Page 19 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
P. 19
GFA – A Different Drumbeat 19
After six months language study at Anking, GFA and his fellow student missionaries faced
“designation day”. For some this was exciting, but others were apprehensive because this
was the time at the end of their language school when senior Mission staff came and
interviewed each of the students separately and informed them where the Mission leaders
felt they should go for their first full time experience of missionary work. GFA was
designated to serve in Kansu, where his father was the C.I.M. Superintendent and where
his sister Esther and her husband Arthur Moore were already working. So in one sense he
was going home. It took him two months to get as far as Lanchow, the capital. He travelled
by steamer to Hankow, by rail north into Honan, and then westwards on horseback for 700
miles, arriving at Lanchow on April 23, 1909. In those days, as he said, "a man's worth
was assessed by his ability to travel hard and live rough." He was then sent even further
inland to Sining on the border of Tibet and the great plains of the Kokonor, the "Blue Lake",
an inland salt sea 65 miles by 40 miles in size.
Sining was the de facto capital of the Kokonor territory and remained in the province of
Kansu until 1928, when it became the provincial capital of the newly established
independent province of Tsinghai.
Tsinghai shared a border with Tibet, which had not been claimed by China at that stage.
Combined with its distance from Peking and other major cities, the Tibetan influence was
consequently a very strong one. In fact
it was actually under Tibetan control
from 763AD until 1104AD. When the
city was reclaimed by the Chinese it
received the name Sining, meaning
"peace in the west". It became an
important religious center for the
Yellow Hat sect of Buddhists,
headquartered in the Kumbum
Monastery, one of six famous
monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism, and
had hundreds of monks. By the middle
of the 20th century, Kumbum
Monastery included thirty temples and
a thousand or so houses.
GFA would have been familiar with
these facts about the region, which
had always had a volatile history.
Trouble always seemed to be brewing
between Tibetan Buddhists and the
Chinese, or between the Hui Muslims
and the Tibetans, or even between
various branches of Muslims.
After six months language study at Anking, GFA and his fellow student missionaries faced
“designation day”. For some this was exciting, but others were apprehensive because this
was the time at the end of their language school when senior Mission staff came and
interviewed each of the students separately and informed them where the Mission leaders
felt they should go for their first full time experience of missionary work. GFA was
designated to serve in Kansu, where his father was the C.I.M. Superintendent and where
his sister Esther and her husband Arthur Moore were already working. So in one sense he
was going home. It took him two months to get as far as Lanchow, the capital. He travelled
by steamer to Hankow, by rail north into Honan, and then westwards on horseback for 700
miles, arriving at Lanchow on April 23, 1909. In those days, as he said, "a man's worth
was assessed by his ability to travel hard and live rough." He was then sent even further
inland to Sining on the border of Tibet and the great plains of the Kokonor, the "Blue Lake",
an inland salt sea 65 miles by 40 miles in size.
Sining was the de facto capital of the Kokonor territory and remained in the province of
Kansu until 1928, when it became the provincial capital of the newly established
independent province of Tsinghai.
Tsinghai shared a border with Tibet, which had not been claimed by China at that stage.
Combined with its distance from Peking and other major cities, the Tibetan influence was
consequently a very strong one. In fact
it was actually under Tibetan control
from 763AD until 1104AD. When the
city was reclaimed by the Chinese it
received the name Sining, meaning
"peace in the west". It became an
important religious center for the
Yellow Hat sect of Buddhists,
headquartered in the Kumbum
Monastery, one of six famous
monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism, and
had hundreds of monks. By the middle
of the 20th century, Kumbum
Monastery included thirty temples and
a thousand or so houses.
GFA would have been familiar with
these facts about the region, which
had always had a volatile history.
Trouble always seemed to be brewing
between Tibetan Buddhists and the
Chinese, or between the Hui Muslims
and the Tibetans, or even between
various branches of Muslims.
