Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1909 — ANTICS OF CHINESE STUDENTS. [ARTICLE]

ANTICS OF CHINESE STUDENTS.

Quaint siahner»cf 33nt to TJila Country to BtU'Jy. About the year 1870 the Chinese gov-err.r/3-.t sent some 60 or 70 boys and young men of high rank to the United States at the instance and under the guardianship of Yung Wing, a graduate of Yale of the class of 1854. The purpose whs to educate these boys In American high schools and universities, and to give them such an acquaintance with American institutions and customs as might render them able to instruct their own countrymen on their return to China.

The party was divided into groups and distributed among the various educational centers. Some of them were sent to Yale. They were, generally speaking, of high Intellect, and attained excellent rank both in scholarship and socially; but they never quite got rid of their national tendency to take things literally, and they were tenacious of certain ideas of etiquette to an extent which they never wholly overcame. One of these Chinese freshmen waa invited to call at the house of an eminent Yale professor of science whose reputation was world-wide, and he promptly availed himself of the privilege. After remaining for a reasonable length of time, he rose to take his leave. One of the professor’s daughters expressed her pleasure at having seen him, and asked him to call again. This he promptly did in about ten minutes, having apparently taken a walk round the block, Qn another occasion, says the Youth’s Companion, the same Chinese student was invited to the same house to an evening entertainment. He was seen by the hostess to come in at the door and to go upstairs to the dress-’ ing-room, but did not appear in the drawing-room. She requested one of her student friends to go to the dress-ing-room and bring the Chinaman down.

The student found him in the dress-ing-room calmly smoking, and asked him why he did not go down stairs, to which he replied that he could not do So because all the men and women were talking at once, and that, being contrary to his ideas of etiquette, would make him so uncomfortable that he would prefer not to take part in it He remained in the dressingroom during the whole evening, smoking and talking with such of the men as dropped in there, and partaking of refreshments which were sent to him; but to the babel below stairs he would not go. One of the Chinese students was coxswain of the university crew, and one of the best men at the tiller-ropes who ever sat in a boat He Had excellent control qf the men, and up to the time of the race itself ‘did not exhibit any of his national peculiarities; but in the excitement of the race itself he would at critical times give up the use of English, which he spoke perfectly, and shout and jabber at his crew in Chinese in a manner which so provoked them to laughter as almost to throw them out of form. He was very small, weighing only 80 or 90 pouncs, and the giant captain of the crew used to carry him through the excursion train on the return to New Haven, after a victory, upon his right arm, rustling in his many-colored silks and with his “pigtail” hanging down his back.