IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28529, 7 March 1958, Page 2

IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA

Youthfulness Of

People

“My most outstanding impression on my trip was of the youthfulness of the Chinese,” said Mr C. Lewis in a talk to a meeting of the Pan Pacific and South-East Asia Women’s Association last evening. Mr Lewis, who is on the executive of the Canterbury branch of the United Nations Association, has recently returned from a visit to China. He visited prisons, factories, museums and even attended a court trial in order to get a picture of conditions and life in China.

In Hong Kong he said the people were either extremely rich or poor, said Mr Lewis. The shops were small and numerous, and there was a strong sense of salesmanship everywhere. It was necessary for the poor to queue to receive food. Here, too, were ihe rickshaw boys, whose average length of life was only 27 years because of the tremendous strain on the heart from pulling human loads. Mr Lewis made the trip with a group of New Zealanders and the party was in some doubt as to the kind of reception to expect when it went through the

“bamboo curtain” into Communist China. They were greeted by hosts of young people carrying flowers in welcome. Here they found more industry, such as ma-chine-woven silk being painted by hand in intricate and elaborate designs by craftsmen. Over-Population

In South China there was overpopulation and the Government was trying to persuade persons living in poor boats on the overcrowded Pearl river to travel north and receive higher wages. Two main reasons why the plan was only half successful were the language problem—north and south speak different dialects—and that the people did not want to move. In the south, too, women were still carrying their babies on their backs as they went about their work. The north had a much higher standard of living, said Mr Lewis. Education was playing a large part in the lives of the Chinese, he said. Factories were undertaking to teach their workers to read the daily newspaper. I Shanghai was now a very religious centre and no more the I “city of sin” of a few years ago. From a passing ship the city had ’ the outward appearance and skylline of a modern Western city, but I the internal atmosphere was quite ; the reverse—that of a Communist | regime. ‘ Agriculture was still very i primitive and the water buffalo land wooden plough in the paddy i fields were in great evidence, said !Mr Lewis.