Echoes From Sino-Japanese War

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1938, Page 13 (Supplement)

Echoes From Sino-Japanese War

Women Ignorant Ot Gonflict

VfyuATEVER. country is the aggressor in war, the women of both combatant natkms suffer. A lot has been written lately of the Chinese women's, heroie reaction to the invasion that is laying waste their land, but very little L heard of the women of Japan, whose men are being torn from their families to fight on ihe Asiatic mainland. Mra. 3. D. M. . Shaw, who, with her husband, the Bev. R. D. M. Shaw, arrived in Sydney on the Taiping recently after 30 years in Japan, gives an interesting account of the women of that country. During the last four years she has lived in Tokio, where her husband was attached to St. Paul's University. "The great Japanese virtues are loyalty and patriotism— these, with self-control, are taught girls and boys from their earliest years," she says. "Ancient tradition always puts the nan first. A little girl must give way to her brother to a certain extent in trverything." Tradition and early training explain he intensely patriotic attitude of Japantae women while their husbands and nrothers are being conscripted to fight i war of aggression. The severe censorhip, which hides both Japanese defeats tad the case for China, does not give the whole reason for the support Japanese women lend the war aims of their Government. "Not many of the girls are educated abroad, where often the boys may go to a foreign university," Mrs. Shaw explains. "Usually girls are marrled by the time they are 20. Even if they have gone to a modern school for- girls where. advanced ideas are taught, and even if these ideas should be helc1 so strongly that ihey would embarrass their families before marriage, after marriage the women are so busy with their homes that their ideas often peter out. "It is haid for an Australian or New Zealand woman t understand the Japanese. For instance, a woman will never precede any of the men of her family into a- room. When a man wishes to entertain his friends, he does not take them home, but to an hotel. The wife can never have a women's party if there are men in the house," said Mrs. Shaw. "So the Japanese women are largely kept in ignorance of what goes on at the Chinese front. "Since the war began the Japanese have organised their guilds into 'war chests* and so on to supply things for the men at the front. "Every time a man is called up, a representative from each house in his district will go to see him off, waving a little flag. The women wear their white kitchen aprons with long sleeves which, with a ribbon band across the front, are signs of their membership of the Women's National Organisation.."

Because of unforeseen circumstances, this became impossible, and she is now engaged in voluntary nursing in Shanghai. Amazing "incidents of the war fill her Ietters— the last to be received was written at the end of November.. When she arrived from a French cruiser, a big battle was in progress, as the Chinese were attempting to bomb the Japanese warship Idztimo from their planes. "I was in such a daze that day that I really do not know how I arrived; 1 was also feeling very ill, having seen so many dead soldiers floating on the river. White flashes came from the guns of the Idzumo as they were fired at Chinese planes, and an ear-splitting noise never seemed to stop," she writes. She paints vivid pictures of life in Shanghai at the end of November. Air raids at dawn were common-place, and tracer bullets would light up the sky at night.' "The screech of the shells is like the tearing apart of silk material," she says. At the same time, Miss Murray and a Swedish friend, Miss Vivienne Dorf, being about the only young unattached, foreign women left in Shanghai, were showered witii invitations to ^ances and cocktail parties. In September, Miss Murray was wounded with shrapnel when returning home while an air raid was in progress. Owing to a shot in the arm, she missed the "Bloody Saturday" when 1500 Chinese and many foreigners were killed by a b-mb explosion. "We all find ourselves changed— a little tougher, maybe," she writes. The bravery of the Chinese is shown in small incidents. One soldier, after a leg amputation, had rested only two days ana thought he could be sent back to the front.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "I still have a good leg ahd two arms to fight for my country." Such is the. spirit of China, she says. Ironic touches are not lacking in the war zone. "On Armistice Day," she writes, "I attended t' e Italian celebrations on tlie racecourse; veterans of the Ethiopian campaign took part and paraded with trophies such as banners, cpears and shields captured in Abyssinia. During the ceremony, shells were literally whizzing over our heads, as the Japs were firing long-distance guns from one side of the Settlement, and they were timed to land in Nantao, on the other side."