Peiyang Woman's Hospital, Tientsin, ChinaMy dear Miss Turner:
Your good letter came the day that I started for Shanghai. My work ahs [sic] been too full and I was losing weight. I just took a week for vacation. Shanghai is my home so I rested
one weekgood. It was a good rest for I did not do one thing but sleep and eat. For the last two weeks I have gained few pounds.Now I am back in my work again. I miss very friend Dr. Tsao greatly. There is nothing for me to do but go ahead with her unfinished task. It is the hospital management that tries my temper. Being young in experience I often would not know how to deal with people. However I am learning everyday.
My heart just aches at times. You have no idea the pverty of North China. The climate is cold. The good season is so short. Land is so dry and it is full of lime. Farmers work hard but there is so little harvest. There are so few trained workers. For the next few generations we must send youths abroad for different scientific training. Personally I have very earthly comfort. My patients often send me flowers, candies etc. Recently a wealthy patient gave me a fur coat. But the people around me are in great need. One fourth of my earning is used for my unfortunate sisters, but that does not begin to show any relief. Many patients come to me for medical aid as well as physical aid. Now we are trying to help these patients to help themselves. I have two patients who are able to support themselves now. Soon we are going to have a work shop in connection with my hospital. We have a large airy room. It is not being used and we shall utilize it for this purpose. I do not like to go out and ask people to help this enterprise. Besides this is a strange city to me. If our hospital is at Shnaghai [sic] I know that I can get people help for my father has little influence there. Mary Lyon began her work on a small scale first.
Nankai College is going to have a premedical department. Rockefeller has given some money for a new sciense [sic] building. Kindly send me a picture of your new science building. That would help us in planning.
Yes, I am going to get some help. But I am not willing to take anybody in without knowing
theirher training. We have had many applications for positions and nurses training. I am not going to enlarge our nurses training school until I could secure a well trained head nurse. I rather go slowly.China has changed and made wonderful progress in education. Schools are packed full. There are so many night schools in this city for the poor. But we have so many people therefore the work does not begin to show anything. No matter what papers say about China, her people is certainly going ahead in different enterprises. When you come to China I like to take you to our schools and factorie. They are poorly equipped but we are up and doing.
Just now we are getting ready for Christmas. We intended to have a big Christmas tree. Gifts arrived too late so now we are only inviting fifty. Next year I hope to invite four hundred children on this occasion. I am saving these gifts for next year.
My little niece is stydying [sic] in my room. She is eleven years old. We want to send her to America when she finishes high school. She has just finished fifth grade in her English and seventh grade in her Chinese. She is taking piano also. I hope that my brother will send her to Mount Holyoke College. We are in hope that she would study dentistry.
Nora is studying at Nankai. She is coming back to college this coming fall. How I wish that I could come along with her to pay you a visit. Nora's father has done a great deal for poor children. There are more than a thousand children in his orphanage. I expect to visit it someday.
You are too far away otherwise I would to share some of my good things with you. But I really wish that my patients would give to the poor than to me. I am sending a great deal of my love to you with this letter. I think of you and your work often.
Merry Christmas;
Yours lovingly,
M. I. Ting.December 22, 1922.