January 15, 1999

Profile: Ryan Dunch

Ryan Dunch in the flurry of marking exams

The prospect of emerging opportunities in foreign trade with China prompted Aussie Ryan Dunch to take his first degree in Chinese languages at the Australian National University. But as he pursued his master's degree studies at UBC (1989-91), a fascination with history took hold and his doctoral studies at Yale (1991-96) focused on modern Chinese history, specifically the Christian Chinese of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With his Canadian wife and their baby daughter, Dunch spent 1993-94 researching this subject in Fuzhou, a city of two million, capital of the province of Fujian in southeast China. City residents showed great interest in the Dunch family, often mobbing them on the street wishing to touch the baby.

Of his study of the Christian Chinese between 1895 and 1920, Dunch notes: "People had looked at this era from the point of view of the missionaries and from the point of view of those who detested the missionaries, but not from the point of view of those who themselves became Christians."

Dunch argues that, although relatively few in number, the Christian Chinese minority was a catalyst for new ideas about politics, citizenship, education and religion. "The period between 1895 and 1920 was a crucial period of change in Chinese society. It's the period when the empire and structures that held it in place disintegrated. The Confucius world view, the Chinese elite's understanding of social status - all fell apart, for both better and worse."

Chinese Christians were important in bringing about change, said Dunch. "I was able to show that several leading revolutionary figures were members of the church."

Dunch's current research is on the history of education in modern China, and Christianity in contemporary China after 1978. He also wants to do a biographical study of a Chinese Protestant, Huang Naishang (1849-1924) who, he says, "made quite an impact as, in turn, a pioneering journalist, classical scholar, leader of overseas Chinese emigration, politician, and revolutionary."

Folio front page

Office of Public Affairs

University of Alberta