Møter med Kina handler om møter mellom mennesker på tvers av geografiske, kulturelle og språklige grenser. Ukjent for de fleste, flyttet en rekke nordmenn til Kina mellom 1890 og 1937. Noen var misjonærer. Andre reiste for å drive handel eller arbeide i det kinesiske tollvesenet. For første gang samles historien til enkeltpersoner fra diplomati, næringsliv og misjon i en felles historie om norsk migrasjon til Kina. Boken formidler historisk analyse i fortellingens form. Her presenteres nye sider av kjente størrelser som general Munthe og misjonæren Marie Monsen. Ikke minst løftes nye og hittil ukjente historier fram. Ingeniør Skappel søkte å skape et globalt finansimperium gjennom en skandinavisk-kinesisk bank. Norges første Kina-misjonær Anna Jakobsen, trosset alt og alle for å gifte seg med Cheng Xiuqui. Gjennom fortellinger om mennesker som levde transnasjonale liv, hendelser som risopprøret i Changsha i 1910 og varer som medisintran, kaster boken nytt lys over hvordan enkeltindivid utnytter teknologiske nyvinninger og transnasjonale handlingsrom i håp om å nå nye mål. Noen lykkes. Andre ender i fallitt. Alle erfarer mer enn de kunne forestille seg. Slik gir boken ny kunnskap ikke bare om norsk migrasjon og norsk-kinesisk historie, men også om globalisering som historisk fenomen.
Changsha KFUK (Kristliga Föreningen av Unga Kvinnor) grundades 1919. Två år tidigare hade den svenska sekreterarmissionären Ingeborg Wikander påbörjat arbetet för att väcka intresse för den kristna tron bland stadens kvinnor. hon följdes snart av flera utländska och kinesiska krafter i arbetet, och verksamheten knöts till en plats, Tso-familjens bostadsområde. denna artikel tecknar Changsha KFUK:s bakgrundshistoria och utforskar relationerna som uppstod först i ”Tso-palatset” och sedan i tempelområdet dit man senare flyttade. Tre av dessa personliga relationer ges särskild uppmärksamhet i analysen. Genom att fokusera på människor och deras strategier i mötet med andra liksom platserna på vilka dessa möten uppstod, syftar denna artikel till att belysa förhållandet mellan människors möten och plats inom kristen mission. artikeln argumenterar för att vi genom att se samverkan mellan dessa kan få en djupare förståelse för hur missionsarbetets vardagliga möten och relationer påverkade verksamhetens utformning och utveckling.
This article explores the interconnections and relations of Nordic missionaries in early-twentieth-century China. Focusing on encounters in the Hunanese province capital of Changsha in and around the 1920s, it discusses ways in which Norwegian and Swedish missionary workers from four Christian associations made sense of their position as Nordic Lutherans within the international community in Changsha. Using both unpublished and published sources it explores the arrival of the Church of Sweden Mission to China in 1920 and plans to establish a Swedish Lutheran university in China. In conjunction it examines the Nordics as part of the international networks in the city, the evacuation of foreigners in 1927, and the ways in which they were affected by national and imperial ambitions and relations. The exploration of Nordic missionaries as ambivalent actors in a semi-imperial arena contributes to our understandings of the connections, co-operations and power dynamics of the transimperial world of the early twentieth century.
This article addresses the previously understudied issue of protection within Christian missions, deepening the understanding of gender as a central factor in how protection has been understood in mission work. It takes four Scandinavian female missionaries, working as YWCA secretaries in Changsha, as its starting point for a discussion of perceptions of protection in times of unrest. The analysis spans the years 1917–1927, a politically turbulent period in the history of Hunan, with recurring outbursts of violence and increasing anti-foreign sentiments. During these periods of unrest, missionaries were put in positions in which they had to act not only as social and spiritual evangelists of the Christian gospel but also as security providers. This article investigates the complexity of perceptions of protection within discursive structures of gender and the ways in which the women navigated prevailing structures to provide protection for people they cared about and to attain influence over situations in which their control was endangered. The analysis focuses on the use of protective symbols, on the mission site as both protected and threatened space, and on the female missionary as both protecting guardian and in need of protection.
Swedish missionary Ingeborg Wikander (1882–1941) arrived in China in 1916 and worked for the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Changsha between 1917 and 1927. During her first years in China, in the process of becoming established in the new country, Wikander moved within several transnational missionary contexts, and she established relationships and networks crucial for her future work. Through the personal example of a Swedish YWCAsecretary, this article draws attention to the building of personal relationships within the larger transnational missionary communities of China of the early 20th century. It discusses how such relationships could be interpreted in gendered, national and denominational terms and show how the local, the national and the transnational were entangled in everyday encounters and experiences of individual mission workers like Ingeborg Wikander.