One of two 'lost' films shot by Jesuit missionaries in China in 1947-48 identified by Prof. Joseph W. Ho (Ph.D. Michigan, Albion College, MI). The original reels, containing over 3000 feet of 16mm film, had been tucked away in an Institute storage cabinet for many years. The films contain vivid scenes of everyday life and missionary activity in China prior to the founding of the PRC. Both in full color, "Ageless China" includes soundtrack. Important historical source for the study of Jesuit missions to China during the postwar period.

"The documentary, entitled "Ageless China," is composed of footage shot by Fr. Hubbard, SJ, in 1947-1948 Peiping, Shanghai, Yangzhou, Nanjing, and Sheshan (Zose). This screenplay was proposed by Fr. William Klement, a priest attached to the Yangzhou mission who detailed the film, shot-for-shot, in a 5-page letter written in 1948. As such, the copy at the Ricci Institute is the closest version to a complete documentary of the Yangzhou mission during its postwar operation. "Ageless China" does exist as a VHS transfer at SCU but that copy is of rather poor quality. We have the original footage here, complete with the original soundtrack ...3000 feet of film in total.... The pre-1949 scenes depicted in them would be of significant interest to historians of modern China."-- Dr. Joseph Ho, Ph.D.

Dig. file (m4v, mp4, etc.) in Video folder.

Developing mission : photography, filmmaking, and American missionaries in modern China / Joseph W. Ho.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: All Things Visible and Invisible -- New Lives, New Optics : Missionary Modernity and Visual Practices in Interwar Republican China -- Converting Visions : Photographic Mediations of Catholic Identity in West Hunan, 1921-1929 -- The Movie Camera and the Mission : Vernacular Filmmaking as China-US Bridge, 1931-1936 -- Chaos in Three Frames : Fragmented Imaging and the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945 -- Memento Mori : Loss, Nostalgia, and the Future in Postwar Missionary Visuality -- Epilogue: Latent Images.

"A transnational cultural history of US and Chinese communities framed by missionary lenses-reconstructing the lives and afterlives of images, cameras, and visual imaginations. It illuminates the centrality of visual practices in modern American missionary experiences and representations of China, even as changing Sino-US relations radically transformed the lives of those behind and in front of the lens"--  Provided by publisher.

Local access dig.epub [Ho-Developing mission.epub]

Preface; Introduction; The Letters from Hangzhou: September 1937 to August 1938; Epilogue; Glossary of Chinese Terms; Glossary of Western Names; Bibliography; Index; About the Editors; About the Cover Image.

"A fresh eyewitness account of the Japanese invasion of mid-China in 1937-1938, these letters by an American missionary in Hangzhou provide a vividly detailed, first-hand account of the spread of war from Shanghai across the Yangzi valley and the subsequent ordeals of military occupation seen against the better-known backdrop of the Nanjing Massacre - one man's embedded experience in one major Chinese city of one chaotic year of war. Already 25 years in Republican China and fluent in the language when the Japanese arrived, the author was well-placed as both an observer of, and participant in harrowing events - the provost of the Hangzhou Christian College and responsible for its campus, president of the local Red Cross which organized refugee camps and shelter for those displaced by the looting and raping that ensued, and chairman of an International Committee which sought to mediate between Japanese and Chinese forces in an effort to limit destruction and then to negotiate with the occupation regime on a day-to-day basis. The letters - written twice weekly - describe pitched battles and aerial bombing, the fearful conditions of civilian refugees, the exigencies of the missionary enterprise and the experiences of foreign neutrals in wartime China, as well as the practical dilemmas of collaboration that arose under occupation - moving about, protecting refugees, procuring food, tending a dairy herd, and ministering to embattled congregations.The letters are fully annotated to give readers a fuller perspective on places, people, and events that surround the eyewitness accounts. A substantially researched introductory essay provides necessary historical background and situates the author in a longer missionary career that began in 1911 and ended with wartime internment in 1943."-- Provided by publisher.
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on October 31, 2017)

Shows river and street scenes, with various shops and activities; school yard activities, including basketball; Louis Dowd, S.J. and boy scout activities; outdoor Mass; martial arts demonstration; catechism class; writing and sewing class. Jesuits pictured include Eugene Fahy, Louis Dowd, William Ryan, and William Klement. Includes footage of some of the films listed above.

"Yangzhou 1948" is the "lost" complete film that I'd only read about in letters stored at Santa Clara University; some of the raw footage has been scanned by the Jesuit archives there, but it is all out of order and does not match the screenplay proposed by Fr. William Klement, a priest attached to the Yangzhou mission who detailed the film, shot-for-shot, in a 5-page letter written in 1948. As such, the copy at the Ricci Institute is the closest version to a complete documentary of the Yangzhou mission during its postwar operation...."-- Prof. Joseph W. Ho., Ph.D.

2nd note--".....came across a complete rough-cut copy of "Yangzhou 1948," the 16mm color documentary film that Fr. Klement and Fr. Hubbard worked on, which is described in Klement's highly detailed letter of December 22, 1949 that I examined in February 2014. According to a typed note attached to the original film storage canister, the film was given by Hubbard to another priest affiliated with USF - possibly Fr. Francis Rouleau, SJ, or Fr. John Houle, SJ - in March 1958. The film was last viewed in the early 1970s, and reportedly has not been examined or catalogued since..." --ibid.

Dig. file (m4v, mp4, etc.) in Video folder.