Lin Yutang - The Vigil of a Nation

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Text originally published in 1944 under the same title.

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Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

LIN YUTANG

THE VIGIL OF A NATION

ILLUSTRATED

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

to

The pilots and officers of the ATC

and the many men wording now in the

Chinese Government and the Army

whose courtesy, efficiency, and hospitality

made wartime travel in China possible for me

all of whose names it is not possible to mention in this book

and to

MAJOR GENERAL CLAIRE L. CHENNAULT

who has unshaken faith in

the Chinese soldier

AT NO TIME in the history of Sino-American relationships has true and deep understanding of Chinas land and people, historical back ground, and present problems been more imperatively required. The war will come to an end soon, and Chinas role in Asia and in world co-operation will be newly determined. China will launch a gigantic program of industrialization and reconstruction, under the same government which had started the work with such good promise before the war broke out in 1937, American co-operation will be needed and intensely desired. Yet the American people as a whole know little about the people with whom they are expected to co-operate and to whom they will quite probably be lending money and material assistance. Unfortunately, too, this mutual understanding has been shadowed in the past year by a cloud of confusing criticism, tending to make the Americans worried about China and unnecessarily alarmed about the government, although deep sympathy and friendliness are always there. At no time has the situation been so tragic as now when we near the end of the war and Allied victory.

Having no faith in propaganda, but troubled by reports about the condition of my country, I went back for an extended journey, covering seven provinces. I am now writing this record of my experiences and impressions as a Chinese who saw the country from the inside after seven years of war. It is essentially a book about a journey, but it is my hope that such inside pictures, presented fairly, will contribute toward a better insight into the Chinese people and their problems. I believe the knowledge thus gained will be deeper and more intimate than from a volume of economic and political essays. One cannot begin to discuss the problems of a foreign country until one has some pictures of the land and its people. The problems of inflation, of the Army, of social and educational standards, and above all of the much heralded civil war will be described as I saw them, as a Chinese who is a member neither of the Kuomintang nor of the Chinese Communist party, but who sees them as problems of Chinas emerging unity as a nation.

This is what I saw and what I felt. Because I could have no illusions about any country after seven years of war and two years of blockade, I was not disillusioned. And because I had observed Chinas progress and problems for almost two decades, since the National Revolution of 1926-27, these problems and difficulties, largely social and psychological, were not new to me. The particular effects of the blockade were anticipated in the years when many people were complacent and thought nothing mattered on the China front until the European war was won. Now when the full blast of its effect is felt and the same people, caught by surprise or frightened, have begun to lose hope and turn against Chungking, I have not lost faith in the national leadership. Only a more intimate knowledge of the social and political background is needed. This is what I am trying to supply in this book.

What China wants is not maudlin sympathy, but faith and understanding from her Allies. I found on this trip that the Chinese do not mind criticism, if criticism is based on intelligent understanding and placed against the background of the larger purposes and greater objectives. Unthinking criticisms, however, based on superficial and extremely limited knowledge, or even directly on hostile partisan propaganda, will do more harm to the outside public by bringing confusion than to the Chinese themselves, since the latter have a lot on their hands and do not spend their time chewing apparently unintelligible gossip from far away, I think foreign prestige suffers when some of these perverse criticisms become known in China. If the East and West must meet, they should meet on some higher level of intelligence than the present. One basic background fact, for instance, is that the China war is now in its eighth year, and yet the morale and resilience of the nation are no worse than what American morale would be at the end of an eight-year war, or what English morale would be if Englands Atlantic sea lanes had been cut off for two or three years. Taking account of this background, one would be able to understand quite a few things, and gain a better sense of balance.

There is no question that such faith in China will be justified. Soon the war will be ended, and the curtain of doubt will be lifted. Then we shall see the face of victory and of a China washing her wounds by the side of clear waters, resilient, confident, and hopefully rebuilding for the future, even as she was building in the years before the war. These moments of doubt shall pass away from the man who has faith. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but its leaves shall be green.

I LEFT Miami on September 22, 1943, and arrived back in New York on March 22, 1944, covering the trip in exactly six months, more exactly than I had planned. As I sit down to write of my exciting experience in those six months, I do not feel China is so far away. Traveling from America, to China used to take two or three weeks across the Pacific. This time, I flew back from Calcutta to New York in five days.

Going over to China seems almost like a visit to a neighbors front porch. I believe the Age of the Open Door is over and the Age of the Front Porch has begun. For the Open Door was a misnomer. I suppose it meant that the door was to be kept open for anybody to go in any time of the day, like a house without an owner, and if there was an owner, it was not his business to inquire who were the visitors, what they came for, and what they did inside when they entered the door. Now the owner has returned, and a sign is hung outside the door reading, Kindly knock.