Y. C. James Yen

Born to a scholarly but not wealthy family in Bazhong, Sichuan, in 1890. He is said to have reported that he was born in 1893, three years younger than his actual age, because of his short stature. At the age of 13, Yen was sent to West China Diocesan College (), Langzhong (Paoning) run by the China Inland Mission, and received baptism the next year. In 1906, he was transferred to an American Methodist Episcopal Mission school in Chengdu (Chengtu) at the college principal William Henry Aldis's suggestion, there he became friends with James R. Stewart, a young missionary from British Hong Kong and son of Robert Stewart. With Stewart's help, he enrolled at St. Paul's College, Hong Kong in 1913. Yen adopted the name James in memory of James R. Stewart after he died in 1916 in France during the First World War. In 1985 the Chinese government finally welcomed Yen back to China and acknowledged his immense contribution to Mass Education and Rural Reconstruction. He died in New York City in Jan 1990. == Legacy ==

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the New Rural Reconstruction Movement took up Yen's name and legacy to address the problems of the countryside created by the success of the globalized economy. In July 2003, grassroots activists founded the James Yen Institute for Rural Reconstruction in Dingzhou, the site of the MEM's activities before the war. Yen's charismatic speaking style and forceful personality made him attractive to many groups in China as well as many foreign friends. The China-raised American author Pearl S. Buck published a short book of interviews with Yen, Tell The People; Talks With James Yen About the Mass Education Movement (New York: John Day, 1945). John Hersey, whose father was a missionary in China who worked with Yen in the 1920s, wrote a novel The Call (New York: Knopf, 1984), which includes an only slightly fictionalized portrait of Yen under the name "Johnny Wu." ==Works==

• • • Translated as: • . == See also ==