The Oriental Study Expedition was initiated and planned by ten Pomona College students from different majors and disciplines who desired to travel to Asia and explore the continent. The ten students were Sik Leong Tsui, Carroll Lorbeer, Robert Armacost, Relman Morin, Warren Scott, R. Stanton Avery, Bruce Smith, George Gambell, Donald Dreher, and Oliver Haskell. In early 1929, seven of the ten students were roommates and felt stifled in college, wishing to expand their horizons. Sik Leong Tsui who was Chinese and raised in Hawaii, wished to return to China and proposed they all put together their tuition money to spend a year traveling and studying in China. The other six roommates agreed and decided to raise funds to travel to China for a year-long voyage, enlisting three more expedition members. They pooled their income from their summer jobs, and garnered financial support from the Mudd and Scripps families. The students raised $9,000 for the voyage, with a total of $12,000 to travel and live abroad in China for a year.

In preparation for the expedition, the students created a charter with a budget, itinerary, and purpose. They stated the purpose of their journey was to "study oriental life, conditions, and problems in the field, especially in China; to bring into closer social and intellectual contacts students of the East and West and thus aid in the world-wide movement to exchange knowledge and understanding." Their project was intended to reciprocate the study-abroad programs that Chinese and Japanese students would take to study in America, while also being both academic and experiential. By R. Stanton Avery's account, the expedition was the first American student study group to spend a full year of travel and study in China. The group planned to live on Christian college campuses where they would be able to speak with others in English and circumvent language barriers.

The group departed on October 4, 1929 from San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. They first traveled to San Francisco where they stayed for a few days, and then set out to Honolulu, Hawaii, where they arrived on October 16 and stayed for two weeks. Here, they spent time with Sik Leong Tsui's family. From Honolulu, the group sailed to Tokyo, Japan where they stayed for another two weeks doing preliminary study before reaching China. They departed Japan from Yokohama to Canton where they stayed for approximately three months from November through January, 1930, studying at Lingnan University amongst Chinese students. They then moved north towards Shanghai as the weather warmed, reaching the city in February. They stayed at Shanghai Baptist College and would go out often to the city, awed by its social liveliness and political activity. During this time, they also made side trips to Hangchow, Soochow, and Nanking, staying in each of their respective universities. In mid-May, the group traveled to Beijing, studying and working at Yenching University. During this period, members of the group became involved working in the China Famine Relief Commission in the Jehol Province, experiencing first-hand starvation and poverty in China. In July, the group returned to Yenching University and started to organize once more to depart. First they went to Tientsin and stayed at Nanking University once more on the fifteenth of July, followed by an exploration of the Manchurian region starting with Mukden on the twentieth, and Harbin on July 22. From here, the group made their way south to Seoul, Korea, then kept moving south to Busan, from which they departed back to Japan. While in Japan, the group visited Kyoto, Tokyo, and Yokohama, leaving Yokohama's port to return back home to the United States in late August. Their shipped docked in San Francisco, and they finally reached Los Angeles in September, nearly a year from when they first set out.

A tally of their travels showed that during the first six months of their program, the group attended 37 conferences, 13 lectures, 5 athletic competitions, went on 30 educational tours and trips, took part in 23 programs in schools, had 75 social engagements and met over 1500 people in social situations. The group also witnessed poverty, starvation, banditry, political upheaval, and warzones during their travels. While intially shocked by these experiences, the group was profoundly influenced by the Expedition for the rest of their lives, having come back with an expanded worldview. R. Stanton Avery went on to found the Durfee Foundation later in life, which, from 1985-2000, funded the American/Chinese Adventure Capital Program, sending over 200 people from the LA region to China to pursue projects of personal interest and cross-cultural exchange, nurturing creative interactions between the two countries. The Archive for the Expedition was donated to the Claremont Colleges' Special Collections Department by Mr. Avery in 1989.

Sources:

Avery, R. Stanton. R. Stanton Avery: Oral History Interview. Interview by Enid Hart Douglass and Arthur L. Rosenbaum. 18, 25 April and 10 July 1989. Oriental Study Expedition Oral History Project, Claremont Graduate School. Transcript. Call no: XC14.Or7 A83.

Tindol, Robert. "Obituaries: R. Stanton Avery." Engineering and Science, 60, no. 4 (1997). https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechES:60.4.Obituaries.

Staff. "He Might Have Been Written by Horatio Alger." Engineering and Science, 39, no. 2 (January-February 1976). https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechES:39.2.StantonAvery.