On
June 18, 1911, Samuel Pollard wrote in his diary that to win respect from
the Chinese, he had to make some adjustments to his life. "On no account must
I do anything that may offend them," he continued, noting that many other
missionaries squandered their opportunities in China simply because they refused
to give up the kind of bearings characteristic of the British.
It
had been 23 years since the first Methodist missionary set foot in China.
He had succeeded in spreading the Gospel among the ethnic Miaos in some of
most poverty-stricken areas in the country, and in converting many of them
to Christianity. Meanwhile, Samuel Pollard himself became more and more "Chinese."
"He spoke several local languages," recalled Wu Shanyu, who as a child studied
at the Shimenkan Primary School set up by Samuel Pollard. "In particular,
he spoke fluent ethnic Miao. He was fond of children and he was everybody's
friend. When he came for the first time, we wore ethnic Miao costumes."
Soon
after he came, Samuel Pollard adapted local folkways. While walking along
a narrow mountain trail, for example, he would make way for any person he
chanced to meet and in following the local customs, he would say, in perfect
ethnic Miao language, "Brother, sorry to have caused you some inconvenience."
Samuel Pollard mastered the language in a short time, in part because the
dialect of his hometown, Cornwall, England, is similar to the ethnic Miao
language in pronunciation, with a few sounds exactly the same.
