In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

After the tertianship was over, I went to Provincial Bith and applied to go to Ireland to learn English. He gave his permission. I intended to travel first to the Enghien College of Theology in Belgium. A Jesuit who had learned that I planned to go to Belgium approached me and told me that his aunt was returning to Belgium the following afternoon. Would I like a lift in her car? Naturally I accepted. The next day the aunt and her husband came to the Jesuit house to pick me up, thus saving me a lot of money. They were very friendly. They lived at Courtray, not far from Lille. It was a four-hour drive to their home, which was a very large house with an expansive garden. Later on they took me to the station and bought me a ticket, after which it took me about an hour to reach my objective. There I attended the ordination and celebration of my old friend Pierre Tritz. After leaving Enghien, I went to Bruges where I stayed at the Benedictine Monastery of Saint-André. Lu Zhengxiang (aka Lou Tseng-Tsiang 1871–1949) was there and I wanted to pay him a visit. Lu was a Shanghai native, who had originally been a Protestant. During the late Qing dynasty he had matriculated at the School of Foreign Languages in Shanghai and later joined the foreign ministry. He was sent to work at the Chinese embassy in Russia, where he married the niece of the Belgian ambassador and converted to Catholicism. He was clever and hard working, so the ambassador Xu Jingcheng promoted him in his career. Later on Xu was transferred back to Beijing where he got mixed up in the Boxer Rebellion, when an uprising with the slogan ‘Support the Qing and Destroy the Foreigners’ was combined with superstitious rumours of invincibility to swords and bullets that at first convinced the Empress Dowager Cixi that it could rid China of the foreigners. Xu recognised that the Boxers were talking rubbish and that they were a motley rabble only able to bring chaos to China. He wrote a memorandum to the court, but, in order to win 18 Learning English 106 The Memoirs of Jin Luxian favour with the Boxers, Cixi ordered him to be thrown out of the Meridian Gate of the Palace and beheaded. Lu Zhengxiang was promoted to be minister in Russia and after the 1911 Revolution was recalled to Beijing by Yuan Shikai to be minister for foreign affairs and also, for a short time, prime minister. Yuan Shikai’s ambition was to make himself emperor and so, when the Japanese militarists issued the ‘Twenty-One Demands’, hoping in vain to dominate China, Yuan gave in and ordered Lu to sign the treaty, which Lu regarded as the biggest mistake of his life. After WWI, Lu represented China at the victors’ conference at Versailles. The British, French and Americans gave the German treaty possessions in China to Japan, giving rise to fervent opposition in China and the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement. Lu and his fellow delegate V.K. Wellington Koo (1887–1985) refused to sign the treaty and returned to Shanghai by ship, where they were given a hero’s welcome. At this point Lu’s wife fell ill and wanted to return to Belgium, so Lu resigned his position as foreign minister. His wife went back to Belgium and the Beiyang government appointed him to be minister in Switzerland. Lu’s wife was gravely ill and constantly cried out in pain. Lu told her that if she were to return to the Lord, then he would enter a monastery. After hearing this, his wife calmed down and bore the agony without further complaint. They had no children of their own, just an adopted daughter, so after his wife had died and the funeral was dealt with, Lu set about keeping his promise. After careful thought he chose the Belgian Order of Benedictines, where he was welcomed by the abbot. On the appointed day his close friends accompanied him to Bruges, along with 14 trunks of baggage. The abbot protested at the sight of so many trunks, but Lu answered that 14 trunks was the minimum he took to each diplomatic posting. Lu took his vows and in 1935 was ordained priest by Archbishop Costantini. Wellington Koo attended the ceremony. On that occasion Lu asked the abbot if, instead of a separate dinner, his guests...

Share