Stone, Julia
Chinese Basket Babies

A German Missionary Foundling Home and the Girls It Raised (1850s-1914).

A study of a home intended to rescue foundlings (unwanted infants abandoned by their parents, almost all baby girls), started by one of the earliest German Protestant women’s missionary associations in the early 1850s in Hong Kong. It was a bold missionary experiment in social engineering to create ideal Chinese Christian women. Female infanticide and child abandonment were key factors in the mushrooming of foundling homes, both missionary-run and indigenous, in China from the mid-19th century. Julia Stone analyses the complex relationship between the two social phenomena, thereby deepening understanding of the development of child welfare provision in China. She concentrates on the children and their lives. This is a study of European "mothers" and Chinese "daughters", detailing their everyday interactions and analysing cross-cultural transfers. Reconstructed biographies uncover their lives after arranged marriages to Christians. Many pioneered new roles for women in southern Guangdong province. XXXIII,237 Seiten mit 21 Abb., broschiert (opera sinologica; Band 26/Harrassowitz Verlag 2013)