S. N. Au-Young

Today’s post is on S. N. Au-Young (欧阳心农, pinyin Ōuyáng XīnNóng), who attended the University of Michigan, Brown, George Washington University, and Columbia University. The antithesis of Tony Stark, S. N. Au-Young was a lawyer economist philosopher-poet, as well as a descendant of the famous Song Dynasty intellectual Ouyang Xiu, and later in life he had an affair with modern dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis.

S. K. Chow (周思敬)

My student for this week is Clarence Sze King Chow (周思敬, pinyin Zhōu SīJìng; courtesy name 仲久/Zhòng Jiǔ). Like many other Chinese students of this era, his travels were not limited to the United States, and he would serve as consul to Cuba and Australia under the Republic of China.

T. L. Li (李天祿)

I return to the South this week with a Vanderbilt student: Dr. T. L. Li (李天祿, pinyin Lǐ Tiānlù; courtesy name 福田, pinyin Fútián). Dr. Li was not only extremely involved in the international Methodist Church, but participated in political events and was savvy enough to navigate the changing political waters of China through the Communist takeover.

Miss Phoebe Stone (石非比)

My student for this week is Miss Phoebe Stone (石非比, pinyin Shí Fēibǐ), who was the younger sister of the famous Dr. Mary Stone, one of the first Western-trained female physicians in China, and one of the first Chinese women to study in the United States. Mary is a little bit outside of the time period of my research, but Phoebe fits right in, and I’m excited to share her story with you.

Y. F. Chen (程義法)

Back to another original 1909 Boxer Indemnity Scholar! This week’s student is Y. F. Chen (程義法, pinyin Chéng YìFǎ), with a courtesy name of 中右 (pinyin Zhōng Yòu). He was born in about 1890 in Shanghai and left for the US before his 19th birthday to study mining and metallurgy.

Z. C. Hsu (徐仁錆)

I have another great student this week, with name changes, political intrigue, lying, and terrible teaching ability! This post has it all, and the best (?) part is that many of my sources can’t be verified because they are all incredibly biased! This week I bring you the story of Zun Chan Hsu (徐仁錆, pinyin Xú Rénqiāng), who also went by the names 徐子明(Xú Zimíng) and 徐光 (pinyin Xú Guāng).

Y. O. Huang (黄一歐)

As seems de rigueur with blogs, I have to apologize again for my extremely lengthy absence. Life, work, and my doctorate classes have gotten in the way for over a year, it seems. However, my New Year’s Resolution is to post more in this blog, so away I go! Starting absolutely from nowhere, I have decided to jump to the story of Y. O. Huang. I promise I will pick up the stories of the SooHoo family and William Z. L. Sung again very very soon (I promise! I even have a list!).

G. T. Chao (趙國材)

There are lots ways to categorize the various Indemnity scholars I’ve been profiling here in this blog. I’ve talked about previous students that I’ve profiled in regards to several broad categories; for example, E. J. Chu and W. K. Lam were both students at Albany Law School, the Chan family were not only related but also all Chinese Christians, and so on. But another interesting classification is by what these students did after leaving their US university. Virtually all of them returned to China, and many of them held important jobs in the Republic of China, but after the 40s and 50s, some students came back to the United States while others just . . . stop. Some of them stop because they died, like H. T. Wong and W. K. Lam, but some stop because information from China during wartime and under the Communists is near impossible to get. G. T. Chao is one of the latter cases.

Elizabeth Tse-Vong Cornish ( 康採蓉)

So, a few months ago, I had the opportunity to poke around in the Oberlin College Archives. They keep extensive records of their alumni, and there are a whole bunch of Boxer Indemnity Scholars who once attended Oberlin. And if the Oberlin College Boxer Indemnity Scholars community can be said to have a “power couple”, Elizabeth Cornish and H. J. Fei would be it. Normally I would address a couple in the same post, as I did with Bertie Chan and G. G. Leong, but each of these students have so much information and documents to get through, I have to break them up.

Edith Chu-Nian Bien (卞菊年)

Holy lag between updates, Batman. The spring semester picked up and I haven’t touched my research in weeks. Fortunately, Spring Break is almost upon us, so I have a few posts swimming around in my head that I hope to soon be able to share with you, my loyal readers (and those who have stumbled upon me via Google Search. Hi there!).

Today I will be posting about Edith Bien, the final child of Z. S. Bien who studied in the United States. Her full name was Edith Chu-Nian Bien (卞菊年, pinyin Biàn Júnián) and she was the youngest child of Z. S. Bien and Guojin Li, being born in 1915. She was born after her parents returned from studying in America and was 5 years younger than her next oldest sibling, Edward. According to Chinese sources she, like her brother Edward, attended Yenching University in Peking (Beijing) (from this blog post about the Bien family, original text: 卞寿孙女儿卞菊年（1915—1959）肄业北平燕京大学).