CHINA

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 3 December 1927, Page 11

CHINA

IT’S PEOPLE AND CUSTOMS INDUSTRIES AND CREED. NURSE-MISSIONARY INTERVIEWED. Miss Bargrove, a nurse-missionary from the Hangchow Hospital in China, is staying tor a tew days in tins district, ana very kindly granted “.Stella” an interview on Friday when (for the benefit of “Tribune ’ readers) she spoke about the beauty of China and the extreme poverty of many of its people. Miss Bargrove is young and has a fine personality, and she speaks with the authority of one who has widely studied the subject. THE C.M.S. HOSPITAL AT HANGCHOW. Miss Bargrove has been working as a nursing sister fur 3i years at the Hangchow C.M.S, hospital, until an attack of typhoid fever was contracted which, together witn the political situation, necessitated her obtaining leave of absence. ' This hospital is five hours by wain from Shanghai, and a tremendous work has been done. There is a big outpatients’ department with tin average of 200 patients every morning, and a large hospital for men with an up-to-date X-ray plant nnd operating theatre. tn addition there are a women's hospital and a maternity hospital (30 beds) with a training school for Chinese midwives. There is a large medical college where eighty students (15 of th“in women) are being trained to uo out and help their own people. There are also separate hospitals for men and women suffering from T.B. It is quite impossible to have the men and women together as sexes there do not associate until marriage. “For this season," said Miss Bargrove, “we have to train Chinese men as nurses for the men. and very difficult it is.”

There are isolation hospitals for men an,i women, and to these a large number of smallpox patients find their way.

CHINESE WOMEN NURSES. The women we are training as nurses largely come iroru Christian homes, and these women, as they have never been taught to use their fingers find even scrubbing out a cupboard a physical difficulty. However they are very intelligent and anxious to learn, though their lack of reserve strength is most noticeable. Generations of idleness, muscular inactivity and hound feet, have left the average Chinese woman a heritage of weakness which even the new healthy regime will take centuries to counteract. CITY OF HANGCHOW Hangchow, said Miss Bargrove, “is the capital of our province, and once the capital of all China. It is a wonderful! “See Hangchow, and you’ve seen Heaven!” is an old saying. Much Chinese poetry has been written about this old and romantic city with its dense population of 80.000. Ln this crowded mass of houses live more than half as many as your New Zealand population. Walking along the streets you can see into the tinv houses many almost filled by a huge hand-loom where exquisite brocades are being woven, it is a fascinating sight. Silk weaving is one of the chief means of livelihood, and only quite recently have there been a few factories, all has been done by hand THE SILK INDUSTRY. • In the silk season it is difficult, and not diplomatic, to seek an interview with a Chinese. For it is a firmly believed superstitution with them that should the silk-worms hear the foreign voice, or if the foreigner even look at the worms, they will die at once. “We respect this idea,” said the speaker, "and keen very quiet.m this season.” Along the canals are rows of.mulberry trees on which the worms are fed. What a work this feeling is! The women and children work night and day feeding the silk-worms on the mulberry leaves. When the brocades are woven, dyed, and finished, they are really exquisite, and as a family can only make about a yard a day the silk is never very cheap. THE WILLOW PATTERN LAKE. The lake is situated on the out sairts of the city bounded on three sides by beautiful hills. These are covered with bamboos and verdant green, and m the spring are a lovely sight covered with a flowering mass of scarlet azaleas. In the lake are several islands, and one of them (Lotus Island) is claimed to be the original scene of the well-known legend of the Willow Pattern Plate. These quaint little islands are really just made up of strips of narrow land, joined by small bridges, and dotted all about on them are the summer houses, or “din-zals.” with their turned-up roofs. PHYSIQUE OF THE MEN “Tn mid-China where I was. the Chinese men did not compare favourably with the New Zealander,’’ said Miss Bargrove, “though in the north 1 believe they are much stronger. The rickshaw man has such a strain on his heart; that as a rule he only lives about 12 years after he begins that work. 1 am sure that one reason for the high death rate is the sort of food they often eat. I have seen them buy and eat bad fruit in the streets. Maybe it is a pear with the bad part scooped out and the hollow covered with a mass of flies Can you wonder they catch disease?” BUDDISM. “This ancient religion has been the one religious comfort of China with its teaching of Nirvana—the way to Heaven, but now it is far removed from the teaching of the founder, and has degenerate,] into temple worship. In the Chinese religions there is absolutely no philanthropy taught, except in giving alms to beggars—of whom there are myriads, poor filthy, filthv creatures.” said Miss Bargrove sadly. They lie about the streets with ulcers on them, and when wo urge them to come to the

hospital and be cured, they refuse because their means of livelihood would be gone. To get money a healthy woman goes about in a •bitter, cold wind, and.her appeal is her baby, which she ties naked to her back, they asked for money given ostensibly for its clothes. Probably the little thing dies in about three days from the cold. About 80 per cent, of the babies die under two years of age! We talk of the old civilisation of China, but this culture of all the arts has not touched the mass of the people who often live in filth as animals. “I have seen Chinese existing in homes which honestly you in New Zealand would not put a pig in. They are called ‘match-sheds,’ and are low-thatched huts like a pig stye. There is no outlet for the smoke, and .n this dirty hole they live, sleep, and play—worse housed than our animals.” CHINESE LADIES. “A Chinese lady is often very beautiful, though we seen plain women—just as you do here!” said Miss Bargrove, with a merry twinkle m her eye. Clad in a long robe of ravishing silk of varying hues the Chinese spare no trouble to make herself a v< y attractive figure, and generally succeeds. The every-day dress of a Chinese lady is a small jumper-coatee of silk, and a long black silk skirt. BOUND FEET Primarily due to the work of missionaries it is now illegal for a Chinese woman to bind her feet. Whereat years ago a woman was proud of her tiny deformed feet, now she hides them, and even buys a large shoe and stuffs the toes, (if course it is only this generation who have unbound feet; all the women over 30 totter about in their tinv wee shoes, which would about fit the normal loot of a baby of. ten months old. Every bound foot is said to represent “many years of tears.” All the early childhood of the little Chinese girls used to be a time of weeping, for thqir feet never ceased paining till they were grown women. Now, as a contrast, the Chinese girls go in for physical culture, and run freely about. They are intelligent too, and often study in Europe, while in Shanghai there is even a Chinese woman lawyer.” THE SORDID SIDE Miss Bargrove, who spoke most graphically, constaomly reiterated that China was a beautiful place with most lovable people, an,] yet, she said, the sordid side of things is ever coming forward. She told a somewhat gruesome and yet typical anecdofe of her experience when out for a walk one day. The Chinese take their pet birds for walks—as we would our dogs—and walk along holding the cages. By a pretty little bridge with willows each s’de, she saw a large bird-cage in a tree, and a crowd of interested spectators were clustered there. Telling her friend that it must be a different kind of bird, the two nurses drew near, and saw to their horror the head of <> man, which, they were told, was the head of a brigand who had just been executed, and it had been hung up for a warning. Justice is unknown and*there is no tribunal. The man with most money to pay soldiers becomes Civi] Governor-.-he mav be n brigand himself! CHINESE BURIAL GROUNDS On being asked what Chinese people do with tlieir dead. Miss Bar. grove told of the almost unbelievable way that the coffins are disposed of. The belief is that the dragon of evil Jives under the ground, and therefore it would be a wicked thin- to ever disturb him by burying a body. So the heavy wooden coffin, covered with pitch, is taken to the burial grounds where thousands of coffins may be clearly seen all just placed out in the open, find often quite near the cities Ln the summer the result is unspeakable! Sometimes a thatch is put over the coffin, or if the person is wealthy, a wee wooden house like our dog kennels. A military man may even have a concrete cover over the coffin “It is not considered at all dreadful,” said Miss Bargrove, “for th* mass of the Chinese people have no conception of hygiene or sanitation: it is unknown.” BRITAIN’S POLICY THRILLS MISSIONARIES. The missionaries were thrilled at the strong action taken by the British Government in their protective policy, when they sent out troops and marines to Shanghai. The restraint of those men, she said, was wonderful. for they were subjected to all sorts of insult, and yet through it all they kept to their protective policy, and never became aggressive. While the women were being taken from interior China, the men put up with much which was degrading to their feelings, and when all the foreigners were safe the marines quietly withdrew to their ships. “YOUNG CHINA” NATIONALISTS The Nationalist movement in China is an effort on the part of the young educated Chinese to help their country to take her place with the Western nations. By hor policy Great Britain has recognised this. The Bolshevist movement is very strong and is sending its vile propaganda into every corner of China, and also pays its agents to work ii< the colleges and corrupt the students. The Nationalist movement she added, is going to be the saving of China, even though many mistakes have been and are still being made. THE HOSPITAL STAFF AND HJEAI.S After the evacuation of the foreigners last February in obedience to Consular orders, our hospital was taken over by the civil authorities. There is recent encouraging news that the missionaries in Shanghai have every hope of getting back to it quite soon. The Americans are already back in Hangchow. The Chinese have only a very few welltrained, efficient men' as a staff, and we hear on good authority that' very little actual surgical work tieina done, and that thev will be glad to welcome us back. Our staff consists of five English doctors, three nursing sisters, one trained dispenser, a business manager, and a medical superintendent’s private secretary: our helpers are Chinese, JOYFUL WORK After a most interesting talk full of vivid description Miss Bargrove left a impression of the happiness of her life in China among the

people. It is her conviction that it is the fullest life possible, both as regards interest an,] enjoyment, for any woman, “hor those who wish re spend their lives in service for others there can be no greater than this,’ said this dainty little woman, <viio with her piquant face and youthful features reflects in her happy smile the whole joy of living. The Chinese religion knows ot no service lor others outside of their own family. A Chinese will ask the nurse with astonishment as care is lavished on a sick man, “Why you do that? he going to die,” and it is thus that the thought lor others impresses the ignorant mind and shows the truth ol the great Christian religion which tile missionaries are there to explain. Miss Bargrove has been asked to speak of her work. an ( ] will give an address in St. Matthew’s Hall on Sunday next, at 3.30 pjtn.