Herbert Hoover and China

From China, Paul Simon replies to my questioning his assertion that Herbert Hoover spoke Mandarin;

"I'm looking for something more authoritative than the original story on Hoover speaking Mandarin--I had that from Dr. Howard Spendlow at Georgetown in a lecture to the Foreign Service Institute's China Area Studies Class in 1998, and also read it in the Washington Post. I wouldn't be too doubtful, however; Mandarin is not difficult to speak, if you have a musical bent at all (it's tonal). The grammar is simple (NO verb conjugations, no tenses) and resembles English. It's the reading and writing that are fiendish.

Did Hoover and his wife shoot Boxers? I sure wasn't there, and I mentioned that the matter seems in dispute among China history experts. If people bent on killing you were climbing the walls with guns and knives and you were grappling hand to hand, what would you do? I'm glad to NOT have to answer that one! The best recent book on the Boxer Rebellion (History in Three Parts) does not mention Hoover, so I'm inclined to your view that I doubt he actually ever fired any shots. Maybe he just stood guard duty in the tense times after the siege was lifted?

Why do we dislike being called "China hands?" Because it's an impossibility to be a "China Expert", and anyone claiming to be a China hand, almost certainly knows alarmingly little or they wouldn't make such a claim. A population of 1.3 billion, a 5,000 year history, a land bigger than the USA, 55 minority groups, dozens of languages, thousands of divinities, climates from subarctic to tropical, governments from imperial to communist, the art, calligraphy, architecture, literature, etc. Who could be an expert, even had he a dozen lifetimes. I've lived in China and Taiwan for years, speak Mandarin, have read hundreds of books, and still feel I've hardly scratched the surface. Every day I learn a new expression or custom, or law that I knew nothing about when I got up".

My comment: I question the expression "China hand" because it makes no more sense than China foot. I am not a Hoover hand, but I am reading a lot about him, currently George H. Nash, Herbert Hoover and Stanford University, but that deals with his love hate relationship with his alma mater, and contains no answers to the two questions discussed here. There is an enormous bibliography on Hoover, and I will see if I can find something. I would also appreciate any information from Hoover hands. After all, it is a simpler matter than China.

Ronald Hilton - 11/19/01