By Rui Hu, EDITOR
The People’s Government of Chongqing Bishan District and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) held a ceremony for awarding Ms. Isabel Crook as Honorary Citizen of Bishan District, Chongqing on July 30. Ms. Isabel Crook, 104 years old, is a Canadian scholar and a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. In the 1940s, she has conducted a field investigation in Bishan and then published a memoir. She is also the 3rd honorary citizen in Bishan District after Mr. Zhuang Nu (birth name Wang Jingxi) and Mr. Zuo Hongyuan (pen name Gu Yue).
Ms. Isabel Crook (2nd right) as an Honorary Citizen of Bishan District, Chongqing
Born in Chengdu in 1915, Ms. Crook returned to China and started her social investigation there in the 1930s. She was invited to a rural construction project in Xinglong Town, Bishan District in the 1940s. Later, she published two works titled Prosperity’s Predicament: Wartime Rural Sichuan as Seen by Isabel Crook and Yu Xiji and Prosperity’s Predicament: Identity, Reform, and Resistance in Rural Wartime China (1940-1941).
Film of Isabel Crook`s story
According to Mr. Xu Jianzhong, the editor-in-chief of FLTRP, these books were sourced from detailed investigation and surveys by Ms. Crook and her fellows into each family in Xinglongchang (literally "prosperity"). They contain comprehensive and objective records with a large number of live cases about local history, politics, economy, marriage, women, lawsuits, folk religion, etc.
Ms. Isabel Crook has forged a close friendship with Bishan for 80 years since 1940, said Mr. Qin Wenmin, District Mayor of Bishan. “She has always been concerned about the development of the District. From 1981 to 2004, Crook has returned to Bishan six times not only for survey works but also for her friends there. At that time, she initiated an Isabel-Christina Education Fund for poor students in Bishan. To reciprocate her kindness, the People’s Government of Chongqing Bishan District decided to grant Professor Crook an Honorary Citizen of Bishan District, Chongqing Municipality. It is a reward for Professor Isabel Crook’s selfless contribution to the local people, as well as a proof for the friendship between Canada and China”, indicated Qin.
Source: Chongqing Daily
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