THE Y.W.C.A.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 13

THE Y.W.C.A.

IN CHINA AND JAPAN. The president of the World's Young Women's Christian Association, Miss C. M. van Asch van Wijck, who is now visiting London, has spent more than a year travelling in China, Japan, the Dutch East Indies and other countries in which the association is at work. She has given a "Manchester Guardian" representative an account of some of her impressions. She shares the admiration expressed by other European visitors to China for the'educated and progressive women of that country, and is interested in the difference bptween their point of view and that ol the Japanese women she met. "The educated women in China," she said, "take a great interest in the affairs of their country and in its reconstruction. When you meet them in a group with men of the same type, they seem to be on the same level as the men. There are a great many women in the universities. The members of the Y.W.C.A.'s in China share the desire to help in the country's reconstruction. At a conference we held the discussions were on what national help our association could give in progressive movements and what they could do to promote international as well as national welfare. I greatly admired the courage and perseverance of the Chinese women. They are at their strongest in difficult circumstances. They meet with great discouragements in these troublous, unsettled times, but if some new work they have planned to do in one place is suddenly stopped they move on to another and begin again.

"The Japanese women have much more difficulty in getting out of the narrow circle of their home life. They may attend lectures at the State universities, but may not take degrees; for that they must go to missionary or other non-State colleges. They take much less interest than Chinese women in public and national affairs. Whereas adversity brings out the strength of the Chinese woman, Japanese women seem to work better in .a serene and pleasant atmosphere. I used to feel that the members of the Y.W.C.A. in Japan appreciated its immediate objects, but did not regard it as part of a national or international movement. Industrial conditions are rather better for women in Japan than in China, but the opportunities in the professions are not so good." In addition to its work for the Chinese, the Y.W.C.A. holds out a hand to the women from other countries. At present there is a great deal of unemployment. The general depression reached Shanghai last year, and the foreign branch of the Shanghai Y.W.C.A. has an employment bureau at which women of 30 different nationalities are registered. Efforts are being made to get some of them back to their own countries.