Eight Happiness Inn

Author: Zhang Jixin / Yu Jiayi / Yu Lingling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: She was the daughter of a commoner in a suburban London. She was a housemaid who worked for various households. She was a volunteer missionary who was not recognized by any church organization. In 1930, at the age of 28, she came to China alone to the mountainous small county of Yangcheng, Shanxi Province. There, she spent the most beautiful and memorable years of her life. She naturalized herself as a Chinese and became a true rural woman of Shanxi. During the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, she selflessly and fearlessly helped wounded soldiers, assisted displaced refugees, and adopted orphaned children. She also used her identity to gather intelligence on the Japanese army and leveraged her familiarity with the mountainous terrain to help the Chinese military and civilians strike hard at the Japanese invaders who had invaded their homeland. She once escorted over 100 orphans through arduous journeys, crossing desolate mountains, and successfully reached the resistance rear from the occupied areas of the Japanese. Her deeds were widely spread by Time magazine, and she was considered one of the important figures that influenced Americans' perception of the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. When she returned to her hometown of London again, the Archbishop of England personally received her, and Queen Elizabeth also invited her for a friendly chat at Buckingham Palace. She was once a household name in both the East and the West during the war years. A film adapted from her story starred the famous actress Ingrid Bergman and became a sensation. However, as time passed, she gradually faded into oblivion. She was Gladys Aylward. This book tells the touching story of how a British woman who lived in the mountainous interior of China—Yangcheng, Shanxi—for over a decade helped the Chinese people resist Japanese aggression and successfully led over 100 orphans out of the mountains.