LIFE IN SHANGHAI

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22393, 14 April 1936, Page 2

LIFE IN SHANGHAI

FREEDOM OF WOMEN "Shanghai has grown into a smart and busy modern city almost overnight until now it is as smart and gay as Paris, with all the modern efficiency of the latter city and all of its own charaoteristic Chinese atmosphere," said Mrs Mason Warner, of Chicago, ff ho arrived at Auckland yesterday by the Aorangi, and who is accompanying her husband on a tour 0 f Australia and New Zealand. Mrs Warner has lived for some time in Shanghai and has frequently visited" Japan.

Tall buildings, tram-cars, all-night cabarets, large shops and all the char, acteristics of a modern city belong to Shanghai, said Mrs. - Warner. In bril. liant contrast there was the essentially different, essentially Chinese tempera, ment of the people and the bright graceful native dress of the women A Chinese woman was seldom seen jn European clothes, even in circles whew western visitors were widely enter Gained or in cabarets or theatres. The men, however, were increasingly adoot. tng the European style of dress. The Chinese women, were in Mrs. Warner's opinion, more cultured ami possessed more freedom than tha Japanese. They were charmingly polite and to-day, in contrast with former custom, expressed their own opinions and ordered their lives very much as they pleased. They were naturally f OD d of dancing and, as many of them had been either educated abroad or had been in close contact with Western people and institutions in their otra country, they were able fo converse en a variety of topics and were fully nisant of Chinese affairs. " k '

One of the Chinese .customs that particularly impressed Mrs. Warner was that of maintaining "rU r ." of hate." "One special day' fo the year was set aside for tk national hating of Japan, and on that day _ the unfortunate Japanese were submitted to a variety of indirai. ties. In the same manner the Chinea had another day set aside for the hating of all foreigners and while this tos not very serious the foreigners had to be very circumspect in their walks abroad that day. They forget all about their hates for a whole year, then when these special days arrive they brine out their bricks and stones and get it over in a great celebration and then go back to their normal lives the next day"