ALONG THE CHINESE COAST

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22103, 27 May 1937, Page 3

ALONG THE CHINESE COAST

ADDRESS TO COLLEGE OLD BOYS Tales of the people, life and sights along the Chinese coast were told to members of the Christchurch branch of the Wellington College Old Boys' Association, at tea. at the Frascati last evening. The speaker was Mr A. V. Prince, who has been an engineer on ships working along the coast of China. Mr Prince travelled from New Zealand to Hong Kong in a ship manned principally with a Chinese crew. He told how. on the journey, two of thej Chinese took to one another, one with i a butcher's knife and another with a chisel. The fight ended when the Chinese with the knife cut off his own ear. From Hong Kong, the ship went up to Canton by the Pearl river, on which hundreds of thousands of Chinese made their homes. Small sampans, only 16 feet long, housed families and their goods and pets. One ship on which he travelled spent some time at Singapore. Penang, and Rangoon. The last of these ports was a great rice-exporting centre. Buddhist priests could be seen there picturesquely dressed and actually begging for their existence. The natives were averse to manual labour and Indians had to be brought in to work the ships. Mr Prince showed photographs and objects gathered in China. Mr A. E. Caddick presided over the meeting.