The Foreign Service Journal, April 2014

42 APRIL 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL appreciation for his contributions to the understanding of Chinese language and culture in the West. Family Ties Giles’ family was closely linked to China; when his first wife died, she was buried there. His second son, Lionel Giles, a notable Sinolo- gist in his own right, translated The Art of War and was the keeper of Oriental printed materials and books at the British Museum. There he cataloged the famous Dunghuang Scroll, brought to Britain by Sir Ariel Stein. Two other sons, Bertram and Lancelot, served as diplomats in China in the early 1900s; Lancelot witnessed the Boxer Rebellion and the siege of the foreign legations in Peking. All three assisted Giles with his publications. The fourth son, Valentine Giles, served as a colonel in the British Royal Engineers and participated in Francis Young- husband’s 1904 Tibetan expedi- tion. Giles’ grandson, Austin Giles, worked in the Shanghai Hong Kong Bank in Manchuria and was also stationed with the British military in Chongqing in the 1930s. Giles shared Chinese studies with his grandchildren, as well, by introducing them to stories and poems in traditional Chinese culture. The strength of Giles’ love affair with China sustained him for a productive life’s work, until the age of 90. A century ago, Giles prophetically declared that “the interest in China and in her certainly four thousand years of civilization … will no doubt quicken some day in the future.” For all these reasons, the life and work of Herbert Allen Giles offer insights for many Foreign Service members—partic- ularly those who embark on the same linguistic journey Giles undertook as a young diplomat. n The strength of Giles’ love affair with China sustained him for a productive life’s work, until the age of 90.