THE WOMEN OF CHINA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 23

THE WOMEN OF CHINA

ROUND TABLE CLUB ADDRESS Tho bi-monthly meeting of the Business Women's Hound Table Club was held in the Cottage Tearooms this week, when an interesting address was given by the Rev. S. Y. Chau, Auckland missioner to the Chinese peoplo of the city, on "The Women of China." Mrs. Mawson acted as interpreter, as the missioner spoke in the Chinese language. Accompanying him was Mrs. Chau, who wore modern Chinese dress so that the gathering could see for themselves what was worn in China. In discussing his country, Mr. Chau said it was hoped that the recent exhibition of Chinese art in London would help to enlighten the British people as to the great art treasures that were in China and so make them realise that the people of that country were not, as was sometimes thought, a people lacking in culture. At the present moment, said the speaker, the chief difficulty of China lay in the influence of Japan, which was exercised in four different ways. These were Japanese propaganda, Japanese military penetration, the penetration of great numbers of Japanese into China, and, lastly but of great effect, the economic penetration. Japan had flooded China with cheap goods, and the poorer classes, he said, would always buy in the cheapest market. Many Western people held the belief that the women of China were uneducated. Mr. Chau said they might not be well versed in book learning, but they received a very valuable education in the home which taught them how to live. One defect of the older education was that there was no mixing of the sexes unless closely related, but one of the defects of the modern education was that girls who went to college missed tho home education and could not manage a home. The mission schools, organisations for married women similar to the League of Mothers, girls' clubs, under the Y.W.C.A., and the Girl Guides were trying to overcome this defect.