By ZIAO FONG HSIA
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Cover of The Silent Worker, November 1920 edition.
Top caption: The Shanghai alumni of Yentai Deaf School welcome Principal Mrs. Mills returned to China from the US. July 10, 1920.
Bottom caption: Front row, first from left: Mr. Bow Shing-cheong, General Manager & Print Shop Supervisor, Commercial Press. (Note: Commercial Press hired many deaf graduates from the Yentai School and published the textbooks compiled by Mrs. Mills.)
COMING to Rochester was due to the combining of a good many influences and of work that was started before I was born. I was fortunately born into a favored family in Ningpo, China. Both my grandfathers, my father’s father and my mother’s father, were ministers of Christ. My father was a graduate of a modern college, a branch of an American college in Shanghai. So that when it happened that at one year of age, I was dreadfully ill with typhoid fever and such complications of disease that I lost the hearing in both ears. I was none the less loved and cared for; my parents did not look upon me as a child possessed of an evil spirit; they did not expect me to bring distress and bad luck upon the rest of the family. Rather they were sorry for me and loved me the more. My father and mother determinded to make up to me by special attention and careful teaching my loss of hearing. They devoted a great deal of time to teaching me. My father had read in books in the college library about the way the deaf were taught in America and Europe, and he was determined to teach me everything that any child in China could learn. My father worked very faithfully with me. All my relatives were interested in my father’s undertakings, for it was something unheard of in China. I can remember that when I was little, my father w'as very strict with me and gave me pieces of paper on which names were written in Chinese. I had to show the right name when he pointed to members of the family, or when I wanted anything.
At last I was taken to the foregin school for the deaf at Chefoo. This school w a s something new in China. None of my family ever heard of it until I was six. At once my father set out to see its work. He took me with him. He saw Mrs. Mills’s deaf boys writing Chinese; he heard them speak and they could talk with him. I have been told that my father wanted Mrs. Mills to teach me to speak at once.
He explained to [P.46] Mrs. Miles that he could teach me all that she had taught the boys in her classes of reading, writing, arithmetic and geography, but he could not teach me to speak. He told her if she could teach me to speak, he would leave me in her school. If she could not, he would take me home and teach me himself. Mrs. Mills explained to him, I was told, how impossible it was to teach a deaf child to speak instantly to order. It had taken two or three years with each one of all the members of her classes for them to learn to speak. But father insisted, and so Mrs. Mills undertook very reluctantly to teach me under my father’s eyes. After I learned to talk with Mrs. Mills, she told me all about it.
She took me in her lap and tried to get me to make a noise, to use my voice. But I could not guess what she wanted. Then Mrs. Mills took me to the school room with my father and sent a boy about my own age to the blackboard and explained to my father the meaning of phonetic diagrams which she told the boy to point to and had him speak words he had practiced before; I watched him so closely that I finally got an idea of what she was trying to get me to do. Then Mrs. Mills placed my hand upon her chest again and looking me steadily in the face, she spoke a Chinese word. Then I tried and succeeded. I made a sound. Mrs. Mills had me do it again and again. Then, as an artist takes a crooked line that some one makes and seeing what ft most resembles makes the lines into a crude picture, so Mrs. Mills took the sound I made and showed me how to form the word “fu,” so that my father heard it clearly and I was able to repeat it. Mrs. Mills wrote it in Chinese and I knew then that I had spoken the Chinese word “father,” for I had learned to know the word on the papers my father had given at home. I pointed to my father and spoke the word “fu, fu.” My father burst into tears, and took me into his arms and gave me to Mirs. Mills. He said: “I will leave Ziao Fong with you.”
I was in Mrs. Mills’ school for two years. She found my father had taught me a great deal. Later, Mrs. Mills made a long tour through some of the provinces of China demonstrating to the Chinese the methods of teaching the deaf. She took one other boy who is my cousin, and me with her on her journey, so the Chinese might get interested and open other schools for the deaf in other parts in China. We arrived at Peking and showed the high officials who were the' rulers of China under Dowager Empress about the work for the deaf. They became interested and one of them was the Great Viceroy of Chili province.
So you see how many influences combined to my coming to America. The benevolence of the people of the United States who established the college in Shanghai where my father was educated and so was enabled to conceive the idea of educating his deaf son; the great missionary work of the world which had so established the religion of Jesus that my family were almost all converts to Christianity before I was born; the benevolence of people in several countries in Europe and of Canada and the United States, who contributed to the suport of Mrs. Mills’ school in Chefoo, through which I was prepared.
Ziao Fong Hsia as he looked when he entered the Rochester School in the summer of 1909.
The U. S. has offered special advantages to Chinese students to study in American colleges, and three of my mother’s brothers were being educated in America, and so my family became ambitious to have a w'ay found by which I could be sent to America. When my father [P. 63] talked about the matter to Mrs. Mills, she encouraged the idea and secured the aid of the Consul-General Fowler of the United States at Chefoo, he laid the matter before the Great Viceroy of Chili, who had become interested in me when he was in Peking, and from the funds collected from the Salt Gabelle, he gave the money to pay for sending me to Rochester with Mrs. Mills and to pay for one year at school; three years later he sent the money for two additional years’ tuition. The Viceroy died and his successor continued to pay my expenses for three years through the great statesman Tang Shao Yi’s influence. Then in July, 1915, Dr. Westervelt, the superintendant and my uncle, Cheng Fu Wang, went to Washington to confer with the Chinese minister. It was then agreed that my expenses should be paid out of the Boxer Indemnity Fund that was returned to China by the U.S.A. for educational purposes and this arrangement has made it possible for me to plan definitely for my education.
I was nine years old when I came to the U.S. in 1909. I was too young to understand what the change would mean to me. But my impressions were many and I can never forget about them. Mrs. Mills came here on a leave of absence for one year to rest and, also, to raise money for her school and to place me in the Rochester School. She taught in the school in Rochester before she went away to China, and this is why she left me here I am always thankful that she selected this school for me.
We arrived in Seattle in March and until July Mrs Mills visited her friends and also lectured in Seattle, Ogden, Park City, Utah, Kansas City, Chicago and in two or three other cities. I was exhibited as a product of the Chefoo School, and in this way made many new friends who were very kind to me and gave me good times and money.
I can remember very well when I first came to Rochester on a warm day in July. This school was closed for the summer, but Dr. Westervelt, the superintendent and several of the ladies were there. They did everything to make my coming pleasant and happy. They gave me a typewriter on which I pounded away to my heart’s content. They wanted to see how much English I knew, and would point out this or that in the office for me. I used to make signs, but it was against the rules of the school here to make signs. I was surprised with this, and I did not understand. But I soon broke the habit of making signs, and spelled all the time. I found it a big help in acquiring English. Mrs. Mills stayed til she saw that I had become happy in my new home.
When school opened in the fall, I was placed in the kindergarten. I had to begin at the kindergarten class. Gradually I worked up through the primary, intermediate and grammar grades and now I am in my third year High School.
I have learned a great deal, for which I am most thankful. I am trying and praying for a good practical education. The Americans have given me inspiration. I value them and respect them highly. At the same time my devotion to China grows as I become older. That makes me want eagerly to have a good education, so that I can go back home and be of service to my country.
I had planned to go to college; but I have changed my plans and will enter the Mechanics Institute in the fall for a three years’ course. As if inspired I have come to the conclusion that I would be serving the best interests of China by teaching different trades to the Chinese deaf, so that they may be able to earn their own living and support others. Those friends with whom I have talked, all urge me candidly that it is a good course to follow.
When I go back to China, it will be my endeavor to help Mrs. Mills in her work whenever she needs me. I feel much interested in the success of her work, and it will make me happy if I can do something to help her work along. Mrs. Mills has worked hard and unselfishly for so many years. I earnestly hope she will be rewarded by having the support and interest of all those friends who know about her work.
