LIFE IN CHINA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 20

LIFE IN CHINA.

MISS MONCRIEFF'S IMPRESSIONS.

"I think that in proportion there are. not so many outstanding women in New Zealand as there are in China," said Miss A. M. Moncrieff yesterday. Miss Moncrieff has been for the past five years the New Zealand Y.W.C.A. secretary in China, where she has. been in charge of a student hostel in Peking. "It would seem that the New Zealand woman is still too much hampered by domestic duties to be able to devote much of her time to outside activities, whereas in China the abundance of domestic assistance gives the Chinese woman leisure to extend her interests, to a wider sphere. In China, moreover, there is by no means the same prejudice against the entry of the married woman into business or the professions. In practice the married woman is just as free to enter public life as the single woman, and she does so." Women, continued Miss Moncrieff, played a large and important part in public life in China. There were outstanding women in the realms of mcdicine, chemistry, research, teaching, accountancy, law and literature. Indeed, it was a woman who did all the arranging and organising in connection with tho Y.W.C.A. publications, and also edited a paper called "The Green Year," which was devoted to subjects of particular interest to women. This was all tho more interesting, she said, in that tho Chinese were cultured stylists and demanded a much higher standard in their writing than was required in most English-speaking countries.

Miss Moncrieff also referred to recent changes in the law in China witb respect to the status of women. Until recently tho Chinese woman, although in practice wielding a very considerable amount of influonec in the nation, was by law placed on a status much inferior to man, but within the last six or seven years this situation had been drastically revised, thus bringing China into alignment with the more modern of the Western nations. The Y.W.C.A., Miss Moncrieff explained, was the only national organisation in China through which the women could voice their opinion. Consequently the association was a very powerful voice on behalf of the women, and had been able to render signal service in this way. In her capacity as secretary at the hostel Miss Moncrieff had fouud tho Chinese girls full of zeal and enterprise. Some of them had had to travel for as long as four and five weeks to reach the high school at Peking where they were to study, and this was a guarantee of their earnestness and willingness to sacrifice themselves for tho sake of education. They showed a deep practical understanding of the very grave social and national problems with which China was faced, and in this they were quite remarkably different from the Japanese girls Miss Moncrieff met at a Y.W.C.A. conference in Japan. The Japanese girls gave the impression that they had led very sheltered lives and (hat they knew just what their Government wanted them to know, and no more. Their approach to national problems was purely academic. While in Auckland Miss Monericff will address numerous outside organisations, as well as meetings in the Y.W.C.A.