A China-U.S. co-production documentary "Dear Kuliang" premiered at the second Maritime Silk Road Documentary Film Festival held in Fujian Province, depicting the journey of how a missionary's descendants searched for their family stories in Fuzhou.
The film festival took place on March 14, when a total of 24 China-foreign co-produced documentaries were presented.
The documentary "Dear Kuliang" follows the journey of the Carleton family's descendants in search of their roots in China. It captures a contemporary chapter of cross-cultural connections as young people from China and the U.S. come together to visit historical sites in Kuliang, also known as Drum Mountain, or Guling in Mandarin, and carry forward their enduring friendship.
The film's historical backdrop is set in Kuliang, Fuzhou, a place known for its unique blend of Chinese and Western influences. In the mid-19th century, Fuzhou, one of China's earliest trading ports, attracted foreign missionaries, businessmen, and diplomats. Due to its favorable climate, Kuliang became a popular summer retreat for expatriates. By 1935, the area had developed into a well-established international community with numerous houses, churches, hospitals, and post offices.
"Dear Kuliang" unfolds through the history of the Carleton family, centering on Holly Bradsher, a descendant who was inspired by her grandmother's stories about Dr. Mary Carleton and Mary Sing-Gieu Carleton. Determined to explore her family's past, Holly traveled to China alone, where she unexpectedly met Zhou Tianyi, a Chinese girl. Together, they retraced the Carleton family's footsteps in the historic Kuliang resort area in Fuzhou.
According to Fujian Daily and Fuzhou Architecture Heritage, in 1887, Mary Carleton, a recent graduate of the College of Medicine at Syracuse University, was sent by the Methodist Episcopal Church to China, where she served for many years at the Magaw Memorial Hospital in Fuzhou, the predecessor of Fujian Medical University Union Hospital. On one occasion, she accompanied the elderly Dr. Nathan Sites, a 19th-century Methodist Episcopal missionary, on a preaching trip to Minqing (formerlly known as Mintsing) County, where they were soon besieged by over a thousand people in urgent need of medical attention. Shocked by the severe lack of healthcare and medicine in the county, Dr. Carleton resolved to dedicate her life to medical service. She left her position in Fuzhou and relocated to Minqing, where she rented a few primitive rooms to establish a clinic, marking the beginning of her mission in the region.
According to the Research on the Methodist Episcopal Church in Minqing (1864-1949), Dr. Carleton initially worked with just one assistant, a female preacher surnamed Mao, treating approximately 2,000 patients annually. Under her dedicated management, the clinic secured funding from the Methodist church in Fuzhou and received donations from local supporters. In 1897, she initiated the construction of a clinic in Bandong Village. The following year, the facility expanded to include various departments, such as male and female wards, a pediatric ward, and an outpatient clinic. Her successor, Dr. Ruth V. Hemenway, also from the United States, later wrote in her memoir, Ruth V. Hemenway, M.D: A Memoir of Revolutionary China, 1924-1941: "Sick people rode into our hospital in chairs from all over our county, and from other counties as well… Some, who could afford neither chair nor boat, rode through our gate on the shoulders of strong relatives. Others struggled along on their own feet. Some came moaning, others stoically silent; but all came hoping for relief, and most of them found it."
In 1925, a two-story residence for doctors, initiated by Dr. Carleton, remained unfinished as she had to return to the United States for medical treatment. Dr. Hemenway recorded the farewell: "Gifts had been presented, ranging from eggs and chickens to scrolls inscribed with words of appreciation and respect, or scrolls of famous paintings. Old ladies who had been her patients and friends for thirty years visited… In Mintsing her life had meaning, and she had friends."
From 1924 to 1925, Dr. Carleton guided Dr. Hemenway through every aspect of the hospital's operations, ensuring a smooth transition. Reflecting on this time, Hemenway wrote, "She was now old and ill, but had held on until a young doctor could come to take over. I was deeply touched by her frail condition and the thought of the many years she had labored here."
During her nearly three decades in Minqing, Kuliang remained one of the few places Dr. Carleton could find respite. While in Fuzhou, she purchased a house in Kuliang, as did many foreign residents seeking respite from the city's sweltering summers. Although the house no longer exists, a boundary stone inscribed with the Traditional Chinese characters "蘭界" (Lanjie) still marks its former site.
A book recording the history of the Methodist mission in Minqing includes an entry on "Doctor Lan" (Dr. Mary Carleton), which states, "Doctor Lan was an American. After thirty years of tireless dedication to healing the sick and wounded in Mei (Minqing), she has retired and returned to her homeland. Her footprints remain in the remote mountain areas, and in Mei, her name is known to all, even to the children. Though she is gone, her legacy endures. On April 18, 1927, she passed away peacefully, a smile on her face, at the age of sixty-nine. One cannot count the number of people in Minqing who sighed upon hearing the news, but one can only imagine how deeply they were moved."
Mary Sing-Gieu Carleton was born in Fuzhou on February 4, 1888. Her father, Zheng Qiliang, a close friend of Dr. Mary Carleton, passed away in 1887, and her mother died in a traffic accident in 1890. Orphaned at the age of two, Sing-Gieu was adopted by Dr. Carleton. She pursued her secondary education in the United States before attending Goucher College in Baltimore and Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned a master's degree.
After completing her studies, Sing-Gieu returned to Minqing to assist Dr. Carleton in her mission. Dr. Ruth V. Hemenway described her in her memoir: "She was a quiet young lady, a few years older than I, with gentle eyes and little wrinkles of humor around them. Her lips showed fine discipline and control; her conversation revealed straight, logical thinking, excellent judgment, and practical common sense… In spite of her Ph.D. degree, she was humble. I knew I had found a valuable and enduring friend."
In 1925, Sing-Gieu accompanied the ailing Dr. Carleton back to the United States and remained with her until her passing. She later returned to China and, in the fall of 1930, became the principal of Uk Ing Girls' School. Founded by the Woolston sisters in 1859, it was the first girls' boarding school established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in East Asia. It educated Hü King-eng, the first Chinese female doctor to study abroad.
Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China. In 1938, Sing-Gieu relocated all 112 students at school to Liudu, Minqing County, by boat, securing a new school building and arranging accommodations for both faculty and students. After Fuzhou was bombed and occupied by Japanese forces, she endured the hardships of war but was forced to resign as principal due to health complications. In 1945, she became a professor in the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at Fukien Christian University. Later, in 1949, she moved to the United States and settled in Boston. Remarkably, at 60, she enrolled at Syracuse University, her adoptive mother's alma mater, to pursue a doctorate from 1950 to 1951.
Today, these stories are preserved at the Kuliang Families Story Museum, which documents the histories of eight foreign families who lived in Kuliang. Through texts, photographs, rare artifacts, and recreated scenes, the museum honors figures such as Edward Lydston Bliss, Dr. Harold N. Brewster, Dr. Mary Carleton, Arthur William Billing, Harry R. Caldwell, James Bruce Eyestone, Lydia A. Trimble, and Donald MacInnis.
- Translated by Poppy Chan
