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Tides from the West, a Chinese Autobiography, written by Chang-Mung Lin, read by Tang Da-min. Part 2, American Years, Chapter 9, Further West. With part of the money my father gave me, I bought hats, shoes, clothes, and other necessary things and a first-class ticket to San Francisco. The rest I converted into American gold dollars at the rate of two Mexican to one. My cue, I got rid of at a barber shop. When the barber applied a pair of long scissors to my hair, I felt as if I were on the guillotine. A chill stole all over me. With two quick heavy cuts, my cue fell off and I felt as if my head had gone with it. It was given back to me wrapped in paper and I threw it into the ocean on my way to America. I acquired a doctor's certificate and a passport based on section 6 of the immigration law admitting students and went to the American Consulate General in Shanghai for a visa. This done, I secured my ticket and boarded an American mail liner for San Francisco. It was late August 1908. There were about a dozen Chinese students on the same boat. Leaving the shores of my country seemed to cut away the last link that connected me with my earlier life. I was lucky in being a good sailor and was never sick during the twenty-four long days aboard ship. Perhaps this was due to the practice I had had in swinging for several weeks before embarking. I was good at it, for swinging is a Chinese garden pastime. The liner was much larger and more luxurious than the Japanese steamer I had taken to Kobe the previous year. The most striking thing to me on board was the dancing. Brought up in a society where men and women did not mix freely, I could not at once reconcile myself to it. But after watching it several times, I began to appreciate the beauty of it. On the day of our arrival at San Francisco, a port doctor came on board and carefully examined the eyes of Chinese students to see whether any of us had any trace of trachoma. The first thing I had felt on landing was the power of the state through the instrumentality of the immigration officials and police. I began to wonder why the people of a republic enjoyed less individual freedom than did the people of China, which was an absolute monarchy. In China we scarcely felt the influence of the state, heaven is high above and the emperor is far away. We stopped over in San Francisco for a few hours to visit Chinatown. Then two of us who were bound for the University of California were taken to Berkeley by the president of the Chinese Students' Alliance there. In the evening we dined at a restaurant in Berkeley, the Skylight, on Shattuck Avenue, each paying 25 cents for a dinner which consisted of soup, beef stew, and a piece of pie with bread and butter and a cup of coffee. I took a room at Mrs. Cole's house on Bancroft Way. She was a talkative, elderly lady, very kind to the Chinese students. She told me that I must turn off the light before going out and shut off the water after washing, that I must not throw peanuts into the flush toilet or leave my money on the table, that in leaving the room I needn't lock the door but if I preferred I might leave the key under the mat. If you want anything, she said, you just tell me. I know how a stranger must feel in a foreign country. Make yourself at home. Then she bade me good night and left the room. As I had arrived in San Francisco too late to enter the fall session of the University, I had to wait for the next term. Meantime I got a co-ed of the University to coach me in English at 50 cents an hour. I spent all my time studying English. I read the San Francisco Chronicle regularly every morning and subscribed to a weekly magazine The Outlook for more serious study. By the aid of Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which was always at hand and to which every doubtful word was referred, my vocabulary increased day by day, and at the end of four months I could read papers and magazines quite freely. In the beginning, I found myself partially blind, deaf, and dumb so far as the English language was concerned. These difficulties had to be surmounted before I could hope to get along well in the University. By concentration and perseverance, the first obstacle was largely overcome in the first four months and it was only a matter of time to reduce it completely. The second had to be removed gradually by listening to conversations and lectures. It was easier to understand lectures because they were in the form of organized thought and were slower and more distinct in delivery. Conversations were generally wider in range and carried on in a rapid succession of varied or disconnected groups of ideas in which one had difficulty in following the thread of thought. To listen to a play at the theatre was midway between the two. It was most difficult, however, to overcome the dumbness. First of all, I had been started off wrong from the very beginning in China. The wrong habits were deeply rooted and it took time to dislodge them. In the second place, as I was ignorant of phonetic methods, the mere effort to imitate a word did not necessarily lead to a correct pronunciation. For there are wide gaps between the tone uttered and the ear that hears it, and between ear and tongue. The ear does not necessarily catch the right tone, nor does the tongue always follow the ear in reproducing it. Moreover, California was not so hospitable a land socially for the Chinese as to make one feel congenial or at ease. I was always overconscious of this, slow to mingle with others, and shy when others tried to approach me. Thus, many available social connections were cut off, and as language improved only with intercourse, the improvement in the spoken language was indeed very, very slow. This hampered my participation in discussions, both in the classroom and out of it, when I later entered the university. As a rule, I remained mute in class, and when a question was put to me, responded only by a blush. My professors were very considerate and, on no occasion, tried to exact an answer. Perhaps they realized my social plight, or, excuse me, simply because I was a foreigner. At any rate, from my examination papers, in most cases above B grade, they knew I did my classwork conscientiously in spite of muteness. Time flew. It was soon Christmas. On Christmas Eve, I dined alone at a restaurant with better food than on the first occasion and a larger bill. After dinner, I strolled about the streets, watching the happy family gatherings through the windows where curtains were not drawn. Christmas trees, some lighted with tiny electric lights, and some with candles, were everywhere. With a few Chinese friends on New Year's Eve, I went across the bay to San Francisco. From the ferry we could see at a distance, on the other side of the bay, the clock tower bejeweled with hundreds of lights. Running through the crowd to the exit on landing, one heard the player pianos going full tilt for their nickel's worth. As I followed the packed crowd streaming slowly along the main street, flooded with lights, my ears were deafened by toy-bugles and rattles. People took particular pleasure in blowing and rattling at the ears of pretty ladies who returned the compliment good-naturedly with smiles at the merry-makers. Paper streamers floated in the air and were strong around people's necks. Confetti showered on the crowd like many-colored snow. I branched off to Chinatown, where I found throngs admiring the window decorations with their oriental touch. Firecrackers made you feel that you were celebrating New Year's Eve in China. When the clock struck midnight, people began to shout Happy New Year at the tops of their voices and to blow horns and shake rattles. More confetti and more streamers. This was my first New Year in America, and I was impressed with the good-naturedness of the American crowd and the spontaneous play spirit of the grown-ups. They were a young race in their merry-making. I got back home quite late and pleasantly tired, went to bed, and slept soundly until late in the morning. After breakfast, I took a walk in the residential section of Berkeley. The houses on the gentle slopes of the Berkeley Hills were surrounded with flower beds and green lawns. Roses were in full bloom in the mild California winter, for Berkeley, like Quimming in China, is blessed with perennial spring. After the New Year, I looked forward to the beginning of the second term of the University in February. With new hopes and vigor, I worked hard at my language study. When the term drew near, I applied for admission on credits from Nanyang College in Shanghai and was entered in the College of Agriculture with Chinese as a substitute for Latin. Here I must explain why I turned to agriculture when my preparation was along literary lines. This was not a happy-go-lucky move as it might have been with many a young student. It had been carefully considered and decided upon in all seriousness. Since China was mainly agricultural, the improvement of agriculture as I saw it would bring happiness and prosperity to the largest number of people in China. Moreover, I had always taken delight in plants and animals since my early years in the village, where farming was the main current of life. For national as well as personal reasons, therefore, agriculture seemed the most appropriate study to pursue. Another minor consideration was that as I was born a delicate child, my health could be improved by having plenty of fresh air in the country. I took botany, zoology, hygiene, English, German, and physical culture for the term, a period of three hours a week for each course except the last which took six hours. We were told to buy textbooks at a bookstore on College Avenue, so I went to the store and asked, among other things, for so-and-so's batani with the accent on the second syllable. What is it you want? The sales clerk demanded. I repeated the word with the same accent. He shook his head. Sorry, haven't got it. I pointed to the book on the shelf. He smiled and said, Oh, excuse me, you mean botany. I was glad to have the book and also to learn the right pronunciation of the word. Again, we were told to observe certain plants in the botanical garden. Failing to locate the place, I asked Janitor where the botanical garden was with the accent on the first syllable. What? He said. I repeated. Oh, oh, you mean the botanical garden? He responded after a moment, enlightened. I would have liked to swear in good American slang if I had learned any. Years after, when I related the incident to an American friend in Peking, he told me the story of a Frenchman who was asked what difficulties he found in speaking English. The Frenchman replied with characteristic gesture. Oh, English is easy, but the abominable aksong, pronouncing the last words in French. Indeed, the abominable aksong has discouraged many a student who has tried to learn English and found himself caught in an intricate maze. Of course, there are rules by which one can somehow steer his way, but there are too many exceptions. Often, the exceptions are the rule, so that one has to consider each case and acquire them all gradually and with great pains. I studied botany and zoology with great interest. I still remember the jocular remarks of the professor of botany as we were being taught to use the microscope. Don't think you're going to see through the microscope a fly as big as an elephant. No, you can't even see a section of the fly's leg. My interest in the observation of nature had its roots in the naive nature study, which during my school days in China I carried on outside of school as a sort of diversion after the day's tiresome classical study. My improvised observations years before and my interest in botany and zoology now all proceeded from a common source curiosity. The one great difference lay in the tool used. The microscope is an extension of the eye and enables you to see minute particles which the naked eye can never hope to reach. Use of this tool has led to the discovery of microbes whose limitless numbers are comparable to the stars which in turn are studied by another extension of the eye, the telescope. I longed to make a pilgrimage to Lick Observatory to see the world's largest telescope, but for some reason or other did not go. Instead, I paid 25 cents to look into a telescope on the streets to see the planets and was thrilled to behold silvery Saturn in its shining ring, sailing in the blue sky as I had seen it on a celestial map in school. I stayed in the College of Agriculture for half a year. One of my friends had meanwhile been urging me to take up some branch of social science instead of a practical science like agriculture. He argued that though agriculture was very important, there were other studies more vital for China. Unless we could solve our political and social problems in the light of modern developments in the west, we could not very well solve the agricultural ones. Moreover, my world outlook would be limited in agriculture to a practical science and would not embrace anything beyond the narrow scope of that special field. As I had studied Chinese history as well as the general outlines of Western history and was familiar with the general development of national strength in various countries at various times, I could very well appreciate my friend's advice. It set me thinking, for I was again, at the crossroads, and must sooner or later make a final decision. As I have mentioned, I was always careful in making any decision as to a new field which would determine my future course of life. Early one morning, on my way to a barn to watch the Mill King, I met a number of fresh looking youngsters, pretty girls and lively boys, on their way to school. Suddenly an idea struck me. I am here to study how to raise animals and plants. Why not study how to raise men? Instead of going to the barn, I went up into the Berkeley Hills and sat under an old oak tree overlooking beautiful sunlit San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate. As I gazed into the bay, thoughts on the rise and decline of the successive dynasties in China presented themselves one after another. All of a sudden, I saw, as of in the vision, children emerging like water nymphs from the waters of the bay and asking me to give them schools. I decided to take education as my major in the College of Social Science. It was already late in the morning when I rushed down from the hills, went directly to the recorder's office to see Mr. Sutton, and asked to be transferred from the College of Agriculture to that of Social Science. After some argument, the transfer was granted. In the fall of 1909, I began to take courses in logic, ethics, psychology and English history and was thus launched on what became my real college career. My student life moved along in an atmosphere of intellectual activity. Days and months rolled on smoothly and pleasantly. As the sands of time gathered, so grew my knowledge. In logic, I learned that thinking has its method, that is to say, we must think logically. There is a difference between inductive and deductive thinking. Education is very important in inductive thinking, so I wanted to practice it. I began to observe the many things I came across on campus or near the university. Why were cows belled? Why do the leaves of the eucalyptus hang vertical? Why are all California poppies yellow? One morning, as I was walking along the slopes of the Berkeley Hills, I noticed a pipe from which water was flowing. Where did the water come from? I followed up the pipeline which led me to the source and rejoiced over the discovery. Quite high on the hills, I began to wonder what was on the other side of them. I climbed over one hill after another and found that there were endless hills, higher and higher, as I went farther and farther. Finally, I gave up and took a path which led down to a number of farmhouses, finding by the way creeks and woods which I enjoyed immensely. Of course, the endless chain of observation running merely from one thing to another could lead only to disappointment. Finally, I learned that observation must have a definite object and a definite purpose, not ramble aimlessly. The astronomer observes the stars, the botanist, the growth of plants. Later, I came to know that there is another kind of observation, a sort of controlled observation, called experiment, by means of which scientific discoveries are made. In the field of ethics, I learned that there is a difference between ethical principles and rules of conduct. The principles tell you why certain accepted rules are desirable at certain stages of civilization, while the rules themselves merely exact observance without inquiry into the underlying principles and their relation to modern society. As life in China was governed by accepted rules of conduct, the inquiry into their underlying principles created storms in my mind. The old moral foundations which we had taken as final truths began to rock as in an earthquake. Moreover, my professor Harry Overstreet was not the kind of traditional teacher who simply believed in accepted truths and expected his students to do otherwise. His searching mind led me to peer into every crevice in the foundation stones of moral principle. In class there were lively discussions, which I refrained from joining partly because of my deficiency in the spoken language and partly owing to shyness, which grew in me out of a sense of inferiority. For around the year 1909, China was in the darkest period of her recent history, and we had very little self-confidence about her future. But I pricked up my ears and listened like an intelligent dog to its master, understanding the meaning, but unable to talk. We were required to read Plato, Aristotle, the Gospel of St. John, and Marcus Aurelius, among other sources. I was impressed with the all-searching mind of the Greeks, as revealed through the two Greek philosophers. I felt that while the Confucian classics were richly tinged with moral sense, the Greek philosophers were permeated by all-piercing intellect. This led me later on to a study of Greek history and a comparative study of ancient Greek and Chinese thought. It also led me to understand what an important part Greek thought has played in modern European civilization and why Greek has been regarded as an indispensable part of a liberal education. With St. John, I began to appreciate the meaning of love as preached by Jesus, stripped of creed and church. It is indeed the highest ideal to love your enemy. If one could really love one's enemy, there would be no enemy. "'Can you love your enemy?' the professor asked the class. There was no answer. "'I can't,' the attentive dog yelped. "'You can't,' he smiled. I quoted Confucius. "'Love those who love you, but be fair to your enemy.'" Upon this, he commented, "'It's quite sensible, isn't it?'" The class made no response. As we dispersed, a young American boy came up to me and patted me on the shoulder. "'Love your enemy!' Tommy wrought, eh?" Marcus Aurelius talked like a song philosopher. He meditated and discovered reason as the measure of all conduct. Translated and put among the song philosophers, he could easily have passed for one of them. Things European or American, I always measured with a Chinese yardstick. This is the way that leads from the known to the unknown. To gain new experience based upon and constructed out of past experiences is the way to new knowledge. For example, a child who is not seen an airplane can be made to understand it, by reference to the flying bird, and a boat with wings. A child who has not seen a bird or a boat cannot easily be made to understand an airplane. A Chinese student learns to understand Western civilization only in the light of what he knows of his own. The more he knows of his own culture, the better able he will be to understand that of the West. Thus arguing in my mind, I felt that my midnight lukeabrations on the Chinese classics, history, and philosophy in school in China were not labor lost. Only because of those studies was I now in a position to absorb and digest Western ideas. My work hereafter, I thought, is to find out what China lacks and take what she needs from the West. And in the course of time, we will catch up with the West. With these views, I grew more self-confident, less self-conscious, and more hopeful for the future. My interests among the fields of knowledge were indeed rather broad. I took ancient history, English history, the history of philosophy, political science, and even Russian literature in English translation. Tolstoy absorbed me, especially his Anna Karenina in war and peace. I attended many public lectures given by prominent scholars and statesmen and thus heard Santayana, Tagore, David Starr Jordan, Woodrow Wilson, then President of Princeton, and many other scholars. Science, literature, the arts, politics, and philosophy all interested me equally. I heard Taft and Roosevelt. I took the Panama Canal and let Congress debate about it. Set the ladder in one of his lectures in the Greek theater. His emphasis and characteristic gestures still stand out clearly in my memory. Normal education in China seemed narrow, but within its walls, one found a diversity of subjects almost encyclopedic. This apparently narrow education, it is not paradoxical to say, furnished the basis for a broad view of knowledge. My diversity of interests probably derived from my past training in that traditional body of thought. The ancient classics contain many branches of knowledge, history, philosophy, literature, political economy, government, war, diplomacy, and the like. They have never been narrow. After the classics, scholars were initiated into even such practical arts as agriculture, irrigation, astronomy, and mathematics. Thus the traditional Chinese scholar was no narrow specialist, but had a broad foundation for learning. Moreover, an open-minded search for truth was the aim of Confucian scholars. Their deficiencies seemed to lie in the fact that their knowledge was rather limited to books. Book knowledge can be narrow in another sense. In school, I remember I was given a rhymed book which contained a great variety of subjects, starting with astronomy and geography, and going on down to vegetables and insects, including between them such topics as cities, commerce, farming, travel, inventions, philosophy, government, and so on. Rhymes are easier to learn by heart, and even at the moment of writing, I am still able to recite a great part of that rhymed encyclopedia. The Berkeley Hills, with their moss-green oaks and scent-laden eucalyptus, their fields of golden poppies and gardens of crimson roses bathed in smiling California sunshine, served as an ideal nursery for the native sons of the Golden West. I felt ever grateful to share in the care and protection of my western Alma Mater, in whose lap her foster son from the ancient Eastern Empire was nursed to grow. In this climate, in which there was no very cold winter nor any very hot summer, it was indeed pleasant to live in a sort of perpetual spring for four long enjoyable years. There was no rain to interrupt outdoor life except for winter showers which turned the grass on the hills green again and washed the roses in the gardens clear as with morning dew. Otherwise, no inclement weather interrupted the performances in the Greek theater surrounded by its forest of eucalyptus. Shakespearean plays, Greek dramas, Sunday concerts, and public lectures were given in the open air. Not far away were the athletic fields, in which intercollegiate games and track meets took place. Young Apollo's strove hard for the fame of their Alma Mater. Beauty, health, and intellect were cultivated at the same time. Mensana Inc. Sano, was this ancient Greece re-enacted? Almost in the center of the campus stood the Campanile towering high above the other buildings. At the main entrance leading to College Avenue was Sathergate with nude carvings standing out in vivid relief which invoked protests from parents who had daughters at the university. "'Let girls see more of these nude figures of boys and they will be cured of their false decency,' remarked my professor of ethics. We had Venus and other goddesses of the ancient Greeks in our reading rooms in the old library, later torn down when the new Doe Library was built, but there was no criticism from the parents of boys. When I saw these Greek figures for the first time, I wondered why the authorities should put such indecent things at the fountain of wisdom. But later I assumed that they were meant to teach the idea of mensana, sometimes translated as a beautiful mind in a beautiful body. For with the Greeks, beauty, health, and wisdom are one and indivisible." The performance of a midsummer night's dream among the oak groves on campus was really a masterpiece of beauty. Youth, love, beauty, and joy of life are all vividly portrayed in the pleasant masquerade. Greek letter fraternity and sorority houses were numerous on the campus. I was told what a wonderful life the members enjoyed together, but I had not visited any until on one occasion I was invited on a bargain. I was to vote for members of that fraternity for class president and other officers. They canvassed the whole class from a list. When they came to a classmate who was likely to vote for their opponents, they would say, No good, and mark the name N.G. I was received with such cordiality as one would remember a lifetime. The vote was cast next day, and I kept faithfully to my promise, for a Chinaman's word is as good as gold. I was glad to have made friends with quite a few fellow students during the campaign. A few days after the election, for some occasion, which I don't remember now, a bonfire was made. The glow of the flames lit up the happy faces of the young people. Boys and girls sang, ending each song with college yells. The crackling of the burning logs, the giggles of the girls, and the shouts of the boys still echo in my ears. There, in the light, I came across a fellow student for whom I had cast my vote. To my great surprise, his cordiality toward me had already turned to indifference. This is how things go in the world. His kindness to me had been paid for by my vote, the bills being paid, the account was squared. Neither owed anything to the other. Thereafter, I exchanged no more votes for cordialities, and never again voted in college elections. In the basement of North Hall was a student co-op. At the entrance of which was a sign which read, In God we trust, all others pay cash. The most prosperous business in the co-op was the sale of hot dogs at five cents a piece in cash. They tasted fine. One memorable character on the campus, probably forgotten by my contemporaries but not by me, was the aged janitor of the philosophy building. He was tall and spare, with a very straight carriage. His eyes were deep sunk in their sockets, and his grey eyebrows grew very long, almost covering his eyes like a Pekingese toy dog. From under his brows, one could see him twinkling with friendliness and warmth of heart. We took a mutual liking to each other. After classes, and sometimes on Sundays, I was a frequent visitor to the basement where he had lived from the time when the university was a small college. He had been a soldier, and fought many battles under the Union flag in the Civil War. He lived in memories of the past, and related to me many stories of the war and of his childhood. From him, I learned that conditions in America in older days, it is almost a century now, were not very much better than in China then. In some respects worse. He told me that there had existed in his youth many kinds of money. English pounds, French francs, and Dutch goldens. I heard Lyman Abbott speak of this several years later in New York. Modern sanitation seemed to him nonsense. Since he showed me a roll of toilet paper and said, Nowadays, people die young with these sanitary things. We didn't have any sanitation, or what you call modern medicine. Look at me, how healthy I am at my age. He stood erect like a soldier, at a tension for me to look at him. West Point was also a joke to him. You think they can fight? No, they're puffed up by uniforms and sure know how to dress in a parade. But fighting? No, I can't teach them. In one battle, I killed a whole lot of rebels single-handed. If they want to learn to fight, let them come to me. He still harbored a grudge in his heart against the Confederates after these long years. He said he once found a rebel lying wounded after a battle was over and tried to help him. You know what that critter did? He fired right at me. He leveled his angry eyes at me steadily as if I had been the culprit. What did you do? I ventured. I shot the beast dead right on the spot, was the reply. To me, this old soldier janitor was an inseparable part of the university. He thought himself so too, for he had seen the place grow. What you just heard is Tides from the West, a Chinese autobiography, written by Chiang Meng-lin, read by Tang Da-min, and published by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Some names and terminologies in this book have been updated per contemporary usages.