Scotland China Association - Sine magazine

Sine

2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Annual membership of the SCA includes a subscription to the Association's magazine, Sine, usually published twice a year. This contains a wide variety of articles related to China and the Scotland/China relationship, past and present, as well as details of the Association's meetings and other events. The title is the Gaelic for China.

Current issue

The current issue, published in October 2015, includes articles on Scots and the Chinese export porcelain trade, by Ian Glennie of Bonhams ; Taiwan, by David Walters ; golf in China before 1949, by John Rigg ; and the 50th anniversary celebrations of our sister organisation in England, the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding.

Like to write for Sine ?

Anyone wishing to contribute to the magazine should contact the editor, Dale Finlayson.

Back issues

We have for sale limited stocks of back issues of Sine from November 1996 to the present. Contact Dale Finlayson for more details or if you are looking for a specific issue.

The first issue of Sine, 1972

2012-03-19T19:17:45+00:00

At the recent event at the Chinese Consulate to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Ambassadorial Diplomatic Relations between the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom (see this article), our Chairman Janice Dickson took the opportunity to mark a notable 40th anniversary for the SCA. She presented Consul-General Li with a copy of the first issue of Sine, which was published in Spring 1972.

There had been an earlier publication, called The Bulletin of the SCA, beginning in February 1968, but these were duplicated newsletters rather than a full magazine.

You can download a copy of this 1972 issue here. It includes articles on a wide range of topics, including Peking University since the Cultural Revolution, Chinese education, woodcuts, medicine, archaeology, and agricultural modernisation, as well as obituaries of Edgar Snow and Chen Yi.

Sine Articles by John Chinnery

2011-06-06T21:30:59+00:00

By Website Editor

Dr John Chinnery, the SCA's Honorary President, died on 12 October 2010. He was a founding member of the Scotland-China Association and its chairman for many years, and was head of the Department of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh from 1965 to 1989.

As well as his many academic publications, Dr Chinnery was a regular contributor to Sine.As part of the commemoration of his life that will take place at the Association's 2011 AGM, we have collected together his eighteen articles from Sine, dating from 1973 to 2009. We appreciate the assistance of Elsie Collier, Dale Finlayson and the National Library of Scotland in gathering these materials, many of which have not seen the light of day for some years.These articles are now available in PDF format (and one weblink) by clicking on the article titles below.

Reading these articles as a collection, what is quite striking is the sheer variety of topics that Dr Chinnery covered. Whether he was analysing the role of Confucius in Chinese culture, making incisive comment on Chinese politics, giving an entertaining explanation of the mysteries of Chinese names, or advocating a greater emphasis on Chinese teaching in Scotland, the writing is clear, well-researched, and sensitive.

He had, of course, a great love for China. Recounting his positive experience in a Guangzhou hospital after a heart attack at the beginning of an SCA visit in 1973, he notes, “for a patient with an unpleasant illness the most important thing is human contact, and of that there was never any lack”. His careful analysis of the events of June 1989 observed that there had been a "yearning for social justice", and he regretted that the Chinese leadership had lost its "youthful vigour". In his most recent article, on Daniel Defoe's writing on China in the The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, he effectively >demolishes Defoe's poor depiction of eighteenth-century China.

Dr Chinnery had a particular interest in Confucius, and there are two articles on this topic in the collection. In 1974, during a period when the writings of the ancient sage were being officially vilified in China, he wrote, “the image of Confucius will never be the same again”. Some forty years later, he was surely amused to see how the modern Chinese state used Confucius as its "brand" for international cultural activity !

The second constant theme in his articles is wholehearted involvement in the work of the SCA itself, whether on its tours to China, the hosting of delegations in Scotland, or promoting Chinese culture here.>He notes, for example, that 5,000 people visited various exhibitions in Edinburgh during a 'China Week' in 1987 - we would be pleased by that turnout now. Dr Chinnery's contribution to the Scotland-China Association over nearly fifty years was immense, and we hope that by publicising these articles to a new and wider audience, his knowledge will inspire another generation of members and friends.

The articles are listed below, all in Sine unless otherwise stated:

'Coronary in Canton', Spring 1973

'Trade Unions Re-emphasised', Volume 2, No. 3, 1974

'Confucianism in Modern China', Volume 3, No. 1, 1974

'Chinese Graphic Art', Volume 3, No. 3, 1975

'New Policies for a New Period', October 1978 (the magazine was known as the Bulletin at this time)

'Visit of the Xi'an Municipal Delegation', No. 1, 1985

'Edinburgh China Week', No. 1, 1987

'An Overview of the SCA's 1987 Friendship Delegation Tour', January 1988

'The Teaching of Chinese in Scotland', January 1989

'Some Observations on the Crisis in China', September 1989

'A Note on the Early History of the SCA', November 1996

'Confucius and Modernisation', Spring 1997

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the PRC', November 1999

'What's in a (Chinese) Name?', October 2000

'Lu Xun's Childhood, Part 1', October 2002

'Lu Xun's Childhood, Part 2', February 2003

'Forty Years of the Scotland-China Association, Part 1', October 2006

'Robinson Crusoe in China', January 2009

Sine issue : Winter 2006

2009-05-02T20:11:47+00:00

Curing Malaria - a Chinese triumph

By Tony Butler

Malaria has been with us since the dawn of civilisation. The Greeks described it, and it was also widespread in Italy until the Pontine Marshes were drained. In the Middle Ages it was common in England, where it was known as the ague, but was absent from Scotland because of the colder climate. Other parts of the world suffered as much as Europe and there is plenty of written evidence that it occurred in China, particularly in the south.

The older Chinese term for malaria is yaozi. Many commentators in different parts of the world noted that it was most prevalent in marshy areas, hence the name malaria (bad air). The symptoms are principally an intermittent fever, anaemia and lethargy, with the first being the most characteristic. It is caused by a blood parasite (Plasmodium) that enters red blood cells, reproduces asexually, and then bursts out, each new parasite entering another red blood cell. The parasite is transmitted from person to person by the female mosquito (Anopheles), which likes to feed on human blood.

In the West, until the 17th century, there was no cure for malaria although many nostrums were tried and promoted. Then Spanish missionaries returning from South America brought back the bark of a tree, the cinchona tree, that South American Indians used to treat fevers, but, as it was generally known as Jesuits bark, there was prejudice against its use in Protestant Britain. However, a Cambridge quack, Robert Talbor, included the bark in a secret concoction that was used successful for curing malaria in many prominent people all over Europe and brought him great financial success. The Chinese emperor Kangxi was treated with cinchona bark taken to China by Jesuits.

One problem in the use of cinchona bark was quality control, as adulteration, which is difficult to detect, was widespread. In the early 19th century two French chemists, Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Caventou, extracted from cinchona bark the component of the bark responsible for killing the malarial parasite p and called it quinine. Quinine proved to be even better than the bark in curing malaria, and it was much easier to check the purity of the sample.

As European nations tried to colonise tropical and subtropical parts of the world where malaria was widespread, the demand for quinine, and hence cinchona bark, exhausted that available from trees growing wild in South America and plantations of cinchona trees were established in Java. Here the bark was removed in a controlled way so that the trees were not killed. However, there was still not enough, and in the 1920s the Germans developed a purely synthetic alternative to quinine, mepacrine. Quinine and mepacrine are chemically related but the latter can be made in a pharmaceutical factory.

During World War II supplies of both quinine and mepacrine were denied to the Allies after Japan over-ran Java and German exports ceased. The absence of a good antimalarial drug had serious consequences for the war in the Pacific, but the Americans quickly found a way to make their own mepacrine. However, the drug had a major drawback - the recipient's skin became yellow. The Japanese propagandist Tokyo Rose broadcast to American troops and told them that mepacrine not only turned skin yellow (true) but also made them infertile (untrue). Such was the alarm of the troops that they stopped taking the drug, and so many fell ill with malaria that the tide of the fighting could have turned against the Americans. The response was to make a better antimalarial drug that did not affect the recipient's skin, and this is the origin of chloroquine, for many years the bedrock of antimalarial medicine. When the World Health Organisation initiated an unsuccessful campaign to eradicate malaria in the 1950s, chloroquine therapy was a major component.

In the 1960s there were two major developments in the fight against malaria. The use of the insecticide DDT, which had been so successful in reducing the number of mosquitoes, was banned because of human toxicity, and the malarial parasite developed resistance to chloroquine. By the1970s malaria was again rampant in many parts of the world where previously it had been under control, and today the situation is even worse. Worldwide there are probably about 400 million cases of malaria and in Africa alone over one million children die of the disease every year. The burden for Africa is not just AIDS and tuberculosis but also malaria. Of these malaria is the biggest killer.

As chloroquine's effectiveness declined, doctors decided that a new drug, working in an entirely different way from chloroquine or mepacrine, was required, and this is where the Chinese enter the story.

The People's Liberation Army wanted a new antimalarial drug specifically so they could fight in the jungles of Vietnam. The Chinese government set over 100 of the country's leading scientists to test all the herbs mentioned in Chinese herbals (called bencao) as cures for intermittent fever. The scientists who worked on the project were excused hard labour in the fields, which was the fate of most intellectuals. After many false starts one herb emerged as a serious candidate for the treatment of malaria. It was a plant growing wild in southern China, called in Chinese qinghao and in English sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua). The Chinese alchemist of the 4th century Ge Hong noted its use in treating fevers, and in the great herbal of the 16th century, the Bencao Gangmu, its properties are described in detail. For modern investigators the situation was confused by claims, made in some bencao, that qinghao cured a whole range of diseases. It is unlikely that all the claims are true, but that concerning malarial fever is correct. Chinese chemists then extracted from qinghao the active principle for killing the malarial parasite and named it qinghaosu (extract of qinghao) or artemisinin. In a brilliant piece of science, with limited equipment, they determined the chemical structure of qinghaosu and concluded that it contained a peroxide bridge, a most unusual structure. A molecule of qinghaosu consists of a tricyclic framework of carbon atoms - the unusual feature is the -O-O- group spanning one of the rings.

It was tested as an antimalarial drug in China and found to be highly effective, particularly against the most deadly form of malaria, cerebral malaria. Moreover, its mode of action was completely different from that of chloroquinine and so, initially, resistance was not a problem.

When this work was being done, China was a closed country and news of it did not reach the West. However, two western scientists, David Warrell and Nick White, working in Vietnam, came across a tatty copy of the Chinese Medical Journal describing the work on qinghaosu. They were astonished at the claims made but doubted the truth of what they read as so little was known, at that time, about Chinese science.; After many twists and turns to the story, the work was taken up by the World Health Organisation, the Wellcome Trust and western pharmaceutical companies and almost every claim made by the Chinese authenticated.

The Chinese have a near monopoly in the production of qinghaosu from the plant and it is in short supply because of the great demand, particularly in Africa. Consequently the price is rising. The unsupervised use of qinghaosu in Asia is a cause for concern, as these circumstances may lead to the emergence of resistant strains of the malarial parasite. In Africa the situation is better as it is used in combination with other antimalarial drugs in the hope that this will prevent resistance arising. If malaria is ever defeated it is probable that the Chinese discovery of qinghaosu will have played a major part in that defeat.

Sine Issue : September 2006

2009-05-22T13:19:44+00:00

Dugald Christie, a Scottish Christian in Changing China
by Ian Wotherspoon

Christian missionaries from around the world played an important, if controversial, part in the development of China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ian Wotherspoon remembers one Scottish missionary, Dugald Christie, whose cultural awareness and humanitarian involvement were extraordinary.

It's a long way from Glen Coe to Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city; i's even further from Edinburgh to Shenyang (Mukden), the capital of what is now Liaoning province in China. Born below the heights of Buchaille Etive Mor, Dugald Christie came to Edinburgh to study medicine and in 1883, as a medical missionary of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, went to Shenyang where he spent most of his life in the remote, often hostile, environment of northeastern China. The cold climate there, he said, reminded him so much of home.[1]

Christie was one of many Scottish Christians who, as China opened up in the 1880s, worked around the country in locations as diverse as Hong Kong on the Guangdong coast to Harbin by the Russian frontier. Representing the main institutions of Scottish Protestant ecclesiastical life, their religious views largely mirrored the thoughts, hopes and prejudices of their time. Many of their physical achievements were ephemeral, being swept away in the cataclysm of the 1949 revolution and the turbulent years that followed. However, much more tangible, what they did leave behind was an enthralling record of their perceptions of China and the Chinese people at a time of rapid change. Their views, more often than not, reflect a particularly Scottish perspective founded on the thinking of 19th and 20th century Scottish life which, almost always, was underpinned by the values of the democratic intellect.

Protestant missionaries in general, and Scottish Christians in particular, probably lend themselves to a high degree of stereotyping that tends to diminish their achievements and, indeed, their humanity. Of course, like many expatriates, there were some who never really engaged with China or the Chinese but they seem to have been a small minority. However, despite the difficulties they faced living in a rapidly changing society, which was itself redefining its future, their views of Chinese society are almost always fresh, challenging, never complacent and driven by a strong commitment to China's people.

What did they think about the political and economic changes taking place in China in those years ? What was their reaction to foreign intervention in China ? What did they really think about China and the Chinese people ? How did they reflect their views to friends and supporters in Scotland ? Dugald Christie's remarkable career provides some of the answers to these questions.

For missionaries like Christie, the dislocation resulting from the impending demise of the Qing dynasty posed a number of problems. Hostility to foreigners was an ever-present reality, often exacerbated because of fear of missionary intentions or for short-term political motives. On several occasions, he had to beat less than a dignified retreat pursued by aggressive bandits and disaffected soldiers. Finding accommodation in which to live and work was not easy and, even when this was achieved, it was frequently impermanent.

In a springless cart, travel along deeply rutted roads across the dreary Manchurian plain was uncomfortable and slow. Wayside inns were basic, affording few luxuries other than a brick bed. There were, however, some compensations. Christie remembers travelling in springtime as “a delight to the soul” with fresh green life bursting out after the long winter and the countryside carpeted in flowers. In the summer, passage by river boat was a leisurely experience, with the passenger taking his place along with the beans and other cargo at the bottom of the craft !

Whether in the urban environment of Shenyang or travelling in the surrounding countryside, Christie worked hard to understand Manchurian society. The contrast between the prosperous merchants, whose shops boasted brilliantly coloured peacock and other signs, and the harsh life of the poor, who eked out a subsistence living, was always before him. The impact of natural disasters, such as flooding, was devastating on those with no resources. Health care was minimal and disease, such as malaria, ever present. Indeed, long in poor health, Christie’s first wife, Margaret, died in 1888.

The Manchuria with which Christie was becoming increasingly engaged was once famously described as “the cockpit of Asia”, a vast area of enormous strategic importance and economic potential that was rapidly becoming the focus of international rivalry.[2] Throughout his time there Christie had to deal with the competing pressures of Chinese, Japanese and Russian interests, not to mention the more mundane, if no less relevant, demands of local dignitaries and officials. In the wake of internal dissent and the hostilities between China and Japan in 1895, and Japan and Russia in 1904, he trod a delicate path as lawlessness, starvation and plague swept inexorably across Manchuria.

His first-hand experience of the problems of foreign intervention in China led him to argue that the international community's views on China were slewed. “The Western world has regarded China as far behind in all civilization,” he wrote, “largely because of her slowness to develop those lethal weapons a modern army and navy. . . . It is a question, however, whether her ideal of civilization is not of a higher type than that which acts on the principle that might is right. In China it has long been recognised that mind is superior to matter, intelligence to physical strength, the appeal to reason better than decision by force of arms”.

More clearly than many, Christie also recognised the Chinese people had legitimate grievances about what they saw as “aggression” by foreign powers, whether it was the British in Weihai (Weihaiwei), the French in Yunnan and Guangxi, or the Germans in Shandong. They resented the extraterritorial rights at ports, the foreign control of the Maritime Customs, the construction of railways by foreign consortia, and the frequent mention in the overseas press of the “partition” of China. Missionaries were not excluded from his critique. He believed the presence of so many foreign missionaries throughout the country was an irritant, that the protection of Christianity by treaty exasperated officials, and that there was too much meddling by Christians in the country's internal affairs. Christie welcomed the emergence of the Chinese Republic as a positive development that would not only provide much-needed stability but empower those who supported it to seek a specifically Chinese solution to Chinese problems and not slavishly imitate Western ideas and models. The future, he believed, then looked much more positive than it had when he arrived in China nearly 30 years before.[3]

The suspicion and hostility that Christie first met in Shenyang in 1883 strengthened his resolve to establish modern medical facilities to treat the poverty and misery he encountered. Although it was, in his own words, “uphill work”, his growing involvement with local people provided him with unprecedented insights into Chinese society. His fast-developing linguistic skills accelerated this engagement. Right from the start, and through often difficult and dangerous times, his primary focus was the welfare of those who came within the orbit of his fledgling medical facilities, which quickly began to attract both the rich and powerful as well as the poor and downtrodden. In part, this may have been due to the efficacy of Western medicine, but it was certainly also because of Christi's sensitive understanding of what he called “the strict etiquette of this ancient civilization” as well as his open, non-judgemental attitude.

”There is a general widespread impression that the Chinese are in all things the opposite of other men,” he wrote, “that they never feel or act as other peoples would. Externally there is some truth in this . . . . But when we come to the elemental passions at the foundation of our common human nature . . . we can grip their hands as brothers for we find them strong, virile, and reliable in those deeper feelings which are the mainspring of action.” He decisively rejected the notion that the Chinese were somehow “different”. “Their family affection, their staunch friendship, their unselfishness to those they love, their homely joys, their love of children, their kindliness to friends and neighbours, their warm-hearted gratitude, their fortitude in trouble, their patience in enduring, will compare with those of any nation”.[4]

Christie's insights into Chinese society were derived from his study and understanding of Chinese culture and religious beliefs as well as his knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. He was familiar with the main themes of Buddhist, Confucian and Daoist thought as well as the dynamics of a society in which the patriarchal family system played an important role. He had a good understanding of traditional Chinese medicine, elements of which he sought to complement Western medical practice where appropriate. His empathy with the traditional Chinese virtues of fortitude, hospitality and gratitude and his skill as a medical practitioner won him many friends and contacts, including local magistrates and officials as well as senior civilian and military personnel. They were to be valuable allies.

Christie was not slow to enlist the financial and political support of his Chinese friends in Manchuria, first for his fledgling hospital and then for the Medical College at Shenyang, which opened with 50 students in 1912. Whilst most of the teaching staff were from abroad, Christie was determined that the College should not be considered as “foreign” and that it would progressively come under the management of Chinese personnel, as indeed it did thirty years later. Significantly, Christie pioneered the introduction of the Chinese language in teaching, though summaries in English had to be produced of the latest medical research. His high hopes for the College and his students were not unfounded. In 1935 one of Britain's premier medical schools, the University of Edinburgh, recognised the Shenyang course as qualifying for admission to postgraduate medical research there. Christie's unshakeable belief that “the Chinese are specially adapted to make good physicians and surgeons” had been vindicated.[5]

Christie's views on the development of medical practice and education in China were set out in a paper he presented to the China Centenary Missionary Conference in Shanghai in 1907.[6] Whilst he envisaged the provision of medical facilities and services evolving within a Christian missionary framework, his vision of China-wide medical care was both bold and comprehensive. Although recognising that funding, and providing sufficient personnel, might be problematic, Christie demanded nothing less than a medical centre in every large town. Outreach from these centres would extend to rural areas through the establishment of dispensaries and regular visits by nursing and medical staff. In particular, he identified the need for drug addicts, lepers and the mentally ill to be provided with additional services to facilitate their treatment. All these measures would be complemented by a comprehensive public health education programme aimed at the future good health of the nation.

Christie's long years in Shenyang, and unremitting toil, began to take their toll, and in 1923 he retired to Edinburgh in poor health. Apart from a brief return visit in 1925, the remainder of his life was devoted to finding support for the Medical College he had founded and trying to interpret Chinese life and society to the enquiring Scottish mind. He maintained close contacts with Chinese visitors and students in Scotland and in 1929 helped found and was appointed Honorary President of the Sino-Scottish Society in Edinburgh.[7] Internationally recognised and honoured, he was particularly gratified to be appointed a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1930 in recognition of his work and travels in Manchuria.

Christie's vision of China’s future was to be clouded, first by the Japanese invasion, and then shattered by the war and revolution that followed. And the China that emerged was to be very different from the one he had known. Nevertheless, his extraordinary contributions to Chinese medicine and society were not to be completely eradicated, as his Medical College was to form the nucleus of what is now the renowned China Medical University in Shenyang.[8] The fragrant memory of Christie's gentle life thus lives on, not only as a reminder of an early, important connection between Scotland and China, but also of his humanitarian achievements, which touched the lives of so many.

Dr Wotherspoon is a history tutor in Edinburgh University's Office of Lifelong Learning. His current interests include the overseas influence of Scottish education.

[1] “Obituary, Dugald Christie”, Edinburgh Medical Journal (Vol. 49, 1937), p.197.
[2] P.T.Etherton & H.H.Tiltman, Manchuria - The Cockpit of Asia (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1932), p. 298.
[3] D. Christie, Thirty Years in Moukden, 1883-1913 (London: Constable, 1914), pp 52, 289-90.
[4] Ibid., p. 60.
[5] Ibid., p. 276.
[6] Centenary Conference Committee, Records: China Centenary Missionary Conference (Shanghai: Methodist Publishing House, 1907), pp 247-68.
[7] The Scotsman, 18 February 1930.
[8] Scottish Churches China Group, A Picture History 1883-2003 - From Mukden Medical College to No. 2 Clinical College of China Medical University (Edinburgh: Scottish Churches China Group, 2004).

Sine issue : Spring 2006 - 40 years of the SCA Part I

2009-05-22T13:24:43+00:00

by John Chinnery

As an introduction to this subject, I could not do better than to augment the first page of a short article I wrote on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the foundation of our organisation, printed in the November 1996 issue of 'Sine'.

The forerunner of the SCA was the Britain–China Friendship Association, which was set up in London in 1949. Its inaugural meeting was addressed by, among others, the celebrated American journalist Agnes Smedley who had been resident in China since the 1930s and was acquainted with many of the leaders of the new government.

The People's Republic of China was formally recognised by Britain shortly after its foundation, but this recognition was not followed by the exchange of ambassadors, since Britain at the same time agreed to permit the representatives of Taiwan to retain their occupation of China's seat in the United Nations. Therefore, right from the start the BCFA was a campaigning organisation, rallying support for restoring China's seat at the United Nations and opposing the American policy of stationing its 7th Fleet in the Taiwan Straits, thus frustrating the PRC's attempt to complete the unification of China. The BCFA also endeavoured to expand friendly exchanges with China at many levels, including the exchange of delegations and individual visits, and ran its own programmes of meetings, conferences, lectures, language classes, etc. It was able to maintain its own premises until it disbanded sometime in the 1960s.

The disbandment of the BCFA was a result of the Sino–Soviet split of that period. Although its policy was to welcome all who shared its aim of developing friendship with China, no matter what their political persuasion, its leadership was still strongly under the influence of the Communist Party of Great Britain. When the Chinese government expected it to side with China against Russia, the BCFA refused. This decision split the organisation, and those who disagreed with it decided to set up their own successor organisation, the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU).

Some Scottish members of the BCFA had long desired to establish their own links with China and, perhaps goaded by the use of the word “Anglo” in SACU's name, a decision was taken to start a society to promote direct people-to-people links between Scotland and China.

The SCA was formally established at a meeting held in the University of Edinburgh in May 1966. The meeting, which was attended by people from all over Scotland, was addressed by, among others, the eminent scientist Dr Joseph Needham, a long-time friend of China and Honorary President of SACU, and by the Chinese author Han Suyin. The aim of the Association was declared to be “to foster friendship and understanding between the people of Scotland and China, both through its own efforts and by co-operation with other organisations and individuals at home and abroad who share the same aim”.

The first National Chairman of the SCA was the Rev. Ralph Morton, deputy head of the Iona Community, who had worked for many years in northeast China and had written and lectured extensively on China, including the Chinese Church. Two vice-chairmen were appointed, both from the universities: John Chinnery of Edinburgh University and Jack Gray, the historian of modern China who had recently been appointed to a post in Glasgow University. The first secretary of the SCA was Elsie Collier, who remains one of our most active members. Lord Boyd Orr was Honorary President, and vice-presidents included Compton Mackenzie, Lord Birsay, H. Stewart Mackintosh, The Rev. Principal Norman W. Porteous, and the sculptor Benno Schotz; Tam Dalyell became a vice-president in 1972 and remains so today.

During the first few years of its existence, the SCA continued the campaign for China's representation at the UN and for strengthened links between Scotland and China. The early efforts of the Association were also concentrated on education. In addition to the SCA branch meetings, film shows and other events were held regularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow and weekend schools and conferences were held in Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow, usually in co-operation with university extramural departments. Conferences on China for secondary school children were held in Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Trossachs and elsewhere. These were jointly organised by the SCA and either local education authorities or the junior branch of the UN Association. The Association also had its own journal, Sine. Starting modestly, it has developed over the years under the editorship of several individuals, most recently Neil McFadyean and Dale Finlayson.

Although the membership of the SCA has never exceeded a few hundred, its influence was far wider and it has always been broadly representative of all sections of Scottish society. This diversity is exemplified by two of its most prominent members during the 1970s, Tom Murray and Col. John Logan. Tom was a lifelong socialist and veteran of the Spanish Civil War whose interest in China dated back to the time when he read the news of the 1911 Revolution to his blind father. He was one of the prime movers in the foundation of the SCA, and the competition the Association now holds for school children was appropriately named after Tom. John Logan spent his younger years working for BAT in China, inspecting tobacco crops. As a prisoner in World War II, he planned several escapes from Colditz and subsequently became Commandant of Stirling Castle and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Stirlingshire. He joined the SCA early in the 1970s and continued to lecture and show his films to audiences all over Scotland.

Tom and John were both involved in an incident involving the SCA. An acrobatic troupe from China came to Scotland to perform. They decided to donate their takings, amounting to hundreds of pounds, to the SCA. At the subsequent SCA National Committee Tom Murray moved that we should not accept it, since it might open us to the accusation of accepting “Beijing gold” (receiving “Moscow gold” had in the past been an accusation levelled against left-wing organisations and individuals in Britain and, indeed, in China). John Logan was about to visit London, and so he undertook the embarrassing task of returning the money to the Chinese Embassy.

One of the weaknesses of the SCA has been that it has never had its own premises but has had to rely on members and friends to provide meeting places. Our first chairman was of great assistance in this respect, arranging for us to meet in the Iona Community premises in both Edinburgh and Glasgow. The universities were often helpful in this regard, and over the years we have also met in Edinburgh at the premises of the Saltire Society, Abbeyhill School (whose then-head teacher, Sheila Mackenzie, was a Committee member), and at the Quaker Meeting House; in recent years Glasgow meetings have been held at the Multi-Cultural Centre in Rose Street.

Although the SCA has had only three chairmen – Ralph Morton, myself, and, for the past several years, Janice Dickson – it had several secretaries in succession in its early years. Elsie Collier was invited to go with her husband Johnny to teach in Guangzhou in the late 1960s, which meant that she had to leave the post. Subsequent secretaries included Jennifer Scarce, John Barr, his daughter Betty, Isabel Hilton, Valerie Waggot, Dale Finlayson, Tom Nisbet, and, for several years now, Euan Petrie. In fact, the Barr family - John, Ruth and Betty - with their long experience of China, were a great strength during the early days, and Betty has continued to contribute in numerous ways ever since, not least with the books written by her husband George Wang and herself in Shanghai and with George's frequent contributions to Sine.

Another drawback of having no premises was that the Association’s archives became scattered and largely lost. The SCA should now make an effort to gather together whatever it can, so that at least some of it can be retrieved. But having no premises also meant having few overheads, which gave it a kind of Taoist strength. SACU suffered from overreaching itself and having to curtail its activities in times of crisis. The SCA has survived such crises by never losing sight of its main aim as set out in its constitution and not being diverted from this aim by involving itself too deeply in political arguments. As a result, with the present amazing developments in China and the multiplication of personal and organisational contacts between Britain and China, its future is assured.

Just to mention two of the successful activities undertaken by the SCA in its first twenty years. One was those surrounding the visit of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, led by Chu Tunan in 1978. We organised a piper to welcome them to Waverley Station at the reasonable cost of one bottle of whisky. This got their visit off to a good start. I can still remember the scene as they solemnly processed from their train to the waiting cars led by the piper. They enjoyed a full programme of visits to people and places in Scotland. Their organisation has always given the Association great support, including numerous invitations, from 1972 onwards, to send delegations to China that have enabled visits to all four quarters of the country.

Another event was the China Week held in November 1986 at the Assembly Rooms in George Street, Edinburgh, and opened by Hu Dingyi, who served in London first as Cultural Counsellor and later as Ambassador. A whole week of activities, including film shows, exhibitions, a talk by our then-Honorary President, now Patron, the composer Ronald Stevenson, a concert of Chinese music, noodle-pulling and vegetable carving by one of Edinburgh's Chinese restaurateurs, and face-painting for children. These are but two of the events I remember with pleasure from our first twenty years. I am sure that if we can gather more information, it will be possible to put together a full account of SCA history. Perhaps our target for this should be 2016 - our 50th Anniversary !

Sine issue : Spring 2006 - 40 years of the SCA Part II

2009-05-22T13:27:42+00:00

by Elsie Collier

The path the SCA has taken in its first 40 years has been influenced by three things: China's culture and her social, political and economic development; individual members of the Association, their specific interests in China, and, in some cases, their areas of expertise and their jobs; and the fact that we are a voluntary organisation.

In the 1970s members, some of whom were lecturers at the universities in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, spoke at schools conferences jointly organised with other bodies. Here are some :

1970 - with Edinburgh University Department of Education and Extra-Mural Studies, a “One Day Study Conference”, with John Chinnery

1971 - with Glasgow Corporation Education Department, a Senior Schools Conference, “China Toda”, with Andrew Watson and Jack Gray

1972 - with the Council for Education in World Citizenship, organised by Muriel Murdoch, an “Ayrshire Schools Conference”, with John Chinnery and John Collier

1972 - with the University of Dundee, a day conference, “China Observed”, with Alex Reid and John Fleming

Alex Reid and John Fleming were on the first SCA delegation invited to China by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC). Among the delegation was Harold Dickinson, lecturer at Edinburgh University School of Engineering and Science. After the visit Harold wrote a report for the Commission on the Churches, “Participation in Development, World Council of Churches, Geneva, on “Rural China, 1972”. In this he gave a detailed analysis, based on visits to five communes and a Fruit Tree Research Institute, on land use and land distribution, People's Communes, intensive high-density planting, plant protection, mechanisation, electrification, etc. The report has statistical information on land use, crop yields, etc. from the communes visited and also information on representative families from the communes on, for example, family size, housing, food, household goods, size of private plots, etc. - making this a valuable source of information on a particular time in China's history, both agriculturally and sociologically.
Dr Mary Findlay, who was also a member of that delegation, was able to give immediate help to John Chinnery when he suffered a heart attack just after we arrived in China. Dr Findlay, with her medical knowledge and fluency in Chinese, continued to give valuable support when the SCA hosted medical delegations. Members of subsequent delegations or visitors to China continue to give talks and write articles on their experiences.
During the 1970s and 1980s there were other conferences and events: concerts by visiting Chinese musicians; a table tennis match between Scotland and the then world champions, China; an exhibition of graphic art from China in 1974/75. The latter was held in the Edinburgh City Art Centre, then in the old Royal High School building in Regent Road. It was opened by the Lord Provost Jack Kane and, representing the Chinese Ambassador, Cultural Counsellor Mr. Hu Dingyi and his wife Hsieh Heng, 2nd Secretary at the Embassy. We had a successful bazaar, with boxes of Chinese goods in great variety, sent from a Chinese shop in London. In 1989, the Year of the Snake, several members participated in a series of lunchtime talks on China held at the Royal Museum in Chambers Street, Edinburgh.

Changes inevitably come about, and these have been vast in China in the last 20 years. The opening up of China to the west and to western businesses and institutions resulted in a shift in some of the work of the Association. Fortunately, as our university staff members, who had been instrumental in much of our educational work, moved away, Janice Dickson was becoming more active in the Association. As National Chairman and through her connections with and knowledge of the commercial world, Janice works tirelessly to facilitate contacts between Chinese and Scottish enterprises, welcoming delegations from provincial and local authorities, academic, scientific and government institutions, planning their itineraries and arranging meetings with relevant bodies. Our close contact with the CPAFFC has been maintained, and the friendship and trust developed between us over the years is invaluable.
In response to the changed situation, the China Business Club (CBC) was started in 1995 to provide a network for people involved with business in China. Meetings are held, alternately in Glasgow and Edinburgh, over an informal Chinese meal and members are advised of visits of Chinese business delegations. An annual Chinese dinner is held in Edinburgh around the time of the Chinese New Year for members of the SCA and the CBC.
In relation to education, Dr Gladys Hickman, a retired geography lecturer, was inspired by a visit to China in 1975 to begin thinking about th need for information on this vast and important country to be brought to our school children. So she set about planning a photo resource geography teaching pack. The progress of the pack has been advanced by much hard work, but also hindered by the wavering commitment of members working on it over the years (an aspect of our voluntary nature) and the withdrawal of support by the Geographical Association. Gladys's drive and knowledge has, until recently, been the mainstay of the project. In 1999 the Higher Education Funding Councils for Scotland, Wales and England published a report that recommended funding for the development of university courses in Chinese studies. The report also stated that “a wider grounding in China in the school curriculum would do much to develop wider interest and knowledge of the country”. It also noted that this development could be hampered by the scarcity of Chinese language study in secondary schools.

It is only now, since the First Minister's recent visit to China, that the Scottish Office, is taking steps to implement the 1999 report. The Education subcommittee is in contact with The Scottish Office and is at present working on updating and expanding the photo pack in preparation for making it available on the Web.
Activities of the Glasgow and Edinburgh branches have differed over the years, reflecting the voluntary nature of the Association and the membership of the branch committees at any particular time. Recently, the Glasgow Branch has run two highly successful Overseas Chinese Film Festivals. The first, in 2002, was organised enthusiastically by François Josserand at the Gilmorehill G12 Theatre. The branch has also initiated the “Chinese Corners”, regular Sunday meetings at which Chinese and Scots can get to know each other better and improve their language skills. There are also regular meetings, as in Edinburgh, with speakers on a wide range of topics.

We are fortunate in having Eddie McGuire as one of our members, and Eddie has delighted us on several occasions, both in Glasgow and Edinburgh, with talks on Chinese music, which he has illustrated by playing different instruments and by bringing with him Chinese musicians who have played their traditional instruments. In the late 1980s Eddie was involved in a successful musical exchange, when the Whistlebinkies visited China and, in return, a group of traditional Chinese musicians came to Scotland the following year.

The number of students from China studying in Scottish universities is vastly greater than when the SCA began. In the early years, when we held Edinburgh Branch meetings in the Saltire Society rooms in Atholl Crescent, I remember the room there comfortably holding SCA members and the Chinese students in Edinburgh when we celebrated Chinese National Day. Now the University Chaplaincy Centre hall could not contain all the students and scholars. In the past, students had to manage on small government grants and some members helped to subsidise their expenses by providing accommodation. Scholars now bring their families here and the Association liaises with the Association of Scholars and the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, with whom we celebrate the Moon Festival, when Scottish country dancing is the highlight of the evening.

The SCA has supported twinning relationships between Scotland and China. The first twinning proposal, for Edinburgh, was made by Tom Nisbet, when he served on the City Council, and in 1985 John Chinnery accompanied Lord Provost John McKay to Xi’an to sign the friendship city agreement, a relationship that endures to the present, although it was suspended for several years following the violence at Tiananmen. Another enduring relationship has been that between Glasgow and Dalian. Fife Region and Gansu Province were twinned for a time in the 1980s, and John Chinnery wrote a report proposing the connection. The relationship, however, did not survive Tiananmen, although contact has recently been re-established. When the first delegation since the 1970s was invited to China by the Friendship Association in 1987, the group visited the friendship cities of Dalian, Lanzhou and Xi'an.

I hope that our 45th anniversary articles will tell of great strides having been made to ensure a knowledge of China in school children in Scotland - and who knows what new paths the Scotland-China Association will take !