CHINESE CUSTOMS.

Shannon News, 18 March 1927, Page 3

CHINESE CUSTOMS.

After many adventures in matiy lands as an ertists-traveller, Miss Amy J. Ducker is back in London. She is now preparing to set out for Spain and South America.

“I have lived with peasants in out-of-the-way districts of Kerry and Galway, of Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Palestine, India and China,” said Miss Ducker, “and I find the peasants of all countries, are very easy to take things as they come. It does not do to be too fastidious. “As for manners and irue courtesy, peasants often set a splendid example to those higher up in the social scale. “On steamers I have travelled with Chinese, as the saying is to the amazement of other Europeans, and I met with no insult, nor did I when I journeyed home across the continent thirdclass. To them all, suppose, I was just a mad English-woman. So I never had to explain anything. “Everything in China seems upside down or down side up, which you will. For instance: Meals end up with soup. It is polite to make as much noise as possible in eating, as a display of satisfaction. A Chinese host will pick out delicacies with his chop-sticks and place the tit-bits in the rice bowl of his guest, it is good manners to spit in a room. Highborn ladies use orammental spittoons and back scratcher&i Domestic servants, are plentiful and their wages' low. lsy-fchajrlady worked seven days a week, 32 iours a days, made my dresses and filled in her spare time with embroidery for—five shillings a week. And I was a stranger, and so paid double 1“