cover image Teaching in Wartime China: A Photo-Memoir, 1937-1939

Teaching in Wartime China: A Photo-Memoir, 1937-1939

Edward Gulick. University of Massachusetts Press, $40 (296pp) ISBN 978-0-87023-912-0

This compelling memoir, supplemented with 162 photographs, recounts a young Yale graduate's two-year sojourn in central China teaching English at a mission boarding-school for Chinese boys. Gulick refers often to the then-raging Sino-Japanese war, describing air raids and the school's relocation as the Japanese advance. But most impressive here are his observations on the differences between Chinese and American culture, his gentle search for ``the quintessential Chineseness of China'' and his ability to look deeply into ``the nature of everyday things'' as he became ``less an intellectual and more a person.'' Accepted into graduate school, Gulick returned to the U.S. in 1939 and was saddened to discover that the fate of his beloved China was of little interest to Americans. His photos convey with subtle artistry the character of the Chinese people, their towns and cities, their way of life and the haunting landscapes of Hunan Province. Gulick is emeritus professor of history at Wellesley. (July)