Origins of Some Early Donations
Throughout its history, the success of the Chinese studies program and the China Collection at UHM is largely due to the invaluable support of many people near and far. But there was a lack of detailed information about how some of older items made their way into the collection in the early days. By revealing the history how we obtained several library items, this section intends to showcase the collective effort in supporting the Chinese studies at UH.
Earliest Large Donation from China
The donation of Sibu congkan 四部叢刊 (Collectanea of the Four Categories) was made by the Chinese Committee of the Institute of Pacific Relations, August 1927.
The Collectanea is considered an essential library of traditional literary works, dating from ancient China to the early 20th century. In 1919, a new edition of the library was compiled by Zhang Yuanji 張元濟 (1867—1959), a well-regarded scholar and publisher who relied on the most authoritative editions of each text to create his new compilation. At the time of the founding of the UH Chinese Department in 1922, there were not many Chinese language materials for teaching and learning available in Hawai'i. This set was given to UH in 1927, and is among the earliest Chinese language materials items in the collection. Running to over 2,000 titles, this set of books made it possible for the UH scholarly community to access many of the most important literary, historical, philosophical, and political texts in the Chinese scholarly tradition.
Gift of Mei Lan-Fang, 1930
Another early years donation is titled Mei Lanfang gequ pu 梅蘭芳歌曲譜 (Selections from the repertoire of operatic songs and terpsichorean melodies of Mei Lanfang)
Portrait from the gift book below
Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894 –1961) is perhaps the best known modern Chinese opera master, who played female lead roles (dan 旦) in modern Chinese theatre. He was one of the "Four Great Dan," along with Shang Xiaoyun, Cheng Yanqiu, and Xun Huisheng.
Mei was also the first artist to popularize Beijing Opera outside of China. He toured Japan in 1919 and 1924, the United States in 1930, and the Soviet Union in 1932 and 1935.
On Dec. 29, 1929, Mei and his entourage left Shanghai, starting his American tour. It was a great success. After sensational performances in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, he arrived in Honolulu, the last stop of the tour. He performed at the Liberty Theatre, June 23-28, 1930.
Source: Clipping files of the Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory
A selection of the songs in his repertoire, Mei Lanfang ge qu pu 梅蘭芳歌曲譜, was given to the Library soon after his performance.
This set contains one volume in Chinese and the other in English (top), in a case (top left). From the picture on right, you can see the gift note in pencil by the edge of the colophon, “Gift Mei Lang-Fang, 7/2/30.” On the colophon (bottom left), it stated that the library’s copy is no. 30 among the 1500 printed, and cost US $100 at that time.
The English version uses modern staff notation, and the Chinese version uses traditional Chinese musical notation, which uses Chinese characters to represent musical notes. This is the earliest Beijing Opera score that was recorded in staff notation.
Gift of Sun Fo and Wang Yunwu, 1930's
While browsing the Library’s East Collection on the 3rd floor of Hamilton Library, some might notice several large sets of Chinese materials that were donated by Sun Fo. But few know about this person, nor why he donated books to the Oriental Institute Library at that time.
So Fo’s Chinese name is Sun Ke 孫科, courtesy name Zhesheng 哲生, as shown on the spine in the first picture below. He is the only son of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China. Sun Ke lived in Hawaii from 1895 to 1912 before going to college in California, and he paid visits to Hawai'i in 1930's.
At the time Gregg Sinclair visited Japan, China, and India in 1936, he met many Chinese prominent figures, including Sun Ke in Nanjing. At that time, Sun Ke was the president of the Legislative Yuan. Because of the special connection to Hawai'i, it was not surprised for the library to get a large donation.
Gift of Sun Fo ("孫哲生贈" labelled on spine)
Title: 佩文韻府 (Pei wen yun fu. 160 volumes)
Gift of Sun Fo
Title: 欽定古今圖書集成 (Qin ding gu jin tu shu ji cheng. 1628 volumes)
Another notable gift to the newly established Oriental Institute was from Wang Yunwu 王雲五 (1888 –1979), the editor in chief of the Commercial Press at that time. The set he donated was the Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初编 (Complete Collection of Books from [Various] Collectanea, First Set), which he edited and published between 1935 to 1937.
This collection of traditional literary works included titles that were difficult for common readers to obtain otherwise. He made them even more accessible by developing a new classification system that utilized modern concepts of genres and themes, such as religion (zongjiao lei 宗教類), social sciences (shehui kexue lei 社會科學類), and, practical sciences (yingyong kexue 應用科學, i. e. medicine, diet, writings, and crafts). It was "considered as the greatest unity of the collectanea in China." (Taam, 1939）
The Commercial Press donated the series in four installments to the Oriental Institute Library, in which the first three installments arrived as regular gifts. Considering the fact that the publishers were adversely affected by the war, the library offered to purchase the the fourth installment (301 titles / 400 volumes) in 1939 in order to complete the series. In reply, however, the Commercial Press very graciously declined our suggestion and donated the installment to the University, despite the enormous deprivations and difficulties experienced by scholars and businesses in occupied China.
Library ex libris "Gift- Wang Yun Wu"
A few titles in 叢書集成初编 (Cong shu ji cheng chu bian) Gift from Wang Yunwu, Commercial Press, 1930s
Joseph Rock and his Explorations in China
Another important scholar and explorer who had connections with Chinese studies and the China Collection at UHM is Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884 – 1962). Rock was appointed as a UH faculty member in 1911, as well as the Territory of Hawaii's first official botanist, till 1920.
In 1920, the University transferred Rock’s herbarium to the Bishop Museum and Rock left the University of Hawai'i to spend the next three decades in active exploration and research for the National Geographic Society. He lived in Southwest China from the 1920's to 1949 and went on many expeditions.
The library holds Rock’s diary during his expedition to Western China and Tibet, 1924-1927.
There are 7 volumes in total, donated by J. F. Rock Estate in 1964. The photo above is the first page of Volume 1, From Yünnanfu to Chengtufu, December 1924 to March 1925. If you’re interested in viewing this set, please contact the Library's University Archives and Manuscripts Collection (archives@hawaii.edu ) to make an appointment. Most photos taken by Rock during his explorations in China are kept in the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library and Harvard-Yenching Library and can be viewed online.
One of Rock’s main academic contributions, was the study of the Naxi people during his stay in Yunnan Province from 1920s to 1940s, and collected thousands of Naxi manuscripts .
Naxi Dongba Literature Manuscripts
The Naxi 納西 are an ethnic minority group in China who speak a Sino-Tibetan language written in its own unique script. Called Naxi Dongba 納西东巴, this is a pictographic writing system that was typically mastered by priests. Their scriptures required intensive training to be read or interpreted, and were largely comprehensible only to the priests themselves.
Joseph Rock worked with a number of Dongba priests to produce transcriptions and detailed readings of the most important ceremonial texts, as well as a dictionary-encyclopedia. Rock kindly donated his work on Naxi literature, titled Studies in Na-khi Literature, to the Oriental Institute Library, which was reprinted in the Journal of the Oriental Institute, July 1938.
Original Naxi Manuscripts
Joseph Rock also collected numerous manuscripts and is responsible for the large majority (over 7,000) of the Naxi works that exist outside of China. The Library of Congress's Naxi manuscript collection is considered the largest and the finest outside China.
Currently, Hamilton Library owns two Naxi manuscripts that Rock brought back from China. But they were not donated by Rock himself, but by different persons at different times. One is in black and white; the other is colored. Both were written in Naxi pictographs; each page divided into 3 rows of cells, with each cell containing multiple pictographs; ruled in ink; sewn at left edge.
