 It's an honor to be here, so it's my first time actually at this prestigious place. Lars has guided me around with the maze-like structures here, but I feel totally confused, but that's fine. Happy that so many could come tonight and to listen to this topic. This is sort of a hopeless topic. Swedish missionaries in China 8 and 4, 7, 9 points. A hundred years or more than 700 people and 18 provinces, etc, etc. So I will not be able to speak about everything. If you read the blurb introducing the lecture, you will see that I have chosen to talk a bit about the peripheries or the non-Chinese aspects of Swedish mission to China, but Mongolians, Tibetans and Uyghurs, but also at the end a bit about Swedish missionaries' interactions with the communist part. The intriguing connections that I've stumbled upon. So the first image, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of images taken by Swedish missionaries, collected, sent back to Sweden, and stored in various archives, in the national archives, and in the church, different church archives, and most of them are not accessible, they're not digitized. It's a goldmine for anyone looking for anything, lots and lots of them just showing ordinary life in the late 19th century, early 20th century, even a few film clips that did bring some film cameras. There's even a few film clips from Xinjiang in the 1920s and 30s, which is quite rare, or they relied among the Uyghurs, or turkeys, as they would call them at that time. I'm not going to show that here, but I've chosen this image to start with, because this is one of the images that caught my attention early on there. I didn't find that they're even better, but you can see the missionaries speaking as well. But these are local missionaries in central Chinese Hubei province. They're Chinese porters carrying boxes with big vital portions. And this image, it's from 1905. It goes along with a wonderful story about them preaching, or having the local evangelist preaching actually, because there were quite a few of these missionaries who wrote all these books. They didn't speak very good Chinese anymore, but it was a bit chaotic. And in the personal recording of this event, the evangelist had to shout to silence the population and say, oh, are there any good people around here in this town? It's in Delhi in Hubei province, in the southern tip of Hubei province. And then one man stepped forward. He was a baker. He told them, do you have Genesis? It's a wonderful book. I bought it when I was traveling once, and it's, do you have it? Yes, we have the book of Genesis here. But why do you want to read Genesis? Oh, it tells us about how God created heaven and earth, et cetera, et cetera. And then they sold all their books of Genesis, presumably one of these books. So the story is fantastic. And then I found these images from this event. So that's sort of what you can find when you dig deep into this marvelous archive. You may have heard of this name, Theodore Hum Bay. He has two Chinese names. I'm not sure which one is more common, but he is considered the first Swedish missionary to China. It did work for the Barcel mission, or the Chongzhou Hui, as it's called nowadays. They'll have churches in Hong Kong, for example. But he was inspired by, yeah, instead it was pure Indian church history. He was actually sent by the Church Missionary Society to India. He started in Barcel. And then he was sent by the British Church Missionary Society to India, where he was not healthy. He went and came back to Sweden. But he was a great missionary, inspirer, very early one. And he inspired this man to go to Barcel and then on to Hong Kong. He's claimed to fame is that he, in Hong Kong in 1852, he met Hong Rengang. I think some of you know who Hong Rengang was. Anyone? It was the cousin of Hong Xiu Chuan. The one of the wise kings of the Taiping Empire. I don't remember. He also had sort of a prime ministerial role, I think, in the Taiping Kingdom, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. But he was on, he was escaping from the fighting. And he came to Hong Kong to seek refuge. And he stumbled upon this man who taught him about the Bible and who taught him the gospel, sometimes Christian teachings, and who baptized him. So at least one of the Taiping people were baptized by Swedish missionary in a classical Lutheran Baptist tradition. And then he left Hong Kong and went back and became one of the wise kings of the Taiping Kingdom. And from his interactions with Hong Rengang, Hamburg wrote a collection, a book. The Chinese rebel chief, Hong Xiu Chuan, and the origin was an insurrection in China, who caused quite a stir when it came out in 1855, the year after he died, which actually ended up published, sort of a block away from here. I looked up the publisher and they had their offices sort of blocked from here or something. So he, there was a sort of, he was also working with Carl Gutschlaff, who was later much criticized and questioned the German missionary. They didn't go well together. So they split up. So he worked on his own for the gospel mission. He was soon accompanied by two other missionaries, Carl Gutschlaff and Andres Eliqist. See what happened? Yeah. Walton and Maibley was just involved. The Church of Sweden, as you might have heard about, is the national church, the former state church of Sweden. But they didn't start any China mission for real until 1970. But in 1849, the Lund Missionary Society, a Lutheran society within the Church of Sweden, sent two people to Hong Kong as well, hearing about Hamburg and what he's been doing, trying to start the mission for real. Busts went on his own to Foudreau in Foudin, where after a couple of months, he was killed on a boat trip when Eliqist was there to visit him. Eliqist jumped in the water and survived. They were attacked by just sort of local pirates or some people trying to rob them. And then he went up. That was the end of the very early mission. And then Hamburg died. And then nothing happened for 30 years. So while Sweden was in the process of revival, was a lot of revivals from the 1840s, the Baptists and also early Methodists come to Sweden, and then other pietist revivals that inspired the big church movement in Sweden. Also against the Church of Sweden, the state church, liberation from what they experienced to be imposed rules for religious life, you could say. So the start was sort of glamorous, with Hamburg who met the owner and gone. And this book is actually the first, one of the few books written at the time, about the Typing Rebellion. It's still quoted sometimes when people write about the Typing because it's the first and it's a source directly into the Typing Rebellion, which is very unusual. This is past the tombstone in Buldrum, all demolished now in the 1960s decalp revolution, that there was an imperial cemetery was demolished in Athens. There's nothing left of these settings. There's nothing left of Hamburg's separates either. I was asked by someone, oh, do you have a memorial for Hamburg in Stockholm? Or so it's like, you know, can I come and visit and see where he lived? Is this a plaque on the wall? And to know the plaque on the wall, 99.5% of people in Sweden has no idea who Hamburg was, or fast or air-piste. You have to be a Lutheran and a missionary, person with missionary interests, to know anything about this. So the topic for today is Swedish missionaries, and there were many of them. They had an enormous presence during a long time, but it's a very much forgotten topic also in Sweden. I will mention a few names that were important among the early ones. After these 30 years that passed in the 1880s, the China in the mission had started. Hudson Taylor was traveling around in Europe, inspiring people. He came to Sweden as well. He inspired many in Sweden, including this man, he had in Falken, Fuliqai, his Chinese name. He went to China in 1987 to study of the China in the mission school in Anchi. Gan King, if you have read the old materials. And he found in his own missionary society, well, some people did it for him while he was in China, in 1888. Then really, hua hui, the Swedish mission to China. And he worked in China in two periods. He's quite well-known and praised as a missionary, but he was also actually the first Swedishologist, I would say, or to deduct, he didn't study at the university. He'd learned Chinese himself. And he translated classical texts. Dao Dajing, Shijing, Shu Jing, Li Ji and Xiao Jing all came out in 1908, excerpts of these ones, but the full Dao Dajing. One year before, the Swedish famous homologist, Bernard Carl Greene, Gao Wenhang, started his studies of Chinese in 1909 in St. Petersburg. So this is actually the first Britishologist, I would say, with a high level of cultural and linguistic knowledge and the missionary at the same time. Very unusual. Of course, a typical thing with Swedish missionaries in China and elsewhere, I would say, is they have very low educational level. They have a primary school education, a few had a middle school education. Until recent times, this was the case. They have their own magazine, The Land of Sinning. So what is sinning? Anyone recognize this? What is sinning? Have you read your Isaiah recently? Chapter 49, verse 12. Anyone want to recite it? Lost tribe. Well, it's a lost tribe, but it's sort of, they should come from east and from west and from a far, even from the land of sinning. That's the old translations in many languages, English, German, Swedish. And this was, aha, sinning must be China. Even though the Union, Chinese Union version from 1919 has Qin Guo in early versions. Now that nowadays it's a footnote of it, but Qin, like the first empress of the dynasty. So they published this magazine until 1981 where they merged with other organizations to form a new missionary, still existing organization. If you see that, their Chinese characters may look like it's only a sort of a decoration, but it says, Yi He Huo Huo Yi La and Yib Yan Yi Shor. Anyone know this? There's no explanation. So probably anyone who read this can understand what this means. I think Lars knows. I think you know it. Yeah, yeah. They're over a year old. Yeah. You know this, it's from, it's from at look, Genesis 22. The Lord will provide. And this is even either still of help. So this is sort of part of the image making about characters and things like that, but everyone can understand it. They didn't even explain it. This is the first issue in 1896. This is the translation of the old grammar. The only in Sweden, the Swedish language of the grammar texts, until Jöran Maungquist, the late, now late professor of Chinese studies in Stockholm, published posthumously in 2020, his own translation. So for almost 100 years, this was the only translation published in a very minor publishing house, not, and not selling very well. Only if you call these libraries here and there. So he was really very, very important and sort of driving even China studies. I have to mention one more name. And this is this man, Peter Fransson, who was actually, he was in China once. So he was never a China missionary. But he, when Hudson Taylor, I can't call it a thousand new missionaries to China, he replied, oh, I will send 100 from Sweden. It's sort of a bit too much. But he grew up in a very highest family outside New Organic Central Sweden and his family emigrated to the U.S. in 1869, as many Swedes did. Over a million Swedes emigrated to the U.S. from 1867 until the 1920s. Over a million people, Sweden had sort of five million population at the time. So Swedish presence in the U.S. has a long history. But he was an important, inspired China, actually. He started a number of organizations. He inspired even more. He was sort of an extreme, he was a pre-millennialist, believing that price would come back before the next millennium, which he didn't. But even in the next millennium, it was also an ecumenist that he worked with White Moody, who might be a familiar name for you. Moody never went to Sweden, but he's extremely popular in the U.S. in Sweden until the mid-20th century. His texts and songs and everything. So there's some strange connection here between this man and Moody and an inspiring mission. So even though he only went to China once to have a look, sort of a missionaries, he had a strong influence on the Mongol mission that I will mention later, the Swedish Alliance mission, the Scandinavian Alliance mission, who is now the evangelical Alliance mission in the U.S. team. The Swedish Holiness Union Mission Organization in Denmark and Germany is still active. So I think six or seven organizations was founded or inspired by his work doing mission in, not only in China, but all over the world actually. So a list of names for all the Swedish China mission organizations. Only the Swedish mission to China, the Swedish-Mongol mission, and those are the only two that only worked in China. All the others had missionaries all around the globe. Over 700 missionaries from Sweden worked in China during 100 years. Maybe more. 750, maybe 800 is difficult to count. If you count all the Swedish Americans who had just left Sweden to the U.S., then they came back to Sweden and went to China. If you add down, there might be even more. And as I said, Sweden had a population of about four or five million. So the per capita balance here is Sweden must have been the country's only most missionary to China per capita, far ahead of any other country. Some of these were big. The Mission Covenant Church, they had 180 missionaries in China for over 100 years. Alliance Mission also, something like that, 100 missionaries, Pentecostals, about 100 missionaries. The other ones, 30, 40, 50, perhaps. They also had over 100 missionaries. It's all together about 700. And there were Swedes, of course, in the Christian Missionary Buddhists, the YMCA, Christian Missionary Alliance, Salvation Army. Have you been to Wangfujing in Beijing? Have you seen something peculiar? I don't remember the number, 27, perhaps. A great building with a sort of powerish structure. It's a church where it's actually the former Salvation Army Central Corps in Beijing. It was led by Sweden in the 1930s. I didn't know this until a few years back. I knew that the place in Beijing, but I didn't know that there was a Sweden who was the leader of it in the 1930s. It's totally unknown in Sweden. You know the Tsongkang? Anyone know the, you know the Tsongkang, the general sauce chicken, I suppose? But that's nothing to do with him or anything in Chinese, but his name, the Zuo Tung Tan, was the Qing Dynasty General. He died in 1887. His mansion. When the Swedish, the Church of Sweden, the first missionaries, they worked for the YWCA in Changsha. And they occupied this mansion to start the first YMCA station in Changsha. It's a sort of mind-boggling. How could they even access this this mansion? So there's a lot of peculiar things happening. And that, these are the short forms in Swedish. The Mongol mission, of course, are here. This is the mission of the Church of Sweden. I will talk more about that very special effort in Xinjiang about the Uyghurs. But then the P is for the Pentecostals that was spread out. Mongols, the Mongtibetans in Yunnan and in Chengdu for a while and in big cities the Church of Sweden and only in Uyghur and Provinces. But they tried to have their own university. They worked out that well. But mostly centered here in the central areas. Some of these are very small. The Oleg Nys Union had a few stations. The Pre-Baptist Society as well. But the switch to China, the Christian Covenant Church spread out over a number of places in central China. I mentioned this, the largest China mission of any country. The strong revival movements. I suspect that the reason for so many Swedes to leave Sweden was that they wanted to escape poverty. Sweden was a poor country. Very simple answer to that. How could they send certain missionaries? There was a revival. They were more or less as Alice, but an adventure. In 1842, the Swedish government mandated public schooling. There was a free primary school for both boys and girls. Compulsory up to six years, which after a few decades had an enormous impact on the general literacy, of course. And the general knowledge about the world could be newspapers and books and things like that. It was being changed in the 1860s. And this of course opened people's minds up. So you can travel and traveling was easier. That was a factor. But also for women, but huge amounts of women among the missionaries. And they had not much choices. Higher education was prohibited at the 1920s in Sweden. For women, generally. They could become nurses, midwives, teachers perhaps, or missionaries. And then there could be all of this. They could be missionary and midwife and sand teacher. And they can see how the part of the world numbers of many examples of how Swedish women went to China or to other Africa. And they became principals of schools, the land hospitals. They had a totally different life what they could do in Sweden. It was totally opposite. I said they had only primary school education. They might have been carpenters. They might have been farmers, farm hens even, not even farmers by themselves. But then they went into missionary seminaries or schools. I wouldn't say theological seminaries. Missionary seminaries. They didn't learn much languages. Actually, where I grew up in West part of Sweden in a small town by the Lake Vernon, the first mission school of the Mission Covenant Church was placed there for a couple of decades. And they even brought local people from Central Asia, from China, back to Sweden to teach at this school. So they couldn't go to a university or they didn't have money to do that. But they could go to the Church Mission School where they actually some, for periods, had Turkish-speaking people coming. Very special example is Johannes Avetaranya, right in the Armenian name. But he was a Turkish Mullah called Memet Shukri from Turkey, converted to Christianity. And he was sent as a missionary to Xinjiang to the mission in Kashgar. He was for a while in my hometown, actually, learning, teaching Turkish languages in a small town in Western Sweden that no one has heard about. This is quite unusual, I would say. And some of them turned into, I would say, practical zoologists. This might be a strange term, but they had a profound knowledge. They knew the language they learned some about history and they had a local knowledge about the place where they worked and respect for that. And one effect of this is something that we lose to get today where we have, we pick up our phones and we Google something and then we lose it. We don't remember it maybe because we know it's always here. But a person in, let's say, far out in the countryside in Sweden or anywhere else, actually, in the West who had mission interests in this time, in late 19th century read the missionary reports, read the missionary newspapers. They could know a lot about a specific place like Marchen in Hubei province, for example. How many of you know Marchen? You're from Hubei? No, nothing. If you're from China, you would know Marchen because it's a revolutionary heritage that I like. People like, not the NBIO, it's from South Wales, but Dongbiu is from Marchen area. But people in Sweden, in 1895, they would know what Marchen was. They know about the customs in that area and no one knows about Marchen today. You might post on the high speed train nowadays, but the train won't stop. But it goes by that, the Beijing-Hong Kong line. What I show here is what's in the collections in Tuiqiao house. This is actually a land deed or a rental agreement that's something here about the Fuyintan Xingdao Hubei central. Mr. Mission Capital Church of Sweden from the church and driven the mission in this house and the cost is 44 strings of cash. This is early 20th century document. The yearly cost. Anyone know how much a string of cash is nowadays? All of 100 rem in B, I think. Something like that. This is a letter to the often it's disorganized, the archives. You find in a box say, oh, letters from China and you open it and it's not letters, it's sort of land deeds and documents because the arguments doesn't know Chinese. The pleasure of going through a lot of these boxes. Of course, the Swedish mission has left legacies. Registregacy, yes, there are congregations, Christian customs. People today in a local church in China might not know there were Swedish missionaries there but still it's that heritage. I will come into that soon. There will be a Mongolian text Bible translations from Swedish missionaries. Legacy of paternity, yes, we all know about the famous universities funded by large mission organizations, famous hospitals. But all over China there are lots and lots of smaller clinics. It's surprising. I've seen at least three examples of how small Swedish missionary clinics are now promoted as sort of the founding element of a large university hospital today. And then they really sort of bring this up. Oh, in 1893 the Swedish missionaries came to our little town and they founded these clinics they so and so quite correctly. But now it's a university hospital. It's nothing to do with each other but they want to have this connection. And we don't know this in Sweden or in the West. You have no idea. It's only water. Of course, the break after 1949 did connections to China. People sort of forgot what happened in China mission. And in Sweden the tendency is that historians don't work with mission studies. Mission specialists don't work with China mission. And someologists take their interest or think, oh, that's that's religious things. We don't it's Western religious things. We don't talk about that. So modernity in the formal medical care for all the women. Well, women didn't have voting rights in Sweden. Then they couldn't even vote among the missionaries when they came to Sweden in the first decades. But there were still role models for Chinese women still they were much free and they had come all this way to be a teacher in China. If I couldn't a Chinese woman go somewhere and be a teacher or something else. A few examples of how this one wonderful example of the Swedish young widow 28 years old Anna Barry who came to actually Huanggang also Hubei province. I've been I studied in Wuhan. So I take them some Hubei province and she was the principal of a school and they also recognized her as the class principal and the only woman principal of that school until now. That was a Swedish missionary in Huanggang. So modern education also legacy. Technology I'll come back to this printing press but that was unusual for a Swedish mission. The cultural legacy that's what we have here. We have kept all these records material and the personal memories legacy sort of private contacts that might be dying out but people are dead. Missionaries there's no missionary left anymore. I think in Sweden who worked in China that's what I'm talking about. The last two died a few years ago. Almost 100 years old. But the legacy is still there. Then of course Sweden as it could not Kalleljö power but of course the so-called un-equal treaties. Then it also Sweden. In 1847 Sweden wrote the first made first formal agreement with the Qing industry. A colleague of mine Pat Kassel at the University of Michigan has written an article quite recently that was it the agreement that there was because the Chinese side never signed it was signed by Swedish foreign ministry but no conflict but no copies exist where the Chinese side signed it. But it was valid still for I think 14, 50 years or so. I think it was signed a new one in 1907 or something like that. So Kalleljö Swedish missionaries were sort of Kalleljö in a sense because they went to China as representatives of the Wests that didn't behave in the same way but they had attitudes that were prejudiced. This is an issue that has been typical because the Swedish self-image is not of a colonial power not at that stage. We were, of course, in the 17th century but that's a bit further back. And how were the interactions with Swedish missionaries and other Swedish interests? There were interests of national resources Swedish work for the Chinese government organs like the nightluck and the customs or the photo service, etc. Just like British people or Americans other than that. Then of course this is the most important thing the China mission is part of Chinese history and Swedish China mission is part of Swedish history. And as I said that both historians mission scholars and synologists not only in Sweden outside and in other countries that they all distance themselves from mission studies. They love to use these materials and the photographs but no one writes about the mission option. So we need to reread the missionary publications to look for the golden nuggets I would say of this eyewitness reports, etc. And there's even no epithemic work published yet on China's Swedish China mission. None. There are a few patience but there's no sort of single monograph work that's not a dissertation doesn't exist. Which is strange. So I have to write one that's sort of part of what I'm doing here when you're talking about this. It's a plan. And then again this enormous archive material Yes. We can talk more when you have question time. I will now go into the what I mentioned in the introduction to this lecture then I will look at the few examples of peculiar missions or specify this is about mission to Tibetans. Which is of course a rare phenomenon in all they have in Catholic missionaries. The only Tibetan church now is a Catholic church. Sorry for this thought in the board of Tibetan Sichuan. So Lars I think it's somewhere like that. There have been attempts from the 17th century in all to do mission to Tibetans mostly unsuccessful most successful the Catholics. And China Missionary Alliance CMA for those who made the most efforts I would say in the early 20th century. But somehow they were in touch with anti-costal missionaries who were anti-costal so of course often sped out they're not ever loosely organized but only in Sweden mission-wise. They didn't even have a name or organization in Sweden. They only had in China Shenzhen which is the name still used by some of these of God for example the US anti-costal large movement. And the strange thing is you may have heard of the Azusa String Revival in 1906 in the United States it's the start of anti-costal movement at all. And a number of people involved there were Swedish Americans and they brought this back to Sweden directly and then they went to China. It's quite amazing to see names of people directly involved in these events and then they some people even went directly to China because they had this very strong emotional or calling to do this. The difficulty of researching anti-costal mission is that they lose the organized structure they're no central archives large humbers but the material is lost. So if you lost this one one scholar in Sweden and the Pope missionary who wrote the book in the 1990s as what we have he has private collections with his family some is in the national archives but it's very very difficult to find and see if you go through their publications to see names etc. An interesting name to mention is David Lamdino who was he first came to China as the Swedish Alliance Missionary as many and then they came went back to Sweden not on the leave for a year or two and then they experienced anti-costal revival in Sweden and they became anti-costals. So when they came back to China they were anti-costals and they were kicked out of their organizations and they had to go to the anti-costal mission. Then he started a magazine which he was the only Swedish missioner to do I think they've seen a new account The Triumphs of Faith English-Chinese Magazine otherwise which mission I didn't publish very much there are a few exceptions and then they this couple Elina and Thorsten Haldorf here picture with what is called the Tibetan priest I think this is actually taken in the Lama Temple in Beijing in New York so it might not be it's a Tibetan priest it could be a Mongolian but anyway it's a quote the image official image was written on it but these two this couple they stumbled upon this CMA missionary who's working with Tibetans and they thought oh this is what we want to do so they joined them the CMA didn't really like anti-costal mission for theological reasons but they said okay we have the same vision let's cooperate and they did this in Tongwen or as they call it Womuang which is the Tibetan man for the temple called Wusil in Chinese it's in the very very eastern at least the most part of Qinghai if you can imagine Qingtai here it's sort of here and then Gansu is like this here and then we have this area here very harsh conditions very difficult to work very difficult to learn the language I would say about 15 20 missionaries who with which anti-costals worked in this area until 1951 they were the first Qingtai while traveling back to China after first visit to Sweden she then went back and came came again to China with other missionaries and I will there's not many photos I don't have any photos from Tongren probably are somewhere but there are photos of the families this couple online Albert Coulson and these are their three children this is from 1947 this image before they went back to China after the second world war it's sort of sent out to to congregations with the text pray for Tibet and Tongren is on a high altitude it's elevated about 2005 meters above sea level so it's quite high if you have come from Sweden or anywhere else to live longer times they have very simple houses each time they came back from Sweden the houses were destroyed or by by local bandits or natural disasters sort of thing that they had to rebuild things over and over and over again that's what recurring and then the letters open and so on this is with the tracts they got from other printers they were preaching as best they could revival meetings services and they stayed until in 1948 they had several baptisms they writes I think it was four and they were so happy about these four baptisms one of the most difficult places to do missioning but they still had this falling for such a long time to read that what they write home is quite interesting the fact we reached quite many Tibetans with the word but they seemed terribly stuck so the languages seemed to they are stuck in a mindset they didn't say mine they are stuck they didn't say the word minds it's not there but we can think that they must have meant stuck with their old faith stuck in their habits whatever it is and then they make a comment on Tibetan language it's been a year wrestling and fighting with the beautiful but difficult to access Tibetan language we lack good and comprehensive enough textbooks for the spoken language and teachers knowing any language that we know this is a central phrase the spoken and written language are also quite different anyone's speak or learn Tibetan here? yeah my track that I did a bit of Tibetan language like as a bit of a background so do you agree with this? but you do have a teacher that speaks a language you understand right? but they didn't they complained about this but I think this very small effort to work among Tibetans illustrates the devotion of these people I mean this is in 1947 these are not so they probably had middle school education and they went to missionary school they were not so ignorant they knew that there would be art commissions they knew they were going to alien culture so to say but they are sort of the last outpost of this revival movement that but do you think that 20th century actually that doesn't really it was a driving force for many of these missionaries especially these who went to these more remote areas and I think it's totally unknown today that even among Pentecostals in Sweden if you ask them they wouldn't know this they might have brought these names but they wouldn't know that they were Swedish missionaries spent the cost of learning Tibetan and working for well 25 years in Tomaren in Tienhai province it's totally unknown so this is a research area I would say that because if you if you know Swedish you can come and look at the whatever archive there are so this is a brief thing I've just started to look at this but this is such a fascinating area actually and in parallel a couple of hours drive today into into Gansu around a place called Zhongli Zhongli I think in Tibetan I don't don't check my pronunciation but Zhongli in in Chinese it's it's a small Xiancheng not far a little straight line but if you go back over maybe five or six hours for the Swedish American mission station by the China mission and then the Christian missionary lives who were in touch with these 20 local Swedes and they also were in Sweden they were sort of Swedish Americans but very strong links to Sweden and they even converted a temple the Lu Ba Si into a missionary station which is sort of I think unique Tibetan Lama Temple that sort of bought and converted to to a missionary station I think it's demolished today it doesn't doesn't exist anymore but and I haven't found any photos yet but that's that's sort of extremely rare and unusual and of course the preventive text that I've seen are was this uproar and criticism locally of course for this but but they have been for few decades with this it was in 1917 they converted this so what about the Swedish Mongol mission it started in a bad way with the three missionaries sent out just before the Box Rebellion they were all killed and then they restarted in 1905 this is an organization that inspired by very France and actually people that this event was inspired they set up in what is now in Lodia and they had four stations it's also which is Ollantabu Ollantabu or Fado Xian this is so sort of central in Mongolia it's I mean it's straight like this so it's right in the middle I would say and then they also have these other places in Xianghuang Xianghuang Qi Zhenglan Qi and and Zhengxiang Baiqi with the Mongolian names Otsagang Hardinsum Dojian and Lailao these are small places a few caves or or yurtas like this one so they they started these stations all living in in Mongolian tents working from these tents slowly slowly building break houses after only after a few years reaching maybe baptising with the hundred Mongolians during a couple of decades but each year reaching out to thousands and thousands of people with the medical so then there's a big difference there what they wanted to do they baptized I would say hundreds perhaps but they they they pleased out to thousands and thousands every year they even had a tried working in in Urengra or Ulaanbaatar this should arrive the long time 1919 the Chinese tried to retake in Mongolia 1917 as you might know and then in 1922 they declared then 21 they declared independence but before they were in People's Republic inspired by by Soviet Union or controlled by the Soviet Union and they were was kicked out they tried even with with farming and then they had they had a good help of this man Duke Duke Larsson former CMA missionary from Sweden August Larsson who who received the kind of in particular Duke title from from the Mongolian well then Bob McGill again I would say after being that the local ruler in Mongolia at the time he was known in Sweden that he is he's quite well known because it was published books about him and he said he had an autobiography written in the 1940s and there have been one or two books about him written about 10 years ago so his name is familiar to many people he was a missionary and then he turned half into a business person or a diplomat so to say but he still kept connections but he worked to the British and foreign bio-society as the representative in Mongolia during number of years and he was involved in the early Bible translations the revisions in 1910s so he helped them to work in Ilmolambater but later on he was kicked out as well at the Bible call despite his title didn't work well with that this is a a mental couple this is Jule Ericsson and his wife and one of their children outside the get in Hallå Osso in the 1910s and in this man Jule Ericsson he is sort of he is sort of a character he is he was called the great medicine man of the steppe by the locals he claims himself at least because he was he went to I mentioned the education level of Swedish missionaries you can count on one hand how many medical doctors well Swedish missionaries I think there are three or something real medical doctors of all these 700 plus missionaries three or four of trained doctors quite a few of them had some training and they went off into England to study tropical medicine here or in Sweden perhaps but only a short course one term one academic year or so no no proper medical education but they learned by learning by doing practicing simple operations so he was a mechanic he was a biome translator he was a medical person you name it so he's the he's a good representative of this multi-talented person from a small village in central Sweden that came to Mongolia in Mongolia and became a important sort of figure it is also how it was so mission stationed while they when they have finished their house it's sort of simple a good way with local Mongolians only a couple and another missionary and this is him removing a bullet from the head of a bandit as the captain says for this study role I'm not sure so let's let's say bandit with a with a petition box but all sides everyone came to him because there was nothing if you lived on the in the Mongolian countryside in the Mongolian countryside was no health care at all you could go to a Chinese city but they wouldn't very be very helpful for a when the Mongolian bandit if he wasn't bad if I don't know there's no name names there's no name for this man or this man I'm on the verge he has sort of organized the produce himself when he came back to Sweden in the 1970s and 80s so so all captions must be taken with a sort of a pinch of salt but undoubtedly he had a a great impression on the area for today at the bottom in the local areas his children had gone back and other family members in the 80s and 90s they traveled back to see there's nothing there and their houses there are some they found some tombstones of some missionaries died in the field and they've been redirected and then put into some museum kind of context but elsewhere nothing some of these places don't even exist in it but called Chaggan I think there's nothing it's empty no one lives there so if you say that oh this is just a writing in more show or something but the photographs are there the texts are there the Bible translations are there as I said Duke Larsen was doing a revision for the part of Bible Society in the 19th heads then in 1935 after a sort of general meeting of all involved in in the Mongolia Mongolia missionaries the commission again the medicine man the mechanic to work on the new revision of full Bible he was later joined by the woman missionary Yaraulian and these two together with the Mongolian called Duster Chubh I don't know much about this man he was a sent in there photos of him I didn't find him in my good ones but he's named so we know this person I don't know about his family when it's my children they worked for 15 years or so and when your election went back during the second world water sweden they sent manuscripts to and fro in the Mongolia by mail during the second book big chunks of all painless looking like this this is the a draft of when they sort of closing in in 1947 this is Gospel John the first the beginning I think it is anyone reading Mongolian well, yeah I don't know read the characters but you can see that it's sticking things out and they just commented so this is a draft and then this is during very harsh positions some of them were still left in this places in the Mongolia working on this translation he even set up the together a small printing shop at Ha Long or so where they printed sort of trials and they tried and sent them out people who could read can you read is this it's regular it's normal can we it's sort of work and they only had a handful of congregants but they had friends who could help them but mostly the missionaries worked together and they did it in a peculiar way in this they looked at the Chinese Union version and then the Chinese Union version who was still quite fresh at that time 1919 and then he that's a Swedish missionaries they looked at the Swedish translation from 1917 who was also quite fresh at that time and done in a very meticulous way direct from the original texts so they corroborated Mongolia's vital version the new revision through the Chinese and the Swedish version which is also quite mind-boggling to do here but that's what they could access what do they could work they couldn't go directly to the Greek or Hebrew texts there would be too much work if you also were sort of still on the field doing mission at the same time as they did in 1947 a new missionary Anders Markinsson came he was directly drawn into this work and after 1949 he was commissioned to go to Hong Kong and try to find printing possibilities but he couldn't find any printer in Hong Kong or had Mongolian types so they manufactured them they got texts from earlier Mongolian printed texts and they asked a skilled craftsman in Hong Kong to produce types to print so it took a few years but in 1953 they could print the full vibe since then of course there have been quite a number of new translations it's fast they're easier today but it's an enormous work it looked like that it's probably more readable the printed version also this is also the beginning of John I think so it's a astonishing story and part of this is done by these British missionaries with a particularly comparatively low educational level and coming from countryside not sort of what you would expect to do be the Bible translators of Mongolia another one the Pentecostal missionary Paul Kippur Bay and was also convert from Lyons mission to Pentecostal he worked in in Bayan Post for other star-left banner for the couple of decades that he produced while returning home to Sweden in 1955 a three-volume Mongolian English dictionary might be in your in your library I'm not sure and the funny thing is it's published by the Pentecostal publishing company for the healthcare in Stockholm here you have there are not many Mongolian English dictionaries I mean now there are a few but they're a handful only ever produced and one of the larger ones in modern times is produced by the Pentecostal publishing company in Stockholm also a bit peculiar and funded by a Swedish cultural fund prominently exposed in the English dictionary and of course no one knows what the people behind it no one talks about it no one studies Mongolian any more in Sweden it's not possible no one talks about it also not in Mongolia I would say even if Mongolia they're out of Mongolia is of course different today than in Mongolia so so now we come to Xinjiang or East Turkestan as the missionaries called it so I use this word here because it's what the missionaries used it was of course called Xinjiang what in the 1820s formerly in 1880s was which is sometimes a bit confused with some people it's not a new name it's it's what it means a new frontier but anyway they call it East Turkestan they call the what we call Uyghurs Turkey or East Turkic and the language was of course not Uyghur it was Chagatay the mother language of respect and Uyghur the Denver languages they had a and the Mission Covenant Church some missionaries had an idea of having mission stations all the way from Sweden to China and then back towards Jerusalem there should be a a string of missionary stations all through Russia Central Asia Xinjiang of course was there East Turkestan and in China this was a part of this great band it didn't quite work out for them they tried in Central Asia they were in Tbilisi for example they were in in Eastern Turkey they were even in Iran missionaries from Sweden and they settled in three places in Kashgar Yengizahar and Yarkand from 1992 almost the first missionary was the man I mentioned before Johannes Aranya or Mehmet Shukri the former Mullah from Turkey converted to an Armenian Christian name he stayed there for two years on his own baptized one person in the river outside and all close to Kashgar and started to translate the Bible of course that's what you do when you're alone missionary in Kashgar you translate the Bible doesn't like this and he did that he even it was a major translator of the New Testament that came out in 1913 this is also one of these difficult missions people talking located from a Christian church perspective they baptized maybe 400 people during 45 years and they had three churches in these same places but they remembered for the hospitals remembered for the schools children's homes and the printing press I'll come to the printing festival the churches and chapters are destroyed the only thing mainly is the English the British consulate in Kashgar did you know that the UK had a consulate in Kashgar you might have read books from the former consulates right but the the actual building was built by the Swedish missionaries because they had the building knowledge it's now a restaurant called Konsult at least when I was there the last time 10 years ago so I had lunch there but as part of the building is still there it looks the same as on all holy brats it's part of a hotel a tinny buck the Chinese garden hotel this is actually an image showing that the Chinese were that there were of course Chinese people that also at that time in Kashgar and this is the in well they called the Hancheon the Chinese part of the town Kashgar there were various much separated the whole part and the new part and the new part was the Han for the Han people's church in Kashgar in the 1920s so 10s perhaps Han color they were quite progressive to hide more less for teachers in their schools who were not Christians yet but each sort of Chang'e Thai and other subjects they trained local new teachers they trained evangelists in the 1930s they had a sort of a program set up to train evangelists and hopefully there were speeches and even pathos made but of course that was that was stopped when they had to leave in 1938 after the internally it was that broke out in 1934-33 at least one bigger woman was trained as a midwife that worked as that natural in life until she until she retired so there were a strange presence that of course it was very difficult to work in such an environment when they came the first I would say first 10-15 years with quite harsh with regular the poorals attacks on the missionaries that closed themselves into the mission stations but then again people came for their healthcare it also had thousands and thousands of people there are still some records left they had to destroy some records but there are still records kept in the National Archives since we we can see even names of of local Christians but that's of course a bit more sensitive after the like in 33-34 rebellions but there was established an emirate in in Kothan the emir of Kothan the Bougoud brothers which I've heard about this people they that affected the missionaries quite a lot and a few years later they had to leave basically because of the tensions that was created by by the the rebellion there was a trust of course after the months they established the even the the fight to establish Republic the Sturks-Stanslemic Republic but it didn't succeed really in that but there's the presence of what they remembered for you in the 1980s there are a number of stories written down by Chinese other scholars saying if you went to Kashgar at that time people were talking about the Swedes I remember then they cured me when I was a child I broke in my foot then they they they fixed it and set it so the the remembrance was strong even 40 years 50 years after they left nowadays of course the people are gone I happened to meet this woman in 1998 Noura and this is Tornissa who was the the main wife I mentioned in 1967 the height of the cultural revolution she wrote a letter she thought oh now I've been away from the missionaries for 30 years I needed to to write to them I wanted to to have connection with them and she tried she went to the post office mailed this letter to the Swedish mission Sweden or something like that I haven't seen the the envelope but the letter is still there in the archives and it came Sweden and it was sent to missionaries who were still alive at that time and they established Kontan 1967 this is quite unusual so after 20 years when when Martha Dawkins was there then she could travel she came to Sweden in 1985 and she traveled all around the country giving these lectures about her life etc and what she could see was still left out home her Christians so an astonishing story this was her friend they were most of them so-called children's home it was not an orphanage they had parents but they were still left there for schooling and training and for protection I would say from from society and the parents were apparently friended with the missionaries she was still alive in 1998 when I came to Kashgar and then Jörgen sorry she lived in Jörgen where she grew up and this image is from Jörgen as well she passed away in 2001 I think she could still speak a few words of Swedish actually she knows some songs from that period astonishingly another interesting aspect that this mission was to Muslims I mentioned the but it was another one Josef Mesterer of Medica Gasningh on who's out in Medica doctor who met the Swedish woman missionary while working in in Tehran yeah in Tehran in the the 1890s they fell in love and to avoid probably to avoid sort of suspicion because they were really having a relation before they were married they were sent to Kashgar and married in Kashgar so they saved them by sending them to Kashgar because he was a former Muslim he could easily and he was a doctor so he could easily and they established the medical mission in Jengisar between Kashgar and Jörgen and they went back to Persia and he died suddenly quite early but astonishing to have two former missionaries two two former Muslims as missionaries and then trusted them given to start a new work in a new town by Jengisar and when we to Jengisar they had this wonderful small nights they well known for their the curious small nights still today small towns still today between Jarkand and Kashgar this is not common missions to to employ converts as missionaries sort of after two years after their conversion this a bit unusual but everything when this mission is unusual the place the the the work they did they translated a lot of material into Uyghur or Chagatai you should say Chagatai but Uyghur is the modern version that came in the 1930s and onwards I was just shouldn't show you they had a printing press and they had an enormous publication on all kinds of things they they put together their teaching materials for the schools based on Swedish school books mostly of course they're just with the bible tracks they had almanacs they had even literature I will show you an example of that often they left in 1938 mostly most christian men were killed and christian women were married off to muslims a few survived in a sense of according to her some Uyghur men did survive christian men and some families kept their faith all the way through these these years until thanks for better in the 1980s again and she couldn't tell stories about this when she came to Sweden in 1985 there's not more to dig out from pro-naki stories and none of I would just say it is a horrible picture but it's from a I couldn't find a better one I suppose these photographs are not really tight so you have to go into the archive and bar off and dig it out but it's from a a great but Oscar Herrmann some day I'm supposed to be a hero of Uyghur Bible translation chagatai Bible translation probably one of the persons knowing chagatai bests in his time he published the chagatai hymno for the church work primary bible translation of the whole bible first due in old estimates he just said it novel laureates and malaga love and the xikia which I saw in this book in the office last for bodies but there is a Uyghur chagatai version I didn't I mean there wasn't a big seller they didn't sell much of this because they sold these books but but they did it I mean I think that barely printed and then they had to leave so was it but the alphabet was there they they didn't as was that hymno for the church work the bible translation but also literary works so this is hard to imagine how you can sit in kashkarayankan working on these literary translations into a language that that you're not sure that it's changing it's 1930s it's a modernization to deed education it's turning into something I've been without using chagatai anymore but still do it he was centered to death by the emir of kota abdulla bura in 1923 two other missionaries and they were said in the very last minute so he was almost sort of pulled out on the on the courtyard to be shot and then then they someone intervened and then they could they could leave their differences they were there in turn for quite a while the printing press started in 1912 there was transferred on train as far as they could and then on on camels and horses through the mountains into Xinjiang from from central Asia from from as big stone I think but they had a simple thing called a secular style like a like a a simple copying machine from 1921 this is the first print they did it still exists if you copy it it's in the archives in in Stockholm it's the whole history it's sort of a collection of virus stories anyone mean chagatai no I don't either so just if someone but then of course it is it's Aribe Gletters so you could probably read it out last time I think it did that and they printed lots of things I mean the printing press worked as we know at least until the 1970s of course not with the missionaries because they left 1938 but what happened from 38 to the early 70s it was printing the Kashkar Uriba the Kashkar daily the communist party newspaper in Kashkar of course even the Kuomintang crafted the machinery in 1938 and used it for for their purposes so it's probably printed lots and lots of things but later years a new local newspaper I mentioned the 1913 Tagatha New Testament Pogbavel was finished only 1950 printed in Cairo outside of China a few copies weeks the money is somehow to transport into China despite 1949 and the communist takeover was there a wonderful story about that it says Kashkar Kashkar yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah I can imagine that but the bible didn't have the effect the New Testament yes but the full bible a few copies I would say entered China again in 1950 we know that some people received it from notes etc and communication but for scholars it's they created an autography for Chagat you can say this is the bible had set sort of standard for writing in a sense I mean there were standards for writing of course before that but sort of late Chagat High autography sort of a creation of the Swedish missionaries which say they were forced to print things newspapers during the what the EME emirates they even printed money for the this Easter egg that is lemon public and they were out of paper so then there are limited series of money printed on cloth but the Swedish mission press in Kashkar very rare a few copies still exist so they were accused of course of all things from most Komin Tang and the communists later on that there was bias for Russia, Soviet Union for Britain for the other side coming down all the communists even for something else because they printed for everyone but they were forced to do it there was not you could say a lot about the British consulate in Kashkar but and they were friendly with with the Swedish missionaries of course but I doubt there were there were sort of connections of sort of information in that sense in voluntary perhaps and another example they're very very popular many editions ABC book how to learn the language are they kept up yeah I mean fast of course it's delicious as well but it is if you if you would see this hymn or you would recognize some of the hymns because there are same hymns as you would sing in the Swedish church or in the British church some of them it was one of these Ben Hur not not very good literature perhaps but but but it's sort of this is so quite well I've been told that there are many copies of this one the calendar was the centerpiece that they were sold in in large copies yeah it's 13 whatever it is 1320 some 1440 1353 yeah exactly good thank you 1934 yeah that now it's the two years yeah right very very no silks to the end that's different this is also with Boston and Chinese and English even so they had a sort of civilizing aspect of all their work as well besides the actual mission working uh special case in the St. John Mission was this woman there I also apologize for the photos there aren't any very good pretty good she came on as a missionary uh but she was already 35 years old she lived in on a farm with her family working as a farm man there's a in some shops in the nearest town Kalskogla if anyone knows it in Settler Sweden but her family are well-known missionaries and church leaders her cousin uh founded the the Evangelical Covenant Church in the U.S. for example in the 1880s one of her brothers was a missionary in Africa but she didn't have this idea until she was 35 and then she went to Kalskogla she also had a nurse training so her life was quite well she learned the language quite well quite quickly but after about 10 years she had been home in Sweden for a uh period 1906 or 7 the other missionaries thought she was be closed about chef and her and a friend her her her her a servant talks about her uh and they they claimed things that they were had secret meetings and they saw them kissing and sending and such and uh according to her own writings there was nothing until they thought in the rumors and then she thought oh why not I could kiss her or something I could kiss her I could kiss her I could kiss her I could kiss her and and and they lived together for 10 years they might might married have married in in Osh she was supposed to go home to Sweden in 1912 she traveled to Osh instead stayed there and he came there and they married the sources sort of been vague and this difficult to know what kind of marriage there are instances of marriages between Christians Muslims in Central Asia during the time it's possible we don't know he had been married before he had children he didn't have any but they lived together or on and off until the mid-1920s when he took it a new wife and then she had enough of him but they were still very friendly the rest of the her life and their wonderful stories that how they lived together in Oshar in Northern Xinjiang Kuzhou in Chinese and they have apricot trees and they one melon a day or two melons a day from their own etc and they have donkeys and horses and cows so they lived a good life but it was of course a medical nurse so she could sell her medical services to people and they had a good life for a couple of years together in Kuzhou then his children went into drug abuse they smoke he did as well opium and she afforded lots to to care for them we know all this because of her letters back to her sister and the family in Sweden there are it's not a full collection but it's a I think about five volumes of letter copies in the archives and this is a completely amazing read to read to this she died on the way back to Sweden on the train outside Omsk I think she was buried in Moscow no one went to see her grave until the 1980s so one of our family members got permission to travel and see so it's in one of the cemeteries in Moscow where they have a real killed in the cemetery I think there are one or two cemeteries I don't remember which one but I haven't been there she's having a this is a to mark I think the kind of like that usually men eventually and then she has an atlas electorate this is taken in Sweden when she was back because she went around and this told stories about life in Xinjiang you can look into into a newspaper advertising from the time and see that she appeared in Kashkard dress and so on I'm talking too much I didn't say anything about time sorry anyway some final things I haven't come to the companies this is a fine from maybe 10-12 years ago when they're in the archives in the mission Covenant Church office embroidered cloth with application characters in the hand of the new beam the Chinese the Han Chinese commander of Kashkard 1930s also signed so to say by Mahmood Shajan Mahmoodi and Mashawu I think my people you know some of you from the Mar plan Sufi family Lakshbandi in Sufi family but he was the way literally commander of of Kashkard and they all thank the swedish Shajan Onglong Yi Shi so well great man's benefit society so they were happy they because they treated probably Mahawu was but they tried to execute him and he was heard that he was treated by the swedish missionaries and also the other ones had had actually the opinion was a Christian that the the Han Chinese general and astonishing fine has been rolled up for for many decades and we discovered only in the early 20 2000s and for us this is the mission station in Kashkard also part of the station it looks like this today you see that the trees are the same this is from 2010 when I was there this is the gate it's called of course a gym shoot one each shoot uh so I think that I couldn't even paint in it's the woodrock pool that the the the local militia of Kashkard has except for the city supposedly there are no buildings left but maybe some trees I don't know the same kind of trees at least but no one has been in there because it's been a military area since 1949 we don't know but that's what the printing press was this is the church in Yakan after service it's no cross as you see but it's looks like something it's a different kind of building you can see that children's home in Yakan get some children or children look at the these wooden beams under the generally I think cremation cremation yeah the same but it's yeah whatever this is my own photo from 1998 it's what it looks like I think it's demolished now I haven't been there I didn't find it last time of the year it would be 10 but this is the same building inside the building the people living there there was a a lube with wood like a kind of cupboard like a cupboard you can handmade cupboard you can find in any Swedish rural household in the 19th century in the corner or freestanding like a cupboard for things and for food painted in a blue color and it was inside this it's must have been made by the missionaries for food well you can put the plates and it seems like that oh yeah not for food like a technical cupboard of Swedish style from the late 1930s and the 19th century and in 1998 it was still in this building I heard it's demolished I don't know I was in Yakan in 2010 in the last time but difficult to find these places because this is they had two sides in Yakan and no one still quite remembers which is which so so it's typical this is close to the former mental hospital in Yakan but it's not even that is on there so it it becomes more and more difficult to find these things but I've seen these at least so this is quite astonishing so you want to hear about the communists and missionaries is it enough now I've found something by chance some years ago I was looking at this missionary Sam Krohn who worked for a looser in college that I mentioned in church of Sweden in Hunan then at the old memorial school in Wuhan and the central China University which is now the part of Shifan Dasch the central China Nobel University and among the students I went through his book collection he had about thousand books in Chinese non-language and I found this suddenly it's the the commented Shijie and this is Anxiangshan Hui Sun Xiu Zhang Bo Hongdua Gingseng so gorgeous gift to to teach Sheld from the students Bo Hongdua so I googled his name Bo Hongdua his name is well known and I thought it was it was the Minister of Education in the People's Republic of China I had not been asked this but he's changed his name to Suo Wei in 1936 this is signed in 19 in September 1935 five months later he joined the Communist Party and changed his name to Suo Wei and I've seen other documents that have bits and pieces that show that they were friendly long after he joined the Communist Party and I got his name I thought in sort of searching and searching and searching through any available sources and I found there were at least three of his students that became Communist at the same time Chen Qingchuan and Wang Xuexin Wang Xuexin also that notes in his book collection he was called Huang Hai Bin later as a Communist he died prematurely of cancer but he got a memorial in the People's Daily the national newspaper so he had a career very similar to you know Bo Yi Bo Bo Xilai's father and they were born the same year Wang Hai Bin and Bo Yi Bo and Bo Yi Bo was the head of the the Tung Chui Pool the organization department in the northeast and Wang Hai Bin was in the central south area they had exactly the same career until he suddenly died in 1915 so he could have become one of the big Communist parties but he suddenly died but on the back of this this name called is a long text about very friendly text about I think about books actually sending books because they all work which is now the Sanli and Shujian you know this that there was a chain of bookstores and there was very strong in Wuhan they had several outlets and all these three at least two of them worked there doing secret underground Communist party work and then I found it by chance also you know Li Rui master of secretary for a while and 50 is also the national head of the of the organization department and they administered for water projects and so on and then he died 101 years old a couple of years ago he wrote in his recollections that in Wuhan in the 1930s when he was there they often used church premises because of friend and mission Harris who allowed them to meet sometimes under the pretext of having a church meeting to organize Communist party activities and I've been found a straight connection with some good on the Swedish missionaries but some missionaries in Wuhan in even in I didn't have a call which didn't work with exactly and he mentions all these three students so specifically points her way out as you were the central organizer this is something I would like to explore further but it's difficult to find of course this is this is something stuck into a book a name card and that's how I found it and then writing some books so and we can skip it don't be find an image or you can find it in our time related to Swedish missionaries this is sort of quite exceptional probably worth a lot of money it's a calligraphy by Duan Bang by the Troy of Wuhan and Liang Jiang an important Qing Dynasty official it was killed in 1911 it was one of these Han who became a mansion enjoying the but his family enjoyed the valley but he had only a Han background he met one of the MCCS on this Balderström at least twice once and he went to Sweden he was part of this official group of Qing scholars sent out to Europe to look at different kinds of government in the west so he came to Sweden and they became friendly and then one after the name to China and they met again and he gave him this his own calligraphy with a a rather big or something Egyptian that he it was a big art and curio curio collector but the greatest of his time hopefully in China and this is rolled up in an art house in Sweden I couldn't believe my eyes I realized this is actually his own Han point and his stand it says Thao Dai which is always used on his own writing or simply his original Chinese name was Thao his calligraphy sells for tens of thousands of Burmese in China so he was friendly enough with this Swedish missionary founder to give him his own calligraphy unusual thank you very much for listening to me for the first time