Memoirs of Old China

Dori Jones Yang, Mabel Wain Smith

I love reading memoirs of lives in China in days long gone.

Here are two gems. One is by an American lady who went to live in Shanghai in 1938. She only left for Hong Kong when Shanghai fell to the communists in 1950.

Her memoir is titled Springtime in Shanghai (1957). Mabel Wain Smith loved China. She cherished her memories of the China she knew.

She ends with “I am glad I had my springtime in Shanghai…. Anticipating the future when the oldest nation on earth again has her house in order, and opens a welcoming door to westerners, I wet my ink brush and, practising my calligraphy, I sign my name in Chinese. (P 215)

The second book is When the Red Gates Opened by Dori Jones Yang (2020).

Dori went to work in Hong Kong and China in 1982. She stayed till the Tiananmen Incident.

In her memoir, one reads of her delightful tale of falling in love with a Chinese man, Paul Yang, and their journeys around China. It reminds me of my own joyful experience.

She dedicates her memoir to her “granddaughter, and to American and Chinese children who will, I hope, continue the approach of mutual respect and understanding between our two great nations.”

LWH, 10 Sep 2025

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