Changing China

to the nominal Christianity of some Western countries. The first thing perhaps that strikes a foreigner when he is brought into contact with the Chinese is their great courtesy; their literati

ough. It was no use telling them that his honesty was above suspicion, that he was a reliable business man, that he was very hard working, that he had many years of hard service behind him; they al

considered adequate. The Viceroy or official meets the visitor, enthusiastically shaking his own hands-the Chinese salutation-and bowing low; the particular door at which he meets his guest marks the amount of respect he wishes to pay him, and is therefore of some importance. In my case, when my host was favourable to higher education, I was received in the outer court. At every door there was a polite

tiations. This courtesy is all the direct result of Confucian teaching. Stress is laid there on courteous behaviour, perhaps even to a degree which may strike the Western traveller as absurd. This courtesy, I understand, e

gardens would be surprised and ashamed if they could compare them with those of a Chinaman. One passes garden after garden with rows of plants placed at even distances and every plant exactly the right distance in those rows, with never a weed to be seen all

quite unconsciously he might from time to time put an instrument down on the table, and just touch it again. Months after he would find one of his pupils when doing the same experiment repeating every gesture he had accidentally made with careful imitation. It was clear that the student had monotonously continued to practice these gestures for no other reason but that he had seen his master make them. All those words which our writers on social su

up the Yangtsze, and the men were straining every nerve against the current, while they were chilled by a driz

se of the missionary, he did not hesitate to administer a sound thrashing to his son, which the young man took without the slightest resistance, and in this action the clergyman was supported by the public opinion of the congregation. This quality gives to China its great power, and it is one of the points in which there is the greatest divergence be

d understand, so that obedience to parents is a virtue which must fall into disuse as knowledge increases, but as an absolute duty, a duty equally incumbent on a man of forty as on a child of four. This principle is extended to that of civil government; the local official is in

eserved. The great qualities of obedience to parents, of courtesy to strangers, are being forgotten. The Chinaman educated in the States is rude and abrupt; he fancies that it is Western and business-like. Every Chinese gentleman to whom I talke

rn education is practical, Chinese education is moral." If you try to argue with a thoughtless Chinaman who has perhaps never left China, and whose only experience of Western life is what he has seen in a treaty port, you will find that it is hard to convince him that Western education produces a high moral tone. After all we may, to a certain extent, be to blame for their want of appreciation of the morality of the West, for too often we show to the Chinese a very de

the men. To Korean eyes all Westerns look alike, and as they were offering good pay, they soon had their corps complete; they returned to Seoul, and the corps was installed with suitable uniforms, and, alas, rifles and ammunition. The moment the corps was paid, the greater bulk of them got drunk, and for the next few hours Seoul was distinctly an undesirable place of residence, filled with drunken men of all nationalities shouting and shrieking and firing loaded rifles recklessly in every direction. The poor Emp

and most pernicious forms of that hateful vice. The Governor complained to the Consul; the Consul sent his officer down, accompanied by the police, to arrest the Greeks; the Private Secretary to the Governor informed the Consul of the tragedy that followed. The Consular officer warned the Greeks that they must give up their gambling establishment and go back to Hankow. They said they would not. He told them that if they refused he would arrest them, take them to the boat, and send them down by force to Hankow. They still refused, and he advanced, upon which one of the Greeks shot the officer dead. The Chinese police after their manner vanished, while the Governor's Private Secretary, according to his own account, spent most of the time of the interview under the table. The Greeks, seeing the coast clear, and realising that venge

n distant China. Can one wonder that the Chinese are liable to misunderstand the West, and were it not for the saintly life of many missionaries, the high character and strict justice of our Consuls-yes, and the admirable discipline and management of such great undertakings as that