VISITOR FROM CHINA

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25629, 19 October 1948, Page 2

VISITOR FROM CHINA

TRIP TO N.Z. TAKES FOUR MONTHS

| The anti-British feeling in several 'places she had lived in or visited in China during the last two years had surprised her. She thought the seeds of discontent had been sown by the Japanese, said Mrs W. G. Bell (Rossall street) in an interview with a reporter of “The Press” yesterday. Mrs Bell arrived in New Zealand recently to place her three children at school here. , , In Shanghai early this year she had seen an anti-British -parade of hundreds of students and others carrying banners bearing the words. “Down with British Imperialism,” said Mrs Bell. It was her opinion that the day of the white man’s prestige in the East had gone. Even in Hong Kong, in British territory, there was a feeling of insecurity and one did not venture outside the city limits. Chinese police had free access to any white man’s house, and Europeans had to report to the police when they went to live in a Chinese town or city. At Tsingtao. where she and her family had lived for little more than a year, the port had been closed to foreign shipping for a year. Tsingtao, with its lovely beaches, was considered one of the most popular and pleasantest of the seaside resorts in China before the war. The American Navy had now taken over most of it, and held its own “movies” and entertainment, to which civilians went by invitation only. When she arrived in Tsingtao curfew time was 9 p.m., but the time was later extended t 6 10 p.m., and finally to 11 p.m. One took the risk of being shot at if one went abroad after curfew, and even in the day time one kept within the city limits. Several Marines had ventured further afield with fatal results.

On the trip to Tsingtao, as a precaution against pirates, there had been guards day and night on the upper deck of the British steamer on which she travelled. On the return journey she and her family had travelled to Shanghai from Tsingtao—a journey of about four days—in an American-transport, the only way one could leave the port, except by aeroplane. At Shanghai they had joined another transport for Hong Kong, and there had to wait for six weeks for a boat to Sydney, which called at Manila and North Borneo on the way. The journey from Tsingtao to New Zealand took four months, including waiting time at ports for boats. Suitcases Needed for Money Mrs Bell has some interesting recollections of inflation in China/ when Europeans were in danger of contracting “money-bag neuritis” from carrying suitcases of Chinese money which they received in exchange for American dollars. When she first went to China the United States dollar was worth about 4000 Chinese dollars, and it rose in value to 200,000 during her stay, the peak being reached after her departure. Purses- were useless to cope with the bundles of Chinese notes and stacks of coins they had to carry. Help in the home was a real problem to the wives of many American Navy men, said Mrs Bell. She had been fortunate in having the old type of helpers; but some of the people she knew were constantly having changes in household staff. The wages pgid were at least four times as much as before the war. The beautiful handembroidery for which the Chinese are noted was now much higher in price also. Before the war, women and girls were, paid a mere pittance for table lineh and . underwear which might have taken them from six months to a year to embroider. They now got a better reward for their labour. Manila and Borneo In Manila, in the Philippine Islands, said Mrs Bell, she had seen the bomb-ed-out section of the Manila Hotel, which had been General -MacArthur’s headquarters during the war. A new wing had been built, and on one side one saw the rubble of the bombed building and on the other the spacious rooms and new, beautifully tiled swimming bath. Shacks erected by homeless Filipinos were dotted over the landscape; but one could drive for miles and see only the flattened remains of bombed buildings. From Manila she and her family had gone to British North Borneo, and there her husband had gone over the route of the death marches which the Japanese' forced about 2000 men to, make from San Dekan into the jungle. There had been few survivors of these marches, and a cemetery some miles from San Dekan held the remains of men fouhd in the jungle. From North Borneo Mrs Bell and her family travelled to New Britain in New Guinea and later to Sydney, where they were again delayed awaiting a passage by boat to New Zealand. , Mrs Bell was born in Sweden and has lived in many countries on the Continent, in England. Canada, the United States, and Japan as well as in China. Her husband is an Englishman; two of their children were born in Japan and one in Canada. Mrs Bell hopes to rejoin her husband in China next year.