You’ve probably seen the movie. Or maybe you heard the story in Sunday school. Ingrid Bergman, looking radiant in 1950s makeup, leads a line of singing children over the mountains of China. It’s cinematic. It’s sweeping. It’s also, quite honestly, a bit of a mess compared to what actually happened. Inn of the Sixth Happiness is one of those rare cases where the Hollywood adaptation is actually less dramatic than the gritty, painful reality of the woman who inspired it.
Gladys Aylward wasn’t a tall, glamorous Swedish actress. She was a tiny, five-foot-tall British domestic helper with a cockney accent and a stubbornness that bordered on the delusional. She didn't have a sweeping romance with a colonel. She had a bowl of rice and a terrifying mission.
The Real Story Behind the Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Hollywood renamed it. In real life, it was the Inn of the Eight Happinesses. Why the change? Who knows. Maybe the producers thought eight was too many for an American audience to track. In Chinese culture, the number eight is incredibly lucky, but the film settled on six.
The inn itself wasn't just a hotel. It was a tactical maneuver. Gladys and the elderly missionary Jeannie Lawson set up shop in Yangcheng, a remote mountain town, specifically because it was a popular stop for mule caravans. They didn't just offer a bed. They offered stories.
They figured out that if they fed the mules, the men would follow. Once the men were inside, they’d get a free meal and a story from the Bible. It was basic marketing. It was also dangerous.
Why the Movie Frustrated the Real Gladys
Gladys Aylward hated the film. Like, really hated it. She was reportedly embarrassed by the romantic subplot involving the character Captain Lin Nan. In the 1958 film, the romance is the emotional anchor. In reality, Gladys felt it undermined her work and her faith.
She also hated that they filmed it in North Wales. While the Welsh mountains are beautiful, they don't exactly capture the suffocating heat and dust of the Shanxi province.
The Foot-Binding Inspector
One of the wildest parts of the Inn of the Sixth Happiness narrative that people often think is "movie magic" is actually the most factual. The Mandarin of Yangcheng really did appoint Gladys as the official foot-binding inspector.
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This was a massive deal.
The government had outlawed the ancient practice of binding women's feet, but in the rural mountains, nobody cared what the government said. They needed someone who could travel, someone who had "big feet" (as Gladys did, being European), and someone who couldn't be easily intimidated by local patriarchs.
She went from being a "foreign devil" to a government official. This gave her the authority to travel deep into the countryside, where she eventually began her work of rescuing children and intervening in local disputes.
That Impossible Trek Over the Mountains
The climax of the film—the 100 children—actually happened. But it wasn't a musical montage. It was a 27-day nightmare through war-torn territory.
The Japanese army was advancing. Yangcheng was no longer safe. Gladys took roughly 100 orphans and headed for the Yellow River.
- They had almost no food.
- They slept on the ground in the cold.
- Gladys was suffering from internal injuries and a literal bullet wound she’d received earlier.
- The kids were as young as four.
When they finally reached the Yellow River, they found all the boats had been seized to keep the Japanese from crossing. The movie makes this look like a moment of divine intervention where they just cross and everything is fine. In reality, it was days of hiding in the reeds, terrified, before they finally secured passage.
By the time she reached safety in Xi'an, Gladys was delirious with typhus and pneumonia. She collapsed. She had literally given everything she had to those children.
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Cultural Friction and the Problem with Casting
We have to talk about the "Yellowface" in the film. It’s uncomfortable to watch now. Robert Donat, a legendary British actor, played the Mandarin. They used heavy makeup to make him look East Asian. This was standard for 1950s Hollywood, but it creates a weird barrier for modern viewers trying to appreciate the story of the Inn of the Sixth Happiness.
It’s ironic because the real Gladys Aylward spent her whole life trying to become Chinese. She took Chinese citizenship—the first British subject to do so. She dressed in local clothes. She spoke the local dialect fluently.
The movie turns her into a Western savior figure, whereas the real story is about a woman who abandoned her Western identity to serve a community that initially wanted nothing to do with her.
The Six Happinesses vs. The Eight
What were the actual "Happinesses"? In the movie, they are listed as things like Virtue and Long Life. In the real Inn of the Eight Happinesses, the name was drawn from a local concept of joy.
- Love
- Virtue
- Gentleness
- Tolerance
- Loyalty
- Truth
- (And two others that vary by translation, often cited as Piety and Peace)
The film’s reduction to "six" was likely just for better title rhythm. "Sixth Happiness" sounds more poetic in English than "Eighth Happiness."
Why We Still Talk About This Story
The legacy of the Inn of the Sixth Happiness persists because it's a "nobody" story. Gladys wasn't educated. She was turned down by missionary boards because they thought she wasn't smart enough to learn the language. She saved up her own money working as a housemaid to buy a one-way train ticket on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
She traveled through Russia during a time of intense conflict, almost got detained as a laborer, and eventually made it to China with nothing but a suitcase and a fur rug.
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It’s a story about the power of being incredibly annoying. Gladys was so persistent that people eventually just gave in. The Mandarin gave in. The children followed. Even the Japanese soldiers couldn't stop her trek.
What You Can Learn from the Real Gladys Aylward
If you're looking for the "actionable" takeaway from this piece of history, it's not about moving to China or opening an inn.
It's about the Aylward Method of problem-solving:
- Don't wait for permission. The missionary board said no. She went anyway.
- Use what you have. She didn't have a school; she had an inn for mule drivers.
- Adapt or die. She became a foot-binding inspector because it was the only way to get into the villages.
- Forget the credit. She was reportedly horrified by her fame later in life, even though it helped fund her later orphanage in Taiwan.
Practical Ways to Engage with This History Today
If you want to go deeper than the Ingrid Bergman film, you shouldn't start with the movie. You should start with the books that actually interviewed Gladys or used her journals.
- Read "The Small Woman" by Alan Burgess. This is the book the movie was based on. It’s much more grounded in reality, though still written with a 1950s biographical flair.
- Look up the Gladys Aylward Charitable Trust. They still exist and continue the kind of work she started.
- Watch the documentary "Gladys Aylward: The Small Woman with a Great God." It uses actual footage and photos of the real Gladys, which provides a stark contrast to the Hollywood version.
- Visit the London Missionary Society archives. If you're a real history nerd, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London holds records related to her work.
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a great piece of classic cinema. It’s got a beautiful score and a powerhouse performance by Bergman. But the real story of the five-foot-tall cockney maid who walked 100 kids over a mountain range while suffering from a bullet wound is the one that actually deserves the "legendary" status.
Stop thinking of it as a romance. Start thinking of it as a survival story. The real "sixth happiness" (or eighth) wasn't a kiss at the end of a movie—it was the fact that all 100 children made it across the river alive.
To truly understand the impact of this history, compare the film's ending with the historical accounts of Gladys's life in Taiwan after she was forced to leave mainland China. She didn't retire to a quiet life in England; she started over, proving that her commitment wasn't to a single place or a single inn, but to the people she had chosen as her own. Focus on the primary sources, specifically the Burgess biography, to see where Hollywood took liberties with the geography of the Shanxi province and the timeline of the Japanese invasion. This provides a much clearer picture of the logistical nightmare she overcame.