Women's Work for Women: Missionaries and Social Change in Asia by Leslie A Flemming

Author:Leslie A Flemming [Flemming, Leslie A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, World, Asian, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780367213824
Google: qB-eDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 46180183
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

5

Not a Foreigner, but a Sensei—a Teacher: Nannie B. Gaines of Hiroshima

Dorothy Robins-Mowry

In the gold of a Japanese early October in 1887, with the orange of persimmons dotting the garden trees, Nannie Bett Gaines, age twenty-seven, arrived by a small, crowded Inland Sea boat in the old castle town of Hiroshima to take up the call from the Southern Methodist Board of Missions to teach in their newly developing girls' classes. She responded to her new home, prophetically, describing "the glorious dawn" as a "taste of heaven."1 By the next morning, she had begun teaching English to her class of some thirty women—wives of government, army, and professional men—and a few young girls.

During the next forty-five years of her life, Gaines pioneered in educational endeavors and missionary outreach to the girls and women of Hiroshima and its prefecture, and, ultimately, more widely throughout Japan and even Korea, Manchuria, and Formosa, An enthusiastic and natural teacher, with "understanding love for the individual girl,"2 her vision of service was the "winning of infant Japan"3 through Christian-inspired kindergarten work and training. She believed that in educating girls and women, she was reaching the heart of the family and the community.4

Gaines' base always remained Hiroshima—indeed it became her permanent home—and she never became, in the tradition of her church, an itinerating missionary. This unique concentration of place, over time, gave particular strength to her efforts. It enabled her to wield an influence and effect a development of ideas and practice possible only through such a long, steady and sustained impact. In the minds and hearts of her friends and supporters in the United States who donated to her work and projects, the names of Gaines and Hiroshima became intertwined, encouraging among them a response of familiar good will. For the people of Hiroshima, Gaines' enduring and single-minded dedication to their education and well-being made her one of them, as such continued residence is essential for true acceptance of any foreigner by the Japanese.

An episode recounted by her colleague, Margaret M. Cook, aptly illustrates Gaines' acceptance by the people of Hiroshima.

Where foreigners are rare, Japanese children call after them, "Seeyojin!" a term of great disrespect. One day a street urchin called after Miss Gaines, "Seeyojin! Seeyojin!" Immediately another little fellow shut him up, by shouting angrily, "Idiot, that's not a foreigner. It's Gaines Sensei!" [It's our respected teacher Gaines!]5

Gaines' mission found her in the late 1880s in an isolated and provincial town near the western end of Honshu, accessible to foreigners only by special passport. Framed by gentle mountains, Hiroshima faced the Inland Sea, resting astride the Oita River with its five-fingered delta. Originally a fishing village, its excellent harbor also served as a military and naval staging area, with mention in Japanese records going back to the second and third centuries when the great Empress Jingo paused here to provision her fleet as it set sail to invade Korea. It serviced the Japanese fleets in the turn-of-the-century wars with China and Russia, as also in both World Wars.

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