THE CHINESE WOMAN

Evening Star, Issue 21320, 26 January 1933, Page 1

THE CHINESE WOMAN

BOBS AND NIGHT CLUBS China lias been slower iu general than Japan to absorb Westernisation, but her women, on the contrary, have gone far ahead of the women in the Land of the Rising Sun. In Chinese treaty ports, where the dominant influence of foreign residents is felt, the Chinese woman is no longer a household drudge, with the single -purpose of honouring the parents of her husband, catering for his needs, and, above all, bearing him many sons. Her ideas of domestic life now are perhaps more those of the Englishwoman than any other of her Western sisters. She is her husband’s interested, as well as interesting, companion, living on equal terms with him, advising him on business matters, and freely sharing his pleasures (says a writer in the ‘ News-Chronicle.’ The present National Government, which was founded in 1927, abolished polygamy. This was, perhaps, one of the-most vital steps toward the emancipation of the Chinese woman. But wealthy Chinese outside the cities still keep a “ harem,” and even in the cities those who do not mix with Western civilisation still have several wives. The modern woman in China lias progressed to other interests' besides that of acting as helpmeet to a husband. She studies political and medical science, law, business, and journalism. One of the best-known lawyers m China is Miss Soumei Cheng, wdiose emancipation began at the age of ten, when she tore the bindings from her crippled feet. Four years later she again challenged an ancient and honourable custom of her people by refusing to marry the man who had been chosen for her from hirth —the Governor of Canton. . Miss Cheng, now thirty r eight years old, studied intensively, with a definite career always in mind. She travelled in England, France, and America, lecturing as she went. When she returned to her country she influenced the Government to finance the education of twenty Chinese girls, whom she took to Paris ' to study under her personal supervision. She was the first Chinese lawyer of either sex to be admitted to practise in the French mixed court at Shanghai She is an authoress of repute, havinp- written, besides books and articles in’her own language. ‘ A Model Chinese Familv ’ in English, and Souvenirs d’Enfanco de Revolution m French. . . , . , Miss Fmip Mes-sun has just received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the Kyoto Imperial University of Japan for her scientific thesis on the Chemical Study of. Rice Dextrine. . OUTSTANDING SIC I'ERS.

The three most outstanding women of modern Chinese culture and'.Western civilisation are sisters. They are Madame Sun Yat-sen, widow of tho founder of the Chinese Republic, Madame Cliiang Kai-shek, and Madame H. H. Kung, wife of the former Minister of Industries. Each of them plays a quiet but tremendously important part in the politics of China. During the recent Shanghai hostilities another interesting factor in the Westernisation of Chinese women was brought to light. Although China has suffered civil wars and invasions for many centuries, it is only recently that, women have been permitted to nurse the wounded. When Shanghai was the centre of warfare mere girls of twelve and thirteen came calmly in from the war areas with the stretcher-bearers, having gone to the front with them to render first aid. Schoolgirls, hastily banded together at the beginning of the trouble, dressed wounds with admirable and truly Oriental stoicism. Wealthy women came forward and publicly solicited funds for temporary hospitals. Even more amazing were the splendidly keen and modern methods which they used to get those institutions into proper shape. In the days of the Manchu Dynasty the Chinese woman stayed in the women’s quarters of her home, painting, embroidering, and gossiping, while her lord and master sought his pleasure in the gambling and opium houses or dallied iu a teahouse with, pretty Almond Blossom. Now, however, since tho foreign man has come to China and opened his night clubs and cabarets, the Chinese lady is taken there, too, by her husband. This step in Oriental emancipation was a startling one, and probably tbe most drastic in the whole history of the gradual Westernisation of Chinese women. It made the assertion that a woman could be seen in public and yet be modest! One foreign custom that the modern Chinese woman Ims adopted has had a really unfortunate effect. That is the bobbing of her hair and the attempt to make its stiff, straight quality into permanent wave curls, worn shoulder length. Miss China’s pleasures are far less complicated than her Western sister’s. She is an extremely light and supple dancer, easily adapting herself to American jazz, although its rhythm has nothing to do with the Chinese music to which she has been accustomed for centuries. Very rarely does she drink, and cocktails are only known —and then in extreme moderation —by tho girl who has been educated iu America. On the other hand, she is inordinately fond of soft drinks, and especially ice-cream soda and the concoction of sundaes which has drifted over from America’s versatile drug stores. Fortunately they seem to have no effect on the straight slenderness of her figure. Dieting, by the way, is the one phase of occidental feminine life that has no interest for tho Chinese woman. Chinese dishes arc mainly vegetarian, which is as well, seeing that the Chinese woman, s with very few exceptions, is totally disinclined to exercise. After dancing, the "movies” give the Chinese lady the keenest delight. And it is almost certain that the Garbo fluffy bob had a great deal to do with tho present unfortunate coiffure of the modern Chinese girl. But her dress remains tho same, in spite of Hollywood, for, with that feminine intuition in the matter of clothes which a coquettish woman always has (and no one is more coquettish in a quiet way than the Chinese lady) she realises what suits her type best. So, although she has taken to Westernisation eagerly, she has done so with more or less discrimination, and the result is that, iu spite ,

of all her new ideas, she still remains the same enigmatic, strange, but utterly charming picture of Oriental womanhood.