Rewi Alley's Shanghai residence opens to the public
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Time estimated: 12 min
The former residence of New Zealand writer and educator Rewi Alley (1897-1987), known as an "old friend of the Chinese people," opened to the public in Shanghai's downtown on December 2 to commemorate his 125th anniversary.
The apartment at 1315 Yuyuan Road in Changning District, where Alley lived between 1932 and 1937, has been preserved with restored furniture and cultural relics donated by his adopted descendants.
Duan Hailong (left), the eldest grandson, and He Yang, the great-grandson of Rewi Alley, visit the former residence of Rewi Alley.
The historic site was listed as an "international education base" on December 2 by the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, which Alley was a co-founder, to celebrate his over six decades of contribution to China's revolution and development.
"The opening of the residence and the exhibition is expected to inspire more people with the spirit of Alley," said Duan Hailong, the eldest grandson of Alley.
He asked me to always keep a low profile and never take advantage of the Alley family name.
— Duan Hailong
"But I think it necessary to promote his contributions through his former residence. Alley talked a lot about it during his last years in Beijing," he said.
Alley came to Shanghai in 1927 and became a fire officer and municipal factory inspector with the then Shanghai Municipal Council.
During holidays, Alley toured rural China helping with relief efforts of famine. He adopted a 14-year-old Chinese boy, Duan Simou, in 1929.
The former residence of Rewi Alley on Yuyuan Road in Changning District
After the outbreak of World War II, Alley founded the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives with American journalist Edgar Snow and Madam Soong Ching Ling to raise funds and materials to support China's fight against the Japanese invasion.
He also set up Bailie Schools with his American friend Joseph Bailie to provide vocational education for disadvantaged youth in Shandan, northwest Gansu Province. Many graduates later became backbone engineers in all walks of life in China.
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Alley moved to Beijing and wrote over 60 books dedicated to promoting China, as well as the friendly relations between China and New Zealand. He also translated numerous Chinese poems.
Madam Soong said Alley was "a loyal and trusted friend of China." Chairman Mao Zedong, Premier Zhou Enlai and other national leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, once met and spoke with Alley.
President Xi Jinping said Alley has built a "bridge of friendship between Chinese and New Zealand people."
The restored living room of Rewi Alley's former Shanghai residence
The newly opened residence was built in 1912. Alley once met friends and dined on the basement floor and slept on the second floor. There was also once a parking garage and a small backyard, according to his autobiography.
Only an apartment on the ground floor was renovated and opened, because other rooms are home to other residents.
"Alley opposed the plan to renovate his former residence after learning there were 17 households living in the building," Duan recalled.
The typewriter once used by Rewi Alley
"He asked if the apartments became an exhibition hall, where the residents can live."
However, the neighbors have now organized a volunteer team to clean up the former residence and a nearby exhibition hall, as well as share stories of Alley with visitors.
"I feel proud to live beside the former residence of Alley and welcome more visitors to learn about his contributions," said Qu Lingdi, 60, leader of the volunteer team.
Duan donated a typewriter once used by Alley, which is on display at the former residence. Alley used to write books and some poems during vacations with the typewriter, Duan said.
A replicated mini telegraph that Alley used secretly to communicate with the Red Army
A replicated small telegraph that Alley used secretly on the top floor of the house to communicate with the Red Army during the Long March (1934-1936) is also being exhibited.
He Yang, great-grandson of Alley, donated some books and letters written by Alley. He said Alley had dedicated his whole life to China's revolution and reconstruction. Such perseverance has become an everlasting drive to him and his family.
Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley first stepped foot on Chinese mainland at Shanghai's Shiliupu, Dock 16, on April 21, 1927. He didn't know a single person in China at the time, but would go on to spend the remaining 60 years of his life here, eventually counting some of the country's greatest leaders among his friends and acquaintances.
What did Alley do?
Alley achieved a lot in his long life in China. Dave Bromwich is president of the New Zealand-China Friendship Society, which Alley himself had a hand in setting up way back in 1952. "I always consider Rewi has three, distinct legacies that are quite significant," he says. "Establishing the Bailie education philosophy and schools, establishing the cooperative movement, expressed today as Gong He, and encouraging international peace and mutual understanding between peoples of China and people of foreign countries."
Alley's cousin, award-winning novelist Elspeth Sandys, explained who he was in simpler terms. "(He was) a great humanitarian, I would say — a man with almost no personal needs or feelings that he was owed anything."
Helping Shanghai
After he arrived in Shanghai, Alley secured a job within days as a sub-officer at what is now the Hongkou Fire Station. Soon he was promoted to the role of chief factory inspector, where he was charged with ensuring the city's factories were up to standard. It was in that role that he began to see suffering daily."
"He witnessed and saw a lot of atrocious working conditions," Bromwich explains. "Children locked in factories working 12 hours a day, appalling conditions, no escape if there was a fire." So Alley did his best to enact change.
"When he was a factory inspector he really started to put the boot in," Sandys remembers. "He would talk to factory owners and tell them they were murderers and they were child killers – you know, he didn't mince words."
Alley was able to secure some changes, including better quality food for child workers, improved safety conditions, and access to medicine.
Political awakening
When Alley first arrived in Shanghai, he wasn't very interested at all in politics. But Shanghai's White Terror, a period of time when suspected communists were captured and executed by the Kuomintang, helped him decide where his allegiance lay. During his later years in Shanghai in the late 1930s, Alley met some important internationalists who pulled him deeper into the politics of the time, ultimately leading to him protecting numerous underground revolutionaries in his home, as well as setting up a radio on his rooftop to communicate with the Red Army outside the city.
"He didn't really become political until he had to," Sandys explains. "Until he really had to make a choice between the Nationalists and the Communists."
Leaving Shanghai
By 1938, Japan occupied most of Shanghai, except for the International Settlement. Alley decided it was time to leave to set up his industrial cooperatives around the country, away from Japanese controlled areas. That brought his decade in Shanghai to an end. But the city remained an integral part of his China story.
Sandys is sure that Shanghai was a major factor in Alley's life. "Shanghai is far more essential to him than Beijing," she says. "Shanghai was where he became the Rewi Alley we know now, Shanghai made him into that person."
From 1953 on, Alley lived and worked in Beijing, spending much of his time writing, translating old poetry from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), and receiving important international guests. He passed away on December 27, 1987, at the age of 90.
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Photo: Jiang Xiaowei, Ti Gong