LIFE IN MANCHURIA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 197, 22 July 1941, Page 2

LIFE IN MANCHURIA.

ADDRESS TO ROTARY CLUB. Mr H. L. Cunninghanie was in the chair at the weekly luncheon of the Palmerston North Rotary Club, yesterday, at which members’ wives and several othw ladies were entertained. The speaker was Miss D. Rutherlurd, a missionary of the Church of Scotland, her subject being Manchuria. Miss Rutherlurd said that she had been in Manchuria for the past 22 years. The headquarters of the Scottish Church Society were at Mukden, and the society had three churches and a medical college there. Jt also had control of a large hospital which could accommodate between SUO and 600 patients. The out-patient department was also a large one and as many as 1500 persons were treated in a day. The niedicai college was attached to the hospital and there were altout a hundred male students training there at one time. These men can ootam a degree which would enable them to go to Scotland to further their medical studies. “The present ruler of Manchuria was only a boy during the Chinese rebellion.” proceeded Miss Rutherlurd, “but in 1931 when the Japanese conquered the country they took the ruler with them and later they placed him on the throne. Now they exert a lot of power on the country and it is really governed from Tokio. The country undergoes severe climatic changes and on many occasions the temperature drops to as low as 20 degrees below zero. At some places the temperatures are often lower. The ice on the rivers is a yard thick and this is cut in blocks and stored lor summer use. Although the conditions arc very cold for live months of the year—from November to April—the people really do not feel the cold because ol the

calm conditions. The nights are the worst periods for the cold.” ' The speaker went on to say that the Japanese were colonising Manchuria and great numbers came into the country each year. White Russians were also settling there and on many occasions White Russian women would be seen in the streets, with small children begging for food. Tims the white woman was usually shunned by the Chinese in the country. “When the Chinese feast they eat great.quantities of food,” said Miss Rutherfurd. “including much pork. The people have three feasts a year—at New Year, at the fifth moon period (spring! and the eighth moon period (autumn). At the New Year feast the people try to get to their own homes as at this feast they offer prayers for their dead relatives. One could see some oi the travellers carrying frozen fish with which to augment the food for fhe feast.” The Japanese had made every effort to put down banditry, the speaker added. They had made great improvements in the country, but ‘their ways of doing so were definitely pro-Nazi. The Rotary Club in Mukden had Ix’on closed, like many clubs in countries under the Nazi banner. Miss Rutherfurd, who said she hop cd to lie back working in the country before very long, received a vote of thanks on the motion of Mr J. C. Young.