Old Highways in China

The record of a Victorian woman missionary's travels through northern China, describing the everyday lives of Chinese women and girls.

Isabelle Williamson (Author)

9781108015189, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 October 2010

236 pages, 18 b/w illus. 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.3 kg

In 1873, the Christian missionary Isabelle Williamson set out from Chefoo (Yantai),China, to spread the gospel to Chinese women. Her four separate journeys along the ancient roads of Shandong Province and Beijing are recorded in Old Highways in China (1884), a chronicle of the everyday lives of the women to whom she preached. 'My interest was chiefly in the women', Williamson explains, 'and I looked at all through a woman's eyes'. Reserving her missionary work for another publication, Williamson devotes this keenly observed book to the details of life in the villages she visited - the work, play, rituals, and stories of women and girls. It also describes Williamson's own remarkable travels, set against the stunning natural backdrop of northern China. An important witness to women's missionary work in China, her book is also testament to the intelligent eye of its author as she seeks to portray 'China's daughters'.

Preface
1. Old highways
2. Our first halting-place
3. Rugged roads
4. The Old Highway again
5. Arrival at the city of Laichow-foo
6. The town of Sa Hoh
7. A genuine country fair
8. Chinese ladies
9. A grand archway in honour of a virtuous woman
10. The city of Tsingehow-foo
11. A Chinese bride
12. Chinese marriages
13. A religious festival, its inconveniences
14. The outskirts of Chang San Hien
15. Waterwheels
16. Tsi-nan-foo in carnival time
17. Classic China
18. Tsow Hien, or the city of Mencius
19. China's sorrow
20. Chinese burial-grounds
21. The Grand Canal
22. The famine districts in Chih Li
23. The banks of the T'sing ho
24. How our 'walking map' turned out
25. Peking.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]