George Leslie Mackay


George Leslie Mackay or Má-kai was the first Presbyterian missionary to northern Taiwan. He served with the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. Mackay is among the best known Westerners to have lived in Taiwan.

Early life

Mackay was born in Embro, Zorra Township, Oxford County, Canada West, Canada. He received his theological training at Knox College in Toronto, Princeton Seminary in the United States, and New College, Edinburgh in Scotland, all Presbyterian institutions.

Mission to Taiwan

In 1871 Mackay became the first foreign missionary to be commissioned by the Canada Presbyterian Church, arriving in Taiwan on New Year's Eve, 31 December 1871.
After consulting with Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell Sr., a medical doctor serving as a Presbyterian Church of England missionary to southern Formosa, Mackay arrived at Tamsui, northern Formosa in 1872, which remained his home until his death in 1901. Starting with an itinerant dentistry practice amongst the lowland aborigines, he later established churches, schools and a hospital practicing Western biomedicine.
Mackay learned to speak vernacular Taiwanese fluently and married "Minnie" Tiu, a native Taiwanese woman. The marriage produced three children:
Mackay was described by Rev. William Campbell, a contemporary missionary, as
Mackey evangelised and planted a church in Tamsui. He went on to launch more churches, including what is today the Lanyang Presbyterian Church in Yilan County, Taiwan. Churches planted in north Taiwan by Mackay later became part of the Northern Synod of the present Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.
In 1896, after the 1895 establishment of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, Mackay met with the Japanese Governor-General of Formosa, Maresuke Nogi. Some families in Taiwan today, particularly of lowland-aboriginal Kavalan ancestry, trace their surname '偕' to their family's conversion to Christianity by Mackay.
In Canada Mackay was honoured during his two furloughs home by the Canadian Church. In 1880, Queen's College in Kingston, Ontario awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity, presented by Principal George Monro Grant and Chancellor Sandford Fleming. Before departing in 1881, he returned to Oxford County, where monies were raised to start Oxford College in Taiwan, which would be the basis for two later educational institutions, Aletheia University and Taiwan Seminary. A number of young people in the county were inspired to follow Mackay's example and entered into missionary service with a number of Christian denominations.
at Tamsui.
In June 1894, at the General Assembly meeting in St. John, New Brunswick, Mackay was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the highest elected position in the church. He spent the following Moderatoral year travelling across Canada, as well as writing From Far Formosa: the island, its people and missions, a missionary ethnography and memoir of his missionary experiences.
In 1894 he spoke out against the head tax imposed on Chinese immigrants to Canada. As moderator of the Presbyterian church, he broke precedent to speak in favor of a resolution opposing this tax, saying it was unjust and racist.
Although Mackay suffered from meningitis and malaria in his lifetime, he would die of throat cancer on 2 June 1901 in Tamsui. He was interred in Tamsui, Taiwan, in a small cemetery in the eastern corner of the Tamkang Middle School campus. His son was interred adjacent to him.

Legacy

In Taiwan's modern democratic period Mackay's life has been celebrated by advocates of a distinctive Taiwanese identity and historical understanding separate from colonial narratives brought by Japan and China. The system of phonetic romanisation he and his collaborators developed for writing Taiwan's Hokkien language is still in use.
Mackay's From Far Formosa is considered an important early missionary ethnography of Taiwan. It provides a valuable source document for understanding the culture and customs of the people of Taiwan during Mackay's lifetime.
Mackay was as fascinated by the cultures and habitat he found in Taiwan as he was hostile to anything he regarded as idolatry. Mackay spoke approvingly, for example, of his converts' destruction of religious objects they had previously held sacred. Of his rustic apartment in an aboriginal village, Mackay wrote:
Yet beyond matters of religion Mackay proved an enthusiastic collector of artefacts and specimens of flora and fauna. Many items collected by Mackay are today housed at the Royal Ontario Museum and the Aletheia University Museum. James Rohrer, missionary historian, states that Mackay, "allowed himself to truly encounter and to be transformed by the people he sought to serve."

Community

Mackay's Oxford College is today known as Aletheia University. The major private Christian hospital in downtown Taipei is named Mackay Memorial Hospital, built in 1912 to replace the smaller Mackay Hospital he started in Tamsui in 1882. Many artefacts collected by Mackay today form part of the collections at the Royal Ontario Museum and Aletheia University.

Visual Art and Media

On 30 June 2004, a large bust statue of George Leslie Mackay was dedicated outside the Oxford County offices in Woodstock, Ontario. The delegation from Taiwan in attendance included representatives from the Aletheia University and the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. The event was also attended by representatives of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the United Church of Canada, local, regional, and national Canadian dignitaries, and a number of Mackay descendants from across North America. One of his grandchildren is Dr. John Ross Mackay.
In November 2006, a Canadian Television documentary was aired titled The Black Bearded Barbarian of Taiwan. It was broadcast in both Mandarin and English on OMNI 2 as part of their Signature Series.

Performance Art

Opera

Composer Gordon S.W. Chin and librettist Joyce Chiou set out in 2002 to create an opera whose subject was drawn from Taiwan's history. In 2008 Taiwan's government invested in the project: the world's first-ever Taiwanese grand opera, Mackay: The Black-Bearded Bible Man. Chin's opera drew inspiration from the events of the missionary's life and took more than five years to produce. Over a hundred singers and production crew were engaged for the project from Europe, Asia, and North America.
Mackay: The Black-Bearded Bible Man had its world premier on 27 November 2008 at Taiwan's National Theater and ran through 30 November. The large cast featured Thomas Meglioranza as George Mackay, Chen Mei-Lin as Mackay's wife Tiuⁿ Chhang-miâ, and Choi Seung-Jin as Giâm Chheng-hoâ, Mackay's first disciple and follower in Taiwan. Chien Wen-Pin, a native of Taipei, conducted the National Symphony Orchestra. Lukas Hemleb directed the stage production.

Musical Theatre

"Kai the Barbarian: the George Leslie Mackay Story", a musical theatre piece by William Butt, was performed March 21–31 at Thistle Theatre in Embro, Ontario, Canada. The stage director was Edward Daranyi and music director was Daniel Van Winden. Embro, hometown of the author, is located in Zorra Township where George Mackay was born and raised. Cast and crew consisted of local volunteers working alongside professionals from Stratford, Ontario.

George William Mackay

George William Mackay was a Canadian missionary in Taiwan, son of George Leslie Mackay, and father of J. Ross Mackay. Mackay's Chinese name is 偕叡廉; it is from his father's first name 偕.
He was born in Tamsui, Taiwan and grew up there until 13. He then returned to Toronto with his father. He graduated from Clark University with a Master's degree in Education Management. In 1948 he received an honorary doctorate in theology from Knox College.
He served as President of the Tamkang Junior High School, which he subsequently merged with Tamsui Girls School. After his father's death, he changed Tamsui Girls School from a junior high school to a kindergarten.

Mackay may have died in Canada or possibly in Taiwan, where he may have been buried in Tamsui at the Mackay family's tomb next to Tamkang Junior High. The tomb may have since been removed.
Memorials include: