During the First World War, especially when Wilson led the countries against the Allies and sympathized with the Chinese students, I was very pro-Western.
In the first half of 1917, there was a fierce debate in the military and political circles about whether or not China should enter the war. As far as I can recall, most of them were in favor of joining the Entente, a very small number were in favor of neutrality, and none were in favor of joining the Central Powers.
However, I am personally completely on the side of the Entente, and I believe every word Wilson** said. Later, China decided to join the Entente.
Shortly after the decision, an agreement was reached with the Entente side. According to the agreement, China should provide manpower support to the Entente countries and recruit 150,000 laborers to France.
Some of them worked in the arsenals, while others were attached to the Allies as military engineers. Of these, 100,000 were attached to the British army, 40,000 to the French army (some of whom were quartermasters), and 10,000 to the American army.
The United States itself has its own volunteer organizations for the Army, most notably the Red Cross and the Knights of Colombia, which represent the Catholic and YMCA churches.
Old photos of Chinese laborers in France during World War I **From the Internet.
The latter, who had always had a Chinese connotation, were to organize a contingent to go to the Chinese labor camps in the French war zone to encourage morale, and Mr. Qiu An, an officer of the Chinese YMCA and a friend of mine, came to Oberlin in the spring of 1918 to look for men to join the Cavaliers, and I accepted his offer.
The 1918 graduating class of Oberlin Academy was held under the clouds of war. Even though we in the graduating class knew that graduation was an important event in our lives, we couldn't get excited.
However, I still remember how Principal Kim entertained us in his apartment, and the always reserved Principal smiled at us that day, which was a rare thing. In a nostalgic tone, he spoke of his own past at Oberlin, and he said to us:
When he was about to graduate from Oberlin Academy, he and his classmates were worried that Oberlin Academy would not be what it would be without their leadership.
Hi! He laughed and said, "To our surprise, the school has improved since we left." ”
He went on to tell us that he knew that a common problem among students was to wonder if he had ever laughed. He told us that he does laugh sometimes, but not often.
I was glad that President King told us about his past, because my classmates and I were worried that Oberlin couldn't live without us. Whenever I became too self-absorbed ever since, I would think back to that time.
Before I recount life in France, I think it is appropriate to insert an episode of personal life. Before my brother came to the United States to study, he told me that he had returned to his hometown once before going to the United States at the insistence of his grandmother and father.
After arriving at home, he was surprised, he found that he was asked to go back to get married, the other party's surname was Zhao, that is, the daughter of the Zhao family who I used to study in their private school, although he was very reluctant to this marriage, but he had to obey the orders of his elders.
My brother didn't want to say much about the marriage at that time. I feel that this is a tragedy, but I know that there is nothing I can do about it.
His marriage history prompted me to consider my own future marriage. Should I, like my brother, bow down to my elders and marry Miss He, whom I was engaged to when I was five years old?
I was determined not to do it. So, I immediately wrote to my father and asked him to break the marriage, and my father's reply can be summed up in two sentences: "Ridiculous, impossible." ”
When he found out that I was resolute, he began to use persuasion methods to ask me not to discredit him, so that relatives and friends would see that he had no way to teach his son and lose his face. I couldn't explain my views on marriage to him, I just said that I would choose my own partner, and I would never return to China unless I broke off the marriage with Miss He.
With such a threat, letters from relatives flew in snowflakes. My father started it all and asked them to help convince me. Some people say that my father was shocked by my ideas and even fell ill because of it. Another group of people said that Miss He was gentle and beautiful.
My third brother, who was anxious to study in the United States at the time, wrote to me that his father had regretted letting his two sons study in the United States, and therefore he would never let his third son go to the United States to avoid being influenced by bad ideas in the United States.
I will not bow my head to these words. I asked my father to dissolve the marriage as soon as possible, because any delay would affect Miss He's lifelong life.
It was around the time I graduated from Oberlin that I was relieved to receive a notice from my father telling me that my marriage to Miss He had been dissolved.
After graduating, I went to New York for a week of YMCA field training. In July, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean to France.
On the fourth day of the journey, our passengers on the Lauren found that a large fleet was accompanying us. Some of them were merchant ships, others destroyers, and I saw that these small but fast ships were escorting us all around us, so as not to be attacked by German submarines.
At the moment of danger, we are excited. The day before I went ashore, there was an old woman who jumped into the sea, and I was told that she was a German spy, and I was afraid that she would have to ** when she went ashore, so she jumped into the sea. On the day of disembarkation, the fleet was escorted away, and our ship entered the port of Brest safely.
In Paris, the summer of 1918 was overcast, and although there was no complete light control, the street lights were dim. The cast of Fencebeagles is pulling out all the stops to make people rave. However, the average Frenchman, because of frugality, naturally has little interest, and both people and houses seem listless. Most of the women were dressed in black.
When I arrived in France, my first job was at the Saint-Fangse munitions factory near Lyon, where about 700 workers, mostly from Shandong, set up a teahouse-like club for them, ran several cram schools, taught French and Chinese, introduced simple games, played gramophones, wrote letters home for them, and sent money home.
During World War I, Chinese laborers in French factories came from the Internet.
The hard-working Shandong people are very accustomed to living in France, as if they were at home. They could speak a few French languages, frequented small country cafes, and got along well with the French workers in the factories and farms. In fact, there is really no question of morale or morale here, and there is no need to encourage it.
One night in late October, when the house was crowded with workers, there was a loud bang that shook the mountain and shook the phonograph from the turntable, shattering the window frames and scattering them to the ground.
Some shouted: "The Germans are coming!" "I was surprised, but I did not believe that the Germans were able to cross Switzerland into the Rhine region, and I tried my best to keep my composure and ask everyone to go outside.
Then, I closed the door of the club, thinking that I should find out the truth myself, and as soon as I went out, there was another loud bang.
When I got to the street, there were crowds, including Chinese, Greeks, Arabs and French. There was a French policeman who asked me to stand beside him, and he shouted in impure Chinese, telling the workers to be quiet and orderly, and I wanted to run away as soon as possible, but I was afraid that the police would laugh at me for being cowardly.
As I stood next to the police, a puff of smoke rushed into the sky, and then the flames rose to the sky, and the wind fueled the flames, and the flames rose into the air, and the workers were terrified. I stood there and mechanically repeated the words: "Don't run, don't run." ”
About half an hour later, the crowd had rushed past where I was standing. I saw a firelight in the distance, and smelled a smell of gunpowder, and heard a crackling sound, as if firecrackers were set off during the Chinese New Year.
I decided to follow the path that the masses had run. When I caught up with them, there was a Chinese worker who knew me and said to everyone, "Let's go with him!" ”
Even though I told them that it was useless to go with me, because I didn't know what to do with myself, they insisted on coming with me.
I had no choice but to find them a place to hide, and at last we ran to a small village, and I saw a red cross on the top of the church, diagonally facing the sky.
I went straight to the church. Luckily, the door is open, and I want everyone to sit quietly on the bench and wait for the dawn.
The next morning, I learned that it was not the Germans attacking that night, but the ammunition depot of the munitions factory**. For three days, the French sent a large number of police to surround the munitions factory. Later I found out that people in other parts of France didn't know it was happening.
One day in October 1918, I was asked to report to the YMCA headquarters in Paris, and the train I was supposed to arrive at 10 o'clock in the afternoon, but I was delayed by several hours.
There was an elderly Frenchman in the same car, and we sat together for hours, but we didn't talk to each other. In the middle of the night, he suddenly asked me if I had booked a hotel in Paris.
I told him not yet, because I wanted to spend the night at the YMCA headquarters, so I didn't think there was any need to book a hotel. He kindly asked me to come to his house, saying that it was more comfortable to stay at his house and that it would be more convenient to do things the next morning.
I was a little embarrassed, but finally I agreed. When we got out of the car and went to his house, his wife, dressed in a black shirt, was waiting for him, and she immediately made us hot chocolates.
As we had a late-night supper, his wife spoke leisurely about letters from Saigon and Hanoi. I speculate that his family is in the chemical industry. The next morning, the hostess prepared a rich breakfast for me.
During the meal, she told me that his brother and only son had died in the war. Now, she and her husband have nothing to do but show warmth to people.
After breakfast, the old man took me to see his chemical plant and office, which was a great cause and had a connection with the whole world.
After I finished my business in Paris, I was ready to leave for Saint-François. One day in November 1918, at noon, I went to the post office in Lyon. I was amazed that the whole post office building was running out, and while I was buying stamps at a window, a French girl suddenly grabbed me and said, "Let's dance." ”
I think she must be crazy, because how can the post office let people dance casually at noon. She insisted that I dance with her, but I insisted, and she grabbed me by the arm and pushed me into the street.
At this time, I saw many flags flying in the window. Within minutes, many people were gathered in the streets, shouting, kissing, and dancing. It turned out that the war stopped.
In the afternoon, I returned to St. Fence, and along the way I saw many French soldiers getting drunk. Some fell to the ground, staggering, and kept muttering, "This is usual, this is usual." "As far as I can imagine, France has done everything in its power to win the final victory.
The French, like people in other countries, longed to return home for peace as soon as possible after the war, but they were deeply disappointed that it backfired.
A random signal can cause a soldier to cease fire; A casual signing of a document can make a diplomat declare peace; A simple declaration can make a ** recognize peace; But real peace is not so simple, slow and slow.
In the last months of the European War, the French used the phrase "this is wartime, this is wartime" to illustrate their hardship. After the armistice, when I saw their disappointment, I wondered what sarcastic words they would use to describe their disappointment.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before they all said, "It's usual, it's usual."
I have a bicycle made in the United States, which is supplied by the YMCA. I often rode along the Rhine with my colleague Xu Yixuan in Lyon, and we traveled to many towns in the Rhine and as far south as Avignon.
We found that the French are quite hardworking and self-reliant, which is very different from what foreigners think. Sometimes, we stayed overnight in a small French hotel, and the owner and hostess treated us like family.
After dinner, I sat with them to talk about family life, and the landlady often asked us if we had any buttons that had fallen off, and she could sew them for us.
At the beginning of 1919, the YMCA sent me to the huge Sneda Arsenal in Leclesso to open another club for the local Chinese workers, who had almost 1,500 Shandong workers living in barracks.
When I first asked the person in charge for a house to open a club, he shrugged and said that there really was no empty house. During those days, I used to carry American cigarettes, but I didn't smoke them myself.
At that time, I handed him a cigarette and he was very happy. Later, I gave him a whole box, and he asked me to see him again in three or four days.
The next time we met, I simply gave him a whole box of cigarettes, and he said he had found a house that was now piled up with things, and if I thought it would work, he could give it to me. Mr. Xu and I looked at the house and were very satisfied and thought that we could do a lot with it.
Once we had a place, our first plan was to show a film to the workers, and we got a projector and some films from the YMCA headquarters. However, there was no power supply in the house, so we went to the house of the person in charge and gave him some chocolate candy for the little ones. So, he installed a special line for us.
The next step was the operation of the projector, and we couldn't find a single person who could use the projector. Mr. Xu, a student of economics at Harvard, is just as ignorant as I am. Later, we continued to experiment, and at the end of the day, we finally got it right. It was a big deal to show a film in the camp for the first time.
In Saint-Fangse and Le Clesot, I found the Chinese and French very easy to get along with, and the non-serving officers, sometimes even lieutenants, came to the barracks of the Chinese workers from time to time and talked for hours. Sometimes, the French would bring their own gramophone to the barracks and let it be played by the workers.
One night, I was working at the club when a French girl came in and wanted to talk to me alone. So, I took her to my small office, and she asked me if she could marry a worker surnamed Yang.
I told her that I didn't know the person, so I couldn't give advice. I asked her if she had ever considered that there are many differences in Chinese living habits from those in France.
She said she had thought about it. I asked her again if she had taken into account the consequences, and she said:
If I had stayed in France, I might never have gotten married, and even if I were lucky enough to marry, the other person would have been an inexplicable guy who drank all the money he earned, and when he got drunk, he lost his temper and beat me and scolded me.
I've known Yang for a year, he's never drunk, and I don't think he'll ever hit me. I think it must be good to marry him. ”
Later, when I went to a labor camp in northern France with the British army, I noticed that there were many differences in the way the British and French managed the Chinese workers.
The British ** official was rigid and strict, except for official business, there was no contact between the official and the workers. However, the British camps were cleaner than those in France, and the workers were paid and rationed, and they could write letters to send money and even receive letters from home.
The French** had a lot of dealings with the workers, even joking with them, telling them stories, and sometimes eating with them, but the camp management was quite sloppy.
Workers complained that they could not communicate regularly with their families in China, and that they did not know if their families had received their settling-in payments and irregular payments from France.
When I was in France, I traveled as much as I could, as long as I didn't delay my business, and the cigarettes and chocolates I received from the YMCA helped me a lot and made it easy for me to get on the road.
I've been to: Biarritz, Lourdes, Pau and Marseille.
In Lourdes, I visited the cathedral and the statue on the hill, which show the crucifixion of Jesus. Next to the cathedral, there is a small hole from which a spring flows.
People tell me that this spring water has a mysterious power that can heal all diseases. On the rocks above the small hole, there are many crutches that have been left there by people who have healed their legs.
A French Catholic priest who had been a missionary in Yunnan told me, fluently in Chinese, that miracles had occurred there. Another U.S. captain also said that there was indeed a miracle there.
I wonder why modern people are so superstitious. A few years later, during World War II, Hollywood made the legend of Lourdes into a movie called "The Song of Bernart".
Old photos of Marseille, France **From the Internet.
In Marseille, I stayed in a seaside hostel. I think the scenery of the Mediterranean Sea must be particularly beautiful, and the rooms in the hostel are equipped with the names of various countries, such as Venice, France, Athens, and Peando North.
The rooms were all empty and I had the choice to choose. So, I chose Beiping, the room has a corridor, facing the sea, I can see the monstrous white waves from the sea, wave after wave from the sea when I lie on the bed.
I said to myself, "It's romantic." "But when I went to sleep at night, I heard the roar of the wind, which was sad and terrifying. I felt very lonely.
Because I was alone in a room, I was the only guest in the whole hostel, and I seemed to be independent and about to become a fairy.
Old photos of the Paris Peace Conference in World War I **From the Internet.
During the Paris Peace Conference, I came here several times, and in addition to reading the newspapers and getting news, I also received some reports on the conference from Chinese friends who attended the conference.
I was very surprised by the decision to transfer Germany's former rights in Shandong to Japan.
I really don't understand why Wilson, who has always advocated self-determination for the peoples of the world, should go against his own principles. However, I think there must be a good reason for Merriam-Webster's move to be made public, and perhaps it is not to be made public.
I am in this environment, talking with the Chinese delegation every day, sharing their worries and disappointments, and because I know the truth so well, I can hardly imagine how the Chinese delegation's opposition to the decision on the Shandong issue of the Paris Peace Conference and its refusal to sign the peace treaty will have on China, the crisis in China, and the New Culture Movement.
Before I leave France, the YMCA will convene a meeting of all YMCA members serving in the military to discuss the topic of French work experience and the welfare of future Chinese workers.
As a result of the discussions, a collective education movement was born, led by Yan Yangchu, who had studied at Yale University.
While teaching Chinese in the military, he suddenly had an idea that educators should first find a thousand of the most commonly used Chinese characters.
Our students studying abroad think that learning Chinese is too wasteful of time, and unless we can simplify the teaching method, illiteracy is difficult to eliminate.
In fact, the central issue of Chinese education is the Chinese language. Chinese characters are difficult to pronounce and even more difficult to write. Putting different strokes together is difficult in itself.
Mr. Yan believes that after considerable selection, a thousand words can be found that can be learned by workers within three months, which is enough for their daily life.
Mr. Yan's initiative of basic Chinese vocabulary and group teaching method was the main achievement of the conference.
After returning to China for a year of experimentation, Mr. Yan found that it was not enough to start the work of eradicating illiteracy itself, because behind the problem of illiteracy there were also problems such as poverty and disease.
Therefore, the collective education movement led by him also involves issues such as health and the improvement of production, and it is necessary to make great efforts in modern science and technology work in order to be effective.