Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1910 — JOHN ALDEN WAY IN CHINA. [ARTICLE]

JOHN ALDEN WAY IN CHINA.

Chinese Student Lovers Like Having a middleman Propose for Them. Dr. Isaac T. Headland, a resident of Pekin forjnany years, where he enjoyed the friendship of the late dowager r - a~~new lightthe new women of China. Taking up the relations between the sexes and especially the Chinese method of getting a wife, the Travel Magazine says, he repeats a conversation with a young Chinaman who had recently become engaged to a Chinese maiden with whom he had never spoken. “We students -have a very great advantage over' the old Chinese method of finding a wife and getting engaged,” said my celestial friend. “What do you mean?” I Inquired. “Well, you see. by the old Chinese method a man can never see his wife until she is brought to his home, unless he can bribe the middleman to allow him to stand on the street corner and see her pass by in a cart.” “And what advantage do you have?” “We see the .girls in Church,” he answered. ‘They also can see us. We have sisters in the girls’ school; they have brothers in the college, and when we go home during vacation we can learn all about each other.” “This is an advantage.” “In my judgment,” he continued,

“we have a better method than even you foreigners have.” “How is that?” “Well, you see.” he continued, “after we have selected the lady we want, we can have a middleman go and ask her for us, while you have to go and ask the lady yourself.” “But,” I objected, “we can get so much better acquainted by our method.” “Yes, that’s true,” he admitted, “but doesn't it make you awfully angry if you ask a girl to marry you and she refuses?” It was necessary to admit that there were advantages in the middleman method which had never occurred to me, and, while I was not ready to acknowledge that his new-found method was better than mine, I could still see that the force which brought it about was bringing woman out of her seclusion and placing her on a level with her brother and her future husband.