08 Into the Far East

Chapter 8 INTO THE FAR EAST A WEDDING in June; a farewell service to the departing missionaries in the old home church; the last goodbyes to loved ones left behind; and then the long journey to the great land beyond the Pacific. With the high hopes of those who sent them out, with the holy purposes of true apostles, they ventured forth. To father and mother in the old home and to several of his closest friends John quoted this poem in letters at the time of parting:

"Go thou thy way and I go mine;

Apart, yet not afar;

Only a thin veil hangs between The pathways where we are; And ’God keep watch ’tween thee and me.’ This is my prayer.

He looks thy way — He looketh mine, And keeps us near.

I know not where the road may lie, Or which way mine may be;

If mine will lead through parching sands And thine beside the sea:

Yet ’God keeps watch ’tween thee and me,’ So never fear:

He holds thy hand. He claspeth mine, And keeps us near. Should wealth and fame perchance be thine, And my lot lowly be, Or you be sad or sorrowful, And glory be for me:

Yet ’God keeps watch ’tween thee and me Both be His care.

One arm ’round thee and one ’round me. Will keep us near.

I’ll sigh sometimes to see thy face, But since this cannot be, I’ll leave thee to the care of Him Who cares for thee and me.

’I’ll keep thee both beneath my wings.’ This comfort dear,

One wing O’er thee and one o’er me. So we are near." At Chicago on the way to China, the Andersons joined a group of missionaries who were making the same boat from Vancouver. A man on his way out to India to drill oil wells occupied a berth opposite them. The first night out from Chicago, he was taken violently ill from gall stones, with convulsions and nausea and high fever. John took the man in charge and cared for him all the way to the coast. At Vancouver, in consultation with the hotel physician, it was decided that an operation was necessary. His passage on the steamer had to be canceled, his baggage sent to the hotel, telegrams sent to his wife and the oil company in Pennsylvania, and John cared for all these matters. On the next day, however, the man felt better and refused to be operated on. He insisted that he was going on the steamer. So John rearranged everything connected with the trip, and as he continued unwell all the way across the Pacific, John cared for him as far as Shanghai. The man preferred this young doctor to the ship’s surgeon. There was no fee given for all this service. John said one time that he thought the oil company ought to pay him fifty dollars, but he probably never sent in a claim. The tedium of the three-day railroad journey to Vancouver was relieved by games which John organized for the party. He also took care of two young women who were making the trip alone. He went up into the baggage car and looked up their trunks for them, and was the general utility man for the crowd. And so on the boat, being one of those who did not succumb to the sickness of the sea, he kept up the spirits of the others, with Rook parties, deck sports, and so on. One of the party was a Chinese, a graduate of Vanderbilt, who was an enthusiastic competitor in all their contests. He was returning to Peking to teach in the Christian University there. Of his association with John Anderson he has written:

I must acknowledge that I have in my life seen or met very few men to whom my heart went out so unreservedly as in the case of John Anderson. He was so jolly, good-natured, energetic and unselfish. He never thought of danger to himself. An ocean voyage can be a very unhappy experience to certain susceptible natures. This voyage was no exception and there were several whom John had to cheer up with his jokes and medicine. One lady who was especially miserable was given his own berth which was more comfortable and he slept thereafter in the cramped quarters where some of the crew were staying. These were not great deeds perhaps, but it is the little kindnesses, the thoughtfulness for others’ comfort, which reveal a genuine unselfishness of spirit. From the steamer he wrote : The nearer I get to China, the closer I feel that I am to God and the more I feel that I am doing what He would have me do. On September 26, 1916, they landed at Shanghai. Kuei Chow, who’ had established his home in that city, had them out to dinner. On returning to China, Chow and his brothers had made a gift of $3,000 to the mission hospital at Yang Chow. Yang Chow itself was visited on the way up through the interior to Peking to the Language School. Of the work there John wrote:

I found that Dick was the only doctor there and he had from sixty to one hundred out-patients every day besides the hundred in-patients. He had no American nurse at that time — she was away resting for a short time. Can you imagine a doctor having this much work? He has been here ever since he arrived in China and has not had any vacation. He was run down and needs rest badly. This is the place the Rockefeller Foundation is wanting to send me to. Every morning before Dick looks at any of his patients (except emergencies), he has a prayer-meeting with all the in-patients who can come to the chapel and with the out-patients. One morning he leads and the next morning a Chinese preacher leads. I attended the service on Sunday morning and I do not recall any service in America that was more spiritual or reverent than this, though everything was in Chinese.

It was thought at that time that the Andersons were to be located at Chengchow, Honan, in connection with the Interior China Mission. This city was also visited on the way to Peking. Of that place John wrote:

I wish that I had five lives instead of one as all could be used. Just think of the need here in this city; the things that you see make you shudder. That is not only true of this city, but of others. Oh, that I could put one of my lives at Soochow, one at Yang Chow, one at Pochow, one at Kuei Lin and one here. The work is greater than I ever dreamed The North China Union Language School is located in Peking, the capital of the Chinese Republic. Nearly all the new missionaries who are to work in the Northern Mandarin speaking section of China study the language in this school in their first year. The enrollment has been over one hundred in the last few sessions. The establishment of this school, and several other similar schools in other sections of China, has smoothed out the path of the young missionary wonderfully and has made the introduction into Chinese life much easier. Instead of sitting down alone in some isolated station with an old Chinese scholar, six or eight hours a day, who gave up his knowledge of his mother tongue only by a process of extraction awkwardly undertaken by the one who sought to learn, there are now group classes in charge of trained teachers. There is recreation together and sight-seeing trips in one of the most interesting cities in the world. The Altar of Heaven, the Great Wall creeping for fifteen hundred miles across the northern border, the Forbidden City of the ancient Emperors, the marvelous Summer Palace of the Empress Dowager, are all in easy journeys from the school hostel. Moreover, there is the opportunity of hearing mature missionaries in lectures to the school, and the large English-speaking student population in the capital is a field for the teaching of Bible classes before one is able to get into regular missionary work.

John dreaded the study of the Chinese language. He hated to get back to books. He did not want to lay down his medical work which he loved so thoroughly even for a short interval. He wrote of his introduction to the study on the 2nd of October:

We had our first day of language study. I felt as tired as if I had done a whole day of plowing. It takes every bit of energy you have to try and catch the sounds that the teacher makes. It takes as much energy as to stay real firing mad all the time. And a little later he wrote: Did you ever study until your head fairly ached? That is the way with this language here. But I am enjoying it and I would not change positions with any doctor in America.

It was not long, however before his hands were full with caring for fellow language students. Of the experiences of those days Mrs. Anderson writes:

We had no sooner arrived in Peking than demands began to be made on John’s time, and he gave it not only willingly, but with real joy, because he was so much more interested in medicine than in the language. It used to be a joke to us both that no matter how blue he was over studying (and that was often), some one was sure to arrive with a "bing" (sickness) and then he was happy again, dosing out pills and giving directions for proper treatment. The first few weeks were very strenuous. No doctor had been provided for the Language School and we had some serious illness, five cases of dysentery and four of typhoid, one of which developed into pneumonia of the most dangerous type. John not only doctored, but nursed, often sitting up all night. And those whom he nursed there, as elsewhere, can testify to his ability and gentleness. He seemed to know by instinct the things a sick person wanted done and did them with a deftness and sympathy that many a nurse would envy. He often said that he loved nursing, and he studied it too, knowing how often there would be need of such training in China.

During the year there were many other cases, both among the foreigners and Chinese who came to him for treatment. I don’t believe there was a servant who escaped having something done for him. John and one or two others interested, bore the expense of having an operation done on one and later cared for that servant’s little son who was very ill with pneumonia, going two or three times a day to their little home, helping give him sponge baths, etc. He went for weeks to one teacher’s home, treating his children who had trachoma. The head teacher came to him for tuberculosis examination and seemed always grateful for John’s continued interest in his diet and care of himself.

John had a "way" with his patients and they often "minded" obediently when I hardly expected them to do so. I recall especially the case of Miss P who lost her mind for a while. She roomed next door to us and John was often called in the middle of the night to quiet her. Once when she ran away from the hospital, he brought her up to our room and I remember distinctly how he coaxed her with jokes and foolishness into taking a cup of cocoa, the first food she had taken in days.

There was nothing at the Language School Hostel in which he did not have a hand. At Chinese New Year he played the part of kitchen coolie, all the servants having been given a holiday, and he left the kitchen shining clean. I remember how he boasted that he had used twice the usual amount of water.

(Of that day John himself wrote: "I got to wash dishes twice. It was work, but I enjoyed it better than any day I have had in China. I wish I could learn Chinese that way. I would change in a minute.")

If there was ever a stunt on, John was sure to do more than his share of the work that didn’t show, but counted most. I remember one night I was chairman of a serving committee when we were having a great crowd. He found us all a bit confused about the best way to do it and in a few minutes had us organized so that things went smoothly.

Some of us know that there was no financial return for all this service for the sick, and that John used up practically all of his private stock of drugs that he had brought from America without being reimbursed. And he did this in a time of real personal difficulty because of the falling foreign exchange. The monthly salary was eaten up in board and room rent, and often there was only the margin of a dollar or two for incidentals after these charges were paid. But those who were sick had no money either and he would not withhold his hand whatever it might cost him. The Language School was in its beginnings and no doctor had been employed to care for the students. It is customary for one who goes to live in China to take a Chinese name. This is on account of the difficulty in transliterating foreign names into the Chinese characters and sounds. Usually one’s first Chinese teacher decides on the name which is fitting. There are only one hundred Chinese surnames and so the range of selection is limited. John Anderson was given the name of An, meaning ’’peace," and his title as a doctor was Dai Fu — An Dai Fu, or as we should say. Dr. Peace. The surname in Chinese comes before the given name or title. A letter dated February 4, 19 17, reads: The teacher that we have now is not a Christian. I have been talking to him. We have just got to the place that we can talk to the Chinese about being Christians at all. It is hard to say what we want to say in Chinese. We may think that it is not appreciated, but it does count if it is done in the right spirit. "Even a cup of cold water in His name " A later letter, dated April 1st, says:

I must say that I was a little blue last fall for a while with the language, but it gets more interesting the farther we go. We have a great deal of fun in learning it. We tell all the jokes we can think of. I have never regretted that I came to China in the least, but I have been a little discouraged as to the language. Now we can get around and we can make most of the people understand us. Just this past week I received the fourth appeal from one of our missions not so very far from here asking me to come there for a year if I cannot stay longer. There is a good hospital, fourteen adults and thirteen children in the mission, not to speak of thousands of Chinese, without any physician. The doctor had to take his daughter home on account of her health. They are more than a day’s journey from any physician. This is only one appeal; I could give numbers of others. A man about four days’ journey overland wrote here about two months ago asking for a doctor to come and be with his wife during confinement. This was the nearest place where there were any doctors. No one could go. So he brought her to Peking about a month ago. She caught smallpox on the way down in one of the places they spent the night in, the result being that the mother and child both died. We have a number of such things before us from day to day. I am glad that I am here. At the close of the school year in June, he wrote: The Chinese have little fighting blood in them. They always talk and never fight. I think they would be better off if they had fighting blood in them. Not that I want to see them fight, but I want to see them have manhood enough to stand for the right, for justice, and stand against sin and wrong and evil. In my student Bible class I have been trying to help the fellows into this attitude. They think that all that is necessary is for them to live a moral life, let others do as they please. They don’t think that it makes any difference whether they join the church or not. It is hard to get them to come out and make a bold stand. Today one of my fellows united with the church and I believe others will unite soon. I am going to get a personal interview with each one of them if I can before I leave. That summer was spent by the seaside at Chefoo, one of the ports of Shantung. A large summer colony of Americans and British takes advantage of the opportunities there for sea bathing and boating, and there are tennis and cricket, teas and concerts. Dr. Nevius, one of the earliest American missionaries to North China, imported fruit trees and now the hills that slope down to the harbor are covered with orchards that bear the finest apples, peaches and pears. There are fine vineyards as well. Dr. Hunter Corbett, over eighty years old, who came to China in the sixties, had a villa high up on one of the overlooking hills. Steamers of many nations come to anchor behind the breakwater. The Chinese fishing junks carry out long nets which are in the evening or early morning drawn ashore by the half -naked fishermen. The American flag, the most beautiful in all the port, floats high over the Consulate on Light-house Hill. A stone house, right by the sea, was occupied by a jolly crowd of former friends, of which the Andersons were a part. There were frequent picnics out near the Chinese fort that guards the mouth of the Chefoo harbor. In July there was a moonlight fete in the American Consulate gardens for the benefit of the Red Cross, with Chinese jugglers, a musical program given by visiting ’’talent," and booths with soda and candy for sale. Then there was a two-day trip across to Hwanghsien and the first experience with a Chinese "Shan Tzu," a mode of land travel which often produces sensations sometimes felt at sea. Parallel poles with a kind of cradle swung between are fastened to the backs of two mules, and one or two passengers seat themselves in the cradle for the voyage. There is a bamboo mat which serves as a protection overhead. Progress is exceeding slow, so slow that the muleteer who walks beside to drive the animals often falls asleep as he walks. On this trip a stop was made at a Chinese inn, and fearing "animals" the travelers chose to sleep in the open courtyard underneath the stars of a Chinese summer night. A summer vacation in China is a most interesting experience. John set himself a heavy schedule of language study with his personal teacher to make up for time lost attending to the sick around the school in Peking. But a doctor is at a premium in China, and with sick people in Chefoo as well as in Peking, he could hardly call his time his own. One of the children in the house was taken seriously ill with dysentery and John was trained nurse and doctor for him for the next few weeks. A lady missionary was brought from one of the interior stations to Chefoo to the home of her sister which was next door to where the Andersons were living.. She was in a state of nervous collapse with other complications. When John went in to see her, he said that she was raving like a wild beast and had no control of herself at all. It was really a case of deferred furlough, waiting to go home until it was too late. John was her constant attendant for the next month, and when the nurse who was on the case broke down under the strain, he nursed her for eighteen hours and then relieved the family every third or fourth night. Miss H who accompanied this missionary to Chefoo wrote later of Dr. Anderson: To me he seemed one of the gentlest, most unselfish men I have ever seen or heard of. I can never forget the way he worked over Tommie (Miss T ). He was physician and nurse and brother all in one. Again and again she said to me, "Oh, Dr. Anderson is so good to me."

Besides this John had many of the school girls of the mission to care for in their various ills. He was supposed to be on his vacation and this was not his ’’parish" at all. Moreover he was beginning to show signs of strain. But no one in distress ever turned to him in vain. At the end of the summer he took a long cross country trip to attend in a maternity case where there was no other doctor available. He wrote on his return from this trip:

How would you like to be two days from a doctor and no trained nurse to assist? They begged me to stay on so that I could hardly stand it. On the way back we had several streams to cross and I pulled off my shoes and carried my teacher and S across. I could carry them, but they could not carry me. He followed out literally Paul’s injunction: We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

It had been decided in consultation with the Mission Board and the China Medical Board that it was best for the Andersons to go to Yang Chow in the fall, that John might ease the burdens of Dr. Taylor who had been alone so long. In September, before leaving for the South, he substituted for several weeks for a doctor in the Presbyterian Hospital at Chefoo, and during the illness of the other doctor, he bore the responsibility of the hospital alone. Dr. Hills, the founder of the hospital, was impressed with his ’’simplicity and gentleness of spirit, his persistence in carrying things through, and his medical ability which was much above the average." The journey to Yang Chow was made as far as Shanghai by coastal steamer. The day they left Chefoo for Shanghai, John discovered that a lady, a stranger to him, had been crowded with her four children, one of whom was sick, into one of the smaller staterooms. He suggested that she and the children exchange cabins with his wife and himself and he helped in getting them comfortably settled, and then he cared for the sick child for the rest of the voyage.