Yung Wing

Yung Wing ( _zh. 容闳; Pinyin: Róng Hóng) (November 17, 1828 – May 29, 1912). Born in Zhuhai in Guangdong province, he studied in Robert Morrison's missionary schools as a boy where Tong King-sing was a classmate.

Biography

Yung was the first Chinese student to graduate from a U.S. university, graduating from Yale College in 1854. He was a member of the Phi chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. After finishing his studies Yung Wing returned to China and worked with western missionaries as an interpreter. In 1859 he accepted an invitation to the court of the Taiping rebels in Nanjing, but his proposals aimed at increasing the efficiency of the Heavenly Kingdom were all eventually refused. In 1863 Yung Wing was dispatched to the United States by Zeng Guofan to buy machinery necessary for opening an arsenal in China capable of producing heavy weapons comparable with those of the western powers.

Yung Wing was naturalized as an American citizen on October 30, 1852, and in 1876, he married Mary Kellogg, an American. They had two children: Morrison Brown Yung and Bartlett Golden Yung. At Yale's centennial commencement in 1876, Yung Wing received an honorary Doctor of Laws. [Schiff, Judith Ann, "When East Met West," old Yale, November/December 2004]

He persuaded the Qing Dynasty government to send young Chinese to the United States to study Western science and engineering. With the government's eventual approval, he organized what came to be known as the Chinese Educational Mission, which included 120 young Chinese students, to study in the New England region of the United States beginning in 1872. The Educational Mission was disbanded in 1881, but many of the students later returned to China and made significant contributions to China's civil services, engineering, and the sciences.

Yung Wing was a lifelong supporter of reform in China. He had followed the lead of the Guangxu Emperor whom Yung described as the great pioneer of reform in China.Yung Wing, My Life in China and America, p.83, Henry Holt Co., New York, 1909] The coup d'état of 1898 by the Empress Dowager CiXi aborted the reforms, and many of the reformers were decapitated. A price of $70,000 was placed on Yung's head and he fled Shanghai to Hong Kong. While in Hong Kong, he applied to the US Consul to return to the US. In a 1902 letter from the US Secretary of State John Sherman, Yung was informed that his US citizenship that he had held for 50 years was revoked and he would not be allowed to return to the United States Through the help of friends, he was able to sneak into the United States in time to see his youngest son Bartlett graduate from Yale. He lived his remaining years in poverty in Hartford Connecticut and died in 1912. [Chu, T.K., 150 Years of Chinese Students in America, p.9, Harvard China Review, Spring 2004]

Yung Wing's grave is located at Cedar Hill Cemetery outside Hartford, Connecticut, USA.

P.S. 124, a public elementary school at 40 Division St. in Chinatown in New York City, NY, is named after Yung Wing.

Notes

External links

* [http://web.pdx.edu/~lorz/index.htm The Yung Wing Project] contains the transcribed text of Yung Wing's memoir "My Life in China and America".
* [http://www.cemconnections.org/ CEM Connections] presents basic data and photos of the 120 students of the Chinese Educational Mission.
* [http://www.homerleasite.com/Site/Blog/287092F4-7B02-11DD-BE22-003065F3F514.html The Red Dragon Scheme ] reveals the last chapter of Yung Wing's life.