Rev. T.C. Wu Gives a Frank Discourse on His Visits to Japan and the United States Members of the Shanghai Rotary Club, which held iis usual weekly tiffin reunion st the Metropole on Thureday, were entertained by. the Rev. T. C. Wu, general secretary of the Chineee Mission to Lepers. who gave an interesting address on "Some Sbservations on my trips in Japan and 1 Introdveed by. Mr. William Vinson Lee, Chairman of the Programme Committee. the speaker of the day said: In the matters on communieations public safety. selentife achtevements. industrial eMReleney, and mili tary preparedness, Japan is every Inch a modern state. but she has not quite emerged from the medieval' lage when. it comes to the matters fof modern farming. universal suffer-ce, sex equality, freedom of the Press, and present-day political comparison with the nations in the West Japan seems to have been very little affected by depression for everybody tu bie cities such as Kobe. Osaka and Tokyo 1s apparently engaged in doing something. The magn!- feet bulldines and boulevards [Tokyo, the splendid systems of communications in the form of electric trains, subways, buses and the elevated, (inking up the cities with rural districts) the lorre and well-managed department stores, the BUSY but well-regulated trame in any of the big cities compare favourably with any city in the West.
On account of the aggressive milly ary policy of the Imperial Japanese JGovernment the burden of the people especially meagre income, have to pa tone half of what they con their produce zor the tax im order to support the big army and navy.
The ignorance of the intelligentsia and the student class In Japan is most surprising. One of the questions. Joften asked was why did the Chinese [students want to agitate against Japan and to boycott Japanese goods, They said that they could not understand [China and the Chinece mentality, but the fact is that they have been kept totally ignorant by the press which 's controlled by the military authori-Hes as to what Japan had done in China. When the true fact is eventually known to the general public in Japan, Tam convinced that they would be fully accounted for all the troubles they had created in estrange Ing the relationship between the otherwise two friendly nations which have so much in common and mutual dependence.
'A Comparison White Japan is ahead of China in many respects, China is ahead of Japan at least in the field of co-Jedueation. In China a girl enjoys the Jabsolute equal opportunity for education as the boy, and practically every institution of higher learning is coeducational: but it i= not the case in Japan, where the education for wom-fen is limited to high school and design to train them only for becoming "good mothers and virtuous wives", and the so-called woman's college in Tokyo is nothing but a special school to teach domestic science.
I found the Japanest people as a whole most courteous, thrifty, law-abiding and peace-loving. There is no earthly reason why they should not get along well with the Chinese Whase peace-loving character is pro-verbal. If only these two big peoples could live together peacefully the world, to borrow the words of Woodrow Wilson, could really be made "safe for democracy". As General Smuts, hero of the Boer and Great Wars, has put it, "the danger to world peace lies not in Europe but in the Far East" And China and Japan fought to be the guardians for peace instead of dynamite and possibly projecting another world war. idence culminating In the Empire State Building with 105 storeys which nade the Woolworth edifee, once the architectural monarch of the Ameri~ can metropolis, look rather dwarfish, The purchasing power of the Amerl+ an public has been very much reduced on account of the depression, and the people imagine that they ar oot. But in the eyes of an Oriental observer there is really ae depression America. There are so many auter noblies in the country that It seems ome that everybody In America wns a car, including the common hourers and farmhanits, It seems to the psychology of the average Americar: that he can live without but cannot live without a car.
was told by a friend from Detroit immediately afler the closing own of the Ford plant many people vogged {rom door to door with their private ears,.and when they were fused ald on the ground that If they sould afford to have cars they could Mfford to live without charity, they vould park their cars somewhere and repeat their old stunts, on foot for a ort distance, Liquor is becoming a serious prob tem in the States, It is a common fight to see people lying drunk on he cold pavements in streets or parks, and there is sodom a Staurant that does not serve liquor. Che saloon is patronized by both men and women and one often notices such posters on its door as the following: "this place is for ladies, as well as for men." In my student days In the States I had seldom seen a lady smoking in the public, But to-day there are very few young women who do not smoke in the university come mons of public restaurants, Smoking. seems to be not only stylish to the modern American women, but as much " necessity to them as to men.
American Ignorance was most amusing to find how tittle the American people know about China, To the average Ame an, China is made up of two classes of people, namely, the laundrymans and "chop suey" people, I heard story being told by a very intell American to the effect that Ame was not discovered by Columbus but by a. group of Chinese laundryman who landed in the New World long before 1492, but finding that there was no laundry business in the land which wes Inhabited only by Red Indians they eft the country, thus giving the lucky Columbus the credit having discovered America. T ws very much pleased to know that 2 group of educators at the Teach College, Columbia University, is now working on the problem of trying to correct. the erroneous conception of the people towards China, and to educate the children with right in= formation by first educating the Leprosy has ceased to be a serious problem in America, but T found it still prevalent in the' Southern States and personally saw two cases in the streets of New Orleans. 1 had. the privilege of visiting the splendid National Leprosarium at Carville, Louisiana, where 360 cases of leprosy are being confined.
Dr. Denny, the superintendent, that each case costs Uncle Sain about U.S.
$8 per day for maintenance and treat ment and still he is not satisfied. For the same amount of money we can support our lepers here for one month, and perhaps with more contentment and equal eMeiency.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.