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PUMC Staff, 1936
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1936
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English
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Copyright for the Bingham Dai Papers site is held by Appalachian State University. The documents are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. [Identification of item]. Bingham Dai Papers. W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. Special Collections. Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited.
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<p>First Row:<br />Second from left: Yi-Chuang Lu (Yi-Zhuang Lu)<br />Third from left: Chun Chun Kao (Chun Chun Gao)<br /><br />Second Row:<br />First from left: Tsan Ting (Zan Ding)<br />Second from left: Wei Qing Shu<br />Seventh from left: Bingham Dai</p>
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A
'
2JO W dflo wer Road
il
Spruce Pine, N. C.
April 11, 1986
~r. ~ avid Bolton
Harriet Elliot University Center
University of North Caroline
Greensboro, NC 27412-5001
Dear David:
I want to thanlc you and the International Students Asssoc iation of the UNC-G for a very LOod time M
rs. Dai and
I had last Sunday evening.
In my talk to the group, I was so happily excited
that I becane a poor keeper of time and did not qu ite
get over to the audience the principal message you and
I had agreed upon: that a su\:taent from whatever culture
can~~reserve his or her cultural heritage and integrate
it~~at is learned here at the same time and that ~ should
use my experience as an example. I would l ike to re-state
this theme briefly, . so that you may knovi wha t I intended
to say. You may share this letter with those who may be
interested.
W
hile other cultures emphasize either t~e spiritual
or the material values, the classical Chinese culture
has always stresse d the importance of personal character
and interpersonal relations •. In my talk, I might have
mentioned briefly the Confucian Classic on Higher Education (Usually known as the Book of Great Learning ), which
teaches that one must begin with true knowledge of self,
if one wishes to make one's will sinsere, to develop one's
character, to regulate one's family, to help set one's
own state d.n ·order, and finally to help bring peace . in
the world.
As a child, I was required to learn this classic by
rote. B the time I went to th e YMCA hi gh school in the
J
capital of my provonce, Foochow, I began to understand
what this classic says and to9k it rather cerisouly. It
was this curiosity about lcnovJ. ~ne's self and about becoming a useful person that prompted me at the age of 15
to organize what we now would call a "peer therapy group"
among my fellow students , which met weekly to discuss
personal problems. It was the same curiosity that led
me to decide to be a mental healer at the age of 17 and
11
�..
2
to study Christian theology at St. John's University in
Shanghai. Soon I found it had its limitations and began
to study Hinduism and Buddhism and the Neo-Confucianism
that had become popular at that time. After my graduation from the university, I became a high school teacher, ,
and again I had my group of studsnts who met weekly to
discuss their problems of living. This was followed by
a year-long educational expef.iment, in which two wellknown Confucian philosophers and I made an attempt to
educate the whole person of the student instead of his
intellect alone . . All these activities took place before
I was 26 and before I had ever heard anything about W
estern psychotherapy.
By the time I came to this country on a government
in 19~9 'iv~I had practically forgotten my ec:i-rlier interest. butA'f had completed my graduate studies
and a personal analysis in 1935, my eariler interest in
self-knowledge and personality development came back and
led me to find a job at the Peking Union M
edical College
as a psychotheranist. This was the beginning of a career
that ,I had drea~ed about in my teens. Since ther~~no
other . psychotherapists in Peking at that time, my only
teachers were my patients. What they taught me laid the
foundation for my independent sytem of psychotherapy.
f~llo~ship
At the Peking Union M
edical College, I selected a
number of the staff and started to give each of them a
10-month period of training in self-knowledge - similar
to the personal analysis in a psychoanalytic institute,
but not quite the same. Later I carried this idea to
the ~ uke University School of Medicine and initiated the
system of giving 36 hours training in self-knowledge to
each of our psychiatric residents. I did this for over
20 years until I retired in 1969. Even after my retiremet,
I continued to give the same kind of training to a number
of mental health workers in the Appalacian area. I hope
someday this short-term training therapy will become an
integral part of all mental health workers.
In my case, it may be said that the integration of my
cultural heritage and the Westerm scientific methods I
learned in this country has been mutually beneficial.
With best wishes to you and your foreign friends,
Sincerely,
Bingham Dai, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus,
Dul\:e University
�
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Letter to David Bolton from Bingham Dai [April 11, 1986]
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1986-04-11
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English
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/e191a482a9324ea63d3d1b61ca319b87.pdf
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DREAM AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
Bingham Dai
Bonime, Walter, The Clinical Use of Dreams.
Da Capo Press, 1962.
New York:
Dai, Bingham, "Divided Loyalty in War: A Study of Cooperation with the Enemy," Psychiatry: Journal of the Biolog~
and Pathology of Interpersonal Relations, 7:J27-J40, 19 4.
, "A Sociopsychiatric Approach to Personality
Organization," American Sociological Review, 17: 44-47, 1952.
, "Intensive Personality Study as a Method of
Training in Psychotherapy," Psychological Newsletter
(Now the Journal of Psychological Issues), Vol. 2, No.4,
1956.
-'"=""-,--.,.----.-
Chinese
--,.------ , "obsessive-Compulsive Disorders in by Narvin
Culture," Culture and Mental Disorders, edited
K.
Opler, New York: Macmillan, 1959.
-------'"An Oriental Philosophy," VOICES: The Art and
Science of Psychotherapy, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1966.
---,------ , "My
for my Relative
Experience of Psycotherapy: Some Reasons
Freedom from Fatigue," VOICES: Vol. 15,
No. 2, 1979.
----.--..,.-..--' "Approaches to the Nuclear Conflict," Highland
Highlights, Fall, 1981, a publication of Highland Hospital,
a division of Duke University Medical Center. ·
- - - - - - - ' "Zen and Psychotherapy Revisited: What They can
Learn from Each Other," VOICES, Vol. 19, No. 4, 198J.
Farady, Ann, Dream Power, New York: Coward, MaCann & Geoghegen,1972.
Fosshage, Jsmes L. and Clemens A. Loew, Dream Interpretation A Comparative Study. New York: SP M
edical and Scientific
Books, 1978.
Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation . of Dreams, Trans. James
Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1955.
------- , On
w W Norton.
. .
Dre a ms.
Trans. James Strachey.
New York:
Fromm, Erich, The Heart of !Vian: It s Genius for Good and Evil.
New York: Harper & Row, 1 964. Ch apter 5: Incestuous Ties.
�2
Jung, Carl G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Trans. Richard
and Clara Winston. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963.
, Dreams.
Trans. R.F.C. Hull.
Princeton ·university Press, · 1974.
Princeton:
Kriegman, George, "Bingham Dai and Wu Wei," Academy Forum,
the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 23, No. 3,
Autumn, 1979.
Murphy, Gardner, Personality: A Biosocial Approach to Origins
and Structun~. New York: Basic Books, 19 7. Part IV, The Self.
Natterson, Josi~ph M. (Ed), The Dream in Clinical Practice.
New York: Jason Aronson, 1980.
Piotrowski, Zymunt A. & A~bert M. Briel, Dreams: A Ke¥ to
Self-Knowledge. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986.
Saul, Leon, The Childhood Emotional Pattern and Ps~chody
dynamic Therapy. New York: Van Nostrand Rein"f'..ol , Co. =,i 980.
Ullman, Montague and Nan Zimmerman, Working with Dreams.
New York: Delacorte Press/Eleanor Friede, 1979.
--~N~e~t-w_o_r~k-,~v~o~l.--.
, "The Experiential Dream Group," The Dream
3, No. 3, May/June, 1984.
Weiss, Littie, Dream Analysis in Psychotherapy.
Pergamon Press, 1986.
New York:
Wolman, Benjamin B. (Ed), Handbook of Dreams: Research, Theories,
Theories and Applications. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Co., 1979.
Periodicals:
Dream Network Bulletin. 670 East Rio Road, Charlottesville,
VA 22901. One year subscription (six issues) is $18.00.
ASD Newsl@tter, the official publication of the Association
for the Study of Dreams. The regular membership fee is
$50.00, and the special fee for students and the elderly,
$25.00.
�
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"Thirty Years of My Life," an autobiography by Bingham Dai and Selected Items from the Bingham Dai Papers
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8007_box_02_folder_01_CurriculumVitae_M
Title
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Dream Bibliography, by Bingham Dai
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English
English
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document
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Copyright for the Bingham Dai Papers site is held by Appalachian State University. The documents are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. [Identification of item]. Bingham Dai Papers. W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. Special Collections. Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited.
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<a title="Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers, 1899 - 2006, undated (bulk 1950 - 1996)" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/174" target="_blank">Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers, 1899 - 2006, undated (bulk 1950 - 1996)</a>
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Dai, Bingham
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/e6825e243f0fb9b3d21f7910fad93b85.pdf
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Curriculum Vitae
Bingham Dai, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and
Psychotherapy, Duke University
School of Medicine
Births August 26, 1899; Gutien, Fujien, China
Training and degreess
1923 B.A., St. John's University, Shanghai.
1932 M.A., University of Chicago
1932-33 Fellow in cultural anthropology, Yale University.
1933-35 Training in self-knowledge under Harry Stack
Sullivan and Leon J. Saul.
1935-36 Fellow in medical psychology, Peking Union Medical College, Peking, China.
1937 Ph.D., University of Chicago.
Positions helds
1936-39 Assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry,
Peking Union Medical College, Peking, China.
1936-37 Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Tsin Hua
University, Peking.
1939-42 Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.
1942-43 Editor, China at War, New York.
1943-69 Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Duke University School of Medicine.
1950-69 Professor, Department of Psychology, Duke Uni19691975-
versity.
Consultant, Highland Hospital, Asheville, N. C.
Consultant, New River Mental Health Center,
Boone, N. c.
Professional associationss
American Sociological Association.
American Psychologival Association.
World Federation for Mental Health; consultant, 1950-55.
American Academy of Psychotherapists1 member of the Editorial Board of VOICES1 the Art and Science of Psychotherapy, 1965-70.
American Academy of Psychoanalysis.
Society for Asian & Comparative Philosophy
�/
/ '
I
2
Publicationss
Opium: A World -Problem, an English quarterly published
by the National Anti-Opium Association, Shanghai,
Editor, 1928-29.
The Influence of Modern Science on Social Changes in
China, Selected Papers,Vol. V, the Institute of
Oriental Students for the Study of Human Relations,
1931. 27-40.
China's Contribution_ to the World Culture, The Internationalist, June, 1931.
Opium Addiction in Chicago.
Press, 1937.
Shanghais the Commercial
Review of Personality and the Cultural Pattern by James
S. Plant (New Yorks the Commonwealth Fund, 1937),
Yenching Journal of Social Studies, Peking, 1938.
The Patient as a Person, Social and Psychological Studies in Neuropsychiatry in China, edited by Richard
S. Lyman. Pekings Henry Vetch, 1939.
Review of Man against Himself by Karl A. Menninger
(New Yorks Harcourt Brace & Co., 1938), American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 47, No. 1, July, 1941.
Personality Problems in Chinese Culture, American Sociological Review, 61688-696, 1941.
Divided Loyalty in Wars A Study of Cooperation with the
Enemy, Psychiatrys Journal of the Biolo~y and Pathology of Interpersonal Relations, 71327- 40, 1944.
Some Problems of Inter-Cultural Collaboration for 1'1orld
Peace, - Approaches to World Peace, edited by B. L. Finkelstein and R. H. Maciver. New Yorks Conference on
Science, Philosophy and Religion, 1944.
An Analysis of Nancy's Problems with Some Therapeutic
Suggestions, Journal of Social Issues, May, 1945. ·
Negro Personality and the Learning Process, Harvard Educational Review, Summer, 1946.
Some Problems of Personality Development among Negro
�3
(
children, Personality in Nature, Society and Culture,
edited by C. Kluckhohn and H. A. Murray. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf", 1948.
Personal Counseling, Report of the Second Summer Laboratory Session of the National Training Laboratory in
Group Development. Research Center for Group Dynamics,
1948.
Freedom, Discipline and Personal Security, Progressive
Education, January, 1949.
The Effect of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregations A Social Science Statement, Appendix to Appellants' Briefs in the Supreme Court of the United States,
October Term, 1952 (One of 25 social scientists).
A Sociopsychiatric Approach to Personality Organization,
American Sociological Review, 17:44-49, 1952. Also
in Mental Health and Mental Disorders, edited by Arnold
Rose. New York: W.W. Norton, 1955.
Intensive Personality Study as a Method of Training in
Psychotherapy, Psychological Newsletter ( Now The Journal of Psychological Issues ), Vol. 2, No. 4, 1956.
Desegregations The Implication for Research, American
Journal . of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1956.
Science and Wisdoms A Psychologist Finds in the Wis~om
of Religions Answers Similar to Those of Modern Psychiatry, Duke University Alumni Register, April, 1957.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders in Chinese Culture, 6ocl~l
Problems, Vol. IV, No. 4, April, 1957. Also in Culture
and Mental Health, edited by Marvin K. Opler. New Yorks
Macnillan, 1959.
Culture as a Factor in Obsessive-Compulsive Neurosis,
North Carolina Medical Journal, with Theodore Braganza,
Vol. 20, No. 4, 1959.
Science and Wisdoms A Clinician Looks at Psychiatry and
Religison, The Sixth Decade of Our Century: The Developing Fabric of American Society, edited by W. hernodle.
College of William and Mary, 1959.
Minority Group Membership and Personality Development,
Race Relationss Problems and Theory, edited by J. Masuoka
�_
/
4
and P. Valien.
University of
~orth
Carolina Press, 1961.
(
Psychotherapy as a Process of Self-Transformation (a part
of my contribution to a panel on Failure in Psychotherapy: Process and Person), Annals of Psychotherapy: Monographs of the American Academy of Psychotherapists, Vol.
4, No. 2, 1963.
Cpiurn Addiction: A Sociopsychiatric Approach, Contributions
to Urban Sociology, edited by E.W. Burgess and D. J.
Bogue. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Culture and Delusional Systems of Some Chinese Mental Patients, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol.
6, No. 1, 1965.
Comment on "Showing the Patient He is Not a Worthless Individual," by Elbert Ellis, VOICES,. Vol. 1, No. 2, 1965.
An Griental Philosophy, VOICES, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1966.
The Sexual Future of Man (a panel discussion by phone),
VOICES, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1967.
Experimenting, Consolidating and Forgetting, VOICES, Vol.
5, No. 3, 1969.
Etymology of the Chinese Word for "Crisis," VOICES, Vol.
6, No. 3, 1970.
Opium Addiction in Chicago, a new edition with an introduction by Professor Lois DeFleurs Chicago Addiction in
Contemporary Perspective. Montclair, N. J.s Patterson
Smith, 1970.
Zen and Psychotherapy, VOICES, Vol 5, No. 3, 1970. Also
in Mental Health Digest, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1970; and in
Relicious Systems and Psvchotherapy, eidted by Richard
H. Cox. Springfield, 111.s Charels C. Thomas, 1973.
Comment on "the Power of Physical Illness during the
Course of Psychotherapy," by Richard E. Felder, VCJICES,
Vol. 12, No. 4, 1976-77.
My Experience of Psychotherapy: Some Reasons for my Relative Freedom from Fatigue, VOICES, Vol 15, No. 2, 1979.
Approaches to the Nuclear Conflict, Highland Highlights,
a publication of Hir)lland Hospital, Asheville, N. C.,
�5
'
!
a Division of the Duke University Medical Center, Spring,
1980.
A Doctor Who Is Deadly Serious about Healing Himself,
VOICES; Perspectives on John Warkentin, .Vol. 17, No. 2,
1981.
Being Fully Human: A Chinese Ideal of t-1ental Health, Highland Highlights, a publication of Highland Hospita~.
Asheville, N. C., a Division of Duke University Medical
Center, 1981.
Response to "Clinical Situation," by Allyn F. Roberts in
INTERVISICN, edited by Grover E. Criswell, VOICES, Vol.
19, No. 2, Summer, 1983. 86-87.
Zen and Psychotherapy Revisiteds What They Can Learn from
Each Other, VOICES, Vol. 19, No. 4, ..Winter, 1984.
On Sullivan - His Life and His Work (A Symposium), WAW
NEWSLETTER, VOL. XVII, No. 1, Winter 1982-83,12-13.~Psychoanalysis in China Before the Revolution, Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review, Vol. XXI, 4, 1984,
280-282.
�
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8007_box_02_folder_01_CurriculumVitae_A
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Curriculum Vitae of Bingham Dai
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English
English
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Copyright for the Bingham Dai Papers site is held by Appalachian State University. The documents are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. [Identification of item]. Bingham Dai Papers. W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. Special Collections. Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited.
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Drexel Avenue
Chic s.go, Ill .•
ct• 5; l, 931
O
5e33
• F.dward S.a.pir
Departmen t o f AntJ.iropology-
Ya.ie University
New Ha:ven , Connecticut
'iy dear D1~. Sapir:
I am writing bh.is to repeat my application f or a
f9llowsh!p for the semin a r on Impact of Culture on Per ....
so11ality to be given at Yale dtir-in · tho y ea:r 1932-35 .
As I have stated in parson before, my interest i n
t h e . tudy of p ersonality rms quite a tong history . Taught
s
to reel te t l"1.e R:.Ylcient classics .s ino e early childhood and
b:r-a ught up in a p ri m
ary-graoup environment , I started nry
student-oa~r w1 th the mnbi tion of being a "holy man" .
W t h adoles~ence 1 however, cu:rn0 the inev1 tabla conflicts•
l
Being serious•minded, I was t h en for the first 'time in rcy11fe brought fa.Ce to face with ·bhe proble.. .s of perso:nal1 ty .
Thi nking that Olw1st1anity might h old the key to t he solution of' personality p roblems, I toolt up t;heology 111 St.
~Tobn's University,, Shanehai fi'"Om 1920 to 192:3 cut o f sh0 e r
om•iosi ty . W
ider contact with oth er a3ate111S of" thought and
the new eoh ools of' p sych ology l a ter turned rJry a.ttent:ton
from religion to a mol"-~ l"'etlistic app:ri~c h . _nstead o f be ....
in a 1•eacher ~ I becaw..e a high school -teac her a nd starte d
to expe!'i :ment on m;r O\m t heory o f edu ~at ion . I organized
pupils ·vhom I mac.le s _ eci al c :f:'f'ort to g et well uc u a inted wi t h
into f'r iends hip gi~oups, each having a natural l eader.
Thro· ~h tb.is organization I was able to gain an i nti mate
knowle dge of t he li fe of onch of these pupil s outside the
class. r ot fm c me to .ne to tell their own at1ro;tes and
thus enabled me to g ive t hem tho appropriate help , W
hen
t h.is e eri lent o f .mine was known t o a y oung philosopb.e
by the name of Liang Shou- ming, the aut h or of" tho noted
work , The. Philoso . by of Ea.ste~n e.nd N
est,e rn Cul tu.res~ I
w&s a sk e d to join him in a new educati ona l exp e ri rr~nt in
Shant'U!J • '11h ere I re p eated my work
o~ the studnnts mid
gain d
l ittle _o re insi o-ht i nto the d if't'i c ulties i nvolved .
After a fo w y ea'.Ps teaehir..g and exp er imG.i;~ting on the
behuvior p robl w
..s
sch ool ..~up i ls ,, I jcine d t h e !fa t .ional
Ant!·w p i ?tl Asnoc itl.t ion :Ln 1 .. 27 . ! was o.sk e · to take char·g e
�of research :i::n~o;i ects , and was then b3:"0t w·tr,. ~m.l t o f acg
-..tl:th p.CPsvnali ty :i; <:.>'blo:ms oi' e. dl f'fe r "Gnt ~af:~e_.- .cresi de s
c ndtw·t ing inv ~ s-ti ga. t.ions of pop y cul i v e:t_ on• I ,as
foreeri bv the n&'i:i1J..!!"0 of · .e J!robla.m to . ./i;; ~;; chc lives o f
opitl."11 smokers, vd. t l a '71..~w of' lscolat ing t he pars .1:•.l and
social faa to::rrn thn.t b.r ing a ou t t h ei:t'" .ol>uoxious haoi t . Be-·
I proceeded verv f·u~ al ong t 1'1l 2 li . .e or stud 1 howe11e r , I
bad to leavG t h e Association and aame to this c om1't:t"y ! ·
. £. n.Ose att.empt s tha:I;;
hav0 macio to tacltle th
pro-
blEnn:; of p e P. s onulit t are o.t bEJ..ut grop:Lnp· "~ in the dark , as
t · n
ad no intiuiatG o on-c ~t<:3t v.ri-C;h current soc.iolegy Gr
soo:t&l s yehology •
mention the&e p01~son l
.. -p i"i.enc es ,
b0c au - e 1. I b oli~ve , they sel'!ve best t o indi cate t he na tUl'e
of nry i ntev:e at a till t he line of' at, tack I .have b een pursui ng
befor..; ! taJrn s c'.i.olog-y s~v-iou sl J •
c•m e aec!ua. nt.-~ce wi t h modern sociol, ogy- and · oeia l
p sy chology &
nd wo rks b.earh 1-'f' on tJ:xe J:leli: t:ton be t ween society
and the i ndivi u. l OJ? ~u:t.tur'e W"l p ct>J:lo:ne,l ity s ince I c a me
t o t..Je Ul:11veN;iity of' Chi-ca g o il. 1 92 onl y e nhance.~ YJ.Ty inte:. os-t in t 11e gtu.dy of !f~Qnal l t~ .~ F1or my M· A.-.i t hesis ,,
I h ave. be ~n wi• ti:ng abou t : e Si)e inl~ with ·o ·u.e:J , treat i ng
1 t 'a a -00.se of t 'rt ioss .of pe1"·sona15.:t_y .,· : am. no . e cu1..d more
i 110lin0d t o tlll.ii..11; tt.1i1t t -<3 Ci.."U:Ci al prohl.0111 before· us is to
s tud::r the natu;r.-e of ' <n... s onali t y nnd hQvr it is £ornm0. t hrough
the p:t>oce,s e of' socia:L int e.Paction.,. ' 1 0 u e t he t erms of the
pro.L osed se:i:nin.n:f!!#' w0 nr,J;st stud;, · · ·:,_ infiuences ottl t.u:re has
upon the i'o1~!'1l11 ,ion o:f a pePsonaJ..i ._ -H~ n the es aential
nature of pe!l'sonality and the :roee ss o f its .:for:mati. n .is
;
o
known., :r elieve 1 it is pos si.bl.~ to sol;ve l!l.any of the perp l ·e :xinp p "Oblo.ms of pe.l"'-BOnalft'.I{ :a.,,~d soe ia.l control 41
W ~ t.u-0 t; goiri:f~ m-cy- f't.1rthe r; I shall
.
JJ.cut . s mo of . ..i, ..,mbi t io ~s _.
:..
rli'.HJ
briefl y in-
l • Foll wL ,g the tradi tlona intet..e st i n character
e-d 1 a.tivn., the Cr.J.nese· edu e-0.ti nul ;y-st(:}m nrescn.~i b es f or
e very prl:m:a.ry
d. s-e-e ond.ai..,y school o. lophrt..'t!lunt or moral
e ucation.. Hi vhel" ·o thl s _pm:•ticr J.ar line of e&ui:!a.t1 onal.
ac , i vi ty · s beoe:n pret t~ • uch a.lour" t oo tracri tion:J.1 line,
eonsisti ..i.g- .:OP2-ef'l;Y of ravmrtL'3 an.,._ p1.ID.j..s'.h ments . I have long
vd.s ied t1~· t I c ould e;i ve a nc1e-nt1 ic cl~r c t er t o t his kind
o -· ~:. or. _
. 1 ·he achoo-l s t.b.rou.ehoUi.. the -0ount1~·"' ~S;ide
fr m tht. --~oo
tl IJ tr..e i:..1cli vi du.al Bt.u..:i_e::it. m y d r~. ve · rom
r
sciantii'.j,c a l'oac.' to thei r _ e-1•sonal problG ._s,• we may f i nd
i n. the l ivp s of Lode i~ . .. ,inese- yo' th~
val u 0 bl0 e~ h i bit o f
tfi.~ v-w:•.:..ous Vh .
bo t l t..b.
1 d un "" the ney; Tie.s tern aul tur e s
do ao ullly influenc.e perso l lity ., The po "son.alit, problems
o f hine se y uths if gatl ,red · n tho r i~h.~G way' I"Jk\y· .furnish
u
�s with scient.J..f:i.o da.ha of ·he f:l.rst :magnitude .
2 ., T:"l p1• lem o.f c 1
is _
"'oug:1t ll0:t.i10 ·o me in
conn -.ctio __ wi th rey study of> the o i u
t.csticn . I hav0 a
burn1 t;· -se.,ir>e to ma}:e a VG: r l.l1.t~11s'> Ve ?..nd axtensive study
o~ thB 1:v
of opium. and morphlne use ns, to ind out un er
wr t cond1 tions t :.e form t ie ot ioxlo
~10, it. anu w1zy it is
so d.i.f1ic.ult fo thom ,o iv up tha ha.bit .
J. hu fro studonts
o f tho prol 1.em :w.ve b een biased e :t thor by l!l.O "Dl sent i ments
.... Gc,onon - c considerati ns . Jin y ·t I h."1v not ht·nr d of any
·
f!§M•h a ttempt tm r P- e.c th problem fri~Jtl the social psych lo ~ .LC .. l point of view •
a the use of 6p:iUL'l •i d ot:ie~
otic dl";,,tgs ic a ver•y widesp read evil mid bas puz zled all
J'bl0 l aJJures o f s-uppro co i
• ~?!y ""cientlfle r·.ndlng in
I to th~ c p1? oblo,. \·Jill be a. p osi · i ve contr ib1•t:lon to
wal · aro of hunia~ 1 ty •
0
3.
, ,,,1t is !ll st :n.eoded in hi1 a a .:,
al l us in the
01•i nt t; lru:-,-,·o is ucionce. , and p a1•ti ;t:.larly t
right ldn.U
o~ ociontif'ic ::: iri t or o.t t1 tu o "
I .. · ~1 not na.tiofie ..,.,,it h
the v:hOl s ale i mp r ation of the : cst.ern educational system,
·_d doubt v-01 im.lc~1 whether it can v 1.. produce r:;enuine
scientists and · enerate th~ n eedGd ecient_ fi c a.tti t' de. I
fllil -1 e
sed to t .. i.ink that to intir cuc n sc ... 0:nce t
tho Or ient
in fl a e11i ous 1'!10.llner p esuppos s a kt.1owlo.dge 0 how science
C ~- Q a.bout 1 11 Y'7 SOientis t.s c ome; 'co be what thoy 'r•e , and
some r:;f the ::.iocial psycholo...;:tcal ~eac tor t 1at mak. . s cie.L ce
possibl , if n t ine ito.b1o .. For t~:ds reo.s n , I ha
a
stro J.g esiro t o .study . t7 a sci('mtific onr.e·or is aotunlly
fo a-, a:ndh w s cie:nt_f'ic ... scov11: .y 1s p ssible , I want
to h av a oh.."l.nce to stud, t h o l i 7EHJ o ··
emine . t sc::Hmtlsto aid f'ollou tl
""" r t .:. ir :minds act al ly work.
This
:ts es~ent:tn- 1.
study of t l10 i _.fluonc of. a t ~e upon
parsonali ty ._
·ul
4,. I am l o v ~ "S r.Hc ir tero s ted in the i ncreas ingly strainL. intei~n tional ol 0 ti ns . The ore' ically i t is
not i upos~i 10 to at.ud,y the pro e• ..,QO h "Ol v:e .- .:.n internat.:tonul m
i:ntc:r--... l."acial N~lntions, t fi d 0 1:"' 1 ow t 1 e inr
" vi -usJ. is i.af1.1J.enced by his ovm G•JJ. tu:"e , und to tra. o h ow
y!'G ·udic'€1s ap_ ear anC. disappear . To me t hi - L t'1e _nly
vmy t
1~<;.nreu t war e.nd to
:r•Or!lot gcH
will a ~
na t · ons •
I ho.
1 s h~J_l be f some u se also t o 3he
f' internationc.l relations .
A
-: mi. 1 t .,o on and e~pa
t~...e l ist o f icy a1¥'.biti ons .
But th G ;ju,.yt, lTl:O~ ti( ned a :~~4n:':'-?' ·xrr y h eart. and nave
g rovm r lg__t out of rrw crwn p er-sonal ~r:i.enc os ,. I n ord.er
to r ulize surno '-'f t ..::: 0 e_.rbi tiOi ' n1d. _ h1<l' t'm t ,.,,i '!:;;h
2op
�4
further training I m:ti:.·· t in t· e tuturo ad' sm.net hiw:r t o
the exist :...nr kr~oul c.e;e of h 1x -i nature , · he ., eby _:.; ply f oi...
1
a fe ll. vrnhi
or the vury i 1t e:r•e sti u seminar to e g iven
•t Yul
xt y ear .
ey sehola. i~lc stsnoine; ll p 2-0 r_
::;e r(: feJ.. ·to the
I
:re-0om't!onda t1 on f.rorn Dr . He.), ert lumer .
re for
:rou
tc a
nrev~
ou
le ':';t.
l ..
~·
reco...llllenda-
; .r • •. obert E . Park "tvrote you ls.st ye fl2' •
H ping to rece ive an earl ._ repl y ,
! o.m,
Ve~
s i c er l y yours ,
I
ii
�
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"Thirty Years of My Life," an autobiography by Bingham Dai and Selected Items from the Bingham Dai Papers
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Letter to Dr. Edward Sapir from Bingham Dai [October 5, 1931]
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1931-10-05
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<a title="Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers, 1899 - 2006, undated (bulk 1950 - 1996)" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/174" target="_blank">Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers, 1899 - 2006, undated (bulk 1950 - 1996)</a>
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Dai, Bingham
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0cd0eb9059eaaa04b18311f5518444ea.pdf
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Text
rHIRTY YEARS OF MY LIFE
1
Bingham Dai
This paper was pr,e pared for the Seminar on th,e
mpact of Cu ture upon Personality . It was
conducted by Edward Sapir , Chairman of
the Department of J\nthropology, Yale
University and financed by the
Rockefeller Foundation
1932-1933
�CONTENTS
1
Chapte r 1.
My P rentage and Home Env ironment
Chapter 2.
The Neighborhood of My Early Years
Chapter 3.
Between Confucianism and Christianity
Chapter 4.
My High School Days
24
Chapter 5.
My Life in College
32
Chapter 6.
My Experiments with Personality Education
44
Chapter 7.
My initiation into the Social Sc iences
50
13
8
�.. .
THIRTY YEJ\RS OF MY LIFE
Chapter I
My Parentage and Home Environment
I grew up in a kinship farming village in South China.
M grandparents had separated themselves from the larger
y
family, · inh.eriting a negligible acreage of land.
My grand-
father, I was told, was not a man of affairs and never
worked on the farm himself.
Furthermore , he had an ill
temper and insisted on having plenty of food and wine.
The whole responsibility of supporting the family, therefore, rested on the shoulders of my father, who was then
only a child of 12.
J\ccording to the local custom, no wo-
men are allowed to work outside the home . , But my grandmother was so able that she knew how to direct her child
in his many· undertakings and somehow managed to make both
ends meet.
J\t first my father was taught to till the land
with the ne1 of older people.
lp
not pressing , he
When work on the f arm wa s
earned to plant sugar canes and to ped-
dle them i n a neighboring town.
J\ s he grew older, he
followed ma.ny other v ill.agers in carrying loads of goods
for s tore s in the town to distant ports on the M River.
in
No vehic es: of any sort are used in this mountainous part
of the country; al l loads are carried by men on bamboo
poles over their shoulders.
In such ways, my mother used to
�2
repeat to me. my father succeeded in providing my grandparents with food and drink and making them happy.
She
said that she had never seen my father idle for a single
day, not even for a single hour .
There were times when
all the other farmers of the village were home by the end
of the day, my father would be sti ll out working.
In addi-
tion, he was extremely thrifty and self- denying, and refrained from touching the food that was reserved for his
parents.
In ap earance, he was well-proportioned , medium
in stature , but exceptionally dark in complexion, probably because of his constant exposure to sunlight.
My mother knows so much of the early life of my . father , because she was brought to my .father ' s home when she
was four years old and reared by my grandmother to be her
future daughter-in-law.
This has been and still is the
poor people ' s way of securing a wife for their son.
lot was as hard as that of my father.
Her
Whi le her future
husband labored for the food and the drink for my grandparents, she did all the serving.
J\s soon as she was old
enough, she was required to do all the house chores , including housecleaning, cooking, laundry and even husking
grains .
Every morning, as soon as my grandparents were up ,
she used to tell me, it was her duty to bring them hot tea
and hand wa.rmers, espe cially. when the weather was cold.
J\nd
my grandfarher was a very difficult person to serve , for
�3
he would often lose his temper and turn the dining table
over when he felt neglec ed by her or her future husband.
Under such c.ircurnstances my mother learned to be meek and
enduring, reticent but keenly sensitive to social situations.
I n appearance she is short, a little broad-faced
and '. ha s a light ' complexion.
So it was from such parents t hat the write r was born
on Rugust 26. 1899, the eve of the Boxer uprising that was
to climax a series of diplomatic and military defeats
Ch ' na had suffered in her encounters with W
este n Powers
and Japan.
These national events later exerte d a tremen-
dous influence on the development of my nationalistic
thinking throughout my school years.
My e l der brother was
born two years earlier and my younge r sister fifteen years
after me.
W
hen I was born. my grandparents, my parents
and my brother and my paternal uncle were all living together in the neighboring town where porcelain wares
manufactured.
~.,..
My father had- been so succe ssful in his
various undertakings that he now owned a small china factory and a general store, in both of which pla ce s my brother and I s:pent most of our childhood days as errand boys.
I can still recall how busily my father was engaged in s e lling and buying goods in the store, hiring and di recting
labor in the! factory, and storing porcelain wares and di s pa.tchin
the1 to di s tant cities.
m
My mother helpe d in the
�4
store whenever housework was not pressing .
She also help-
ed decorate porcelain wares at home , often late in the
night when all other people had retired.
By means of such
concerted efforts , my father ' s business prospered, and in
time he rose to be one of the most successful merchants in
the town and one of the most highly respected men in his
home villag1 .
e
This change of family fortune had a deci-
sive effect upon the future of my brother and myself, for,
instead of' being required to learn farming or some handicraft , we were sent to school and expected to become schol ars .
The personal relationship between my parents , however, seemed far from being ideal.
just what the trouble was.
I have not been told
But whenever my mother was
alone with me, she always had some stories to tell about
my father ' s selfishness or neglect of her.
As a matter
of fact , my father did have something of my grandfather ' s
temperament,, al though the only violent behavior I witnessed was his throwing the Bible toward my mother ' s direction.
M mother has also complained about my father ' s partiality
y
to her younger sister-in-law, that is, the wife of my paternal uncle, all of whom were then living under the same
roof.
She has made the same complaint about my grandmother.
I realized years later that such sibling-like rivalry
among sisters-in-law or daughters-in-law is a very
�5
frequent sc1urce of discord in a large Chinese family.
Anothe1r source of friction between my parents is my
brother.
J\,s a child, he was fond of playing late in the
street when he should be home and gradually came under
the bad influences of the town.
He formed rather early
such bad haLbits as gambling and sexual irregularity.
In
cases of such misdemeanor, my father usually stood for
iron discipline , while my mother invariably tended to
shield the delinquent.
Igno"rant of the principles of
heredity, my fRther strongly believed in the doctrine of
' like mothe1r like son, ' and blamed my mother for all my
brother ' s shortcomings.
Hence the endless disagreements
between the1m whenever my brother misbehaved.
My own rel at ionship with my parents has been more
fortunate. although I remember I was punished twice by
my father, once for saying a vulgar word after the fashion of the street boys and the other for getting sleepy at night when I was supposed to do my home work .
dinarily
m~r
Or-
father tolerated most of my childi sh folli es
and, as my studies i mproved , treated me with increasing
respect.
My mother never punished us; nor has she ever
used harsh words, always telling us to do things in a
s oft and te1nder voice.
#hen we were very·· young , my mo-
ther seemed to f avor my brother and often told me how reticent and backward I was as a child and how articulate
�6
and resourceful my brother was .
But as my s cho l astic
career a.dV'anced , she came to 1 ike me more and more.
She
had wondered how I could ever win in an oration contest
as I did more than once and was always pleased to listen
to me whenever I had an occasion to talk to the village r s about national events.
In
m~l
childhood r days , the most important people in
my family were not my
p~rents
but my grandpa r ents .
grandfather died before I was four years ol d.
recollect:i.on of him is vague.
But my
My
Hence my
~randmother
did not
pass away until I was 12 years old , and I was her favorite
grandchild.
I was her constant companion and nur s e at
times , for my youthful hands were often used to give re lief to her arthritic pain.
of my f ther ' s business.
She was the directing sp · rit
To assist him , she ran a pawn-
shop in heir home, and , as soon as I learned to wri t e , I
was employed as her secretary and was taught t o check
the articles that were brought in by her customers .
My
grandmother was very proud of me and so were her friends,
I was told.
Since my grandmother loved me so dearly , it
still surprises me to recall that when she died and
when a
rE!at deal of customary wailing was being done by
our relatives, I did not cry.
It is now difficult to re -
call whether this was due to my hesitation to express
grief or some unwillin ness to follow what is conven-
�7
tional .
The latter later did be come so ething of a trait
of mine.
Bes ides my grandmother , my
p~ternal
uncle and his
wife also played a very important role ' n the develo pment of my personality.
than my father.
My unc le was 18 years younger
He was probably spoiled by m grandmo -
ther and was for a while such a problem to her that he
was, as a last resort, sent to the local nnglican Church
to be reformed.
M
iraculously, he turned into a Christian,
and in a short while succeeded in converting the whole
family, including my grandmother, to the new religion.
Jill this happened .-.'llh.en lI .was "three 'Y&ars '·.old.
J\.s ··a · re--
su lt of this religious conversion , all the previous superstitious practices of the family were dropped and we
children began to attend the church regularly and were
introduced to the Bible stories .
And my mother and my
aunt not only stop ed binding their feet but a l so went
to a short-term missionary school for some form of reli ious education.
My uncle, however , remained more a consumer than a
producer to the end of his life in spite of his newly acquired religion.
He wanted only the best food and the
best c othing, which he freely purc hased whenever he was
s ent to the capital of the province to dispose of our ·porcelain wares.
He did not study for the civil service exa-
�8
mination but mingled freely with the e ducated and r eforrnminded civic leaders.
in the national
In this way he came to be involved
camp~ign
against opium and almost lost
his life during the lawless period following the 1911 revolution.
For fear that my uncle might squander away all
his ·earnings , my f ather decided to retire from his busine ss
when he was only a little over fifty .
He kept for himself
only a certain amount of farm land , leaving to my uncle a
the fam · ly property in the town.
He returned to his home
village and lived there contentedly till he passed away
three years ago.
My uncle . however , was no business man.
He soon lost practically everything that had been given to
him and, in the end , ev en got addicted to the drug he once
helped to suppress.
great a dmirer .
W
hile my uncle was living , he was my
lifter the older generation had gone , he
once said to me that there were now only one and a half
persons in the family besides himself and his wife: the
one is I and the other , my sister- in-law .
He apparently
did not have much regard for my mother and my brother.
My aunt , the wife of my paternal uncle , came to our
family when she was only 15 years old and when I was five.
Being a shy young bride , she depended on me a great deal
for runn ing her errands.
In return , she would supply me
wi th candiE:!S and secretly fed me special food and told me
a ll the st<:>ries she knew.
e became inseparable companions,
�9
especially when my uncle was away from home.
J\s a result,
I became more attached to my aunt than to my mother.
loved me so much that one of the last
~emarks
She
she made be -
fore she passed away was that she was completely satisfied
with her nephew , referring to me as I was away in school
at that time.
To her , too, my memory often goes for com-
fort in my moments of loneliness , even long after she has
passed away.
M brother and I got along wel l and were always toy
gether , until I was sent to a missionary high school in
the capital of the province.
J\s
a child I was reticent
just as my mother said , and what I wanted I asked of him.
~hen
we were very young , he was my superior in every
re~~
spectt e.xce·pt ~ fighting. In case of a quarrel • he never
fought; he either made concessions to me or appealed to
a higher authority.
I recall one day when I was three
and he was five , I wan ed badly something that was in his
hand and I started to grab it.
My grandfather quickly
took him under his protection and sent me away.
seemed he ·n ever got tired of me.
1
B t 't
O
nce I would have fallen
from a high building , had not his hand grasped · me in ·. tillte,
1
so that the older people could come to my re s cue .
The
only time he did not desire my co pany was when we were
attending the newly established pub l ic school in t he dis tri ct city and when he began to associ te with his own· -
�10
classmates.
W
hen we were children, my brother and I were given
various chores both at home and in the store or the factory.
Thus , it was my job to bring hot tea and hand warm-
ers to our elders . e rly ·in the morning, especially durin
the cold s easons.
the counteirs .
Together we swept the floors and dusted
fl s dusk approA ched, we rounded in the pigs
and chicken and cleaned a.nd filled the kerosene lamps and
saw that the doors were properly locked.
In the china fac-
tory, when time came to fire the porcelain wares in the
kilns up on the hill , it was our job to check the loads of
woo.d brought in as fuel and to carry refreshments to our
workers.
Whi le doing these chores, we had the opportunity
to see our potters at work and observe the processes through
which porcelain wares are manufactured .
.J\s we grew a little
older, we were given more responsible jobs .
Thus , in time
of harvest, we were oft en dispatched to distant farms to
collect our rent in crops , and at the end of
~ach
year we
would go to our customers to collect the money they owed
us
In some such ways , we were encouraged to partic· p te
as fully as we could in the family business
en~erpri s e.
So e incidents of my childhood that occurred· before : I
started attending any schoo
this chapter.
to set 6ff
may serve as a conclus ion
f
W
hen.I was about five years old , I wanted
s6me ~ firecrack e r s .
My mother would not
et me
�11
do it .
But our stor e sold fire crackers.
So I mana ed to
pull out one of the medium size while the older pe ople
were having their dinner.
Having ignited its fuse , I
he l d it f i rmly in my l eft hand and hid myse l f inside a
c l oset , thinking that in this way nobody woul d hear the
noise .
The explosion followed and my whole l eft palm was
b l ack !
But I kept quiet in spite of the pain and cried
out loud only when my mother came and examined my hands.
The scar r esul ting from this misadventure stil l re ains
1
with me to this day .
One day when I w s about seven , the s tore opposite
ours was
ly wen
01
n
f re , and my father , uncl e and others hurr · ed-
to its re s cu •
y mother and my aunt
ot so ex-
cited that they rushed around , not knowi ng what t o do .
I
suddenly g1ot an idea and led my a.unt to my father • s room
and begged her to he l p me pull out a large wooden box ,
in wh ch I knew my father stored a l l his land de e ds and
usiness contracts.
W carried the box to the top of the
e
hill b ck c)f our house and I sat 6tl i
sided.
This tendency to
e cal
unti l t he · fir e ·s ub-
and collecte d in the midst
of great excitement seems to be another trait of mine that
ha.s a
e r4!!d-. mo e·- t han · onoe -: · ter·' in--my life. · "
It was also in my
eventh year that I had t he most
s erious i lness of my childhood .
One o .. my
egs w s s o
weak that I could not walk , and I overheard w th
r
�12
fear what must have been a teasing remark that my father
was going to throw me into the river nearby .
M mother
y
nursed me for many months before I could walk again.
La-
ter I was told tha t my illness was due, to my grandmother ' s
catering too much to my desire for green bean soup.
This
remark prc>bably was meant to be more a comment on my grandmother ' s overindulgence of me than a statement of truth .
Before I was seven years ol d . I was told one dav
that I should go to school with my br other.
I went for
a few days and learned by rote the ·)-character Classic . · a rhymed history of China written for children - and
earned the reward of a duck ' s egg for one of my meals.
But on the following day , I resolutely put my book back
in the store for sale and told my parents that I did not
want to go to school until I was seven , and nobody could
pe r suade me to do otherwise.
The next year right after
the New Ye!ar festival, while my parents were wondering
how t o tame ·my wild nature, I announced that I was going
back to schoo l with my brother .
This bit of childish in-
dependence! and determination won laughter as wel l as res pect from my parents , and they have never failed to mention it whenever they ·talk about my childhood days.
f
�13
Chapter 2
The Neighborhood of My Early Years
ns I have indicated, the neighborhood of my early
years is of two kinds: one is a booming porcelain tow and
the other a kinship farming village.
hour •s walk from the village.
The town is about one
It is situated at the foot
of a hill a nd at a visible distance from a small winding
river, separated by clusters of old trees and patches of
rice fields.
Back of the town and up on the hill are the
potters ' workshops and the porcelain kilns.
It is a bustl-
ing booming town, with most of its stores engaged in the
manufa cturing and selling of porcelain wares.
ns children , I and my playmates found en le ss en
tainment in the surroundings of th i s· town .
r-
Up in the
hills , we would roam to gather strawberries or to drop in
at the porcelain workshops to see the potters at work .
Down on the pla,in, we wou ld climb the trees to enjoy the
breeze or explore the rice fields for small fish
In the summer , wading or swimming and fishin
was almost a daily sport.
nd shrimps.
in the river
Other pq:tdo or activit · es consist-
ed of shooting arrows at sundry targets , includin
animals ,
throwing pebbles across the surface of the water , gathering flowers and planting tree s .
Some indoor pastimes were
throwing coins, playing car ds and other kinds of childish
�14
folly , includin
some erotic games.
Perhaps our most popular sport was fighting.
The boys
living in the town were divided into two camps , one waging
war against the other.
I often took part in these fights ,
which usually took place under the moonlight and at a place
away from our homes, so our folks would not interfere.
I
was also fond of making wooden pistols, using the gunpow er
I stole from m uncle, but was a fraid to play with his big
rifles.
I enjoyed these games and adventures in spite of
my parents ' prohibition; in fact, they seldom interfered
unless I go·t hurt or neglecte d my duties.
Fortunately for
me, I was so much absorbed in these childish games that I
had no contact whatsoever with the vices of the town , such
as gambling.
One institution in the town exerted a lasting inf uence
on my life , and that · is the J\n lican Church. How my uncle
and with him the whole family were converted to the Chris tian religion has alread
been mentioned.
J
s a result, I
began to attend the church school since the a e of seven ,
and the curriculu
consisted of Bible stories, simple· ari th-
matic and Confucian cl ssics.
was in this
three years and the lessons I learned her
chool for
mi ht h ve laid
the foundation for my later interest in ethical and reli gious probl1ems .
One incident of this peri od sti ll remains distinct in
�15
my memory.
but strict.
The teacher of this church school was likable
One day when he was away for a while , we had
a fight and were caught in it.
Waving the bamboo stick in
his hand, he angri l y ordered all those involved to come
forward to receive their punishment.
Hearing the sound of
the terrible blows on the palms of their fellow delinquents
and their pitiful crying, some of us hesitated to go forward,
and because of this hesitation they were hit harder.
last my turn came.
At
But as soon as my name was called , I
ran to the teacher at full speed with my right palm stretched wide, being all prepared to receive my share of the punishment.
To my great astonishment, he put aside his bamboo
stick and ordered me to go back to my seat.
This was about
the only time in all my school years when I came very close
to receiving the old-fashioned type of punishment , but I
\.. . .- was ~ he / spared the numiliation.
My conjecture is that my
ready compliance with his call was probably considered as
sufficient proof of my repentance.
Aside from the town life just described , a considerable
number of my childhood days were spent in our village home.
The village is composed of over t hree hundred households and
all are des:cendants of the same ancestors.
The following are
some of the1 occasions that br ought us back to our village
home.
First , some of our farm tenants paid their rent in
crops and i.t was our job to help see that the grains they
�16
brought are properly dried and s tored.
Then there is the
1\ncestral Hall with its annual communal feast in remembrance
of t he villagers • common ancestry .
J\s children, my brother
and I always enjoyed partaking of the delicious food and
watching the ri tual involved .
W also vi sited the tombs
e
of our imme diate ancestors a t least once a year , and along
with the ceremonial offering of rice and wine to the spirits
we were given cakes and candies.
Fi na lly , there are ·the an-
nual religi ous festivals that have grown out of folk beliefs ,
such as the parade of local gods in the form of woo den images
in the spring and the harvest festival in the aut umn . ,
O
ne
belief associated with the latter occasion is that the hungry
ghos ts must be satisfied in some ceremoni 1 way so the y would
not disrupt the coming harvest.
J\ lthough as Christians we
were not suppos ed to be intereste d in the religious s i de of
these event$, we al l enjoyed the feasts and · the 'fun ·· that
with the processions .
~goes
On a ll these occas ions we re turend to
our village home wi th either our gr andmother or mother and
had the opportunity of frequently renewing our acquaintance
with our village folk s and the ir customs and traditi ons.
One of the village traditions concerns me directly ,
and that is the communal provi s ion for a scho l a rship fund .
From time immemorial, farms had been set asi de for the use
of young villagers who have the
de si: r e ·-" and ·~ the 0 eapa ci ty ·:t
study for the ci vLl · service examination .
,,...\
J\ 11
those who
o
�17
have passed the elementary grade of the examination may have
a share of the proceeds from these farms , so they may be able
to study for the higher degrees .
The success of a scholar
has always been considered as a honor not only to his family
but also to the village as a whole.
To attain such an honor ,
my father 1 ter s ent my brother and me to the first modern
school in the district city that was established by the Government , for by that time the old civil service examination had been ab6lished and graduation from the new elementary school was taken to be equiva lent to the fi r st degree
of the old system .
l\ lthough we children pr obab l y cared more
for the thrill of studying away from home than the literary
honor and the material reward anticipated , my father and
my uncle were unusually keen about the matter: they actua
started law suits when the old scho l ars refuse d to · take us
as their equals .
l\s long as I can r ecall , I have always been warm y receive d by my village folks.
In fact , my relationshi p wi th
them had been so satisfying that the very first attempt
ever made at bringing about so e practical reform was i n
connection with our vil age government .
be said later on.
Of this more wi
r~
y
�18
Chapter 3
Between Confucianism and Christianity
By the time when I was 10. the influence of my home .
environment. had become less and less important . while that
of the school and the city became more and more significant.
For in that year (1909) my brother and I were sent
to the newly established government school in the city
and ever since then I have gone home only during my vacations.
For the
~
rst year in the city. we were accompanied
by our mother, who could not part with us all of a sudden.
Every morning she would feed us well and dressed us neatly
and sent us to school with the reminder that she expected
us to behave and to grow up to be virtuous and useful men.
On Sundays we all attended t he s ervice at the Anglican
Church nearby.
In these ways she took care of us till we
became a ccus tomed to the life of the city.
Thi s city is the county seat with a popu lation of over
2.000 families.
It is also a commercial center . where the
country folks dispose of their produce
they need.
nd buy the things
It is situated a ong the bank of a picturesque
river and is walled in on four sides.
Inside the city, the
stores and residences are arranged in straight lines , and
divided into six wards.
In each ward there is at least one
�19
temple which houses the images of the local gods who are
supposed to look after the welfare of that particular ward.
Our school is situated in the fifth ward and is right next
to the yamei[! of the district mag istrate and only a few steps
from the Confucian Temple .
M first day in the new government school is still vi y
vid in my mi3mory.
The teacher wanted to test my knowledge
of the Confucian Classics in order to place me in the right
class.
He gave me a saying of Confucius from a certain chap-
ter of the
essay on
~~onfucian
it~
J\nalects , expecting me to write a short
Not knowing what it was all about , I reproduced
the whole chapter which I had committed to memory , for in
those days all school children were required to learn the
Confucian Classics by rote without understanding what they
learned.
During the transit i onal period I was in , the so-
called modern school was really not very different from the
traditional one.
l\ lthough such subjects as national history
and geography , art , music and even English were being
duced , the
(~hief
ntro-
emphasis was sti ll on the Confucian Class ic s.
In fact , on each school day we were even required to bow to
the picture of Confucius as we came to school and as we left
it.
I do not recal
jects taught.
how interested I was in any of the sub-
But I do remember both my brother and I pass -
ed all the examinations , and after four years we obtained
the diplomas my father and my unc le had been anxiously wait-
�20
ing for.
I recall quite a few inc idents that ocurred during
this period.
The fir st had to do with my dealing with a
naughty boy in school.
One day he ran afte r me stealthily
as I was walking home with my brother and gave me a severe
b low on my back .
W chased him i n va i n .
e
To revenge mysel f .
I solicited the aid of some of my schoolmates.
One day we
cornered him under a bed and I hit him with an umbr e l l •
Some years later. however, we became friend s .
The next incident had to do with our graduation exe r cise.
n lthough I was usually shy and reserved , I was cho-
sen by my teachers to deliver a message in 'Manda rin before
the magistrate and a fairly l a r ge audience.
This re wardin
experience may be considered as the forerunner of my later
interest and succes s in public speaking .
Life in the ci y has many attractions.
Festiva l
The Dragon Boat
n ' the sum
mer and the Lantern Festiv 1 in the au-
tumn are particular ly exciting . .
On the former occasion ,
all the women in the city together with their chi ldren usua ly appear in the ir best clothes and a great variety of candies and eatables are attractively displayed a long the s tree ts
and the rivier bank.
Especially captivating is the dragon
boat race , in wh'ch light boats fitted with dragon heads and
tails and paddl ed by strong men from the neighoring villages,
with colors flying , drums beating and chants sung in uni son ,
�21
struggle at a tremendous speed to capture the first place
for the year.
The excitement on such oc casions is by no
means limited to the youri.g. .
In the Lantern Festival , on
the other hand , one can leisurely feast on an endless
variety of lanterns made of fine bamboo strips and lotus
fibers and di splayed all over the city.
One of my memorable associations of this period was
with the students of the police school and members of the
J\nti - Opium
J
I)
ssociation, to both of which my uncle often
brought me and introduced me to his friends.
incidents in this connection.
I recall two
One day while I was running
ahead of my uncle and his friend on a country road, I overheard his fr iend say to my uncle that I was like a little
pony that someday would become "a horse of a thousand li , "
meaning a promising lad.
The Anti - Opium Association was then a very popular
or anization and many volunteers coo era ed Wirth the pol ice
in tracking down .the opium dealers .
them.
My uncle was one of
That was why when the revolution of 1911 came and when
a temporary state of lawlessness prevailed , these opium dealers sought revenge and attacked my uncle.
As the police as -
sembled and were starting their search for the offenders ,
I foo i shl y a peared on the street with a little cousin of
mine , ostensibly taking him for a walk but secretly trying
to locate the
ringleaders of the opium gang.
Suddenly one
�22
of them caught sight of me and started to chase me with a
big -sword in his hand..
I was so frightened that when I got
home, I could only lead my father to the top of the house
and point to the direction of the opium gang without being
able to say a single word.
In the headquarters of t he Ilnti - Opium J\ssociation , I
had seen how some of its members made mini bombs for se fprotection .
a t home .
M uncle had some of the component chemica s
y
One night after all the stores had closed an d the
street was free of pedestrians , I let off a little
omb of
mine own , loudly scattering small pieces of porcelain in all
direction , without anybody knowing who was behind the mis chief.
W
hen order was restored, my parents felt that the educ
ib
~
I had received at the government school was insuffi-
cient and sent me
~long
School in the same city.
with my brother to the M
ethodi s t
Life here was a little more whole -
some , as there was a large playground and we were t aught to
play the basket ball and to take part in other sports .
This
school placed the greatest emphasis on the teachings of the
Christian Bible , although the study of the Confucian Class ics
was not completely ignored.
On Sundays we were ·maPched_Jm
masse to t he Nethodist Church in town and kept there till
the service was over and then marched back to the s chool.
I do not recall my interest in the Christian religion was
�23
particularly intensified by such compulsory measures.
I did become interested in the English language.
But
M peny
manship and spelling were highly praised by my American
teacher .
Two years quietly passed by.
came.
One of our relatives was at that time the proctor of
the Y. M.
vince.
Then my great opportuni ty
c. n.
School in Foochow, the capital of our pro-
He came to visit and suggested to my father that
he should send us to the new high school where English was
emphasized.
Unable to send both of us there , my father ask-
ed our relative to talk to us and decide on which one to
send.
The luck was for me , for he thought I would be more
adaptable to the learning of a new language.
At once I was
turned over to an English tutor, and after three months I
was on the way to the new school and eventually to a new
career.
semin ry.
M
eanwhile my brother wa s sent to a theological
Thus we parted our ways and ever since then we
h ve been living in two quite different worlds.
�24
Chapter 4
My High School Days
c. n.
High School was established by the Y.
JI. of Foochow.
J\l though the Confucian Classics were
The Y. M
.
M
.
c.
also taught , the main emphasis of its curriculum was on the
En lish langua e and the Christian religion.
Subjects such
as mathematics, science, economics and even Chinese ge·ography were all taught in the English language , and the J\meri can secretaries and their wives were our teachers.
I had
the good fortune of entering the school just before the
courses began to be divided into the arts and the business
departments, and so I took all of them, including typewriting and bookkeeping.
ed.
Physical education was also emphasiz-
/Is the school was an integral part of the Y. M. C. A.
building , the students were given access to a large playground , an indoor gymnasium, including a swimming poo l, and
even the biliard tables.
/I s a result , many of us took to
athletics.
M first year in the school passed unnoticed .
y
Since
I was then only 14 years old , I must have some difficulty
in finding :my way.
To speed my adjustment to the schoo l,
my relative, the proctor, took me under his wing and closely
supervised my daily schedule.
In the following year I surged
ahead in all my studies, and for the succeeding four years
remained the head of the class , the only exception being
�25
the last semester of my senior year due to sudden i l ness .
ns I became more proficient in my stud i es , my ext racurricular activit es increased .
I began to be active in
the English Literary and Debating Society and remained its
chairman for qu te a while.
I took part in an English ora -
tion contest and won the first prize .
I participated in
the student Y. M.c . n. and for a year I was its president.
also became closely
associ~ted
I
with the new y introduced
boy scout movement and soon rose to be a scout master.
Af-
ter a summer ' s training at its national headquarters in Shan hai , I became the boy scout commissioner for the city .
was
essenti~lly
a pioneering job.
This
I gave l ee ures on the
si nificance of the boy scout movement and trained new patrols in various schools, from which troops later were form ed .
In ad ition , my interest in sports also grew.
I learn-
ed to swim, to p ay tennis, basket ball and billiard and even
took part in track meets .
Perhaps the most important development in my life during this period was my increasing interest in r e l igi on , · whi ch
h d a decisive effect on my plans for the future.
Probably
the common adolescent confl icts over sexual matters which
I shared at this time might have played a very important
ro e in this sudden sur e of religious concern.
But the
more fun amental desire to be a perfect man like Confuciu
or Jesu
must have been stimulated long ago by my repeated
�26
exposure to the Confucian Classics and the Christian Bible;
now it blossomed as I was mature enough to ref lect serious ly about my own life goal and the desti ny of the nation .
Of all
he Christian teachings I had received . I was most
puzzled by the doctrine of original sin and the redemption
work of Christ .
Somehow the idea that all men are sinfu l by
nature and that they can be saved only by t he death and re s
rection of their revengful and yet loving God incarnated
in a man did not set well with me.
Yet my ado l escent burden
of guilt coni ng from diverse courses remained to be lightened , and Jesus as a man with his e emplary life continued to
have an
imm~3nse
appeal for me.
It was at this time that I
attended a revival meeting conducted by an
can Y.M.c.n. secretary.
nm eri
itin~ rary
I ea erly confessed what I thought
to be my sins and was told that they al l were forgiven and
that I would grow up to be a great and useful man .
as happy as a youth of 18 could be .
tagious .
I was
My enthusiasm was con-
I and my boy scout friends even formed a sort of
fraternity with the purpose of encouraging each other to
lead a Jesus - ike life.
My religious interest remained strong as I appraoched
my gr duatie>n.
Al hou h some of the Christian doctrines did
not make much sense to me , I sti 1 kept thinking that if I
could have a chance to study the religion further , I might
become a better man and more able to help my country.
�27
So I began to toy with the idea of studying theology :tn ,a
missionary university , although I had no intention of be coming a Christian
minister ~
nnd at this time I had no
idea how I could ever rea ize my ambition , as my father had
retired from his business an
I hAd to borrow money to com-
plete my high school education.
J\ few incidents from this period may be worth mention-
ing.
M
ost prominent in my memory is my mountain climbing
with a patrol of boy scouts.
Naively we started to sea e
the heights of the highest mountain in the area with all our
parafern
ia: staffs , axes , flags and rop s .
Even more fool -
hardily I let the group olimb up the steep side of
he moun-
tain instead of fol owing a safer win ' n g p t b. As we ascended , our steps became more and more unsteady and none dared
to look back , until we had to crawl on all fours , drag ing
our belongings with u •
of our
nll of a sudden ,
roup , only 11 years o d , vanishe
whistle calls brought back no ans er .
perienced is indescribab e .
n
the young e s t
out of sight and
The anxiety I ex-
But soon he emerged unruffled
proved to be the most courageous and the most r e ao rce -
ful of
he entire patrol.
ns·s o6n as we got to the top of
the cliff , 1everybody became religious and w s q i.ck(",:on ..·fr s
knees to
~f f
r a prayer of thanks to the Spirit that . ha
guided us ti0 safety.
never forgets.
The is · he kind of ex erience one
�28
As I mentioned
bove , one of my pet summer projects
during my h:igh school period was to introduce some form of
sel - gove rnment to my home village. So one summer vacation
I was all s1et to modernize the village organization by the
use of the W
estern parliamentary rul es I had learned in
school .
I called a meeting of the village elders to be
held at the l\ncestra l Hall, where I used to talk to the
folks about national events.
They came with enthusiasm.
But when I tried to explain what I considered the right procedure, they began to ta lk all at once , and I was completely
at a loss as to how to bring the meeting to order , as we call ed it in school.
meeting a fE3W
t, the meetlng ended with· nothing
Far from bein
ac complished.
As I saw
discouraged , I called another
days ~
ater, but this time nobody turned out !
ns I knew this was not be cause the e ders h d less regard
for me as a person, the realization dawned on me that no real
ref
could be imposed from outside but . : that. when"tthe ·vil·l a -
gers themse lves were faced with a · really urgent situation ,
they wou d cio something themselves and in their own way .
This
hypothE~sis
was confirmed
some years later , when on my
return from college one summer I w s surprised to find that
the villagers had organized themselves effectively not only
to defend the village from bandits but to cope with other
problems as well.
Since
~rapan
forced the Treaty of Twenty- Once Demands
�29
on China in 1915, boycotting Japanese goods has become a
national passion.
The students of our school were the most
aggressive in this patriotic movement and were most hated
by the Japanese merchants.
There had been rumors that they
would try to stop the movement by violence.
One evening
the word got around that one of our schoolmates had been
assau l ted by them in a nearby street.
I quietly slipped
out of the students ' dormitory and shut the door behind me ,
s o that no one could get out without the proctor ' s permission.
I proceeded to the street alone to check the ru-
mor and found that nothing serious really had happened .
I
So that night passed peacefully.
But a few days later. the
Japanese did attack some of our schoolmates with an assortment of weapons .
I had the sad experience of attending the
wounded and bring]ng them to the hospital for treatment.
However, the Japanes e merchants paid heavi ly for their actrocity, for their shops had to close for a long period of
time.
Another incident that I can still recall vividly is related to the unusual rescue work done by the boy scouts of
our school.
Our school is situated on the bank of the Min
River and not far from the s t one bridge· that e'Xtends from
one side of the river to the other .
ing
J\lmost every year dur-
he rainy season , unexpected floods wou d hurl a siz -
able number of boats against the massive supports of the
�30
bridge.
On one of such summer days , a boat was seen rush-
ing toward our direction on its way to i s
the bridge. .
tr~gic
end at
In no time our boy scouts, already on the
lookout fo r ·such just an eme r gency , threw a long and stron
line to the boat and successfully pulled it out of danger.
Several live!S were saved
This event has been kept in the
memory of the school by a lar e wooden plaque awarded us
by the governmor of our province in reco nition of our
heroic deed.
M
uch le s s exciting was my love
n t that time free assoc ation
n ot an accepted custom.
ife of this period.
etween the
exes was stil
However, I did form a rather in-
ima te relationship with a cousin from our kinship vi lage.
who was attending a gi r l schoo
in the same city .
Since
we bear ·the same family name, marriage was out of the que s tion.
So our relationship ended when she got married.
Other incidents of this period I can recall are asso -
ciated with my rather serious attempt to be honest with my self and to do some good deed everyda , as the boy sco t
code requires.
in Shanghai.
Once I ordered two books from a book s tore
W
hen the books came, I found one of them so · led.
M immediate impulse was to keep the clean one
y
or
ys e f
and leave thei soiled one
o my t'ri.end.
I did just the o posite.
Another time, I found a toilet in
the school ba throom unusually dirty.
But on second _thought ,
I started to c ean i t
�31
without hesitation
In fact, this habit was so firmly es-
tablished in me that whenever I saw a cooolie struggling
with a heavy load, I would stop and help - something very
few e ducated Chinese would do in those days.
On the whole , my high school days were most satisfying ,
except that when my father retired from his business I was
for a while left without support.
But it was then that I
learned to stand on my own feet and to take charge of my own
destiny.
�32
Chapter 5
My Li fe in Co llege
Before I
Y.M.c.n.
r duated from the
High School, I
had obtained the promise of a $12 .00 (Chinese curre ncy)
scho l arship from the Fukien Christian University.
my
After
radu tion, I had to work for half a year to pay off my
debt and was therefore unab e to join the Freshman class until its second semester.
So I entered my first colle e in
the spring of 1920 with no
and only a few do
s~vings
ars from my father
enou h to let me pursue my own
spare after his re · rement.
a job in the
of my own to speak of
colle~e
who was broad - minded
lan but who had little to
Fortunate y , I was able to get
ibrary and another to te ch in a ni ht
sbhool • . Thes e jobs took me JO hours a week and earned me
J.OO (Chinese currency) a month.
And out of this meagre
sum I had to pay for my tuition , my books and room and board.
In spite of all this, I remained elated , for I knew I was on
my way to the realization of my dream , and that is to learn
all about the Christian religion •
.A 1 though I had very little time to prepare my l e ssons ,
my record for the first half year in this college was above
average except in French.
The reason for the latter failure -
the only failure in my entire academic career - is that
since I had audited the elementary French course before
�JJ
I entered the college, when I came I was encouraged to join
the advanced course and even promised a ful l year ' s credit,
if I could pass the final examination.
But this turned out
to be an impossibility because of my unexpectedly heavy work
s chedule.
In all othe r course I did very well , and , I may
add , I did mo s t of my study right in the class while the recitation was going on .
ctivities.
Nor did I shy from extracurricu ar
I was an officer of the student Y. M . n , a mem.c
ber of the college band and an undistinguished member of
the college b sket ball team.
But I was not rea l ly happy , because there was no divinity school in this young university and I coul d not get starte d i n my study of Christianity.
To alleviat e my impatienc
and to the surprise of my schoolmates , I read most of the
books on reli ion that were reserved for the seniors and
found in them a great deal of satisfac ion .
M
eanwhile I
learned from the bishc of the l\ngl i can Church in the city
ip
that there was a school of theology in St . John ' s University
in Shanghai.
I at once wrote to the dean of that school and
found that I might be given a t ui tion scholarship . if I cou l d
qualify as a junior in tha f 11 s eme.ster by passin
a spec · al
examination on two subjects: European history and French.
was so inspired by the news that I
I
ave up all my plans for
the summer v ca ti on and spent all my time on , t hose 1 wo $ub j.eats .
t
1s
a result , when I matriculated at the Univ ersity , I passed
�34
the special examination without difficulty and was allowed
to join the juniors and to start my theological study along
with other courses leading to the B.A. degree .
M first year at St. John ' s passed unnoticed.
y
In fact ,
in the beginning I felt rather shy when I sat with the other
members of my class , most of whom were dressed in
estern
clothes and spoRe English as if it were their mother tongue.
But soon I was encouraged by the high grades I received in
most of the courses.
I seemed to be especially at home wi th
philosophy , religion, psychology, sociology and English .
Some
of my class essays were published in the missionary journal
entitled , The Chinese Recorder .
I fared equally we l l in
most of the theological courses except church history and
the Episcopalian Prayer Book 1 they did not stir my imagina tion at all .
W
hile I enjoyed most of these courses , I got
the feeling that we were not giv en t he
cient information on any
subject~
ate s t or even suff · -
This is understandable ,
for a missionary institution generally cannot afford to have
first-rate scholars on their facul y.
Besides , its primary
purpose was not to introduce vestern science to China but
v
to bring students under the influence of Christianity and to
make converts out of them.
The principal method used
for
this purpose was compulsory attendance at ' the chapel service
every morning and at morning service every Sun ay in addi tion to required courses on the Bible .
Perhaps the most
�35
important occasion on the campus from the ' point of view of
the authorities
WRS
the
annu~l
baptism of new Chri stians ,
for the number of new converts each year constituted an
item of major importance in their report
board at home.
o their mission
How this missiomiry interest overshadowed
the educati onal policy of this university may be seen also
in the fact that its president was an ordained priest and ·
its highest administrative authority was vested in the bi shop , who , according to my own experience , had no interest
in the stude nts at all.
This missi onary environment , however , was quite congenial to my mind at that time, for my v ery purpose of go ing there was to study this great
its secrets .
reli~ion
and to discover
For a while I was greatly interested in some
of the courses offered, especially those on the life of
Jesus and on that part of the Old Testament called The Prophets.
But
he classes on the Thirty- Nine Jl rticles
and
the History of the Prayer Book together w th the church dogmas that go with them bored me .
I
egan to ge t interested
in other schools of religiou s and philosoph ical thought .
I
got in contact with Hinduism through an Ind ia n scho l ar and
re d Bhagavad Gita and Rabindranath Tagore •s wo rk s with eage rness.
I became a cquainted also wi h the learned Confu-
cian- Christian-Buddhist Chinese s cho ar , Chang Chung- ju ,
whos e ho by was to attack institu
ion~
Christianity as
�J6
"foreign religion."
He introduced me to Buddhism .
J\t the
same time appeared the inf uential work of Liang Shu- min , ,
entitled Easte rn and W
estern
sophies.
Civiliz~
ions and Their Phi o-
It is essentially a call to return to Confucianism.
The result of my fo lowing these various trends of thought
was that I began to develop a broad eclectic attitude towards religious philosophy that was quite beyond the comprehension of my theology professors.
Gradually I turned
from Christianity as taught at St. John ' s to Bud hism and
finally back to Confu ianism.
the followin
This change was reflected in
incidents.
J\s I became increasingly inte rested . in Buddhism, I bean to meditate under a tree along the bank of
the campus at
in
he same hour when I used
cree k near
o attend the even-
service at the church as required of every theological
s tudent.
I was enjoying myse f
expe rim nt.
tremendously in this new
Sudden y one day I waa stopped by my
ean and
asked why I had failed to attend the evening pr yer regu arly.
'Ii th perfect sincerity I answered that I had not found
the prayers written by Englishmen centuries ago very sti ula ing and that I had been trying out a new method of meditation
I assumed naively that how one spends the evenin
hour dedicated to religious contemplation shou d not make
any great difference.
But to my great surprise, the dean
burst forth in harsh comments, saying that the pr yers used
�37
in the church were written by saints much wiser than I was .
He ruled that I either attend the evening se rvice as required
or leave the scho ol.
larship I
Because of my de endence on the scho -
ave in and went back to the evening prayer as re-
quired , but did so with much misgiving.
This does not mean
that I was not interested in prayer at all.
On the contrary,
I often went to t he same church voluntarily and prayed a lone.
I even organized an intimate prayer group who met early every
morning.
\faat I
really rebelled against was the dry and mo -
notonous reading of prayers from the Prayer Book without the
least .exercise of intelligence ot feeling.
The more disgusted I
rew with this form of authoritar-
ianism , the more I moved towards Buddhis , for Buddhism gives
one a much broader point of view and
thought.
uch more freedom of
In one winter vacation , I lived on rice and pea-
nuts - mainly because of lack of funds - and read nothing but
Buddhi st texts, living the life of a Euddhist as I understood
it.
I felt so elated I said in one of my letters that I now
realized that I had never been born ·not ·would I ever ' die and
that I had found happiness in myself; nothing external could
add anythin
to it.
But this state of nirvana , if you please,
asted only for a short whi le, for as soon as the v ca ion
ended , I was again harnessed to the yoke of theolo ical regimentation.
nnother incident showed the influence of Buddhism on my
�38
thinking ev en more clearly,.
1
Once I led the college English
debating team to a distant city situated by the famous W
est
Lake.
Our expedition was not a success, but I enjoyed the
beautiful scenes all the same.
On my way back I bought a
canary which lived on a special kind of
bird-seed~
But when
I got back to school, I was so busily occupied with my examinations that I was unable to get her the food she needed;
I fed her with any food that was available.
J\ few days later,
as I was getting her special food ready , she surprised me with
a piercing sound and died before my eyes.
I felt very sad
a nd it occurred to me that animals must suffer much more
than my bird when they are deliberately killed for human
consumption.
Since that day I did not feel like eating meat
and began the life of a veg'e tarian until very recently.
But by the time of my graduation in 1923 , the influence
of Confucianism on my thinking became much more evident.
This can be seen in the speech I made in the College M
andarin oration contest, entitled "The Salient Aspec s of
Chinese Culture."
I was really drawing a contrast between
the dogmas of Christianity and the common sense teachings of
Confucianianism when I highl ighted the following
p~intsi
(1)
the Chinese concept of Heaven or Nature, which emphasizes
the natural and the observable instead of the supernatural
that is revealed only to the chosen or the believers ; (2)
the Chinese theory of human nature, which teaches that all
�39
men are born good and only l earning and experience make them
differ and that since all men have the inherent power for
se lf - renew 1, they do not need a redeemer of either human
or superhuman orgin; and (3) the purpose of higher e ucation ,
wh ich is to develop a man •s inherent potentia ities not ony for his own well - being but also for that of his country.
B
contrast , Christianity pays almost exclusive attention
to personal sa vation and makes no mention of love of one ' s
country.
In fact , I was so convinced of
hese views that
y
s ole purpose of ent ring the oration contes t was . o ·convey
this messag1e to my fellow students.
J\ ccordingly , immediate -
ly after I 1delivered my speech I returned to my dormitory ,
not caring -who was going to
e the winner
because of the strength of my conviction
Perhaps it was
hat eventua ly the
first • pr "ze was aw rded to me in my absence .
1\no her incident i l ustrates the same point .
Ne w Testament class I wrote a paper on
In my
he mind of Jesus an
stated that Jesus never t u ht patriotism but that it w s
sore y needed in Ch i na in order to make it a stronF an
ed nation.
I fu n +her asserted
hat J e sus • gr ea t ness
unities :i n
his being o:f service to othe r s and not in lording it over
them as the missionaries taught , cl iming that he was super ior
to all the · ages in other lands - in fact , t he one and only
savior of all mankind.
I concluded by saying that after
a 1 Christianity is only one of gr eat reli ions and th a
we
�40
should learn from all of them.
for
writing~
'fu ile pra "sin
my abili y
my professor branded me a heretic and warned me
that unless I chan e my views 1 the Episcopal Church would
not ordain rne as a mini ster.
I was not the least bit alarm-
ed , for to be a Christian minister was not the major reason
for my studying the ology.
and
continuE~
In fact , I wished I could stay on
to study t he other great religions , when I w s
told that I had to leave and to pay back the 3- year tuition
schol rship I had received, something , I am ashamed to say ,
I have not done yet.
J\ long
with my studies I took part in a fair amount of
extracurricular activities.
My participation in the intra-
mural oration contest and the inter-collegiate English de bating computition has been mentioned.
In my senior year I
w s elected president of the class and was the editor of its
year
book~
ns president of the student body as a whole , I
or anized the first student council with a written const tuion.
I also represented the university more than once in
i nter-collegiate and international student conferences.
One
special task I performed was to help administer famine re lief in
northern~ China.
In some such ways I managed to visit
some of the most well-known historic s ites and scenic spots
in the count ry and gain some knowled e of the world outs ide
the university campus.
Some incidents occurring dur ng this period may be worth
�41
a mention.
The first has to do with my initial contact with
an important personage connected with the theological school
which I was going to attend.
I had arrived at the university
campus a few days before the fall semester of 1920 began.
One day I was sitting alone on a bench in front of a residence inside this beautiful campus, when an nmerican man
walked towards me and asked if I was a
university.
"scholar~ ·
of this
I answered in the affirmative, fully anticipat-
ing a friendly chat.
Instead, he brusquely asked me to leave
without giving a.ny reason.
I did but was quite puzzled by
what had transpired. Only later did I find that a Chinese
student was not supposed to sit in front of the bishop ' s
residence and that the man who ordered me to leave was the
bishop himself.
I must say that this experience did not
give me a very high opinion of the highest authority of the
school I was going to attend.
J\ s a matter of fact , a 1
throughout my three years in the theological school I had
hardly any contact with this · man who had beenc· charged .with
the mission. of spreading the gospe l of love among the hea w
then Chinese.
The next incident pertains to my well-intended but fu tile attempt to introduce some needed reforms to the univer sity community.
Having personally experienced the ill effects
of compulsozychurch
attendanc~
and the flagrant
ack of com-
munication between the America n faculty and the Chinese Stu-
�42
>
dents , I handed to the president a l ong letter one day , suggesting that compulsory church attendance be abolished and
that a special effort should be made right away to improve
the communication between the faculty and
he students , es-
pecially to understand the students ' problems and help solve
them.
My suggestions were summarily ignored.
But what hap-
pened two years following my graduation proved the accuracy
of my preschmce.
In 1925 on an important patriotic day
the Chinese students pulled up the Chinese national . flag on
the university flag post.
The same bishop who forbad me to
s i t in front of his residence authoritatively had it taken
down on the ground that university ground was J\merican pro perty and could display only the J\me rican national flag !
Mainly in reaction to this Christian- imperialistic act , I
was told , th1e students left en masse and founded a new university and called it Kuan Hua Ta ·Hsueh ' or the University
for the Glorification of China.
Since then the prestige of
St . John ' s University has suffered a setback beyond repair.
I have wondered if all this might have been avoided , if the
university authorities heeded my suggestions.
The final incident I want to relate consists of an unusual mystical experience.
I had been trying to understand
the concept of God as taught by my missionary professors but
always with s ome reservation in my mind.
was meditati n
)
One day wh · le I
intently on this subject , all of a sudden I
�43
felt very vividly that I was tra vel ing from one planet to
the other to the very end of the universe and that there
was no God to b'e found.
This experience or vision was so
extraordinary and so convincing that it made me feel very
certain that if any one really wishes to find God , he will
have to find Him here and now; all theories about the ultimate reality apart from the phenomena
and the pre sent are
not worth serious consideration.
On the whole my college life was also very satisfying.
Although I had some run-ins with my theology professors . I
think I came out of the scuffle a definite winner.
For the
intimate knowledge I acquired of the Christian religion and
of the life of Jesus was for me the best introduction to
W
estern culture.
This coupled with my life-long acquaintance
with the Confucian tradition gave me a rare foundation for
the kind of persona ity education I was going to experiment
in the ensuin
years.
�44
Chapter 6
My Experiments with Per sonality Education
Before my grad uation •ftom·
St~
John.,' s U-niv-ersi ty, ~
I
had an offer from a very modern high school in Tientisn.
So in the autumn of 192J, I began my career as a teacher .
My predomin:ant interest at this time , however , was not so
much to improve my pupils ' intellect as to help them deve lop their personality as a whole.
The motivating force be-
h ind this interest is the same that pr ompted me to study
Christianity, for I was indoctrinated with the idea that it
was a panaciea for all persomili ty prob l ems.
I
is also the
same motivation that led me away from the Christian
inistry ,
for I found that there was no necess ry connection between
the
do~as
an
the rituals of the church an
ing and cure of personality conf icts.
ing and started out with the zea
self
friend and he l per
the understand -
So I turned to teac -
of a missionary to make my-
o my pupils
During my first half ye r in the s choo , however
I was
not able to do much about my plan for personal ty education ,
for I was asked to teach sor'le rather heavy su j.ects , such as
modern European history, logic a nd elementary psychology be sides English
glish
anguage.
and all these subjects were taught in the EnI read more books on these subjects than I
did in college , including books on beha v iorism , a new de -
�45
velopment in psychology unkown to me before .
But as soon
as I became better acquainted with my students , I started
to form a fellowship which I cAlled Chin Hsing__ Hu ~ or the
Society for the Ful lest
Person~l
Development.
The words
chin hsing were taken from a saying of Mencius ( 371 - 289 B c. ) ,
in which he taught that only those who have
deve lo pe~~h~ir
own po entialities to the fullest can understand He aven or
what their life mission is goin
to b e .
This is quite a
departure from the Christian teaching about a personal God
whose will is revealed
through a mediator and can be un-
de r stood only by means of all sorts of r eligious observances.
I began by making friends sith the be st students of my
classes
1 fter we had come to understand each other , I ask -
ed each of them to suggest to his friends that they form
groups to help each other to become bette r persons and to
br ing about a more wholesome atmosphere in the school as a
who e .
In this way I gathered around me about f i fty students ,
divided into severa l natur al friendship groups.
Each group
had its own program of help i ng each other deve l op a l ong ph sical, intellectual and moral lines .
Together they took
phys cal exercises , read worthwhile books and discussed per sona l problems.
Once every two weeks we had a general meet-
ing and discussed problems relevant to their personal development~
No one religion was emphasized ; works on all the great
religions were introduced to them.
In addition , I arrange
�46
to have private interviews with those who desired to talk
to me about their personal problems .
that I di
all
It is sad to recall
his work alone without any support ' from any
colleague or the school .
But I enjoyed this extracurricular
activity and especially the friendship of my students , until
I left for a more ambitious educational experiment .
This
n~=w
educational experiment was launched in a high
schoo l in Shantung Province by the philosopher , Liang Shuming mentioned before.
J\fter years of comparative study of
Eastern and W
estern phhilosophies , he came to the conclusion
that the Confucian way of life was the most appropriate for
China and perhaps even for the world at large .
In order to
apply his philosophy to education , he and a small group of
his fellow phiosophers embarked on this rather ambitious
program of helping students not only to l earn intellecltual
subjects but to develop their total personalities accordin
to the ·Confucian principles as they understood them .
I had
read not only his major work mentioned in an earl ier chapter
of this paper but also his stimulatin
Jttitude toward Life."
article, " The Rational
Since what he proposed to dO was very
s imilar to what I had been doing , I got in touch with him
and found that we indeed had very much in common.
ns a re -
sult , I left the hi h school in Tientsin together with its
better pay a nd joined M Liang and his group in the ne w
r.
school in Shantung in the fall of 1924.
�47
The methods used
y
r. Laing to handle the students •
personality problems were rather unique.
He asked them to
keep diaries and to express freely their views on any subject"
He r1:?ad these diaries with great care and wrote com-
ments on th1:?m.
students .
J
He also held persona 1 interviews with the
t the same time he gave a well-planned series of
lectures on the Confucian philosophy of life , with a great
deal of emphasis on being true to oneself , on jen or love for
one ' s fellow humans and on other Confucian attributes that
make for harmonious human relations.
In addition , he mingled
with the students , ate with them, played with them as much as
he
cu
dand"showed in many little ways that he cared for his
"society of friends ' as he ca led his students and co leagues.
On account of the work I had done along si ilar lines ,
I was held in high esteem by Mr . Liang and his colleagues .
In fact , we seemed to a ree in so mary things th t my casual
remarks
For
werE~
sometimes received with unusua l consi eration .
examp le~
on one important occasion , instead of speaking
himself as he had been invited to do , he asked
place.
e to take his
But immediate y after I finished my talk , he got up
and devoted a whole hour to
wo remarks I made .
In one I in-
dicated that the reality discussed in philosophy ahd the gods
taught in the religions are things we do not have definite
knowledge o , while human feelings are the most real; hence ,
human relations need to be greatly emphasized.
In the other
�48
I asserted that while it might be perfectly le g itimate to
emphasize in our work the Confucian teachings of filial
piety and brotherly respect, the best policy in personality
education is not to limit ourselves to one school of thought
but to acquaint the students with different systems of phi los ophy , so the y have a .chance to · form their own · judgmeDt.
The first r1amark express ed my reaction t o the tendency on
the pa rt of some of M Liang ' s followers to indulge i n mer.
taphysica l spe culations and the second , to the unthinking
ways in which t he authorities of this schoo l tended to extoll Confucius and his teachings
To practi ce what I preach-
ed , I introduced to my stu ents some of the best Chr i stian
l iterature , namely, the Prophets from the Old Testament
the records of the life and teachings of Jesus i n the
Tes tament.
and
ew
This was probably the first and the last time
when Christian literature was taught in a Ch ine s e goverment
school.
ile this program of pers onality education had its
shortcomings, such as the l a ck of facilitie s for the teaching of science and for the care of the students ' health , I
thoroughly enjoyed my part in it.
I not only had the oppor -
tunity to further experiment with my own methods of helpin
student s but also gained some new a.ppreciation of the philos ophical significance of our nove
Unfortunately ,
y
~ ay
educationa
of 1925 I had to
a ventur e.
eave my new
�49
group of friends and students because of a tropical disease
I contracted in Shantung, known as Kala-Azar .
Its main
symptoms are irregular fever and prolonged anemia.
In a
short time it turned my ro ust physique into a mere skeleton .
It baffled the best-trained physicians, because neither
its d · a gnosis nor its remedy was generally known in China at
that time.
an En
As luck would have it, I unexpectedly ran into
i s h doctor who had treated this disease among Chinese
la orers in France during W
orld W I.
ar
His skill and ex-
perience together with the patient care given cie by my folks
and friends made
t possible for me to recover my strength
by the beginning of 1927, when a new and intereting field
was open to
e.
�50
'J
Chapter 7
My Initiation into the Social Sciences
M initiation into the social sciences began with my
y
work in the National Anti-Opium Association in Shanghai as
a research secretary, which lasted from the spring of 1927
to the autwnn of 1929 when circumstances to be related
brought me to this country.
I was char ge d wi h the g i gantic
task of investigating the extent of opium smoking in the
country at this time and the editing of an English bu let "n•
entit ed Q£_ium: an International Pr oblem.
The
atter was a
medium of communication with foreign governments which were
involved in the influx of narcotic drugs into China.
Since
I was supposed to have the needed information about the opium
problem , I was also asked to recommend measures for the suppression of opium to the National Government at Nanking and
s ome provin1cial governments.
These responsible tasks qu ickly forced me to think about
the methods of investigation to be used and their validity.
The method bein
used was to send out questiona ires to mem-
ers and friends of the Association and to compile our reports out of their replies.
As these replies were never s -
tisfactory, the reports had only a very limited value
first I tried to
im ~ rove
the questionaire and to tap source s
of information not hitherto unti ized..
tria
nt
But after c onsiderable
and error, I came to the conclusion that in orde r to
�51
eradicate the opium problem , government pr ohibition a l one
was not sufficient; we got to have a more adequate understanding of the causes or socio-psychological conditions under
which the habit of opium smoking ' is formed.
upon
Thereupon I hit
he idea· of collecting life histories of opium smokers.
Not having had adequate training in the matte r, what I did
was to devise an elaborate sche dule or questionaire on the
life of an opiu
addict, asking questions about the con i-
tions under which he first began the habit an
for hi s failure to give it up, etc.
the reasons
I had thousands of copies
of thi s questionaire printed and distr ' buted to mem ers of
the J\ ssocia1ti on and even to wardens of the opium offenders,
thinking that they might share our enthusiasm
and be wi ling
to intervie1w the opium smokers and send us their re por s.
Unfortunate1ly , I could not wait to see the resu ts of this
study , for soon after this . project was launched , I had to
leave for this country.
I should add that some of the insights I
ained into
the compexi.ty of the opium problem came from some interesting
field studies.
One was a suriiey of opium cultivation in
1 n-
hui Province.
Here I was amazed to discover that a l though
the Nationalist Government was apparently sincere in its
desire to suppress opium , it also depended on taxes from
s ome opium farms.
r~~~
This was· quite an eye - opener to a young
�52
naive reformer.
J\nother was a study of morphine addiction in Manchuria
or the Three Northeastern Provinces.
This was the first
time I had a close look at the narcotic drug users there
and realized the alarming extent to which the Japanese drug
dealers had pushed their trade in that part of the country.
The report of this study was written in Chicago and has been
published by the National Anti - Opium J\ss ociation, entitled .
The Opium Condition in M8nchuria.
Still ano ther field experience was my brief association
with the Opium Suppression Committee of the Nationalist Government at Nankin
as the head of its research department.
The Committee was established m inly at the
urgin~
of our
ssociation and organized on the basis of the recommendations my colleagues and I had
~
e.
Bu t when I appeared on
the scene, I found that things were not run in the w y we
had
nticipated.
For three
lon~
months I had the sad ex-
perience of employing people I did not want and did not even
see - J number of them were hired by the chairman of the Committee and assigned duties in his home. - and trying to put
across research projects which my superior did not understand or care!
Nepotism and ignorance were simply rampant ,
and the whole atmosphere was such a strain on my health that
I was constraine d to resign and return to my former job at
the National J\nti-Opium J\ ssocia ti on.
Luck w;:is good to me again, when I was recuperating
�53
from one of these field trips in the spring of 1929.
I
was leisurely reading an old newspapaer . when I came across
a notice put out by the Fukien Provincial Government , announcing the date for the competitive examination for college graduates who have had three years ' s work experience.
Those who pass it would receive a fellowship for gradu te
study abroad.
I
immediately started to prepare for the exa-
mination, and I was one of the lucky two who passed i •
This was why I was able to come to this country in the fall
of 1929.
M initiation into the social science fraternity came
y
to its final stage at the University of Chica o , although
my government fellowship required me to study educati on.
How I shifted from education to sociology is a story too
long to go :into here , except to say that the courses I was
advised to take in the School of Education did not satisfy
my strong interest in personality .
So I dropped them and
selected , instead , one course that seemed to have something
to do with :personality.
I found only later that this course
was offered by the Department of Sociology for its Ph.D . candidates.
fts I lacked the prerequisites, I would not have
been able to stay in that class long , had I not had the fol lowing fortunate encounter.
I can still recall vividly that when the class met for
the first time , the white-haired professor gave each of us
�54
a list of questions on the concepts he had be en teaching
for some years and asked us to give him our written answers
the next
t~me
we meet .
As I had not heard or r ead anything
about these concepts , I turn ed in a b l ank
paper.
Just as
I was about to withdraw from the c ass , the profe ssor one
day gave each of us a .mimeo raphe d c opy of the l i fe history of
a delinquent gi rl and asked us to analyze the case by means
of
he concepts he had taught.
Although I was still not fa -
miliar with those concepts , I was intri ued by the girl ' s
life history.
pret
i
I spent many hours on it and tried to inter-
by me ns of whatever concepts that came to me
n aturally.
I hande
in the paper with trepidationw
But a
few days later , when the professor returned our papers , he
said that of a 1 the students in the c ass only one an
yzed
the case correctly , and that one was me !
Ever since then , - it seemed everytime I met the profes so·r on the eampus , he would ask me if I was M Dai , and
r.
when I said yes , he would say , "Your mind is anal ticaL"
In fact , he said this so many times that I was led to believe
that I did have an analytical mind and that sociology was my
fie ld .
The professor ' s name is Robert E. Park.
Even in the field of sociology , my interest in personality continued , and my M.J\ . thesis is on glassolalia or
speak ing with tongue sw
The study was an attempt to apply
the socio - pe;ycholo ical approach to a relig ious phenomenon ,
�55
taking into full account all the personal , cultural and
situational fact'Ors inv olved in its genesis
Now I am
considerating seriously the possibility of having a second look at the problem of opium addiction when I become
sufficiently familiar with the sociological and the psychological methods needed for its investi gation.
I am also intensely interested in the history of
science, especially the socio-psycho o ical conditions under which science developed in the W
est.
This may also be
called a study of the social ps ychology of scientific discovery.
W
ith a work ing know edge of this sort , I believe
I shall be able to introduce science to China in a more natural and more effective way than has
be~n
attempted so far .
The kinds of research just mentioned are my main interests at the
resent time and probably wi l l remain so
· when I return to China.
If I should fail to find an op-
portunity to satisfy my research interests, I would look for
a position , which will permit me to continue to study the
personality prob ems of young people and to help them to
grow to be healthy
nd useful citizens not only of their
own country but of the world as well.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Thirty Years of My Life," an autobiography by Bingham Dai and Selected Items from the Bingham Dai Papers
Document
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Number of pages
57
Format, digital
PDF
Format, original
Document
Scanned by
Bailey Williams
Resolution
300
Scan date
2014-02-02
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Thirty Years of My Life," an autobiography by Dr. Bingham Dai
Description
An account of the resource
<p>"Thirty Years of My Life," an autobiography, was written by Bingham Dai as a requirement for attending the Seminar on the Impact of Culture Upon Personality held at Yale University in 1932-1933. Bingham Dai was born August 26, 1899 in a farming community located in Gutian, Fukian Province, China. When he was three years old, his family converted to the Christian faith, resulting in his attending Christian schools that offered courses in Christian concepts, English, Confucian Classics and basic education. He then enrolled in college and transferred to St. John's University in Shanghai with the intention of pursuing theological studies leading to a B.A. degree. During this time, he independently studied Hinduism and Buddhism, along with his lifelong association with Confucianism.</p>
<p>After his graduation from St. John's University in 1923, he accepted a teaching position at a high school in Tientsin where he organized student self-study groups. He then worked with renowned Confucian philosopher, Liang Shuming, at a high school in Shantung Province to help students develop their personalities according to Confucian principles. His initiation into the social sciences began with his work at the National Anti-Opium Association in Shanghai as a research secretary from 1927-1929. His job was to investigate the extent of opium smoking in China and to edit an English Bulletin entitled: Opium: An International Problem. He devised a questionnaire on socio-psychological factors related to opium addiction. He also conducted field studies of opium cultivation in Anhui Province and morphine addiction in Manchuria. In 1929, Dai took a competitive examination sponsored by the Fukian Provincial Government for college graduates with 3 years of work experience and won a fellowship for graduate study at the University of Chicago where he studied sociology in order to pursue his strong interest in personality. He hoped to introduce science to China, particularly the socio-psychological conditions under which science developed in the West, in a more natural and effective way than previously attempted.</p>
<p>For information about the Bingham Dai collection, please see the <a href="http://www.collections.library.appstate.edu/findingaids/rb8007">Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0cd0eb9059eaaa04b18311f5518444ea.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>View Dr. Dai's autobiography</strong></a></p>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers, 1899 - 2006, undated (bulk 1950 - 1996)" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/174" target="_blank">Guide to the Bingham Dai Papers, 1899 - 2006, undated (bulk 1950 - 1996)</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1932
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
8007_bx40_fd01_ThirtyYearsOfMyLife_M
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Gutian, Fujian Province, China
Spruce Pine, North Carolina
Durham, North Carolina