THE NEW CHINA

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 August 1930, Page 10

THE NEW CHINA

RESULTS OF REVOLUTION.

Such contrasts of happiness and misery, splendour and squalor—contrasts, too, of callousness and deep affection —give to Chinese life a light and shade fjtartjing in jurudity, supreme in effect (writes a correspondent to the London “Tinies”). The Chinese are aware of these contrasts. "The more dirty and more ragged are the bearers, the more splendid apnears the chair and the master seated within its curtains,” was the opinion of one who loved ceremony. But it is in the strange blending of East and West, in modernity and medievalism, that foreigners find the greatest incongruity. Every one knows that at. the Revolution pigtails were cut off; they have heard that officials exchanged the peacock’s feather for the top hat; but they feel no certainty that the Revolution has gone deeper and effected any change in the lives, in the religion in the thoughts of the Chinese people. The Chinese had a system of government which in capable hands worked well, which rested on a central authority of immense prestige, but wisely left much to local discretion. The people paid their taxes and tilled their fields, while the power of the Emperor stood between them and the barbarians, between them and God. The patriarchal power of the family was the foundation of the State. The broad tolerance of the cultured subscribed to no creed, the wide ignorance of the mass believed all creeds, so that any form of religion was tolerated that was not subversive. The rather conventional code of Confucius and the caustic humour of Mencius supplied the ideal of “Chun Tzu,” the Superior Man, superior not by birth but. by personal culture. The avowed aim of Sun Yat-sen was not to destroy this aged culture or to undermine family life, but to preserve them, as the foundation of the modern State. Pie sought only to destroy the Imperial idea and to set in its place the idea of the Nation. But a people which for long had bowed down before the presence of One Man could not easily put in his place an abstraction. Their imaginations craved for one man. And they were given for their idol —the image of the dead iconoclast Sun-Yat-sen. A shrine, which in conception and scope is akin to the tombs of the Pharaohs, has been dedicated; his portrait and his last will are the most revered emblems of China; his authority is more supreme than that of the Emperors, whose actions and words were checked by the Imperial censors.

The people still pay their taxes, and till their fields, while the power of the family maintains its sway. Temples hold their services, and in the spring sacrifices are yet made at the ancestral graves. But there are unattended graveyards whose walls are broken down and perhaps their tombs robbed. In whole districts temples have been fifthly converted into schools, hospitals, or barracks. The priests of other temples, formerly fed by Royal bounty, have been forced by dire distress into abandoning the cassock and earning a livelihood as soldiers or labourers, as rickshaw-pullers ami beggars. A father can no longer hale an unfilial son before the magistrate for domestic clisobelience, and sons now not infrequently choose their own brides. A score of years ago early marriages were almost universal in China, as in all agricultural lands where the labour of ths family was needed for the fields. Now a son .nay leave his home to earn his living or to study abroad, and economic necessity may make him revert to an earlier tradition of Chinese society when the marriage of a man was 30 and 20 for a maid. In the enforcing of the law, however, the head of a family may still bo held responsbls. The Revolution decreed, with greater success than had the Manchns, that women’s feet should no longer be bound. The custom was barbarous and inflicted great suffering. But many old people clung to their prejudices. To such a one came two lesser officials who warned him that the feet of his wife and secondary wife must be unbound. Bowing the officials ceremoniously on their way, the owner of the house returned to his womenfolk, and did nothing. A month later the officials returned. The old householder explained that the women’s feet remained bound because the unbinding process must be accomplished slowly. The officials went on their way again, but the old man was forced to go on with them. On arrival at the Yamen, the administrative buildings, he was told: “You’ admire bound feet, we will bind your feet,” and presently:—“You like to watch people walking on bound feet, you will try it for yourself.” Between pain and. mortification at the jeers of his tormentors the old man became quite ill, and returned broken to the law.

While the Revolution has for the most part eradicated bound feet and pigtails in the j-ising generation, it has a hard struggle in its attempts to stamp out opium, gambling, and the keeping of concubines.. In many districts laws against the cultivation of the poppy are rigorously enforced, police supervision is at times strict, unlicensed smokers are prosecuted, and public burnings of opium and opium-pipes take place. Most people take to opium because they have some physical pain or are overworked. The opium temporarily soothes the belly and makes the mind clear and active. If it is persisted in, however, the physical and mental reactions become increasingly severe. The evils of opium and of drink are sometimes compared. The Chinese, past-masters in the art of living, are not teetotallers. At bachelor dinnerparties games of .forfeits are played, and the loser drinks a cup of wine. Faces get flushed, speech may be confused, but the loser of many forfeits is sent quietly homo to bed. The Chinese have not taken greatly to foreign wines or spirits, with the exception of brandy, of which they are sometimes’ rather fond. Their own wines are made from rice or kao-liang (giant millet); they are usually warmed and taken during meals, but before the serving of rice.