CHINA
Paragraph on
Dedicated to ‘the Honourable the new Prime Minister of Japan.
OU can’t knock back a people that keep on coming over the top, like a wave; over the top, like water spilling (fire won’t stand against it) over’ the top, endlessly (her soldiers go into action on a bowl of rice and a cup of tea) like steam rolling over the rice-fields and over the uplands, through the gorges and the passes; always coming on, often defeated (always defeated) but never yielding, with more legs than a centipede and more arms than an octopus and more lives than a cat and more bulk than an elephant and more guts than a bull-dog hanging on like mad to meat (Jap meat, bleeding). HEN people can take flood and famine, bombs and bullets, rape and arson, (eight years they’ve d it, and still keep on coming) not to mention poverty, disease, mismanagement and civil strife (but still keep on coming) HEN a people can see whole cities slaughtered (wives and mothers violated, babies butchered) provinces razed, whole countries (by any other scale) laid waste; but keep on coming, sticking to it, never giving in; enfilading, ambushing, sabotaging, wrecking (but always coming) fighting in the snow with bare feet and cotton uniforms, no blankets, no greatcoats to keep them warm; facing amputations with hack-saws and hammers (but no morphia) and still coming... j/ BEN a people has the resilience (the moral come-back) to build anew, to raise the torn-down, to plough scorched earth, mend tools, reform broken battalions; to withdraw, to retreat, to escape (but never to give in) to transplant homes, factories, schools, cities, but to keep on coming (like a tidal wave, like earthquake and avalanche, like the vengeance of the inscrutable ) there’s not much you can do. OU can’t knock back a people that keep on coming (eight f abreast they never stop comi die, but keep on coming (new ones and old ones) nut-brown and seasoned like leather but twice as tough. 'HERE’S not much you can do; especially if there are 500,000,000 of them (and 20 born every minute).
Anton
Vogt
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19440825.2.16
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 270, 25 August 1944, Page 10
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356CHINA New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 270, 25 August 1944, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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