but he never relinquished his dream of reform.
In 1863 Yung convinced Governor-General Zeng
Guofan to underwrite the education of more than
100 Chinese boys in America who would eventu-
ally return to help reform China. Yung oversaw
these students at the Chinese Educational Mis-
sion, based in Hartford, Connecticut. During these
happy years, Yung married Mary Louise Kellogg,
who bore him two sons, Morrison and Bartlett,
but political circumstances on both sides of the
Pacific were against him. As the result of increasing
anti-Chinese sentiment in America and increasing
skepticism among conservative officials in China
about the value of such an education, the mis-
sion was recalled in 1881. Hence on this and other
occasions, Yung’s plans met with resistance and,
sometimes, failure.
At the age of 74, Yung started to write My Life in
China and America. The autobiography attempts
to enhance his reputation, casting the best light on
his successes and ignoring or explaining the rea-
sons behind his failures. Like the autobiographies
of Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and
Booker T. Washington, Yung’s text presents a rags-
to-riches rise made possible by hard work and
education. Besides allying himself with this tra-
ditional strain in American autobiography, Yung
borrows language from his contemporary Theo-
dore Roosevelt to contest Roosevelt’s own logic.
In 1899 Roosevelt claimed that China deserved
no respect because Chinese people were incapable
of living what he called the “strenuous life.” As a
retort, Yung declares in his autobiography, “in a
strenuous life one needs to be a dreamer in order
to accomplish possibilities” (65). Indeed, Yung ac-
centuates his strenuous experiences in his autobi-
ography to counter Roosevelt’s accusation, but he
also articulates a dream of education made pos-
sible not only for the few but for everyone: “The
time will soon come... when the people of China
will be so educated and enlightened as to know
what their rights are, public and private, and to
have the moral courage to assert and defend them
whenever they are invaded” (73).
Since the publication of Yung’s book in 1909
and his death in 1912 in Hartford, both he and
his book have received mixed reviews. Contem-
porary American reviewers respected Yung, and
most recent Chinese scholars have valorized him
as a pioneer in Chinese educational reform. In
Asian-American literary criticism of the 1980s and
1990s, Yung’s autobiography fared poorly, having
been labeled assimilationist and inauthentic. More
recently, scholars have put forth more balanced
views that seek to place Yung’s life and work in
historical perspective. While critics will continue
to argue about Yung’s personal choices and liter-
ary purposes, his book remains significant in the
history of Asian-American literature for its early
date of publication, its adaptation of American
autobiographical conventions, and its account of a
remarkable, influential, and bicultural figure.Bibliography
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Floyd CheungYung, Wing 341