A Year in China is the fascinating travel memoir of Mrs. H. Dwight Williams (Martha Noyes Williams), an American woman who accompanied her husband, Henry Dwight Williams, in sailing from New York to Singapore and Hong Kong, before reaching Swatow in the summer of 1862. He had been appointed by the Qing government as Deputy Commissioner of Customs in Swatow in the wake of the Second Opium War (1856–1860). Though Martha Williams’s stay lasted only three months due to ill health, her privileged position and close ties with Western missionaries gave her rare insight into Swatow and the Teochew people at a pivotal moment in their history.
Williams’s vivid observations together paint an unforgettable portrait of a society in transition. Her accounts include the Han River (Swatow River), the harbor and climate, Double Island (also known as Masoo Islet or Mayu 媽嶼), and its foreign residents; the temple and worship of the sea deity Mazu; a Teochew opera performance; early Christian missions and the persecution of converts; as well as local feuds and the overseas trafficking of coolies and women.
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