The Making of Bible Women in the Fujian Zenana Mission from the 1880s to the 1950s

This chapter explores women missionaries from the Church of England Zenana Mission Society and their Bible women in Fujian. It focuses on the intercultural exchange between these two groups of women from entirely different backgrounds from the 1880s to the 1950s, with an aim to address Chinese experience from a transnational perspective. It shows that Bible women were central figures in a process of proselytizing local women and were formed mainly through a series of intercultural communications with their Western mission workers. The author argues that Bible women were the combined historic product of a particular Chinese historical and cultural context and a worldwide evangelical workforce by Western women, developed through transnational interactions and nurtured in a relationship of sisterhood and friendship.