Chow Leung

Chow Leung was a Chinese author, educator, and missionary in the United States. He was the co-author of Chinese Fables and Folk Stories, which he wrote with Mary Hayes Davis. Born in China, he was a Baptist missionary in Chicago's Chinatown, where he started a Chinese language school for children in 1900, likely the first in the city.

Early life and education Chow Leung received a Confucian education in China. He converted to Christianity in San Francisco at a “street meeting”, and joined the American Baptist Home Mission Society. He succeeded Reverend Lee Tsai Leung. One of the stops on his visit was the Baptist Chinese Mission, hosted by Reverend Chow Leung. Known as the "rooftop garden act", the music drew crowds who stopped to listen. Between sets, Reverend Chow Leung and others would preach on the street in Chinese and English. In April 1907, Chow Leung addressed the largest gathering of native Chinese to have been assembled in Chicago, as the only ordained Chinese minister in the city. The interdenominational congregation gathered at Assembly Hall, where the Presbyterian minister Andrew Beattie, a former missionary in China, gave a sermon in Cantonese. Under Reverend Chow Leung, the Baptist Chinese Mission offered Chinese language classes on weekdays from four o'clock in the afternoon, and in the evenings. In the preface of the book, Davis called him "an invaluable collaborator" with "an evident desire to serve his native land and have the lives of his people reflected truly." She thanked him for his "patient courtesy" and wrote that "he has given much time to explaining obscure points and answering questions innumerable."

First published in 1908, Chinese Fables and Folk Stories was well received by American educators and by major newspapers nationwide. By 1911, it was used extensively as a supplemental reader in Chicago public schools. The book continues to be widely reprinted today.