriving in dispatches of 30 per year. What would it have been like to be one of those Chinese students in the 1800s? Part of the answer can be found in letters and diaries kept by the students, which authors Leil Leibovitz and Matthew Miller used to write a book called . ?We were amazed to find how meticulous these men had been about documenting their lives,? Leibovitz said about writing the book. ?So you really just had to open the boxes, which to my amazement and great fortune, no one had thought of doing in the century that passed.? Yung Wing also published a memoir recounting his experience, as did Li En Fu, one of the 120 to participate in the educational mission. Here, in their own words, is how Chinese students experienced 19th century America. Yung Wing wrote in his memoir, , that he was attending the first English school in China when he got a unique opportunity: The 120 boys who followed him in 1872 had rather a different experience. In  Li En Fu recalled, ?A school was established at Shanghai to receive candidates, and announcement made that the government had appropriated a large sum or money to educate one hundred and twenty boys in America, who were to be sent in four detachments According to Ning Qian in his book , ?The parents of the first group of 30 boys sent to America in 1872 had to sign an agreement to 'accept the will of destiny should the child become ill or die' during the study.? In the 1800s, the only way to get from China to America would have been by boat. Yung described his journey like this: Li arrived by boat to San Francisco, which ?impressed my young imagination with its lofty buildings ? their solidity and elegance. ? But the 'modern conveniences' of gas and running water and electric bells and elevators were what excited wonder and stimulated investigation.? To get to New England, where he was going to study, he had to take a train ? the transcontinental railroad, completed only a few years earlier (and built, ironically, largely by Chinese laborers): When he finally arrived in Springfield, Massachusetts, Li was assigned to a host mother, who ?put her arms around me and kissed me. This made the rest of the boys laugh, and perhaps I got rather red in the face ; however, I would say nothing to show my embarrassment. But that was the first kiss I ever had had since my infancy.? When Yung graduated from his American high school, he applied to continue his studies at Yale University. He found the academic requirements there fairly stringent: Yung , ?One has no time to think or analyze except study. There is also great excitement among the students themselves?mental excitement ? I enjoy its influence very much.? The boys who came as part of the educational mission lived with American families during their high school years and, according to Leibovitz and Miller, student Y.T. Woo called his host mother: The students were required to attend classes in Chinese language and culture on top of their normal academics, including during summer holidays. But it wasn?t all work. Leibovitz and Miller quoted an American classmate as saying that ?at dances and receptions, the fairest and most sought-out belles invariably gave the swains from the Orient the preference.? And an American student told this story about classmate Chung Mun Yew?s time as coxswain of Yale?s crew team: After being in America for over 6 years, Yung experienced some serious culture shock on the way home: And, like many modern students, when Yung saw his mother again after so much time away, he had to endure some motherly nagging: The return of Li En Fu and the other boys who participated in the educational mission was a bit different. The politics of the day led to them being recalled to China early, where, upon their arrival, they spent several days in prison on suspicion of being spies. Books: Leil Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, Yung Wing (sometimes written Wing Yung), Yan Phou Lee (different spelling for Li En Fu), Ning Qian (trans. T.K. Chu),