Elspeth Sandys - A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley

To my fellow travellers, April 2017

Every traveller wants to find the place where being what he is will matter, and that place is home. Robert Dessaix, Corfu

Wasnt that the definition of home? Not where you were from
but where you were wanted.

Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

It is not hard to do a bit of good; what is hard is to do good all ones life.

Wang Bingnan, president of the Chinese Peoples Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, speaking about Rewi Alley 1

What is it about China that getspeople from the rest of the world?
The answer is a single word warmth.
Rewi Alley diary 195255

Published by Otago University Press

Level 1, 398 Cumberland Street

Dunedin, New Zealand

www.otago.ac.nz/press

First published 2019

Copyright Elspeth Sandys

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

ISBN 978-1-98-853160-1 (print)

ISBN 978-1-98-859280-0 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-98-859281-7 (Kindle mobi)

ISBN 978-1-98-859282-4 (ePDF)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand. This book is copyright. Except for the purpose of fair review, no part may be stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording or storage in any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. No reproduction may be made, whether by photocopying or by any other means, unless a licence has been obtained from the publisher.

Published with the assistance of Creative New Zealand

Editor: Jane Parkin

Index: Diane Lowther

Design/layout: Fiona Moffat

Cover: Rewi in Shandan, 1982. From Rewi Alley, a commemorative photo album compiled by the Research Office for Rewi Alleys Works of the Chinese Peoples Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and China Reconstructsmagazine, 1988, Beijing: China Reconstructs Press.

Ebook conversion 2020 by meBooks

CONTENTS

This is the story of a relationship with a man, Rewi Alley, as family member, writer, humanitarian and unwitting myth-maker. It is also the story of a relationship with a country, China, where he lived for 60 years, from 1927 to 1987, about which I now know enough to acknowledge how little I know. Whoever said You can never come to the end of China said a true thing.

Rewi Alleys long life in China has been the subject of many books, films and documentaries, in both Chinese and English, yet he remains known to only a few in the West. That this man, friend of peasants and presidents, founder of the movement known internationally as Gung Ho, honoured as one of the top ten foreign friends ( guoji youren) of China, has been largely ignored by the English-speaking world is the puzzle I have set out to try to solve.

As an excuse (explanation?) for my audacity in writing this book, I could offer up the fact that it was a condition of the costs of my trip to China being paid, but that begs the question of why I should think I am in any way qualified to write about the country, home to over a quarter of the worlds population, that I have visited only once. All I can say in my defence is that Rewi Alley, my mothers first cousin, has always loomed large in my life. And I cant write about him without writing about China.

A person goes to China for a week and writes a book. A person goes to China for a year and writes an article. A person goes to China for two years and stays silent. Words often quoted by old China hands, quoted here in acknowledgement of the impossible task I have set myself.

*

In the interests of creating a dramatic narrative I have taken some liberties in my depiction of Rewis relationships with friends and family. At times, based on what I know of the facts, I have imagined meetings and conversations, but I have been careful not to stray from the written record.