It was a very unique way of celebrating Christmas. Instead of wise men arriving on camels, we had pastors dressed as wisemen,arriving in a motor launch. The carollers would also be dressed in white robes like angels.
One of our favourite carol was Star of Ice,Wheel of Moonlight Bright. We never knew actually the man who wrote the hymn worked in China, and his son worked in Bukit Lan for a few years.
The Wiants worked in Bukit Lan Agricultural Centre run by the Methodist Church of Sarawak in the 1960's.
Leighton Waint was the son of Rev Bliss Wiant and Midred Wiant and was born in Beijing in 1927.
The Wiants speak good Mandarin, besides reading and writing Chinese.
There was anoither connection unknown to us, and we found out on much later. Rev Bliss Wiant, was a music professor at the Yenching University where my father studied. He taught there from 1923 until 1951. My father graduated in 1937.
Under his direction, Yenching students learned to perform Handel's Messiah and other major choral works with considerable distinction. Like Bartok in Hungary, he started to collect and notate Chinese melodies, asking students to sing songs from their home regions and listening to the songs of peddlers on the streets of Peking. With deep respect towards Chinese traditional music he also composed melodies for indigenous hymns in order to bring the Christian message to the Chinese people. A collection of these original hymns were included by Wiant in 1937 in "Hymns of Universal Praise" which is still in use today.
In memory of Christmas eve 1933, this song Ming Yue Han Xing. (Stars Of Ice, Wheel Of Moonlight Bright)was composed on the words of a poem "Stars of Ice, Wheel of Moonlight Bright" written by Wiant's student T'ien Ching-fu who also participated the yearly Christmas caroling introduced to the campus by Wiant.
"The air was as clear as a crystal, there was snow on the ground and ice on the trees" wrote Bliss Wiant in his memoirs, reminiscing about the only Christmas eve with a full moon in the 20th century. In Chinese, a full moon is called a 'wheel', hence the reference in the opening line of the song. By listening to and studying Chinese classical music, I have tried to capture the atmosphere of that special night through the orche
It is amazing that the new generation of the Foochows in Sibu continue to enjoy this Christmas carol today.
2 comments:
In 1967, I was on a one-month leave from my Peace Corp assignment in The Philippines. I had the opportunity (thanks to Doug Pickett) to visit Leighton Wiant and his family at their home in Sarawak, and remained with them for about four days. I have a photo of the Wiant family from that time. I consider my visit with them another significant part of my "after-university" education.
I hope that this message reaches any of the people I met back then in Sarawak.
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