They named her Ai-ling (“pleasant mood”), but she was also known by the Christian name Nancy, after General Carr’s wife. Before long, he was taking on job printing as well and was amassing a good profit.Īnd none too soon – for Charlie and Kwei-tseng had started their family. Charlie devised ways of publishing Bibles, using local materials, at an even lower cost than they could be supplied by the American Bible Society. Her marriage to Soong brought him status within the community and opened up to him new possibilities for accomplishing his dreams for the “new China.”ĭuring the late 1880s, Charlie grew more influential in his ministerial role as well as more prosperous in a business sideline he had launched: the selling and printing of Bibles in Chinese. She was an excellent counterpart to Charlie, whose Americanized speech and mannerisms made him an anomaly in his native country. Miss Ni herself was educated in the Western tradition in Shanghai. It was during Charlie Soong’s days of missionary service and teaching that he met Ni Kwei-tseng, the daughter of a Chinese Episcopalian family. In 1886, Charlie returned to China to begin missionary work, spending some time in Shanghai and rural Kunshan under the direction of pioneer Methodist missionary Dr. He remained a lifelong friend and supporter even after Charlie’s return to China. “General” Carr underwrote Charlie’s education at Duke and Vanderbilt. ![]() The Wilmington Methodists helped Charlie gain admission to Trinity College (later Duke University) and introduced him to tobacco and textile magnate Julian S. Both Charlie and the church could see the advantages: Charlie would get an American education, and the Methodists would gain a powerful witness among the Chinese people they were fervently seeking to convert. He announced his wish to be trained in the Christian tradition so that he could return to his native country as a missionary. a Chinese convert will be one of the subjects of the solemn right, being probably the first ‘Celestial’ that has ever submitted to the ordinance of Baptism in North Carolina” (quoted in Seagrave, 27).Ĭharlie found a new life and a new identity: Upon baptism, his name was anglicized to Charles Jones Soon (the “g” was added later). The Wilmington Star carried the unusual news: “This morning the ordinance of Baptism will be administered. It was a fateful occasion – for Charlie professed his faith in Christ as savior. There, in November 1880, Charlie attended revival services at the Fifth Street Methodist Church. In the Coast Guard’s service, Charlie followed Gabrielson to Wilmington, North Carolina. It was also under Captain Gabrielson’s influence, Sterling Seagrave surmises, that “Chiao-shun” was transmuted to “Charles Sun.” The ship’s captain, a staunch Methodist, took the boy under his tutelage, and Charlie learned the precepts of Christianity. The shopkeeper’s life did not appeal to Charlie, and in January 1879 he shipped aboard a Coast Guard cutter plying the Eastern seaboard. During a few months in Boston, employed in his uncle’s tea shop, Charlie set his sights on obtaining an education in America. Then a Hainan merchant’s son known as Han Chiao-shun, Charlie left an apprenticeship in the East Indies to join his uncle on a voyage to the West. In an age when college was still a relatively rare experience even for Western women, Ai-ling would be the first Chinese woman to be educated in the United States.Ī quarter of a century earlier, her father, Charlie Soong, had also left China for America – but under vastly different circumstances. Ai-ling Soong was off to spend the next four years of her life at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. She was only fourteen, and she had just bid a brave farewell to her parents. The young girl seemed even smaller, standing next to the hulking steamship at the Shanghai docks. You can also look throughout our Digital Archive of the Soong Sisters Exhibit.īy Barbara A. ![]() The world today is much different from the days when the three Soong sisters became China’s most powerful women – making headlines around the world. But the story is not as well known by the present generation, as the last of the three Soong sisters (who lived a quiet and private life) just passed away in 2003. The story that follows has been told over and over in Wesleyan circles – embroiled in mystery, obscured in fiction and conflicting news accounts, endowed with the golden hue of legend.
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