113 years ago on 2 December 1897, a great writer, educator and social reformer was born in the small town of Springfield in Canterbury. His name was Rewi Alley, who dedicated 60 years of his life to the cause of modern China and was a key figure in the establishment of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, or Gung Ho.
Torn apart by war, China in the 1940s was very weak and fragile. The plight of the Chinese and barbarity of the Japanese invaders were beyond imagination (no need to detail atrocities here though).
Travels through China, particularly those rural devastated areas, changed Rewi from observer to activist. Working tirelessly among the rubber of Japanese destruction, Rewi established schools, adopted orphans and created jobs through Gung Ho.
Gung Ho is an anglicised pronunciation of Gong He, implying working together in an enthusiastic and dedicated manner.
In China, the name Rewi Alley represents a spirit and strength of selfless devotion and a big heart.
I was influenced by Rewi.
Although honoured and revered in China, Rewi was relatively unknown in New Zealand, particularly to those Generation X. In fact, he was not officially recognised by the government until 1984 when he was awarded a Queen’s Service Order “for services to the community.” In 1987 Geoff Chapple and David Harre produced a final documentary on Rewi, with then Prime Minister David Lange narrating it! The documentary was screened in New Zealand on 2 December 1987 on Rewi’s 90th birthday, and a copy of the film was couriered to him in Beijing. He died three weeks later, aged 90.
I am still influenced by Rewi and believe Rewi’s spirit and strength are needed here.
2009 is gone and now a new page has turned followed by a new day, a new year and a new decade.
Should Rewi be with us today, he would be very concerned about the rising unemployment, concerned about our health care, education, ACE, ACC, ETS and more importantly, how to grow our economy …
He was a great man.
Alley was an apologist for Mao’s atrocities Raymond. It’s crass for you to make reference to current politics in New Zealand.
Perhaps we could grow our economy by keeping our money and industry here in NEW ZEALAND instead of outsourcing our industry to china,instead of importing everything from china.All we are doing is making china rich and enslaving us to them.If you are so keen on china raymond balance deleted abusive admin
You are now in moderation Clare
Oh Mr Barker!
Thanks for the post Raymond. I didn’t know a lot about Rewi, but certainly grew up knowing he was a selfless person amongst us who did much good work. Someone to be proud of.
Mr Barker, apologies, but no. Perhaps a perfect example of why you shouldn’t take Wikipedia as gospel. Rewi Alley strived for the betterment of those who had no voice under Mao. He worked the system from within, where outcry and blatant resistance would have failed miserably.
I met Rewi in Beijing in the mid 1970s. He was always very hospitable to New Zealanders visiting China.
My pleasure Clare. Rewi was one of the main reasons why I chose New Zealand and have since become a proud Kiwi.
I was lucky enough to be one of the last Kiwis to meet him in 1987. He was pretty sick by then but still sharp. Certainly helped with NZ China relationships.
Does anyone know what his opinion was about the rapid shift that China made to capitalism under Deng Xiaopeng/Li Peng?
Would be interesting to know.
I was pretty sure that some modern historians have uncovered some dodgy-ness it terms of what Rewi could get away with in China because of his high ranking that would have been illegal in NZ.
Raymond – I agree Rewi Alley’s life is a great NZ story and it deserves to be remembered. He lived a life of service. But I think we should also recognise there is another perspective on his role in the tumultuous events he lived through. As a ‘foreign friend’ of Mao’s China, Rewi never as far as I know wrote or spoke up about the tens of millions of Chinese who died unnecessarily from famine during the Great Leap Forward. And even though he himself suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution he never spoke out. He wouldn’t have been allowed to, and retain his privileged position. From the point of view of dissidents in China then and now, ‘foreign friends’ like Rewi were caught up in public relations for a government that had little regard for twentieth century ideas of human rights and democracy.
Of course, if he WERE to speak out, he’d have been persecuted or removed from the position he was in, where he was able to do good for the common man. Oskar Schindler had the same problem. To do the good he did, he had to schmooze with those he hated.
Thanks Phil. noted. Your assertion is all correct – without looking at the 5000-year history of China and the values that are not necessarily understood by those who don’t know them. Roman was not built overnight. Mao is remembered in China as a great leader who helped build a Republic of China among the rubber of a corrupt feudal society where top 3 priviledged owned 100% of the land and wealth. Tolerance and mutual understanding mean that we all need to at least try to understand from the perspective of “the others”. As to Rewi and his take on the Cultural Revolution, if you read the books on him or by him, you will know him more on this. For example, he once told his Kiwi guests, in his usual humourous manner, that he had “lost the best of two libraries, one to the Japanese and again to the Red Guards.”
He did so much for China and it is a shame that he isn’t recognised for it in New Zealand. I went to the school he founded in Lanzhou last year and that was where I began to really become aware of him. I even drove to Springfield as soon as i got back from my exchange to see how New Zealanders had remembered him.
Many years ago I met his then very elderly , very scholarly brother whom I think was at one time NZ’s National Librarian. There were young members of the Alley family around Wgtn. They seemed to be a very talented family..It would be interesting to know more about his parents.
I heard Rewi Alley speak in the 1950s and he was inspiring. Many working people at that time were aware of him and his background – he was certainly known and admired in my family. On a trip to China a few years ago I found his books of translated poems were on sale at the Shanghai museum. Most of the local Chinese that we were with knew of Rewi Alley as a great man. Reading his translations today prompted my checking the web – I wonder how available his books are in NZ.