TOPSY-TURVEY CHINA.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1920, Page 9

TOPSY-TURVEY CHINA.

CONTRASTS WITH WESTERN, CIVILISATION. There are so many things in which the Chinese think and act in exactly the o, posite way to Westerners, that it would almost seem as if some occult influence were at work. Even Nature seems affected- For in China the gra9S i 3 green in summer heat and brown in winter rain; and in our gardens we sow our spring seeds in the autumn (says the London Times). In China the men wear gowns and the women wear trousers. A Chinese, on meeting a friend, shakes hands with himself, not with the friend. In hot sunshine he shades, not the nape of his neck, but the front of his head. Returning home he refreshes himself with a cup of tea, putting the saucer on the top of the cup, and not under it. He likes eggs not new laid, but buried for several years. He drinks his wine bot instead of iced. And his hooka are printed to begin at the end and work backwards with the lines reading from the top of the page downwards and from right to left. In rowing a boat the most; usual Chinese way "is to "yuloh," with one long oar out at the stern. But two oars or sculls are frequently used, and here we have another study in contraries. For whereas a European sits and pulls, a Chinese stands and pushes'" Tf he sits, he leans back against the stern and thrusts on the handle of the oar with his feet. To kill your enemy ir. certainly not unknown in China.. But the finest, form of revenue, the classic method of heaping the grcn'Dst shame upon your enemy, is to kin yourself on his doorstep. Denionracy is far older in China than in Europe. The Chinese, are, indeed, the most democratic creatures, and the son of a peasant may become a Viceroy or Provincial Governor as easily as the son of his landlord. But, again, the democracy works the other way round to that of tiie West. For the Chinese have no notion of appointing their own rulers or representatives 011 an approved programme, but accept the rulers who thrust themselves upon them, let them invent 'their own programme, and only reserve to themselves the right of turning them out when they become intolerable. A hundred other instances from everyday life of the curious manner in. which a Chinese appears to think exactly opposite to a Westerner might be quoted. And yet no Westerner has a keener sense of justice, of honor, and of right and wrong than has the Chinese, who, with nil hip contrariness and occasionally maddening ways, might cry with Shylock, "If you prick us, do we not 'bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" And that is what the West too often forgets in its dealings with John Chinaman. /