Chinese Peasants Live in Insecurity

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 168, 17 July 1937, Page 7

Chinese Peasants Live in Insecurity

LIFE ON NORTixz*~. PLAINS

That insecurity is the dominant -aracteristic of the life of millions oj. Miinese peasants m the northern pro I vinces, now menaced by Japan, is the opinion of Mr. H. Brian Low, of Masse> I College, who addressed the Citizens Lunfcn Club yesterday on life in a Chio jse village. He would describe life in a typical village on the northern plains, about .00 miles south of Peking, said the speaker. A child born in such a village would grow up to know intimately au ordered pattern of life —a life in which there was nothing to build houses of except mud, in which as a child one wore no clothes in summer and no end of clothes in winter. The villages . erj usually of about 10 houses, all clustered together for protection against bandits. The child would grow up knowing no other world except the life of the vil--age. Winter was extremely cold, and most of tho time was spent on the hos pitablo kang before the fire. Spring ..ound the villagers with little energy .eft, and not until the harvesting of wheat again in early summer was there enough to eat. Early in life the young Chinese villager came to know the m security of the existence. Sometimes crops failed, and an invaiuaole donkey or yellow cow had to be slaughterd, or .he seed wheat devoured or the green „orn torn up like grass and eaten like grass. The life had little variety, little diversion, a routine of ploughing and reaping. To such people, a man who owned ten acres was a man of substance. Learning in the village consisted usually of tuition in the 500 characters and little more. At 15 it was time for the young man to learn ulie work of the village, and then at 17 ie would learn from his parents who was to be his bride. He would not see

.ier perhaps until tho day of the wedding when she came with her procession .o the village. It was a time of ceremonial and feasting and dowries, and then tho young man joined the senior life of tho village. Burials and weddings were equally occasions of ceremony, while births were an occasion for particular rejoicing, but a boy was prized far beyond a girl, who was merc-

y another mouth to feed. Spring laded into summer and the reaping then began—unless the rain failed. When it came after a drought, it came torrentially, and the fear immediately changed to a fear of flood. The dykes were strengthened, but some.imes they failed, and the horror of a flood swept the plains. The mud walls fell away, villages were ruined, an i when the flood subsided there was a prospect of advancing winter with no food resources. It was in such times chat banditry, derived from the need of Hie people, occurred. Such an insecure life was the result of the environment. The Chinese peasantry of North China were some oi the finest people in the world, and now Japan was demanding that the provinces north of the river should fall to her so that cotton and iron could be diverted to her mills. There were 120,000,000 people living on tho northern plain; most of them had never seen a hill. These were the people now living in fear that they would be subjected to the heel of Japan. Mr. W. B. Tennent thanked the speaker.