MISS SYLVIA CHEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 30 April 1927, Page 6

MISS SYLVIA CHEN

CANTON LEADER'S IDA TIC! TITER.

ADVENTURES. US CHINA.

A romantic character in yie. giUia-Uon 'in. China-'is Sylvia, the 'daughter oi iiuge/ie Chen, the power in the South. She had the distinction of Loins one of tlie only two women who made ihe remarkable journey from Canton lo Hankow when the Cantonese (!overnnient moved its headquarters. The oilier woman wns Mine. Sun Yal Sen, widow of the late President.

Sylvia is l<vday n slim, black-haired girl, in the iwenijes. She has none of the appearance of the typical Oriental; the eyes do not slope upwards, almondshape, as is usual in the East-, but are dark, round and lustrous, with a. certain frightened look in them. Her complexion, too, is not the Eastern yellow; she has ihe honey-tinted skin' of an Hawaiian beaut v.

She. is a. shy little person. She is not Chinese; she ip a, Rritish subject, born at Poll of Spain, in Trinidad, in the West Indies. Sylvia spent her early life there and received her elementary education in one of the, local schools. Afterwards she came to England with her mother and lived with her parents for some years in St. John's Wood. Her mother was a native of the. West Indies, a. descendant- of Admiral (inn tannic, one of Napoleon's- admirals, who was; driven to Trinidad after the battle of Trafalgar. Sylvia's arrival at- Canton during the height of the struggle there, was marked with enthusiasm by the. Nationalists; brass bands greeted her, and she was accompanied by .cheers to the Foreign, Office. In Canton she was the, constant companion of Mine. Sun Yat Sen, who is Ilia President in succession to her husband. Alme. Sun Yat Sen and Sylvia lived together during their stay in Canton, and when the. Ministry moved north again they travelled together. The journey from ('anion to Hankow must, according to her description, have had its humorous side. The whole parly embarked at Canton on the train with enormous excitement; brass bands played hideously loud, and fireworks, in the true Chinese fashion, were let off in deafening profusion. The train, however, did not lake them far, and soon they were forced to leave it, and proceed % mule, sleeping where they could in ruined temples and old pagodas. '•Father looked so funny with his legs hanging over each side of a mule." Chen's daughter has no doubt about the success of her father's campaign. She thinks his forces will be in Pekin before June.