My father, Hu Chuan, was a scholar and a man of strong will and administrative ability. After a period of classical training in literature and history, he took great interest in the study of geography, especially in the geography of the frontier provinces. He went to Peking and, with a letter of introduction in his pocket, traveled 42 days to Kirin in Northern Manchuria to see the Imperial Commissioner, Wu Ta-chen, who is now known to European Sinologues as one of the greatest archaeologists in China.
Wu received him and asked what he could do for him. “Nothing,” said my father, “except let me follow your mission to settle the boundary dispute with Russia, so that I may study the geography of the northeastern provinces.” Wu was interested in this scholar who had taken only his first degree in the literary examinations and was almost penniless after the long journey outside the Great Wall. He took the young man with him on his historic mission and found him a most valuable and hard-working assistant.
One time my father’s party lost its way in an immense forest and could not get out for 3 days. Provisions were exhausted and all reconnoitering had failed when he suggested that a search be made for running streams, which would in all probability flow out of the forest. A stream was found and the party followed its course to safety. My father composed a long poem to celebrate this occasion. When 40 years later I used this incident as an illustration in a paper on Professor John Dewey’s theory of systematic thinking, several surviving acquaintances of my father still recognized this story, though I had not mentioned his name, and wrote to inquire if I was a younger son of their long-departed friend.
Although Wu Ta-chen had once recommended him to the government as “a man capable of governing provinces,” my father never achieved political prominence and, after becoming an officiain Kiangsu and Formosa, died at the age of 55 when Formosa was ceded to Japan as a result of the Sino-Japanese War.