The China Society for People's Friendship Studies (PFS) in cooperation with the Foreign Languages Press (FLP) in Beijing has arranged for re-publication, in the series entitled Light on China, of some fifty books written in English between the 1860s and the founding years of the People's Republic, by journalistic and other sympathetic eyewitnesses of the revolutionary events described. Most of these books have long been out of print,but are now being brought back to life for the benefit of readers in China and abroad.

It is a great honor for me to write a preface for the new, PFS (China Society for People’s Friendship Studies) 50-book series under the general title of Light on China. All these books were written in English by journalistic and other eyewitnesses of the events described. I have read many of them over the seven decades since my student days at Yenching University. With some of the outstanding authors in this series I have ties of personal friendship, mutual regard, and warm memories dating from before the Chinese people’ s Liberation in 1949.

Looking back and forward, I am convinced that China is pursuing the right course in building a strong and prosperous country in a rapidly changing world with its complex and sometimes volatile developments.

The books in this series cover a span of some 150 years, from the mid 19th to the early 21st century. The numerous events in China,the sufferings and struggles of the Chinese people, their history and culture, and their dreams and aspirations were written by foreign observers animated by the spirit of friendship, equality and cooperation. Owing to copyright matters and other difficulties, not all eligible books have as yet been included.

The founder of the first Chinese republic, Dr. Sun Yat-sen wrote in his Testament in 1925, For forty years I have devoted myself to the cause of the people’s revolution with but one end in view: the elevation of China to a position of freedom and equality among the nations. My experiences during those forty years have convinced me that to attain this goal we must bring about an awakening of our own people and ally ourselves in common struggle with those people of the world who regard us as equals.

Chairman Mao Zedong declared, at the triumphal founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, The Chinese people have stood up. Today, having passed its 53rd anniversary, we see the vast forward strides that have been taken, and note that many more remain to be made.

         PART ONE: SHANGHAI

1. Arrivalin Shanghai, 1931

2. Ming at the Chocolate Shop

Excerpt from a Letter, August 30, 1931

3. Foreign Correspondent

Excerpts from Letters, October and November, 1931

4. My First War

Excerpt from a Letter, Winter 1932

5. Nowhere Else on Earth

Excerpt from a Letter, Spring 1932

6. The Shanghai Mind

Excerpt from a Letter, Summer 1932

7. When I Married Mr. Snow

          PART TWO: PEKING

8. Arrival in Peking, 1933

9. A Peking Courtyard

10. The Peking Mystique

11. Teilhard de Chardin

12. Dofia Quixote

13. Art, Literature, and Revolution

14. Year's End

15. Village Life in China

16. Fascism and Marxism

17. Peitaiho: Missionaries by theYellow Sea

18. Our Haunted House Near the Fox Tower

19. The December 9th Student Movement, 1935

20. Action 

21. James Bertram, Rhodes Scholar from New Zealand

22. Edgar Snow Goes to See the "Red Star Over China" ...

23. Interlude

24. My First Trip to the Northwest, 1936

25. Red Star Over China-Edgar Snow's Return,

October 1936

26. The Sian Incident, December 12, 1936

27. Anticlimax at Christmas

28. We Start a New Magazine Called democracy

         PART THREE: YENAN

29. Inside Red China--My Trip to Yenan, 1937

30. Sian

31. Conspiracy

32. A Narrow Escape

33. Arrival at the Red Front

34. A Room in the Old Walled City

35. Mao Tse-tung, Chu Teh, and Chou En-lai

36. Four Months in Yenan

37. Ten Days on the Road

38. Reunion in Sian

        PART FOUR: GUNG HO

39. Farewell to Peking

40. Gung Ho: We Start the Industrial Cooperatives

41. Hong Kong

42. ATime for Planting Mustard Seeds

43. Farewell toAsia

Epilogue

Glossary

Key to Pinyin Spelling