ROTORUAITE IN CHINA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19128, 2 October 1924, Page 12

ROTORUAITE IN CHINA

MISS IVY YOUNG ABROAD RECEIVES A GREAT RECEPTION New Zealand, and Rotorua in particular, is being well advertised as a beautiful country and a favourite tourist resort by a young lady boin in Rotorua, Miss Ivy Young, who has been charming audiences in the big cities of china with her singing and [elocutionary accomplishments. The I following notices are taken from the !Shanghai Sunday Times: —“Miss Ivy !Young, a recent arrival in Shanghai, ■is performing with great success at ■the New Carlton. She is Hie possessor lof a very clear contralto voice, which ps heard to advantage in ‘My Ain Folk.” ‘Star of Eve/ and many [other beautiful songs. Miss Young has sung extensively in New Zealand and always with the greatest success.”

“There is now in Tientsin a JaJv who was born right in the very heart of one of the most romantic, awe-in-spiring and terrific pieces of territory, hidden away in a land little known north of the equator, where the trees are always green; where the land is constantly in eruption; geysers from the bowels of the earth are constantly in activity; where a huge semi-somnolent volcano may at any time cause a gigantic eruption and bring devastation for miles around; where a housewife need never boil her cooking wafer, for it is always hot; where a stick of wood, a coin, a piece of meat, or, in fact, anything, may be petrified in the space of a few days; where lava is constantly forming wonderful coloured terraces of stone which at any moment are liable to be Swept out of existence; where water as green as the grass and as blue as the sky, icy cold and boiling hot, may be encountered in the same huge lake. The leading city of this (to her) wonderful land was described by Kipling as “Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite apart,” and she is going to Peking to-day to see whether the great capital city, about which she has heard so much, can compare in beauty with that little known retreat thousands of miles away. “The lady in question is Miss IvyYoung, who has spent a few days In Tientsin and is now hastening away to Peking to see the sights and the) Great Wall. During the course of a rhapsody to-day Miss Young spoke of that wonderful island, or at least three islands, “down under” where Labour was a political party before Socialism was heard of England; where the death rate among children is lower than it is in any country in the world; where the unpronounceable names of the towns are like music in the mouths of the Maoris and where a man need never starve. “It was of the volcanic district of New Zealand, Rotorua, that Miss Young had so much to say. She told of the wonderful warrior-like, peaceful natives and of the stately women, with blue tattoo marks on their chins. She told how the merry-go-lucky men struck terror into the hearts of the Turks at Gallipoli by their frightful war-cries, their wide-open mouths and their protruding tongues. Miss Young then broke out into a real Maori haka (war-cry), just as the natives do in New Zealand. Nothing more frightful could be imagined than the flashing of her eyes, the thunder of her voice, and stabbing of her hands, and the stamping of her feet as she yelled at the interviewer as the Maoris years ago shieked defiance at the British who surrounded them in their pa (stronghold) years ago. Miss Young then spoke of the love story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai, where the Maori girl swam out to her lover who had been imprisoned on an island three miles away. These Maoris, she said, were somewhat similar to the Hawaiians, whom they much resembled and from whom they are cupposed to have sprung. Their appearance is similar; their dress is much the same, and many of their words are identical.

“Maoris, she concluded, ara considered by New Zealanders to be the highest type of native in the world.”