Shanghai Wenyuan Random Recollections

Author: Li Guo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: After the death of Soong Ching-ling, the Honorary President of the State, in 1981, the study of Soong Ching-ling also became a serious and popular historical topic. Previously, people only knew that Soong Ching-ling's father was a missionary of the American Methodist Episcopal Church and a subordinate of Yung John Allen (1836—1907). Yung John Allen had been living in Hongkou Kunshan Road since 1880 when he established the Sino-Western College in Hongkou (later moved to Suzhou, becoming the predecessor of Soochow University, with the Shanghai campus renamed the affiliated middle school of Soochow University, now the evening school department of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics on Kunshan Road). In 1907, after Yung John Allen's death, the Methodist Episcopal Church named the classroom building in the school as the "Young John Allen Memorial Church," meaning "Yung John Allen Memorial Hall," which was also translated into Chinese as "Jinglin Hall." In 1923, Soong Ching-ling's brother, Soong I-jen, donated funds to build a new "Jinglin Hall" on the former private property of Yung John Allen opposite the old hall to commemorate the mentor-protégé relationship between his father and Yung John Allen. This is now the "Jingling Hall." In gratitude for the Soong family's generosity, the church set up a special pew in the church dedicated to Soong I-jen's mother, Ni Guizhen. This is a true and reliable story, well-known among the "old residents of Hongkou." As a result, the people of Shanghai have always believed that Hongkou is Soong Ching-ling's birthplace and where she spent her childhood. However, no one has ever known where Soong Ching-ling's family was, and no one has ever inquired about it. In 1984, Mr. Hualu of the Sun Yat-sen (now teaching at East China University of Science and Technology) discovered a letter envelope from Yokohama, Japan, in the late Qing Dynasty addressed to "Soong Ching-ling, 612 Dongye Road, Hongkou, Shanghai" while sorting through Soong Ching-ling's belongings. They then began to investigate Soong Ching-ling's childhood residence, and the author was also invited to participate in the investigation.
We first visited Rev. Xie Songsan (79 years old at the time, 13 years younger than Soong Ching-ling, with his wife also 80 years old and also a member of the church), who was reading the English version of "The Soong Sisters" at the time. He believed that the book's description of the Soong sisters' childhood was quite true and credible. Xie Songsan had studied in the United States and, after graduating, returned to Shanghai to work for the Methodist Episcopal Church and served as a long-term pastor of Jinglin Hall. He said that Soong Yao-ru and Ni Guizhen got married in Hongkou Zhujiqiao, with the house having a yellow exterior wall and surrounded by farmland. He also told us that at the time, Yung John Allen was the pastor of the Shanghai diocese, responsible not only for Shanghai's church affairs but also for those in Suzhou, Kunshan, and Songjiang. After Soong Yao-ru came to Shanghai, Yung John Allen sent him to inspect church affairs in Suzhou and Kunshan. However, after Soong Yao-ru met Ni Guizhen and fell deeply in love, he hoped that Yung John Allen would arrange for him to work in Shanghai, but Yung John Allen refused. Enraged, Soong Yao-ru broke off relations with Yung John Allen and founded the Mei Hua Bookstore in Hongkou to print and sell the Bible and religious books.
Soong Ching-ling's maternal grandfather, Ni Yunshan (1835-1889), was originally from Anhui and moved to Pudong around the time of the Qianlong Emperor. After marrying Xu Shi (which led some to believe that Soong Ching-ling was related to the family of Xu Guangqi), he moved to Chansha Dongmen Zhong Street and ran a shoe shop. Soon after, he moved to Shanghai's concessions, Pan Tang Long (now Shanxi Middle Road), still running a shoe shop. His two daughters, Ni Gujin and Ni Guizhen, both attended the Bivin Girls' School (now Shanghai Ninth Middle School). Ni Gujin married Niu Shangxian, a returned American, and through his introduction, Soong Yao-ru met Ni Guizhen (it is said that at the time, Soong Yao-ru did not want to marry a traditional woman with bound feet, while Ni Guizhen was a modern, unbound-foot woman). This suggests that the Ni family had no property in Chansha, and although both Soong Yao-ru and Ni Guizhen were members of the church, they were not clergy and had neither the right nor the inclination to set up another "Fuhai Hall" in Chansha.
Another reason for the conflict between Soong Yao-ru and Yung John Allen was their differing views. Soong Yao-ru met Zheng Guanying, the head of the British trading company Po Shun and the Taikoo Trading Company, in Shanghai. Zheng Guanying was from the same hometown as Sun Yat-sen. In 1894, Sun Yat-sen went to Shanghai to submit a memorial to Li Hongzhang and, through Zheng Guanying's connection, met Soong Yao-ru and stayed at his home, after which Soong and Sun became brothers, and Soong Yao-ru began his transformation from a Christian missionary to a revolutionary. Yung John Allen was also sympathetic to the bourgeois revolution in China, as evident in his writings and articles, but he did not agree with his subordinates directly participating in anti-government struggles. Therefore, he decided that Soong Yao-ru should temporarily sever ties with the church, which further indicates that Soong would not have gone to Chansha to set up another church.
Xie Songsan's wife, who had lived in Xinyuantang (now the intersection of Gaoyang Road and Tangshan Road in Shanghai) in her childhood, said that her parents had often told her that they frequently saw Sun Yat-sen and the Soong family coming and going there. She had also seen Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling passing by in a carriage from there, which left a deep impression on her as a child. However, after Soong Ching-ling and Sun Yat-sen's romantic relationship was confirmed, the highly open-minded Soong Yao-ru could not accept his daughter marrying a man 27 years older than her, who had once been her uncle's nephew. As a result, Soong Yao-ru broke off relations with Sun Yat-sen.
Mr. Tang Zhijun, the editor-in-chief of "A Chronicle of Major Events in Modern Shanghai History," a book compiled based on old newspapers, documents, and archives, recorded in the 1895–1912 section that revolutionary figures like Huang Xing were active in Hongkou Zhujiqiao, being tracked and pursued by spies. The Soong Ching-ling Memorial also believes that Soong Ching-ling was born in "Hongkou Zhujiqiao." However, since "Zhujiqiao" is a place name that no longer exists, later generations are unclear about its exact location. According to the "Shanghai Guide" of 1923: "Zhujiachi (American Sector), north of Dongye Road." "Zhujiqiao (American Sector), Xinji Basin Road (north of Xihua Road, at the Tangshan Road intersection)." Xihua Road is now Changzhi Road, Tangshan Road is now Tangshan Road, and Xinji Basin Road was a road built by filling in the original "Xinji Basin" and was only renamed Xinjian Road in the 1950s. The residence of Soong Yao-ru at Dongye Road 630 was located east of "Zhujiqiao." According to the author's knowledge, in 1984, the Soong Ching-ling management office found an archival record from the Shanghai Higher People's Court in 1946 regarding a property dispute at Dongye Road 630. The record stated that the property at Dongye Road 630 belonged to Soong Yao-ru's family and was later rented out to the plaintiff. The Soong Ching-ling management office also relied on this evidence to determine Soong Ching-ling's birthplace.
Soong Ching-ling, the Honorary President of the State, was a great figure of her generation, and the districts of Hongkou and Chansha in Shanghai have thus been embroiled in a dispute over her birthplace and childhood home. I believe that the more intense the debate is in research, the better, as debate can lead to fair and correct results. However, I oppose the practice of merely using the great figure to bring glory to the place. To be fair, Soong Yao-ru had grown up in the United States as a university student and was a pastor of the church, while Ni Guizhen was also a Christian believer and a modern woman. A Western hospital—the Tongren Hospital, an American church hospital—was nearby on Hongkou Wenjianshi Road (now Tangqi Road), so they would definitely have chosen to have prenatal check-ups and give birth in a Western hospital rather than relying on fate in the backward place of Chansha. Therefore, the author believes that Soong Ching-ling and her siblings should have been born in a hospital, and that her childhood home was in Hongkou.