The Silent Traveller in Boston

Chiang Yee was a Chinese scholar, poet, painter and calligrapher, who taught Chinese first in England, and later in the United States. Over a period of about four decades, he wrote the "Silent Traveller" series, describing his travels in various countries and cities around the world.

The Silent Traveller in Boston was published in 1959, but Yee's descriptions of the important landmarks of Cambridge and Boston are still relevant. I was glad that I had read of his visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, though I envied him his invitation to dine there!

It was most interesting to read Yee's comparisons of American and Chinese ideas and customs, as when he contrasts the New (and Old) England concept of witches with the Chinese. (At the end of the book, he comments on the McCarthy-ite "witch" hunts earlier in the '50s, and notes that Joseph Welch was a Bostonian and that "[t]he Boston spirit of love of universal liberty had acted again."

Yee has the artist's eye for detail, and he continually surprises by what he notices and the relationships that he sees. He has an intense curiosity and desire to learn all about the places that he visits, and we are fortunate that he shares his what he learns, and, more so, what he thinks, with us. The books are greatly enhanced by Yee's illustrations, both full page color pictures and black-and-white drawings, as well as poems which are given in both English and Chinese.

If you are visiting a city which Yee included in his "Silent Traveller" series, I would strongly recommend that you find a copy of his book and read it before you go.