Contents: Introduction / Koen De Ridder -- Conflict, Confusion and Control: Some Observations on Missionary Cases / Ku Wei-ying -- Body and Soul. Professional Health Care in the Catholic Missions in China between 1920 and 1940 / Dries Vanysacker -- A Strategist of Missionary Development in Henan: Bishop Joseph Noé Tacconi (1873-1942) / Angelo S. Lazzarotto -- The Missionary Cases of Taiwan in the Nineteenth Century / Shih Li-lan -- Congo in Gansu (1898-1906): "Missionary versus Explorer/Exploiter" / Koen De Ridder -- Quelques échos des prêtres chinois dans les missions de Scheut / Françoise Aubin.

Publishers note -- 'Sounds of Footsteps in Empty Valleys' (konggu zuyin) is a Chinese expression for persons and things that are not easily met. Western missionaries working in the desolate backwaters of pre-modern China fit this description. In this book scholars from different backgrounds discuss and define various aspects, special characteristics and long-range aims of the Christian apostolate in late Qing and early republican China. The topics merge from church-state relationship, mission administration and social work to the formation, role and feelings of indigenous priests. Among the articles collected in this book are 'Conflict, Confusion and Control. Some Observations on Missionary Cases' by Prof. Dr. Ku Wei-ying (National Taiwan University), 'Body and Soul. Professional Health Care in the Catholic Missions in China between 1920 and 1940' by Dr. Dries Vanysacker (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and 'Quelques échos des prêtres chinois dans les missions de Scheut' by Prof. Dr. Françoise Aubin (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique). By the publication of this book we hope to convince the reader that the development of the Catholic Church in China is an exceptionally interesting and important subject. Yet we also acknowledge that its study is still an 'empty valley' which waits to be filled with the 'sound of footsteps' from a new generation of scholars.

Reshaping the boundaries : the Christian intersection of China and the West in the Modern Era / edited by Song Gang.
Includes bilbiographical references and index.

Boundary-crossing words, beliefs, and experiences: late Imperical China’s encounter with the modern West / Song Gang.
1. “Sinarum gentes …. omnium sollertissimae”: encounter between the Middle Kingdom and the Low Countries, 1602-92 / Thijs Weststeijn.
2. Russian-Chinese cultural exchanges in the early modern period: missionaries, sinologists, and artists / Nikolay Samoylov.
3. The wind Qin: hearing and reading Chinese reactions to the pipe organ / David Francis Urrows.
4. “Supreme Nation”: the British image in Karl Gützlaff’s novels Shifei lüelun 是非畧論 and Dayingguo tongzhi 大英國統治 / John T. P. Lai.
5. “Sacred Heart” and the appropriation of Catholic faith in nineteenth-century China / Ji Li.
6. Local magistrates and foreign mendicants: Chinese views of Shanxi’s Franciscan Mission during the late Qing / Anthony E. Clark.
7. A religious rhetoric of competing modernities: Christian print culture in late Qing China / Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye.

Local access dig.pdf. [Song Gang-Reshaping the Boundaries.pdf]