Department of Chemistry, Yenching University, Peiping, - October 30, 1937.
Extracts from the Adolph Diary: 1937.
January: Ice skating on the Yenching lake at its prime. EHA, in the 8th grade, North China American School, makes the hockey team. HMA, freshman at Mount Holyoke College, amkes her second all-Holyoke athletic team (basketball). WHA Jr., sophomore at Yale University (Calhoun College), works in biology and plays football and basketball on his college team. DMA (8 yrs.) tutors at home and specializes in dolls. - Through traffic opens on the trunk line railway from Canton to Hankow; great strides in national reconstruction.
February: WHA serves on commission of five under the Council of Public Health to prepare a code of nutrition standards for China. Cereals now supply 85 percent of the food intake; we urge that this be replaced in part by more green vegetables and legumes. Milk is not available; imagine asking a health officer in America to work out a nutritional regime for school children without milk!
March: The nutrition research program continues; we are peering into the reported sub-normal calcium intake of the Chinese dietary, 0.3-0.4 grams per day. One of our staff is just now conducting a 30-day metabolism study on a rural group of 15 subjects at a point 500 miles away; and samples are to be transported back to Peiping for analysis. - Two holidays in March; we again hike with students to the hills, and roast hot dogs in the ruins of an ancient abbey. - We hear Mischa Elman at the Hotel de Pekin.
April: Spring vacation; KWA and WHA spend 4 days at the Chin Hsien monstery in the hills. There are white pines, temple bells, a trickling spring, and no lectures, no seminars, no telephones.
May: HMA plays tennis at Holyoke and decides to major in chemistry. - Professor Niels Bohr visits Peiping and lectures on the atom. - Tsinghua and Yenching faculties meet in annual tennis tournament; Yenching wins.
June: We exploit our lawn and garden: a moonlight garden party, student afternoon teas. The premedical juniors play 'monopoly' all of one afternoon to celebrate their last examination and forget to go home for supper. - Commencement; KWA with EHA and DMA leave for our summer mountain camp on Tai Shan. - WHA Jr. and HMA in USA arrange for summer at Silver Bay, N.Y.
July: WHA attends Independence Day reception (July 4) at the American Embassy in Peiping and two days later joins the family in Shantung, taking one of the last trains through to the south.
July 8: Friction: Chinese and Japanese military near Peiping; attempts at peaceful settlement; general anxiety. -- Meanwhile all is quiet on the sacred mountain, our holiday undisturbed: mountain hikes and swimming; WHA struggles with another packet of chemistry MS.
July 27: Communications with Peiping suddenly cease and we know that the Sino-Japanese conflict has burst into flames.
August 1: No mail from the north, only vague rumors of the capture of Tientsin and Peiping. A wire arrives advising British and Americans in Shantung to leave immediately for the coast. We decide to wait further news and finish eating lunch, but at the same time conjecture what one would choose to pack into a suitcase for a hurried evacuation. At tea another wire arrives: situation not immediately serious. From our veranda we watch in the distance the steady procession of Chinese troop trains northward.
August 6: A Shanghai daily brings Peiping-Tientsin news: Nankai University bombed and destroyed, some fighting east and west of Peiping; Yenching University is intact, and this means our home on the campus is unmolested. Will the universities in Peiping be able to open in September? - Tai Shan remains peaceful.
August 12-14: Dr. & Mrs. EDH, guests from America, arrive via Shanghai for brief visit and rush back again. Trains suddenly become irregular; hostilities at Shanghai; will they be able to make steamer connections for USA?
August 15: Wire from American consul asks us to evacuate to the port of Tsingtao; there is fear railways will be cut; we pack trunks and leave the next day. We pass trains crowded with Chinese citizenry in flight from the cities to the country districts. - Tsingtao streets deserted; nervous tension; a motor truck backfires and sends frightened pedestrians to shelter. We patronize the swimming beach. - News arrives that Peiping is quiet, hostilities over, and that Yenching will open. We resolve to return home by first steamer north. Banks refuse our Shanghai checks; American consulate advances funds.
August 23: Steamer schedules no longer exist, but hearing that the S. S. Hupeh (British) leaves for Tientsin to-day we rush aboard and sail this afternoon. - British, American and Japanese gunboats crowd the harbor.
August 26-27: Arrive at Tientsin; we have sailed around the war zone and are now in the occupied territory north of the battle front. Foreign concessions at Tientsin are filled with rumors and refugees. The train to Peiping takes 6 hours instead of the accustomed 2 hours, but this is much better than the 12-hour schedule of a week ago. The Japanese army of occupation is very much in evidence: military police on the train and a heavily armed guard at each station. Peiping looks normal, the campus as attractive as ever; the university is flying the American flag.
September 2: Aeroplanes overhead, heavy cannonading, active fighting on the front 20 miles southwest of Peiping. Tanks and supply trains motor past our campus. - Our bus to the city is stopped at the Hsi Chih gate for regular military inspection.
September 8: A week of night raids by robbers near the campus. The suburban police, disarmed when Peiping was occupied, are practically helpless. Stores and shops nearby are closing and residents moving away. - EHA and DMA start class work at the American School.
September 10: Professor Chen's home on edge of campus visited by desperadoes who relieve him of $200. Next morning police report capture of an entire burglar band plus $200.; they were armed with toy pistols!
September 13: Yenching opens; enrollment 500, instead of our usual 800. Five other universities in the city remain closed. Safe conducts are arranged for students and staff travelling from Tientsin. Half of chemistry staff are delayed, the rest of us carry double teaching loads. - The Chinese postal service, most adaptable of all organizations, still functions and gets the mails through. Shanghai mail, normally requiring 36 hours, now requires 3 weeks. American mail 8-10 weeks. - Vigorous censorship; most of the newspapers suppressed or reorganized under new dispensation; the Peiping Chronicle (English) continues. Communism is the principal focus of attack, and school textbooks are censored to eliminate objectionable ideas.
September 21: A cholera scare; we taste Japanese efficiency; all travellers and commuters into the city must receive injections. - Business in Peiping at a standstill; thousands out of emplyment; special relief campaign. Yenching staff respond to university financial difficulties by voting a salary cut.
October: Few tourist visitors, unusually small group of exchange professors at Yenching. Scientific societies have cancelled their 1937 meetings and research institutions have ceased work or moved. Journals are moving editorial offices from the bombed areas. - In Peiping many phases of life flourish in spite of hostilities: the Institute of Fine Arts, International Club, Society of Natural History, Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine. Peiping, it is rumored, will be renamed Peking. Another report says we are to have automatic telephones; this will save time, but we will no longer make a hypothetical bow to the operator in making a call. - The political atmosphere at present is clouded, but the outlook is bright. There is every reason for optimism; we are seeing one of the struggles that is developing modern China. - Mails from abroad bring anxious inquiries about the fate of Peiping. Please be assured we are hard at work, oru laboratory program continues and Yenching University carries on! - We send best wishes and holiday greetings!
Wm. H. Adolph.