THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 1038.
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**THE
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MANNERS MAKETH MAN
FN A SMALL Manchurian
town two padded, blue- gowned little figures present themselves for their first lesson in English.
They arrived that bitter, morning, their Hong-iron-clad
delicate, slender, well-bred small hands well tucked into wide-mouthed sleeves.
of
Full sized body, generous
room for 5 passengers.
110 inch wheel base.
Before entering the school-room each paused on the threshold and perform- courteous inclinations ed
and uttered gentle words of smiling, respectful greeting. Invited to enter, they stood Excellent top gear perform-side by side in submissive silence
till bidden to take their seats.
ance.
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The
No extraneous chatter during the lesson, cager attention being given to every utterance of the instructor.
The lesson ended, again low bows and courteous thanks.
"Having frequent OC- casion to use buses travelling schoolwards, I have been
most unpleasantly astounded at the liberties and discourtesies which Chinese boys and young men take, and are allowed to take, unreproached and uncorrected."
Says "CRENA
99
Nor was this attitude "new boy" timidity. Throughout the whole of their instruction the conduct of these little Eastern smug young China lolls at his of it unencumbered by the cure- Phonos
gentlemen was beyond reproach; comparative case and in oblivion. lessly flung book-baskets. 27778/9 the father-himself a charming And the unfortunate tem-
or street-the most that can be expected is a careless nod or' grin. "Oh, but they must let. off steam out of class"
Let us investigate and, for our sins, participate in a tench- er's purgatory.
Noise, inattention, covert or even open insolence to the in- structor are for from infrequent.
Upon the first stroke of the "break" bell follows a hideous scrape of scrambling feet and hurtling bodies in this unseemly exodus.
Master's permission to retire? Quite superfluous and, of course, unutiered, or if uttered would be heard in the general. din; nor are the final words of his peroration of the slightest use.
शु 1
M
SUCH ATTRIBUTES-m os t disheartening to any friend of China-quite possibly arise from an ultra modern idea, not peculiar to the Orient, unhappily, that to display politeness is to lower dignity and suggest sub- jection.
Schoolmasters tell me that the difficulty with students is not in instruction (the average Chi- ok fellow, superficially at least porary co-tenant of the double
nese adolescent is by no means constantly enquiring as to seat will probably find himself THE MODERN CHINESE stu- unintelligent) but to instil into their progress and behaviour. gradually and painfully edged dent will not "cap" either their proteges any notion of the into the gangway, what there is master or headmaster on campus true nature of discipline is all
Hongkong Telegraph. "MANNERS Maketh
Wyndham St., Hongkong
'Phone 26615 March 2, 1939
Aid and Comfort
Man."
There may be something in it.
If so, future China appears to be in danger of emasculation.
Especially does young China seem' unconscious of the benefits which accrue to himself
and others, even in refraining from injury to feelings; and he might at times without undue search. find an outlet for active cour- tesy.
All will welcome the news that moral suasion has erided the situation by which the United
Having frequent occasion to States was supplying airplanes for Japan's bombing of Chinese use buses travelling schoolwards, I have been most unpleasantly civilians. The U.S. National astounded at the liberties and{ Munitions Control Board reports discourtesies which Chinese boys: that applications for licences to and young men take, and are to allowed to take unreproached parts export planes and Japan ceased last year. This and uncorrected. Not merely was in response to an appeal by towards the general public.
An expensively clothed, some- Mr. Cordell Hull to aircraft what bloated young blood, as makers to stop this sorry busi-comfortably
ness.
cognition.
28 our!
over-
sented exiguous bus'seating will permit, not only will allow his form- There have been some quca muster to stand in the tions as to whether Japan was crowded vehicle, but will offer no the only nation engaged in sign of salutation or even of re- bombing civilian populations. But Japan was a elear-cut case. Morcover American public opinion's strong opposition. to the whole of Japan's war in China gave the State Depart ment unquestioned support in this appeal.
With the intensification since Munich of American feeling about some of the allies of Japun, the same public opinion in the United States may now demand cessation of plane exports to Fascist countries. Certainly be- fore American air flects are developed on the scale now being proposed in Washington to match German air armaments, American exports of planes and motors to Germany should cense. The amount of these is in ques- tion, but one estimate recently published was to the effect that hundreds of German military planes are powered by American engines or engines built on plans licensed by American companies. Nearly U.S.$3,000,000 worth of air equipment went to Germany from 1932 to 1936.
The State Department has belittled the amount of Amerí can aid to Germany and has said that the granting of export per- mits is mundatory under the Neutrality Act to nations not at war. Two questions are involv- ed here. One is how far planes and motors listed by the State Department as for civil aviation have been devoted to military use. There is some evidence that planes used in the bombing of Spanish towns have had American motors. Also it may be asked whether American supplies of civil aviation have not facilitated military aviation in Germany. The other question ia whether the Stato Depart- ment can use its moral sunaion also to stop exports which ald Fascist arming.
I happen to know that this master is a graduate of Oxford, j and ponder upon cause and; effect, or vice versa.
Old gentlemen and ladies of any age may sway and stagger and strap-hang at his side buti
T
GRIN AND BEAR IT
By Lichty
"Got anything more exclusive in rabbit?"
but an impossible task.
The trouble would appear to be that old bugbear "loss of face,"
A Chinese boy will not, as a rule, accept deserved punishment cheerfully, get "chipped" a little by his comrades, and then forget the whole episode.
He cannot rid himself of the (probably innate) notion that în undergoing correction he has lowered himself, not only in his own esteem but in that of his. comrades and his superiors-if he by chance acknowledges any. such!
✩
*
CAST YOUR MIND back to the days of the old-type, long- gowned Chinese gentlemen- there are still some surviving.
Recollect the honoured place which the tutor in the family or the master in the school occupied in the esteem of the father and the son. The tutor remained honoured and respected to the end of his days.
If the change is a regrettable one, to whom the responsibility, teacher, or taught?
One theory is that the Chinese, like, the Mongolian pony, cannot |take corn; or if he does, merely transforme good grain into monkey tricks, or worse.
FIVE GHOST STORIES
HE trouble about most ghost stories-and this Is the proper season for them-ls their source. In general, the better the story the more it owes to imagination; and the more blood-curdling it 1, the greater the difficulty of pinning the curdler to actual experience.
The best ghost story I know- Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw "ls superb arksite Imag- ination: Its horror ly terrifle. These little stories of mine pretend to nothing terrific. They are devold of imagination. I know all the people concerned as well as I know myself, and I promise you that the stories are entirely true.
How to explain them is another matter.
* *
1.
*
I will begin by saying that I once lived in a haunted house. I did not ace the ghost myself, but I believe that he appeared twice.
There was a small party in my house-I was away and the hostess and two guests were wult- ing for the others to arrive. When they trooped in, the hostess was horrified to seo that one of them had brought an extra and unex- pected giri-thus making an un- even number-but her horror was quenched the next second by the sight of a young man at the tull of the invasion.
This young man behaved rather oddly.
He turned away immedi ately through the opened folding doors into my own particular room. which was deserted and in dark- ness. In the gush of greetings the hostess' deelded hurriedly that he might have gone to telephone, but when, after Ave minutes, he did not reappear, she looked for him. She switched on the light. He had
vanished.
No one else had seen him, and her inquerics were treated as leg- Dulling. Howover, she had a per-
by F. G. H. Salusbury
fect recollection of his face, and made a sketch of it afterwards-- a and young fellow, clean-shaven, and a little monkeytsh.
2.
The * *
SIX months later lie arrived again. The hostess had brought some friends home after the cinema. They were talking when the door-bell rang- a stranger who had mistaken the house. This interruption reminded one of the guests that it was time to go. He went into the hall to collect his hat, and came back to report that he had seen me-he assumed it was I, though he had only seen a man's back-going into my room.
Again the room was found to be empty. I did not come home for another half-hour, and, when I did, I was pinched to prove my solidity. It is futeresting, perhaps, that this phantom had to have the front door opened for him.
*
*
Now let us go back to pre- -war Ireland, where the same hostess, then a giri
3.
of thirteen, was holidaying with her slater on a farm near Bantry. The farm included an ancient Danish fort-a mound about the size of an average house--and the girla decided to excavate 15.
Local superstition was against them, for any disturbance of these forts was below to cause death, particularly among livestock. The farmer's wife, however, was a cheery, independent zout who bado them go ahead, So they began digging out an oid, choked well which was supposed to be con- nented with the intortor of the fort by a subterranean passage.
After two days, two cows fell alek, and three calves died. On the
third day, the donkey lay down and would not get up. The farmer's wife, embarrassed and apologetic. though still claiming superiority to superstition, asked the girls i they would mind filing up their excavations: so they obliged.
As they were tipping back the last stones, on a hot, sunny after- noon, they both heard from over their shoulders, where no human being was, a laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! " It came, in dreadful bursts. And, from that moment, the cows and the donkey recovered,
4.
* * * AGAIN in pre-war Ire-
land, this girl, accom- panied by another sister
and a friend, had a much more cerle experience. They were walk- Ing up a drive to the friend's house when, rounding a bend near the sea, the girl saw, silhouetted against the night sky, a tall
very He was standing on a bank, and jumped into the drive immediately in front of them.
thin man.
"What was so awful," I am told, "was that he landed on the gravel in absolute silence: and his head was so small as to seem a mere button on his long, thin neck. I I could feel my hair stirring. began to cry. My friend, who told ma afterwards that she had seen the thing before, turned us round and hurried us back to the lodge. She saw it, too, that time, and asid that it followed us for about a hun dred yards. But I didn't look. My younger sister didn't see anything. We went back to the place the next day, and I found that it would have been impossible to see any. thing silhoustied against the sky. beenuss the bank was topped by bushes at least six feet high. so he must havo been backed by a curious glow of his own."
Some years ago, long after I wow
told this story, a paragraph, which I have before me, appeared in the old" Morning Post" about elemen- tal earth spirits. It described them na "very tall, lean men- mere "Fickles o' banes,' to use a North
Country description with small triangular bends." I thought this interesting. A woman I know intimately told me that she once saw a gure, which this descrip- tion fits, moving nlong a roud near Crawley, in Sussex. It seemed to her to have no hend at all.
* * *
Then there is the woman who told me that she and her sister, who were taking part in some amateur theatrle. In a country house, wondered who was the man with the dark moustache sitting next their father in the front row of chairs, "There was no man." their father said afterwards, “Your aunt was on my left, but the chair on my right was empty."
5.
* * ★
ས
My own supernatural ex- periences are confined to a chest of drawers and a cake of soap.
The chest of drawers was in a house where I was staying. One night, Just after I had got into bed, it emitted loud bang-no mistake about that. The next morning I was told it had belonged to a a woman-a frlend of the family who always closed the bottom drawer with a kick.
The cake of soap was in a Batter- sen house, said to be afflicted by n poilergelat or rowdy spirit. psychic Investigator and I
I went there.
Wo watched and walted: nothing happened. We went up. stairs, leaving the only other occu- pant of the house in the kitchen.
And Wo explored every room. then, in the middio of a sunlit passage, along which wo had walked a minute before, we saw a: cake of yellow soap.
The
Facts, Mr. Gradgrind, simple facts... What is one le uziake of them?.
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