Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 16, Number 63, Decatur, Adams County, 14 March 1918 — Page 3

UNO OF CHINA liss? Esther Sdleniever, Reformed Missionary There — VRITES FINE LETTER 'oiling of the Distinctive Things That She Has Found There. Nanking, China, Thanksgiving Dav, Nov. 2'j, 191 M There is so much to say that I arcely know what to include and - hat to leave out. Since I noticed at my first letter home for some rea”i S or other received publication in e Dally Democrat, I shall not speak my trip across the continent or on • ocean but shall take for granted at most of you are probably famill u| with my experiences on land and a as described fit that letter. 1 have o much to tell you to find it necesa ty to burden you with stale stories. ■ the contrary, I am anxious to have >n find out just as much as possible i t cut my experiences and impressions ‘‘•lchina as well as something about *1 country and the people themselves J course, please remember that 3 onths in this country doesn’t make a an authority, and while I have i, irned very much already, still, 1i ve, oh, bo much more to learn. We landed in Shanghai August 18th v .S| ter a smooth journey. As the 18th is Saturday and Hoy’s had considetle shopping to do. we decided to ry there at a foreign hotel utril ynday evening when a very good rs ter boat was scheduled to leave for ints up the river. We secured pasge on that boat and started on the ■ it stretch Monday evening at 9 dock. The Yangtze river, on which j were traveling, was in its annual ite of flood, although much war.-. k an it had been for years. This made dy iveling rather dangerous, as the <er is very crooked and the current rift. The course was especially dif■ult to determine after night, and as consequence, all boats were ordered anchor for the night at 8 p. tn., and FM.N| resume the journey no earlier than a- vybreak. We arrived at Hankow e.ir- —- Friday morning There we had , change boats because the one ve jre on was too large to go up the allow part of the river toward Y n w City, our final destination. At uikow we met Gertrud - Hoy and try Meyers who were on their way ck to Yochow after having s;x it S summer at Gikunksan, one of the sorts for missionaries and foreigners a spent all of Friday shopping in mkow and looking after our money airs. That evening we boarded our at at 9 o’clock and sailed some time Wt;her midnight. All along the riv r. nost as far as we could see, ri'-e Ids were under water and just the » of trees and huts were visible, many places whole villages had an swept away by the current, while others we could see the water enters the homes of the people. Many re homeless and begging. At first, when w-e saw what kind of uses the natives lived in we said, h, well, they aren’t very expensive d can soon be rebuilt, because straw rnboo, and mud is cheap.” But not Although their houses are not nished with carpets, rugs, curtains. ■ nevertheless, it’s home to those jple just, the same and they have to rk much harder for their little itched hut than we do to own i se, extravagant house. Think of it.' tanner supporting a family on $3 or, r v il a month! and that is the average ' 8e for most of them. When a farm- * rice field is flooded and his crop t during harvest time, that means whole winter’s food supply for himt and family gone, and nothing less in starvation and a bitterly cold nter staring him in the face, for out ** the humidity in the atmosphere 80 great that even though the ther■meter doesn’t show such a low nperature. we feel the cold much ,re than in America. Year after ir thousands die from the cold while •t as many suffer to such an extent Rthelr bodies are wrecked and ir members frozen off. It is a nwon sight to see people on the sets without hands or feet., t hese mhers having been lost on account w liter’s severity and the lack of. -per clothing and shelter. •Veil, to continue, we got to Yoc- ( * City at 8 o’clock Sunday morn®nd were met by Rev. Heinrich1 a nd Rev. Reimert who had waited u. at the port since 3 o’clock Sat- , ia Y afternoon. After meeting ill missionaries at Yochow City and j|| ■ °ying breakfast at Ladies' Hall If • home of all the single ladles in v-i

thP Ration) we went to Chines I church and heard Rev. Helnrichson preach a Chinese sermon. The entire service was In Chinese, and nut it rally, we didn’t get much out of it. Hoy ever, It was very Interesting to see the behavior of some of the natives. They di<l not hesitate to get up any time during the service, whether In the midst of a long prayer or not, und spit out of the window. If they felt like yawning, they did so in such a way as to make themselves heard over the entire church; if they got. tired and wanted to leave, they just did so; if they were attracted by some sound outside, they Immediately, arose to investigate; und a thousand and one little things like that were constantly being done which were most amusing to us new-comers. One poor country woman with her little son sat up on tho very front bench. It being a very hot Sunday, the little fellow was rather restless and did a considerable amount of running around, and squirm Ing in his seat. Finally, his mother evidently decided that his restlessness was caused by his being dressed too warm, and so proceeded to remove all his clothing, which consisted of a little calico coat and pair of trousers. After that, the little fellow seemed quite content and went to sleep. At the close of church his clothes were put on again and he and his mother slowly hobbled home. The church was very well filled, however, and generally speaking, the people were very eager and attentive. The Mission Compounds both at 1 Yochow and at Lakeside are very beautiful. They are surrounded by high, stone or brick walls, and are i planned as carefully and as artistic tl1 ly as any college campus. The buildings are fairly substantial, being con1 structed of a gray native brick which is made from a mixture of clay and sandstone. Tho hack yards of most ’ of the missionaries' homes are laid uot 1 in flourishing gardens which in turn 1 are made over the tops of Chinese r graves. You know China is just full of graves, and in the country there isn't a place hardly twenty feet square 1 that hasn’t a grave. When new build--1 ings are erected it is nearly always 1 necessary to have the men remove p the dead bodies from the site before work on digging the foundation can p be begun. There isn’t a hillside that 1 isn't covered with graves, and to try to keep from walking over them is an s impossibility. If any of you feel ' “spooky" when passing a graveyard, I ’ advise yon not to come to China, be--1 cause you will do well to keep from living in houses built over dead bodies 1 and to keep from eating food cultivatD cd on the top of dead men’s bones. p When one sees the sickness, filth, contagion and living conditions of this ' country, besides the large number of 1 daily funerals passing one’s front door, f it is easy to understand why nearly 1 every square foot of the countryside 3 is utilized for burial grounds. Think ’ of it! The death rate of taffies under 1 five years of age in this country is 10 ' per cent. But I must continue. r The fomt. yards of the missionaries’ ’ homes are very beautiful with their • wealth of flowers, trees and fruit. We ’ have the palm, pine, bamboo and weep ‘ ing willow tree in great abundanca. ■ Palms, which it would be the Ameri--1 can housewive's extreme pride to ! cultivate in her home, grow wild here ‘ without any cultivation at all. Our principal fruits here are persimmons, dates, pomolos, pomegranates, tagerr ines and oranges. Please remember. • however, that we eat none Os this fruit ’ fresh from the tree, but steam it in ' boiling water for a certain length of time, or soak it in chemical solutions which kill all the germs. Furthermore • I have not had a drink of fresh water ' since leaving Vancouver, B. C.; nor do 1 1 hope to taste any again until I reach ’ that shore. The same is true of the milk we use. Here in Nanking we can ’get cow’s milk, but it must all be boil'j ed before, using. At Yochow and farther interior we can get nothing but con'densed milk which is sent over from 'the states, and we are lucky if we have that on hands all the time. Our butter is sent to us either from America or Australia done up in air-tight tin cans and made to last a year or so. The can holds a pint and costs all the way from $1.25 to $1.50. How much do you think we eat? Ha. Ha. Our meat diet consists chiefly of fish, mutton, chicken, and beef. Pork is so scarce and expensive that it is very rare delicacy. Beef is somewhat cheaper, but even then is too highpriced to grace our table very often. Chicken and fish are the least expeu- • sive. In fact, we have chicken in some 1 form or other nearly every day. In I America we would be considered very 'extravagant, but not so out here, i Fred spoke in his letter about Aunt Mary Sellemeyer wanting to send me. 'a few spring chickens. I agree that they would be old klucks by the time they got to me.” She might send them dressed, but I wouldn’t promise how many of thbm I would eat after they arrived. I am glad though that I like chicken so welj: for if I didn’t- I’m afraid my stomach would feel emnty s

pretty often ft’e have quite a variety i of vegetables, such ns Chinese cub huge, pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, chestnuts, spin n.ige, etc. One of the things which impress -d me greatly ut Yochow was the hospital. Miss Meyers took us through while the nurses wore dressing the patietns' wounds and attending to them according to their individual needs. The diseases are much different from those we have at home. For instance, we have hook worm (in fact, every kind of worm that exists from tape worm down to pin worm and ring worm.) we have cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis of all kinds, typhoid fever, typhus fever, itch, scurvy, small pox, malaria, sprue, multitudinous eye, diseases, leprosy and sores such as have to be seen in order to be appreciated. Never in my life have 1 seen just common sores such as I've seen out here. They are sores that eat olf a whole nose, an ear. or pan of a hand or foot. The other day I saw a beggar on the street with a sore on his leg as big as a teacup and about % of an inch deep. To see people covered with sores is very common. Miss Meyers had one of the Chinese women who was convalescing in the hospital, unbind one of her feet to let us see how they do it and also to what extent their feet are deformed by this practice. This woman’s foot was about 4 inches long. The arch of the foot was broken upwards, the great toe formed the sole, the other toes were bound underneath the arch, while the heel was left natural size. Thus, the woman really walked on her heels instead of on her whole feet. We saw a child with tubercular bones whose shoulder blade was almost eaten in two. Some of these things sound rather exaggerated, but I tell you these are facts. It is said that the Chinese are able to endure suffering as no other people, and observations certainly Correspond to this statement. I shall not spend any more time on Yochow City, its workers, buildings, etc., for you can all read this in the literature furnished you by our church about our efforts in Japan and Chinn. I shall continue to give my own personal experiences from the time I landed in Shanghai up to the present date. The heat at Yochow was so intense and, so unaccustomed to it, having just come across the Pacific via the cold northern route, that Miss Weil, one of the newly appointed workers, got sick and was threatened with dysentery. Mrs. Hoy advised us to leave at once and occupy their cottage up on. Killing (the summer resort for foreigners) until time for Language school to start here in Nanking, which was almost three weeks ahead (October 2nd). This plan was no sooner suggested than operations for its accomplishments were begun, and before we knew it we were being carried ) | miles up the mountain in sedan chairs, each chair having four coolies. At j Kuling Miss Weil, Mr. Bachman, and myself were forced to go to house-1 keeping. servants being cheap ,and we unable to help ourselves in speaking Chinese, decided to hire two servants, a cook and a coolie who were to help us run the household. ' The cook was able to speak some English, so we get along pretty well.; He did all our buying for us, bossed the coolie, and did the cooking. The coolie did the cleaning, assisted the cook, and carried our water (all water must be carried from wells, ponds, rivers or lakes, then sterilized, filtered and. boiled before ready for use. You know' we have no central power houses or pumping stations here, neither do we have driven wells. 11 never felt so helpless or dependent in all my life. If that cook couldn’t have talked English, I don’t know what we would have done. Even so, we had todo all kinds of pantomiming in order' to make ourselves understood, and then failed half the time. One day we bursted one of Mrs. Hoy’s perfectly good glass fruit jars because we told the cook to fill it with boiling water, instead of cold water. However, that was only a tame result of some of the bad Chinese. I wont tell you the other things because then the joke would be on me. Well, we left Kuling several days before time for Language school to open here and arrived an Nanking in plenty of time to get thoroughly rest-, ed, unpacked and settled, prior to be-1 ginning our work. When we arrived at the Nanking port there was no one there to meet us as we had expected, and we found ourselves stranded in this city of 346,000 people with a whole w'agon-load of baggage, not a foreigner or English-speaking person anywhere in sight, we not being able, to say one Chinese word, not knowing one person, Chinese or American, and having no knowledge of where we wanted to go, except to the Language school, which, when we did say it, nobody was able to understand. Finally Miss Weil and I sat on our baggage to keep the Chinese carriers from taking charge of it, and Mr.

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'Bachman went to find somebody,| friend or enemy, who was able to talk 1 just a little English—we were willing to accept almost anybody. Ha. Well, after being gone a long time, he, Mr. Bachman, returned with the news that the language school was 5 miles from where we were, would have to | be reached by horse and carriage, and was known in Chinese as “Ginling daw Schotan.” With this bit of information we started off. However, ; the men who had carried our trunss I for us from the ship to the street now demanded pay, and how much were we to give them, and how could wc come to terms, none of us understanding anything that any of them said? The men at once spotted us as "gre.m horns,” and from their actions demanded much more than we offered to pay. We fussed and wrangled with them for a long time and finally ordered our driver to move on. Seeing this, they held the horses and refused to let us go. We wrangled some more with the result that they tried to unload our trunks. This our driver refused to allow them to do, so at Mr. Bachman’s third command to move on,

| they again resorted to holding the horses. At last, we told our driver (by the aid of gestures and suggestive antics) that unless he drove on we would have the baggage unloaded and hire another man. With this command he whipped the men away from the horse’s bridle and actually madei a little headway. But the first thing we knew, the men, about a half dozen of them, were running after us with monstrous stones in their hands ready Io throw at us if we didn't stop. We went on, and sure enough, one of the stones came sailing into the carriage and barely missed Mr. Bachman. Hereupon, Mr. Bachman jumped out of the carriage and ran after the man, with the result that he and all the others dropped their stones. He consented to give them about half of what they asked, and when they saw that he meant it, and was ready to defend himself and us, they cooled off and went away. After arriving at the university, we were treated very cordially and soon found ourselves among | 'friendly people and comfortably sur- ' roundings. Thus, Were we received by ; the natives when making our first ap-ji

pearance in Nanking. Ha. ha. Our work here in the University is very fascinating athough hard on the nerves and extremely monotonous at times. We study absolutely nothing else but Chinese from 8:30 a. m. until 4:00 p. m.; five and one-half days in the week. Saturday afternoon is the only free time we have and that is usually taken up with shopping, recreation, or darning stockings and mending clothes. For the last several weeks we have been trying to learn how to read, and our Dean told us yesterday that we would attempt to do some writing before Christmas. Chinese is certainly difficult, and many evening when I come home from school my head just swims and I am fit for nothing but bed, which 1 usually find at about 9:00 p. m. We need quite a bit more sleep out here than we aro accustomed to taking in Amer- 1 lea. 1 On Monday evenings after school * I teach two Chinese girls music, one c I half hour each, over at the Presbyter- 6 ian Mission. On Thursday evenings c .’after school I have choir practice with | thirty Chinese chldren over at the

[ Methodist church. There . children constitute the choir which sings for Sunday school at this church every Sunday morning, and although willing, they need a lot of training. 1 also play the piano for Sunday school over there I do my instructing at choir practice through a Chinese interpreter. Last week the interpreter couldn’t come and I had to make use of some of my newly acquired Chinese. I got along much better than 1 had expected and really didn't know that my scattered brain had taken in as much as it has. The Sunday school over there has 400 scholars. On Saturday evenings I go to our foreign choir practice at the Union church for foreigners. I sing alto in that choir. We have an English service for all English-speaking people in Nanking every Sunday p. m. at 4:30, and this service is conducted just like the average worship in Protestant churches at home. I have enclosed our weekly church bulletin which also show’s a picture of the little brick church that 1 and all my American friends attend every Sunday. To hoar (Continued on page 6)