An interesting note today from the Author of
"South Fukien: Missionary Poems: 1925-1951, William Angus". I read some of the poems and they really brought to life the place and the people
of Amoy (now Xiamen), of Fujian Province. I even recognized some of the notorious characters--a bandit chief--in one poem, though the name was changed. Insightful, and fun. Below are the author's note and Press Release.
Click Here for "The Three Trees", William Angus' favorite poem.
Dr. Bill, Xiamen University MBA Center (since 1988); Author of
Discover Xiamen &Fujian Adventure.
Note from David Andrews, May 27, 2015
I have enjoyed
reading your site while doing research for my book project, South Fukien:Missionary Poems 1925-1951, by William Angus.
William R. Angus,
Jr. was a Reformed Church missionary in Amoy and on the Fukien mainland in the years named, and after expulsion worked in the
Philippines. He wrote over 600 poems on the Fukienese people of his time,
60 of which are collected in a 2015 edition co-published by MerwinAsia
Publishing and University of Hawaii Press.
I edited the
collection and provided a historical Introduction and Glossary. David R.
Angus of Lansing, MI, the poet's son, wrote the Preface.
I am enclosing a
press release for the collection and two files of excerpts. I hope you
will find them interesting and lend us some aid in raising the book's profile
among readers, students, and perhaps missionaries. Some links to web
pages about the book are at the bottom of this message.
Best regards,
David Andrews
PRESS RELEASE
Edited with an Introduction by
David Andrews
Preface by
David Angus
Portland, ME: MerwinAsia
Publishers, 2015
China Missionary
Poet Published 64 Years after Expulsion
Lansing, MI,
April 1, 2015
Through four
decades as a Reformed Church missionary in China’s Fukien (today, Fujian)
Province, William Angus produced more than 600 narrative poems. What emerged is pointedly not A Nice
Missionary’s Poetry.
In spring of 2015
MerwinAsia Publishers, in association with the University of Hawaii Press,
releases 60 of William Angus’s verses under the title South Fukien: Missionary
Poems, 1925-1951
Humane but hard-edged,
Angus’s verse depicts the Fukienese through successive eras of trial: in
China’s struggle toward modern government; through civil wars between
Nationalist and Communist forces; under Japanese occupation in World War II;
and during the Communist takeover at the end of the 1940s.
Written from
actual incidents, in the voices of the storytellers, the poems are as vital as
the Chinese people. Angus’s work combines historical reporting with folktale,
and a sharp edge of moral ambiguity.
David Angus, a
retired educator in Lansing, MI, has waited decades to see his father’s poetry
in print.
“My father
traveled long distances in Fukien’s countryside—on foot, by boat, and by
ancient, rickety bus. He knew peasants
and merchants, bandits and soldiers. He
heard their stories and he valued their experiences,” David reflects. “He knew they were together in some of the
world’s most troubled times.”
During World War
II, Angus’s wife, Joyce and their three children—David Angus among them—were
interned by the Japanese before repatriation to America. In 1951 William and Joyce were forced, like
all missionaries, to leave China by the new Peoples’ Republic.
“When my father
died in 1984, he left behind a body of remarkable work which he edited and
revised several times,” says David.
“These poems represent his personal response to the Chinese he lived and
worked among. The South Fukiencollection’s subtitle, Missionary Poems, offers a hope that his verse will
still bear witness to the effect of Western evangelism on the daily lives and
values of the Chinese people.”
South Fukien is
edited by independent scholar David Andrews, who provides a historical
Introduction and Glossary. David Angus
supplies a Foreword recalling missionary life in China.
The collection
was assembled and annotated from papers in the collections of the New Brunswick
Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, NJ, and the Joint Archives of Hope
College and Holland, MI. “The poems were
an exciting and historically important discovery, too compelling to remain
unpublished,” says David Andrews.
William Angus’s
poems are dispatches from his time to ours, showing the Chinese as a people
much like us—hoping to adjust to a world of rapid change, seeking comfort in a
Western religion that offers faith, justice, and love. His accounts of
spiritual strength and moral failings present unique perspectives into a
people’s behavior and mores under crisis, temptation and change.
“Writing with
objectivity, sensitivity, compassion, and uncompromising directness, Angus does
not pretend,” notes Dr. Paul Vender Meer, Professor Emeritus at California
State University-Fresno. Dr. Ann
Kuzdale, Associate Professor of History at Chicago State University, says,
“Angus is a keen witness to events that most readers know superficially. South Fukien is a valuable addition to world
history and religious studies courses, and to transnational and Pacific Rim
history.
The Amoy Mission Pages
