CHINESE PROTESTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XL, Issue 9147, 1 November 1919, Page 8

CHINESE PROTESTS.

FILM MISREPRESENTATIONS

Chinese are no longer content to have without protest their countrymen and 'customs misrepresented hjr cinema or otherwise. China' has usually boon regarded by sensational' novelists as a happy hunting-ground) j for horrors, and no acknowledgment i made of its natural' peaceful and industrial people, or quoted tho benevolence of its rich men and its ancient philanthropy. A film was recently exhibited in New York picture houwes which gave great offence to Chinese there, some of them men of importance in the commercial and financial .•world.' Then a protest was made through the "New York Times" by Messrs O. K. Chang, S. C. Kiang, and Ta Chen, Washington. They pointed out that "of late there soems to be an organised and broadcast propaganda in this country calculated to incite tho ill feelings between tho American people and the Chinese. The so-called /underground . China towns' are.being exhibited in public parks, in. •■many ». city', grossly .misrepresenting Chinese life, customs, and. "manners; and most-'of the motion pictures', •concerning the Chinese greatly mislead the public by portraying false stories and showing * fictitious customs and manners which, are as ridiculous to the Chinese as to the Americans.

"Take, for example, the 'Red.Lantern, ''which is now being shown in many theatres. We (S. C. Kiang being an eye-witness of the Boxer uprising in Pekin) happened to see this widelyadvertised 'motion , picture success of Nazimova.' It is to our great surprise that the 'Red Lantern'—especially the theme of the story—is not only a fiction, but a most wicked^'misrepresentation of a Chinese patriotic, though ill-directed' movement. As „well-inf-ormed Americans know, the cause of the Boxer uprising of 1900 was mainly due to the political , aggression ■ and territorial -aggrandisement of certain foreign Powers (the seizure of Kiaueliau by Germany, for instance), but uot in the least duo to any racial antipathy. We are not defending the Boxers, but;; we do resent the mjsrepresenatioU of the motion picture writers who attributed- the cause of the Boxer uprising to facial, antipathy between the-.-East and the West, so as to poison the-innocent public of America, concerning ;.this well-known but little .un- , derstood Chineso; ?episode. . It , may seem. strange to the American, to hear : that , the question of racial oquality-or inequality was utterly unknown to the Boxers at that time '(although- historically the Chinese have always considered themselves superior to foreign and. that oven to-day the Chinese people,-.: as a whole are not in the least interested in this question. ■'■- "Moreover, there are many tions-of facts in the Red Lantern mis-' reproscnting Chinese .character,; .ideas, ! and social mariners. It is wicked, as well as ignorant, to picture tho treachery of Chinese Christians, the' ingrati- ( tuile of the Western educated students, the cruelty of cutting the daughter's feet, the superstition of self-coffining, etc. As a matter of fact, there were' during tho Boxer uprisingl as many Chinese Christian martyrs aR there were foreign mis sionaries killed. As to the role played by the character, Dr. Sam Wong, it is beyond our' knowledge and reason that returned Chinese students should | join the Mind course of the Boxers. It ■ is not only a falsehood/, but also an j outrage, to accuse them of loading such mob violence. On the 1 contrary. intelligent officials who had been abroad (such as Minister Hnu Ch.anteug) were so utterly opposed to the Boxers that they; lost their beads for the protection of foreigners. "While the Chinese used ,to bind the feet of their daughters, they never tried to make the feet smaller by cutting. Superstition and ignorance were never so extreme as to induce a mother to cut her daughter's feet. A Chinese' mother is neither so cruel nor so superstitious as the picture attempted to show. The act of self-coffining is simply ridiculous and absurd, and there has never been such practice in any part of China, as our colleague, Professor Kiang, of Pekin Government. University, can testify. "To exaggerate the cruelty and superstition of the Chinese' of the old generation is bad enough to place, the Cliinese race - beyond, - redemption and enlightenment,..... but..-.to accuse tlie Chinese of :the. younger generation of treachery and ingratitude is a'-wicked attempt to estrange. >.-American,-'; .sympathy and friendliness toward „ young China..Such misrepresentation of facts portrayed on. a photoplay, purported to be arisen from racial, antipathy, seems to us nothing les> • -than a cleverlystaged plot on the part of interested propagandists. The Chinese people did... hot' want, to 'be misrepresented, nor do the American people desire to lie misinformed, particularly at a "time when both nations need the mutual understanding and good will of the other." . ;