Heroes #2: Gladys Aylward

Does anyone now even remember Gladys Aylward, I wonder? 

During my childhood, she was quite a famous lady, they even made a movie about her. Because of what she did, I'd even hoped some of my Chinese friends might have heard of her but they hadn't, which I find sad. In 1938, she had led 100 orphans out of Japanese-occupied China, over mountains, to safety, and yet she is now forgotten. Before that, she had worked to stop the practice of female foot-binding that was customary in the region and resulted in the painful tottering steps that were considered desirable back then.

She was born in London in 1902 and worked as a housemaid before finding herself wanting to become a missionary and go to China. Unfortunately, the China Inland Mission decided not to sponsor her, but she was determined to go and spent her life savings on a ticket to Yangchen in the shanxi Province. The journey itself was dangerous, and took her through Siberia, where she was detained by Russians and needed help from locals to get away from them. She ended up on a Japanese ship and had to make her way across Japan with the help of the British Consulate, and then - finally - catching a ship to China. The journey did nothing to defeat her enthusiasm for what she felt she was born to do.

When she got to China, she made contact with a missionary who was already there, Jeannie Lawson, at The Inn of the Eight Happinesses. It was a stopover point for travellers and often evenings were spent storytelling, and Jeannie and Gladys would use the moment to share stories about Jesus.

She loved China and its people, and became a Chinese national in 1936, and it seems was much loved and respected by the Chinese people back then. They called her "Ai-wai-de" which meant "Virtuous One". 

Her life was not easy but she persevered in many things. She was instrumental in ending the practice of footbinding in the local area, as the assistant to a foot inspector. The culture that prized the daintiness of small feet in women, binding them to break the bones and keep them tiny, was painful and disfiguring. The male inspectors had often received violent reactions from the villages they visited, yet she managed what they couldn't, somehow reaching the people and altering their views on the practice.

She did not shy away from danger, but was somehow led to intervene in a prison riot, where she calmed the rebellious inmates and soothed over the situation. She also offered shelter for many children, orphans found their way to her, and she gave them a home, and safety. 

I think I was 5 or 6 when I first saw the movie "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with Ingrid Bergman, about the life of Gladys Aylward. I read the book that the movie was based on, "The Small Woman" by Alan Burgess, when I was 7 or 8. The film had (as movies do) taken liberties with the story, and Gladys had apparently been upset by the addition of a supposed romance with a Japanese officer as she felt it portrayed her badly and she stated it didn't happen. There were other discrepancies, but the film was fairly well received and Gladys Aylward's name became quite famous, at the time.

The culmination of the movie was her trek, over the mountains, to get 100 children to safety, away from invading Japanese forces, which actually occurred in 1938. This would have been a miracle in itself, but was even moreso as she was actually wounded herself, making the journey even more arduous.

I have often wished somebody would have made a documentary and interviewed those children, in later years, and got their first-hand memories of that time and this amazing lady. Sadly, when I had tried to find names and survivors, a few years ago, I was unable to come up with anything.

Unfortunately, when the Communists began to take control in China, her life was in danger because they were looking for all the missionaries, and she ended up back in England in 1949. 

Later, after a brief stay in Hong Kong, she ended up moving to Taiwan in 1958. What is odd, is that I remember Taiwan being called Formosa, and yet apparently, it was only called that in the late 19th century, so I have no idea why I would think of it as that.

In Taiwan, she founded the Gladys Aylward Orphanage, and lived there until she died in 1970. She is buried in a small cemetery on the campus of Christ's College there. Her work lives on in Taipei though, as the orphanage is still active today, but renamed the Bethany Children's Home. I'm not sure why they needed to change the name. She being one of my heroes, I think it would have been "nice" to have left it and honoured her memory and all that she did, but I realise that half a century has passed since her death, so maybe they needed to make a "new" entity of the orphanage.

I still think of Gladys Aylward. It seems many of my heroes were people who didn't take "no" for an answer, who didn't let obstacles stand in their way, and who made their own destinies by striving ahead with what they believed they could do.

She showed the difference that one person could make, in the world. She was just a "nobody in particular" and yet look at what she achieved.