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"We all have a lot to do to save
this world." While in China in late winter, 1998,
I gave talks at universities. The rooms were filled to
overflowing. At one university the crowds outside the
windows stood on each other's shoulders in order to see
into the room. They were respectful and quiet. What did
I talk about? I told them the story of Soong Ching Ling,
Helen Snow and Polly. I talked about the advancement of
women and the principle of the equality of men and women.
I asked them, "How can we solve any of the world's
problems if we don't work together, and if women are not
part of decision-making at the highest levels?" At
one university, after the talk, several women came to
meet with me. They asked, "How do we begin? We want
to form a women's group here and do something to help
ourselves and China."
BEIJING: The story of the events that
led to my visit with Vice-Chairman Liu Qi Lin and director
Xu Wendiang at the headquarters of the Soong Ching Ling
Foundation in Beijing in March 1998 is one that longs
to be told. Now a museum, this gracious lakeside mansion
with its lovely gardens and walkways was Mme Soong's residence.
My visit to the museum that day opened the door for new
international friendships and future opportunities for
NGO's and other agencies to collaborate with this most
distinguished organization on the many social issues that
are of concern to China.
My entry into this relationship was a
gift I presented to the Soong Ching Ling museum. An exquisite
silk "qi pao" or "cheongsam", a Chinese
traditional dress that had once belonged to Soong Ching
Ling. This is the story of the dress! But first , a little
background.
Soong Ching Ling, the wife of Sun Yat
Sen, was famous in her own right. One of the three beautiful
Soong sisters who each shared tin the history and destiny
of China, she was the widow of the historic revolutionary
Sun Yat Sen who led the overthrow of the last dynasty
of China in 1911. When she died in 1981 she was the Honorary
President of the People's Republic of China. The Foundation
that bears her name is the most influential in China.
It is dedicated to the education and advancement of women
and girls, health programs and "world peace".
Mme. Soong devoted all her time and energy in the last
years of her life to this work. The list of the foundation's
accomplishments is formidable.
Vice-Chairman Liu, over a Peking Duck dinner,
asked me to share their story with other agencies and individuals
that may have similar interests. The Foundation (SCLF) is
eager to make connections for cooperation and collaboration
on their projects. They are exploring new ground and are
open to new ideas for education, especially of the young
girls and women in China. Their programs are varied, ranging
from organizing educational travel for groups of Chinese
students to visit countries during summer months to the
" For a Healthy Tomorrow Anti-Smoking Campaign Among
Teenagers" they are now sponsoring. By sharing the
quite amazing story of how I came to contribute a dress
which belonged to Soong Ching Ling to the SCLF museum in
Beijing may well open doors for the kind of collaboration
the SCLF is looking for.
The story begins with my discovery of
Helen Foster Snow, the widow of Edgar Snow. Everyone,
who has any interest in China and especially its modern
history, has heard of Edgar Snow, the American journalist
whose book "Red Star Over China" documented
his interviews with Mao Zedong. Edgar was the only westerner
to ever interview Mao. This was when Mao and the Communist
troops were living in the caves of Yenan - deep inside
China.
I discovered Helen Snow by happenstance.
Browsing through the Peking Book House in Evanston, Illinois
one day, I found her autobiography, "My China Years".
It was nearly hidden amongst the thousands of books that
fill C.C. Cheng's amazing bookstore on Central Avenue. The
title called to me. Flipping through the pages, there were
the pictures. The young and dashing Edgar, with his ever-present
pipe, handsomely posed in front of his typewriter, had signed
his photo amusingly to Helen, "To Peg, from her Stooge,
Ed". Helen ("Peg" was her nickname) was lovely.
Photographed on the eve of their wedding in Shanghai, it
was December 1932, she was glamorously draped in fur. She
looked like she had just stepped out of a limousine on Fifth
Avenue, New York. Her other photos, taken over time, with
author Pearl Buck, with K'ang K'e-ching and later with Mao
Zedong and Zhu De were equally impressive. Whether dressed
in furs or in her straightforward army jacket and knickers
- puttees strapping her calves and her Mao cap perched on
her curls at a jaunty angle - or a bathing suit on the beach
at Beidaiho, she looked like she had stepped out from the
pages of "Vanity Fair".
But Helen was not a decoration. Her book,
"My China Years" is the story of a woman who not
only recorded but participated in history as it was happening.
An aspiring writer, when she first went to Shanghai at the
age of 23 in 1931, over the nine turbulent years she and
Edgar lived in China she participated in and recorded the
history making events of the time. She and Edgar provided
a home for the young Chinese student revolutionaries who
were frustrated with the inroads of the Japanese. They wanted
change and many supported the communist movement. Neither
Ed nor Peg were Communists. Their dedication was to record
what was happening in China during those years so history
would not be lost to the world.
It was Helen's idea to set up cooperatives
in China to help the starving people in the villages. With
Edgar and Rewi Alley, the "Gung Ho" movement was
started and the "American Committee for Industrial
Cooperatives" was born. It was Polly Babcock, a close
friend of Helen's, who raised money for "Indusco".
Wearing Soong Ching Ling's gift, the "qi pao"
she gave talks everywhere. This is the dress, the qi pao
I donated to the Soong Ching Ling Foundation and Museum.
But I get ahead of my story.
After the Snows left China and over the
ensuing years, Helen's many books were published. For her
work, Helen was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Helen's "Inside Red China" and Edgar's "Red
Star Over China" remain the single most valued source
of information about the Red movement and its leaders in
China.
It was the way of the times that Helen put
Edgar's work first. It was in Shanghai during the "round
table" tea sessions at the Chocolate Shop with the
young international set, that she met and they fell in love.
Edgar became famous and Helen supported him in his work.
She told me when we first met in the nursing home not long
before she died, "I was a do-gooder", and Edgar's
work came first. "I was just his wife".
When I finished reading "My China Years",
my heart went out to this incredible woman who had participated
in some of the most significant events in China's 20th century
development, an American woman who had consorted with and
was respected by the then movers and shakers of China. Her
closing words brought tears to my eyes.
Like the old Chinese, I worship my ancestors,
wear baggy pants, and drink tea. I love tiger cats, my little
1752 house, Robert Redford, Bruce Jenner, my old IBM typewriter,
the Encyclopedia Britannica, British movies on public television,
fluffy blouses, the nuclear family, the English language
as it used to be, trains, the Parthenon, American history
(up to 1960), pizza, Coca-Cola, tuna fish sandwiches on
rye, Westminster Cathedral, Delphi·and Pao-an.
My thoughts raced. Does anyone in America
even know she exists! Is she alive? She would be somewhere
between 85 and 90 years old? Looking out my window, the
Florida sunshine made everything brilliant. The lovely Poinciana
tree was clothed in red blossoms, the breeze swayed the
palms, and the spray of the lake's fountain was so alive.
Was Helen still alive? I longed to see her, to tell her
I knew her, her indomitable spirit. I wanted to thank her
for her work·tell her she was not forgotten. I had to tell
her about the other women who are working to help China.
But How?
The sadness of the last years of her life
were not spelled out in detail in Helen's book. But they
were there for me to feel. After they returned to the States
Edgar had divorced her. Her book mentioned this very matter-of-factly.
I knew from reading one of his later books, he had married
a younger woman. I knew that China respected him and that
Mao had sent his personal physician to Switzerland in 1972
to help the dying Edgar Snow. But what had become of Helen
- Peg Snow? I had to find her.
And I did. I found Helen - Peg Snow. I found
her in a nursing home in Connecticut. Although she was penniless,
suffering and in severe pain, nearly totally deaf, her mind
was as clear as a bell. She stroked my face when I told
her I had come because of her work. "You came because
of my books! You should have come sooner, we could have
worked together," she said. I taped our talks together
and the instructions she gave me to save the world. "This
is my dying wish," she would say to me and then go
on with her many questions and comments.
If it wasn't for my 94 year old friend,
Henry Feustel, I might never have found her. He and his
late wife had been very involved in China. The day I finished
reading Helen's book, Henry called to chat. He always liked
to talk about his wife, Polly. Henry sometimes has trouble
hearing when talking on the telephone.
"Henry," I shouted·"did you
or your wife ever know Helen Snow?" "Oh, yes,
Peg!" he shouted back. And then he went on to tell
me an incredible story.
Henry's wife Polly and Helen "Peg"
Snow were not only close friends, they were two of a kind.
Movers and shakers, they were indefatigable. Polly caught
the "gung ho" spirit and set out to raise money
for Indusco. And Soong Ching Ling gave her a Chinese dress
with the instructions she was to wear it whenever she gave
her talks. And then Henry said, "I still have the dress!
What should I do with it?"
 In
"My China Years" Helen tells of her brainchild,
to establish cooperatives in China. Her husband supported
the idea, and together with Rewi Alley, the cooperatives
system began. The warring factions in China were stripping
the countryside of all food, leaving the people to starve.
Thus the brainchild of Helen Foster Snow, "Indusco"
was born. Supported by her husband, and strong-armed by
the young New Zealander, Rewi Alley, the new movement
took hold.
As the Japanese made great advances in the
country, Helen and Edgar, malnourished and exhausted, had
to leave China. In December 1940, they went first to the
Philippines Their mission was to raise funds to support
their work for Indusco. It was there that they met William
and Polly Babcock who later became Mrs. Henry Feustel. Henry
gave me Helen's home address in Connecticut, and the dress!
He said it belonged to China.
I asked Henry, "What do you want to
do with the dress?" And he said, of course, "It
belongs to China." March 17, 1998 - after 58 years,
the beautiful dress is now at home in the Soong Ching Ling
Museum at 46 Houhai Beiyan, Beijing, China.
May 2, 1997, I attended Helen's funeral
in Connecticut. CCTV came from China. Huang Hua, a student
at Beijing University and Edgar Snow's translator during
his interviews with Mao Zedong, who in later years served
as China's first ambassador to the United Nations, and is
now chairman of the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, came. Another
university friend from those days, 85 year old Mme. Gong
Pu Sheng, a survivor of the Long March, came. The ambassador
form China to the USA came. A few Americans came. Mara Khavari
and I came. But there were no American TV crews, and no
American reporters. Helen Foster Snow and her work deserve
to be remembered.
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