WOMEN OF CHINA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 43, 30 November 1937, Page 3

WOMEN OF CHINA

RAPID EMANCIPATION. NURSES, BANKERS, DOCTORS. A young Chinese woman living in Sydney gives a vivid picture of women’s influence in China to-day, in an interview published in an Australian paper. “Chinese women are nursing the wounded; there is a bank in Shanghai administered entirely by women; while women are lecturers in colleges, doctors and research workers,” she said. “You would never have seen that 10 years ago,” said an American woman to me, as we walked down the Bund in Shanghai. In front of us strolled a Chinese girl arm in arm with a Chinese youth. In Australia a girl walking along a street with a man friend is a common enough - sight but in China is worthy of comment, which shows how recently the Chinese woman has taken advantage of her freedom. We a.re tol l that China is a matriarchy, and the authority of the Chinese woman in the home was—and is—unquestioned, but her place was definitely within the courtyard, and she seldom ventured abroad. The old order is rapidly giving place to the new, but the change is deeper than a mere expansion of social interests. Co-Education Colleges.

“There are in China women’s colleges as well as a system of co-education at other universities, and we find women undergraduates studying medicine, dentistry, science, arts and economics. There do not seem to be any women law students. The Chinese woman undergraduate is not very different from the woman student here, except that she is a. little older when she begins her course. I met a number of them. They are deeply interested in their work, possess a keen sense of humour, and are very entertaining company. They speak precise English, sometimes tinged with an American accent, according to the nationality of the tutor. “Music seems to be their main interest outside their work. Many play the piano with talent, showing a marked taste for classical European composers, while the more frivolous element learns to play jazz numbers on the Hawaiian guitar. Others are interested in painting, drawing or foreign literature, but nowhere is there the same interest in games that one finds in a similar group of young women over here. The Nursing Profession “Increasing numbers of Chinese girls aro entering the nursing profession. The American superintendent of an inland mission hospital informed me that there was a waiting list which grew longer each year. These inland hospitals are staffed entirely by Chinese nurses. Women arc even replacing male nurses in the men’s hospitals—an innovation which seems to indicate that nursing will become, as it is here, a profession almost exclusively for women. Probationers are admitted for training after passing an entrance examination, but their general standard ol education is lower than that of the undergraduates. Few of them speak English, and all classes are conducted in Chinese. “Their uniform consists of tho usual Chinese dress with a white starched cap and apron. Some girls wear lowheeled shoes, but the majority wear black Chinese slippers. They are smaller and lighter than Australian nurses. I never saw one who was more than five feet’three inches in height, or who weighed more than about 1081 b. It ?s strange to come upon these small, cheerful persons sterilising trays of instruments outside operating theatres, or flitting silently along the dim corridors of the great hospital. They look like children playing nurses, hut their efficiency, and the work of the hospital goes as smoothly as a song. No Yearning for Far Horizons. “Some of the women who have already taken their place in the world are secondary school teachers, others are lecturers or principals of women’s university colleges, while in Shanghai there is a Chinese hank staffed and ad ministered entirely by women, the president being a capable lady in her middle forties, who wears her hair in a sleek Eton crop. Among my personal friends I can mention a charming girl who graduated in economics from Nanking University, and is now an accountant to a bureau for economic research; sprightly woman who is a biochemist in a medical institute, and two women doctors who are medical superintendents of large hospitals along the Yangtso River. One of them is an extremely skilful surgeon.

“There is also a girl I know in Shanghai avlio is investigating working conditions in various mills and factories. She lives among the artisans in order to gather the facts for her reports at first hand. Her people reside in a far-off province and she is one of the many young Chinese women who nowadays run their own flat, attended by an amah—a bachelor establishment, so to speak* In Australia- this is not a novel proceeding, hut in China it is a radical departure lrom the days, not so very long ago, when my lady of the Chinese courtyard was so sheltered that she only left the parental roof for that of her husband.

- “Centuries of seclusion must leave their mark. The Chinese woman, for all her intellectual freedom and keen interest in foreign affairs, experiences no yearning for far horizons.”