CHINA AND THE CHILDREN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 9 January 1929, Page 2

CHINA AND THE CHILDREN

A NATIONAL CHARACTERISTIC Tho Chinese are at once an engaging and a disconcerting people to live among. TTi'eii' cduiTesy and merriment appeal al once; everyone, must admire the meticulous and unvarying excellence of their craftsmanship and their routine work; North Europeans instinctively like them for their tremendous physical strength, their passion for horse racing and belting. their love of children, and their relatively decent treatment of animals. In the'streets of Pekin I saw plenty of laden' donkeys with sore withers, it is true, but just as many coolies, yoked with an ox or ass, binding heavy loads witii shoulders galled to the bone; they treat tlie dumb creation much as tliey treat themselves. There is none of«tlie heartrending starvation of animals that one sees in India, not tlie sickening and deliberate cruelties of Southern Europe) —perhaps this is because tlie principal draught animal in Pekin isvstill man. ‘ Then - love' of children is astonishing, and 1 is not confined to their own offspring-, whom tliey bring up in perfect obedionco and with exquisite gentleness. (During my whole .-stay -in;Giiiiui I only tjiree times saw a child crying in tlie street). They simply cannot resist children in any shape'or form. One day when I was newly arrived in Pekin 1 took my three children to see tlie Forbidden City. To oiir surprise we iound tlie great golden-roofed courts thronged with people; processions of soldiers, processions of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides were streaming through the crowds; men on Hustings harangued the bystanders witii great violence; the walls were plastered 'with the" most grisly posters of ’Chinese bayoneting the foreigner, pounding the foreigner, shooting tlie foreigner. V, We learned next day that memorial celebrations for Sun Yat Sen had been taking place, combined with an anti-for-eign demonstration, and the orators were inciting the crowd to drive out tiie “foreign devils”—but I and my three small foreign devils strolled ignoraiitlv abbut in the middle ot all this for'hours, and flip only inconvenience we suffered was from tlie excess of admiration and interest which flic children aroused. 'Audiences oil catching sight of them left tlie speakers, who were urgin'A our destruction to come and stare and "smile if Pa close ring; they fingered the' children’s clothes and gave gentle strokes and pat's’ to’ their heads' am hands. It was an excellent example ot the inconsequence of the Chinese character a„d' of the flat unreality of much of the’ alleged kiiti'-fereigh 1 feeling. 1 ■. It is this inconsequence winch is so disconcerting and makes life m China so peculiarly uncertain. With these la lgl-.ter-ldving, -highly nervous, rather childishly hysterical people it is impossible to tell beforehand -which way the cat is going, so to speak, to jump. Sometimes firmness will save you m an emergency, more often a joke; tlie greatest safeguard is to know the language and understand what is going on, rille 1 is always to conserve your sangfroid. But, it is on his own efforts that tlie foreigner must really iely mi his comfort and safety ! official protection, outside the Concessions, hardly exists.. • I was returning one day by cai with another woman from the Summer Palace, SOffiel’miles from Pekin; at a narrow bridge' with a panelled marble parapet le |ere held up by a group of soldiers, who' 1 climbed’- on to. the running bOa d, and announced then "m ention ■of dining back with us to the city- i e chauffeur, chattering with fright, offeied rio resistance. In the conventional drawl Tasked tho soldiers-what they they repeated, roughly enough, tnat they were going to come with us. Stui Sli g " told them tli at I lien pu ai Extremely did not like) v fl.eircom S^ they 01 would have to come with me to the British Legation and there explain why they had ridden in my car against my wishes. Tliis threat 1 had, of course, no manner of power to enforce, but it answerdd the Soldiers wifluhew, grumbling to discuss it all with a policeman who had stood by, smoking, a silent and passive spectator of the centre W But generally it is the joke which dots it. ’ No-more than they can lesis the' appeal'of children can the Chinese resist'a 'joke— it ‘is one: of their most engaging characteristics; ’ I have seen people extricated' from many a tight S°by the' feeblest of jests. I was walking one day flu the mountains twenty mile's from lekiu with a little girl of twelve as my only companion, we reached a village where a beautiful arched gateway crowns a paved pas over the hills. A venerable peasant insisted on our pausing to visit the extremely uninteresting temple, and we we're accompanied on our rounds ot th flagged courtyards and painted shrines bv°a pig, a small boy, and a man carrying a baby. When we went on our way the' small boy us up the mountain of our choice and down aga> n > paddling along in his ragged blue clothes and string-soled shoes, chattering all the way On our return some hours later we found a group of peasants gathered under the apricot tree which, served for the village pub. To them the small boy ran, spoke, and running back to us asked for a “cho-t’ien” (pourboire—it is literally ‘wine-money’). I had in my purse only two maos—small silver coins worth about 3d—one of which I gave him And then, sudden as a squall on a Scottish' loch, blew up one of those ugly gusts of temper which are so bewildering and so dangerous to the stranger. As we neared the tree angiy people stepped 1 up to us on both sides, some scolding us for not giving the boy a larger cho-t’ien, others complaining that we had not tipped the old man who had shown us round the temple. It became rather disagreeable. We were many miles from home, and the crowd actually began to hustle us; moreover, as I lia'd only one more mao i could not possibly meet both claims. 1 had a bright idea. Conspicuous in the group were tlie aged man, the man with the baby and. slumbering beneath the tree, the pig. “What?” I said. “Does every man m this village want eoshma? (a tip). What about the baby?” 1 point ed. “Me took us to the lemplo, 100. Dues tlie pi# also,” I pointed again “want a cho-t’ien? He was there ! 11ns witticism produced general delight and completely restored good temper. The old man was given the remaining mao, and a group uf well-wishers even escorted us half a mile oil our way to showus a shorter path home. A strange people! No wonder that the Chanceries of Europe find them defeating to deal with. Firmness and fun; the bun in one hand and the bludgeon in the other—that is the secular Chinese wav, and no other will work in the Middle Kingdom. The one ruinous method to employ is consistency, and by that we Europeans are obsessed.—“St. Martin's Review.”