God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [8]
My research told me this: British missionary George Clarke purchased the land and built the cemetery. Clarke’s Chinese name was Hua Guoxiang, which means fragrance of blossom and fruits. An active member of the London-based China Inland Mission since 1865, Clarke left England in 1881 with his Swiss wife, Fanny, and reached the ancient city of Dali via Myanmar and Guizhou province.
George and Fanny Clarke were almost certainly the earliest missionaries in the region. Initially, they printed Christian pamphlets and gave them out at markets and along the roadside. They also distributed candies to children. But they soon realized that their pamphlets were largely useless because most Bai villagers were illiterate, and their own Mandarin Chinese was of little use in communicating with people who spoke only Bai. So they set about learning Bai while initiating literacy programs in the villages and teaching people to sing hymns in Chinese. They also learned how to imitate the Bai ancestor-worshipping dances and incorporated some of that culture into their Christian teachings. Soon, the Clarkes dressed up in Bai costumes and danced to the rhythms of gongs and drums on the street to attract people and spread the gospel. They wrote up hymns using a popular form of local ditty. I heard stories about how the Clarkes would visit the Bai villages to spend time with musicians and were seen dancing on moonlit nights near Erhai Lake.
The Clarkes lived in Dali for two years but had limited success. They set up a boarding school but attracted only three students. Fanny became pregnant and gave birth to a son. They named him Samuel Dali Clarke.
Two months after giving birth, Fanny became seriously ill. News of her illness spread quickly among her Chinese neighbors, who came to console her. They were deeply touched by her beautiful voice and by the optimism she showed during her illness. She had left instructions with her husband that she be buried in Dali so she could be part of Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake. Her devotion inspired people around her and after her death, many of their Chinese friends and neighbors flocked to the church and were baptized.
So began the Christian cemetery at the foot of Cangshan Mountain. On the walls that fenced the cemetery, craftsmen engraved crosses and biblical verses in both Chinese and English. George Clarke buried his wife on the morning of October 30, 1883. It was the first such funeral the indigenous people had ever seen—to them, sending off the dead involved incense burning, sutra chanting, and shaman dancing. They were now being asked to understand that Fanny’s soul was ascending to heaven, where she would be with God.
In the ensuing years, at least fifty foreign Christians served the communities in Dali. According to The History of Christianity in Dali, written and self-published in 2005 by Wu Yongsheng, between 1881 and 1949 the city became an important Christian base in southwest China. In the beautiful land dotted with lakes and hemmed in by mountains, churches sprung up across the countryside, attracting more than a hundred thousand followers. Missionaries built hospitals, orphanages, and schools.
I was struck by the dedication of the missionaries. One such story relates to a Canadian missionary doctor, Jessie McDonald. She came to China in 1913 and worked at a hospital in China’s central city of Kaifeng, Henan province. In 1940, when Kaifeng fell to Japanese forces, she moved the hospital southwest to Dali, where she established the Gospel Hospital. Her work came to an abrupt end on May 4, 1951, when Communist officials seized the hospital and its equipment and ordered McDonald out of China. A big Red Cross symbol on the front wall of the hospital was painted over with a slogan: “Kicking imperialists out of China.” Many Christian followers became scared; they either quit the church or publicly renounced their faith. McDonald