The Wise Traveller

Nora D.S. Robins is Collections Co-ordinator (Internal) of the
University of Calgary Libraries.

MacLean was born in Ontario in 1871, the daughter of Alexander MacLean
and Sarah Smith. In 1904, her father was appointed by the Laurier
government as Canada’s commercial agent to Japan. Margaret accompanied
her widowed father. The following year she set out alone on a four-week
trip to China. The Wise Traveller is her lively account of that trip.

Since her purpose in going to China was to see as much as possible of
Chinese life, she opted to stay with missionaries, believing that
through them she would have the best opportunity to meet the real China.
Undeterred by her inability to speak Chinese, Margaret travelled by
rickshaw, wheelbarrow, and sampan, touring temples, climbing pagodas,
shopping, dining, visiting, and narrowly escaping from riots in
Shanghai. MacLean was an open-minded and objective observer with a
strong interest in the position of women in Chinese society. She was
invited into Chinese homes, and her observations about Chinese women are
penetrating.

This account was originally published in 1906 as Chinese Ladies at
Home. It remains a colorful record of social conditions during the final
years of the Manchu Dynasty.

This edition is enhanced by the drawings of Elizabeth Stapells and by
the editors’ informative preface.