Witness to history

Canadian Isabel Crook has spent in China most of her century-long lifetime

Isabel Crook, now 101 years old, was among China's first foreign educators.

During her many years in the country, first as a child of Canadian missionaries in Sichuan province and then as a teacher, she has witnessed many events: the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), the civil war, the founding of New China, the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and China's reform since the late 1970s.

"I'm glad that I kept records (of major events)," Crook says, while taking a stroll in a park near her apartment in the compound of Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she once taught.

Crook, who was born in China, began anthropological research in Sichuan in 1939 after receiving university degrees in Canada. As part of a social survey in a village there, she got to know many local people. She and her Chinese research partner attended many celebrations and studied the community behavior in teahouses.

"The result ... was a human factor, which you can miss if you just do mechanical investigations," she says.

After her retirement as an English teacher, Crook wrote Prosperity's Predicament: Identity, Reform and Resistance in Rural Wartime China. Translation for a Chinese version of the book has now started, she says.

In the early 1940s, Crook became interested in Communism after meeting her husband, David, an active Communist.

"He had just come back from fighting in Spain to support the Spanish republic. He had also done some interesting things in China. That made a big impression on me," she says.

They married in London in 1942. Inspired by US journalist Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China, the couple returned to China a few years later to write a book about life in Communist-controlled areas. Before 1949, parts of China were ruled by the Kuomintang and local warlords.

During their stay in Hebei province, the couple learned about land reforms being carried out by the farmers and decided to write about it. Among the books they authored are Ten Mile Inn: Revolution in a Chinese Village (1959) and Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village (1979).

They were among few foreign scholars allowed to conduct grassroots research on the mainland between the 1950s and the '70s. Their books became important sources for the outside world to learn about China at the time.

Ahead of New China's founding in 1949, Crook and her husband were approached by officials of the Communist Party of China and asked if they could stay and teach English, as the country was in desperate need of English speakers who could help build foreign relations. "We were thrilled that we could do something significant to support the Chinese revolution," she recalls.

The couple taught English at Beijing Foreign Studies University until they retired in the 1980s. Their early students, who became the first generation of foreign-language speakers in modern China, either served in the foreign services or in organizations that had relations with foreign countries. Many of them became English teachers, too.

Excited to join the ranks rather than being observers, Crook and her husband actively participated in mass movements like planting trees in suburban Beijing in the 1950s. The teachers and students stayed for weeks in the homes of villagers and sang together during breaks.

"The important thing is you learn from both successes and failures. That's what the Communists were doing. They were not afraid of mistakes," she says of the mass movements initiated by the CPC.

In 2000, David died at 90 after spending his last five decades in China.

In later years, she made speeches and wrote letters to top Chinese leaders on issues such as rural education and development. Some of her letters to Wen Jiabao, along with his replies, were included in a book published by the former premier in 2013.

After her retirement, Crook revisited the villages where she did her research. Many people still recognized her and some have even visited her in Beijing.

She says she is impressed by the vast improvements in rural China, especially the enhanced standard of living and the improving literacy rate. Few rural residents were literate before the 1950s. Now, it's compulsory for students to finish junior middle school, and there are few illiterate people among the younger generation.

Although urbanization has been a good thing, attention must also be paid to how to develop China's countryside, she warns. "If you only concentrate on urbanization, you don't have balanced development."

liuxiangrui@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 08/12/2016 page20)