This account was written for present and future Bahá'ís of the great
Chinese race so that they might know something of the beginnings of the Faith
in China.
During a speech in the London Congress, mentioned in the early part of this
record, Hand of the Cause Mr. A.Q. Faizi, indicated that we should never forget
the early believers, because we are "standing on their shoulders," that is, we
are standing on their service, standing on what they built.
As the Macau community was under the jurisdiction of the National Spiritual
Assembly of the Bahá'ís of North East Asia from 1957 until 1974 there was a variety of
material, letters, reports and some photographs in the National Bahá'í Archives
in Tokyo. Before that, from 1953 to 1957 the Macau community corresponded
directly with the Asia Teaching Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of
the Bahá'ís of the United States. Fortunately copies of some of the very early
correspondence turned up in Mr. Yim's papers in Macau.
As with writing the history of the Faith in Japan, the compiler talked to as
many Bahá'ís as she could find who knew about this subject. But there were not
many, and sometimes there were great discrepancies between an individual's
memories of events and events as they were recorded at the time. In such cases
we relied on written records when they were available.
The compiler, who was a member of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá'ís North East Asia, made use of all material she came upon, not only in
Japan, but also in Macau and Hong Kong. The research for this account was taken
from primary research sources. As it is a "first", so to speak, for Macau,
great attention was paid to detail; the compiler felt that more was better than
less. One might wonder at the attempt to record such details as a chronological
list of early believers. Often the span of their activities was extremely short
and soon they disappeared. We are reminded of a phrase of Bahá'u'lláh, "The
whole duty of man in this Day is to attain that share of the flood of grace
which God poureth forth for him. Let none, therefore, consider the largeness or
smallness of the receptacle. The portion of some might lie in the palm of a
man's hand, the portion of others might fill a cup, and of others even a
gallon-measure." (from Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh)
67
If some of the early believers had only a palmful to receive -- or to
give -- still we must honor them, as the Faith, seemingly so small and
insignificant in those early days, needed their bit. Who is to say that when
the Faith shines with full glory in ages to come those bits may not equal
oceans?
The Chinese names posed problems for the compiler. Often the Chinese Bahá'ís
when speaking or writing in English preferred to use English first names that
they had selected, to go with simplified phonetic surnames (or family names).
And sometimes the Chinese names had two or three different transliterations or
different ways of writing. We have tried to include as much information as
possible regarding Chinese names. For some of the names we could find the
original Chinese characters which we have included in an end chapter.
Mrs. Mary Shia was not the first Chinese woman to become a Bahá'í. There were
others, though not many. But she was the first in Macau and the first woman of
Chinese background to become an active Bahá'í in Hong Kong.
Mr. Anthony Seto (1890 -- 1957), who was born in Hawaii of Chinese parents was
the first Chinese-American Bahá'í. He and his wife became Bahá'ís in the fall
of 1916 in Hawaii. About May 1916 a mainland Chinese, Mr. Chen Hai An, who was
studying in the United States, apparently became a Bahá'í. He eventually
returned to Shanghai, China and there is no record of him after that.
Chapter 13 
