American Presbyterian Mission Research Articles

Challenging the Palate and the Mind. Introducing Western Baking Vocabulary Into Chinese

Challenging the Palate and the Mind. Introducing Western Baking Vocabulary into Chinese. Starting from the first Western recipe book published in China in 1866, the paper analyzes the attempts to translate Western bakery vocabulary into Chinese. Although the Chinese cuisine was already very rich and refined, with a complex vocabulary, dessert had never been an integral part of a traditional meal, and, in fact, there was no specific word for it. After China’s defeat in the two Opium Wars, in the mid-19th century, the increasing foreign presence on Chinese soil meant both an increase in demand for cooks able to satisfy the dietary needs of the Westerners, and of restaurants serving Western food, especially in cities with foreign concessions, like Shanghai, where dining in such a place had become very “modern”. Zao yang fan shu (Foreign Cookery in Chinese) compiled and translated by Martha Foster Crawford, and published at The American Presbyterian Mission Press, in Shanghai, in 1866, was the first Western recipe book to be translated into Chinese. Out of the 271 recipes, 139 are desserts. Considering the resistance of the Chinese language to loanwords, especially phonetic loans, the paper looks at the solutions employed by Crawford to translate the new vocabulary, find out when were the phonetic loans used and how were they transcribed, if it was possible to identify equivalents in Chinese for the new terms, which terms were translated as semantic loans, and which are still in use today. Keywords: Zao yang fan shu, translation, recipe book, baking, phonetic/semantic loan

American Missionaries in Egypt, Gender Relations, and the Professional and Social Formation of Women, 1854–1967

Abstract This article considers the impact that the American Presbyterian mission in Egypt (1854–1967) exerted on American and Egyptian women, by expanding career opportunities and roles in church life and promoting new ideas about gender relations, sexuality, and family. It uses American women doctors and Egyptian Bible Women as case studies for female professionalism. Questioning the premise that influence moved one way, from American missionaries towards Egyptians, this study rejects triumphalist narratives about American progress in the gender domain; develops the story of missionary encounters as a bumpy two-way street; and shows how American and Egyptian women struggled to seize opportunities amid persistent gender discrimination. The article discusses the dearth of sources about these women, a shortfall that widens the gender gap in historical representation, requiring us to read between the lines.

“To write for children, and to write well”: Protestant Mission Presses and the Development of Children’s Literature in Late-nineteenth and Early-twentieth century China

This article uses a new historicist approach to examine the complex relationships between translators, writers, and missionary publishers in China, and their financial supporters in the United States and Britain to demonstrate how they influenced the development of Chinese children’s literature. It focuses on the case of the American Presbyterian Mission Press, Chinese Religious Tract Society, and Christian Literature Society for China, publishers of many texts for children. The article argues that the Western mission presses shaped Chinese children’s literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by introducing new narratives through translation, highlighting the importance of including visual images in children’s texts by importing electrotypes and lithographic prints from the United States and Britain, and training Chinese students in new engraving and printing techniques which allowed them to establish their own publishing houses.

Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi. « From Evangelizing to Modernizing Iranians: The American Presbyterian Mission and its Iranian Students ». Iranian Studi

Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi. « From Evangelizing to Modernizing Iranians: The American Presbyterian Mission and its Iranian Students ». Iranian Studi

An Egyptian in China: Ahmed Fahmy and the Making of “World Christianities”

Ahmed Fahmy, who was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1861 and died in Golders Green, London, in 1933, was the most celebrated convert from Islam to Christianity in the history of the American Presbyterian mission in Egypt. American Presbyterians had started work in Egypt in 1854 and soon developed the largest Protestant mission in the country. They opened schools, hospitals, and orphanages; sponsored the development of Arabic Christian publishing and Bible distribution; and with local Egyptians organized evangelical work in towns and villages from Alexandria to Aswan. In an age when Anglo-American Protestant missions were expanding across the globe, they conceived of their mission as a universal one and sought to draw Copts and Muslims alike toward their reformed (that is, Protestant) creed. In the long run, American efforts led to the creation of an Egyptian Evangelical church (Kanisa injiliyya misriyya) even while stimulating a kind of “counter-reformation” within Coptic Orthodoxy along with new forms of social outreach among Muslim activists and nationalists.

The Use of Metal Types of the American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai on "Tokyo Nichinichi shinbun" and its Significance

The Use of Metal Types of the American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai on "Tokyo Nichinichi shinbun" and its Significance

The First Mental Hospital in China

AFTER MORE THAN 25 YEARS of planning and fundraising, American medical missionaries opened the first mental hospital in China in 1898. In 19th century China, the mentally ill were usually confined by their families in a dark room of the house, essentially neglected.1 If left to wander in the streets, they were often mocked and laughed at, and sometimes stoned. If they did anything wrong, they could be arrested and thrown into prison. Because the mentally ill were largely invisible, some missionaries argued that mental illness was not as prevalent in China as in Europe or the United States. John G. Kerr, MD (1824–1901), an American Presbyterian medical missionary, disagreed—and he worked long and hard to change the treatment of the mentally ill. Kerr had trained at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and went to Canton, China (now Guangzhou), in 1854. For more than 40 years, he ran the Ophthalmic Hospital in Canton, which treated almost one million patients.2 He also trained 150 Chinese medical students, including Sun Yat-Sen, who would become the first president of the Chinese republic. Kerr translated 34 volumes of Materia Medica into Chinese and published many of his own articles and treatises. In 1887, he became the first president of the Medical Missionary Association of China. As president, Kerr presented his plan for a mental asylum to the Medical Missionary Association. He was strongly supported by Professor Edward P. Thwing of the American Presbyterian Mission, who read a paper at the Shanghai Medical Convention in 1890 on “Western methods with insane Chinese.”3 In it, Thwing noted that he and Kerr had visited a number of wealthy citizens of Hong Kong and Canton and appealed to them for funds to open a mental hospital to bring relief to their suffering kinsmen; these citizens had listened politely but declined to do anything. But Thwing was not deterred; the demands of humanity required a mental hospital—whether or not the Chinese themselves wanted one. “We ask, not what they want, but what they need,” he wrote. “The heathen do not ask for bibles and missionaries, but they need them all the same.”3(p399) The same logic applied: the Chinese did not want, but needed, a mental hospital. The Medical Missionary Association agreed, in 1890, to support the proposal, despite doubts and objections from some of its members. In 1891, Kerr bought three acres of land in Canton, at his own expense, and started a dispensary. In 1894, he received unexpected help from a former medical missionary who gave him the money to erect a building on the site. By 1897, the hospital, with 24 rooms, was ready; in February 1898, the first patient was admitted.4 Kerr said that most of the patients were brought to him in chains; his descriptions suggest that, at that time, the insane were often treated as harshly as lepers. The first patient admitted had been chained for three years to a stone in such a way that he had been unable to take a single step and had lost the power of walking.5 The second patient, a woman, was found with a chain around her neck, the end of which was fastened to the floor behind her. John G. Kerr Refuge for the Insane, Canton, China Source. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. When he opened his Refuge for the Insane, Kerr declared some new principles: first, insane patients were ill and should not be blamed for their actions; second, they were in a hospital, not a prison; and third, they must be treated as human beings, not as animals. He pledged to conduct a course of treatment based on persuasion rather than force, on freedom rather than restraint, and on a healthy outdoor life with a maximum of rest, warm baths, and kindness. He also wanted to provide patients with gainful employment wherever possible. The directors of the Canton refuge worked closely with local Chinese officials and local police, who did not know how to handle insane people and were glad to refer them in large numbers to the refuge.6 Chinese officials paid the refuge an annual allowance for taking care of the patients. Local families also brought in patients, and some were sent from Hong Kong by the British authorities. The hospital was eventually expanded to 500 beds, and it operated with considerable success until it finally closed in 1937.

From Evangelizing to Modernizing Iranians: The American Presbyterian Mission and its Iranian Students1

This article examines the American Presbyterian education project in Iran from the early nineteenth century to 1940. While most literature on the subject concerns Iranian state-missionary relations and Presbyterian boys' schools in Iran, this article seeks to address the interactions between American Presbyterians, the Iranian state, and students and families of Iranian girls' schools. A study of the Presbyterians' flagship girls' school in Iran Bethel/Nurbakhsh and its sixty-six-year history reveals missionary intentions, tactics, and accomplishments, as well as the adaptations and accommodations pressed upon them by the Iranians they served. Despite the school's promotion of modern American norms and Christian teachings, the young graduates of Iran Bethel/Nurbakhsh developed a strong sense of loyalty to both Iran and Islam, thus turning an evangelist mission into an important feature of the construction of Iranian nationalism and modernity.

The Impact of American Protestant Missions in Lebanon on the Construction of Female Identity, c. 1860-1950

Posing challenging questions in an attempt to answer what impact the American Protestant missionary encounter had on middle-class Syrian women, this article focuses on the experience of Syrian women with the American Presbyterian Mission in Lebanon. It discusses missionary educational institutions as the most important site of the encounter between missionaries and women in the Middle East. It further speculates as to what young Arab women took from their mission educations' ideas of gender, modernization and deculturization in order to shape their own destinies and to create their own sense of identity.

The American Presbyterian Mission Press and other Mission Press in China(THE 33RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE JSSD)

The American Presbyterian Mission Press and other Mission Press in China(THE 33RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE JSSD)

Advocate and Partner: Missionaries and Modernization in Nan Province, Siam, 1895–1934

John Fairbank wrote of China that “the missionary movement … was a profound stimulus to China's modernization”, and he cited missionary medical, educational, and humanitarian work, including extensive rural contacts, as the basis for his conclusion. And George Antonius in his classic study of Arab nationalism noted that in the Arab revival of the last century, the American Presbyterian Mission in Syria played an important role in the rebirth of Arab literature and education. The Presbyterian missionaries were one important source of the emergence of the Arabs into the modern world. A reading of Thai history suggests that the missionaries in Siam might well have had a similarly important impact. However, the role of the missionaries after the decades of the 1830s to the 1850s has been little studied and is hardly understood. This has been especially true because the historical study of Thai modernization has focused primarily on national policies and strategies where the missionaries had less influence after the reign of King Mongkut (1851–68).

Yokohama-the place where the Bible was translated into Japanese-

Dr. J. C. Hepburn of the American Presbyterian Mission landed at Kanagawa on October 18, 1859, and stayed in Jobutsuji, a Buddhist temple. As a medical missionary, he treated native patients in the neighborhood. S. R. Brown of the Reformed Church Mission arrived at Kanagawa fourteen days after, and stayed in the same temple. J. Goble of the Free Baptist Mission, who came to Kanagawa on April 1st, 1860, and G. H. Ballagh of the Reformed Church Mission, who came to Kanagawa on November 11, 1861, stayed in Jobutsuji also. Those four missionaries began to translate the New Testament into Japanese while studying the language.On December 29, 1862, Dr. Hepburn moved to No. 39, Yokohama and opened his own dispensary. He was very busy treating patients, teaching medical students, and making a dictionary, but continued to translate the New Testament. In 1866, he published Waei-gorin-shusei, the first Japanese-English dictionary. Goble published his Japanese edition of Matthew in 1871. Ballagh gave up his intention of translating the Bible, as the Great Fire of Yokohama in 1866 burnt his manuscripts.Nathan Brown of the American Baptist Mission came to Yokohama on February 7, 1873, just before the removal of the edict against Christianity. Immediately he started the translation of hymns and some parts of the Bible in his house, 67, Bluff, Yokohama.The first New Testament Translation Committee was organized in 1872, in which S. R. Brown, Dr. Hepburn, and D. C. Greene of the American Board became the members. But the committee could not act, because Dr. Hepburn was abroad and Greene was in Kobe. The second New Testament Translation Committee started in 1874. The members were S. R. Brown, Dr. Hepburn, Greene, and Nathan Brown. They translated the New Testament in S. R. Brown's house, 211, Bluff, Yokohama.Nathan Brown left the committee in 1876, because of his different view from the other members' about the translation of the word 'Baptisma'. In 1879, he published the first Japanese edition of the entire New Testament by himself. The Standard Japanese New Testament was completed by the committee in 1880. S. R. Brown returned to America the year before, as he was seriously ill. About three-fourths of the work was translated by Dr. Hepburn. The Standard Japanese Old Testament was completed in 1888 by the second Old Testament Translation Committee which was organized in 1882. Dr. Hepburn, G. H. F. Vrebeck of the Reformed Church Mission, and P. K. Fyson of the C. M. S. were the members. Dr. Hepburn, who was the leading member in charge, translated most of the Old Testament in his house, 245, Bluff, Yokohama.

A 19th Century Arab's Observations on European Music

aris al-Shidyaq, in later life known as Ahmad Faris, is the most curious Arab literary personality of the 19th Century. He was born in the Lebanon in 1804. His family belonged to the Maronite church, which is in communion with Rome; since the Ottoman Empire was an Islamic theocratic state, confessional loyalties were extremely important in it, and-not least among the minorities-religious authorities were entrusted with considerable powers over members of their communities. In the early 1820's, the American Presbyterian Mission became active in the Lebanon. An elder brother of Faris al-Shidyaq's, called As'ad, was attracted to its teachings, fell foul of the bishop in whose service he was, and as a result was incarcerated for some six years and died while in durance in 1830. In the meantime, Faris had been sent to Egypt to teach American missionaries, and while there he perfected his knowledge of Arabic and found employment on the staff of Egypt's official Gazette, the forerunner of Arab journalism. Still in the service of Protestant missionaries, he went to Malta in 1834 and eventually-much affected by what he called his brother's martyrdom-he himself became a Protestant. In Malta he was Director of the American Missionary Press and taught Arabic in some schools, but he seems to have been able to absent himself from his posts fairly frequently, and in 1848 he finally left for London, where he collaborated-none too happily-with Dr. Lee in the translation of the Bible into Arabic.

Marong Mahawangsa: the Keddah Annals. Transalted from the Malay by Lieut.-Col.James Low, C.M.R.A.S. and M.A.S.B. Reprinted under the auspices of the Committee of the Vajirañáṇa National Library from the journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, vol. iii. Bangkok: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1908.

Marong Mahawangsa: the Keddah Annals. Transalted from the Malay by Lieut.-Col.James Low, C.M.R.A.S. and M.A.S.B. Reprinted under the auspices of the Committee of the Vajirañáṇa National Library from the journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, vol. iii. Bangkok: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1908.