'The book is divided into four parts, 'The first part is entitled, "China, seen from without." 'The author says, "There is no better introduction' to the mystery of a country than direct contact with the land and its inhabitants."
'This is quite true, provided -you take the trouble to' see the things as they are, But now what pic~ ture does the author give of China—the land and its ants as he saw them. To tell the truth, he gives no picture at all—merely notes down—the thoughts, ideas and feelings which the sight of the things he sees give rise in his mind. In other words, the author see the things not with his eyes, but with his mind of an idealist.
Travelling from Haiphong to Hongkong, this is the picture which the author gives of his first contact with the Chinese. Ie here uses—humain. Because the! Chinese is human, there is_no mystery about or in_ him, mystery which the European, like the French gentleman here,' fancies he sees in the Chinese is really not in the Chinese, but in the brain of the European—the European with the mentality of Me-cheval Europe still in him. The yeason I may here point out, why the Americans get on best with the Chinese, is because the Americans are a people who have entirely got rid of the mentality of Medieval Europe. Indeed as Professor Dickinson says, "The Chinese fs, already what' the democrats. in Europe and America hope the Western man may become." In fine, in order to understand the Chinese and their civilization, the rst thing one must keep in mind is that the Chinaman is a very human, human being—in fact, he a plain matter-of-fact modern man—without any Medizeval myr story in him.
Hovelaque's Brilliant "Nonsense"
But before I finish with this first part of the book, let me show from one passage the want of soberness in this book. Speaking of the Flower boats' in Canton—which are the equivalent of the sing-song, girl houses in Shanghai and other parts of China, the author says: "Under its Chinese disguise I re-_ cognized Immoral Lust—Lust which, there as everywhere, turns woman into a creature fashioned for the sole satisfaction of man's desire, ete, ete. Describing the inmates of' these flower boats, he says: "Apparitions, incarnations of the cruel dreams of jaded voluptuaries, of love-ghouls—such were the strange hieratic puppets with blood red mouths. They sat! there like goddesses' enthroned, against the scarlet lace work of the partitions in the rosy light, robed in purple and azure and emerald and gold under the scrolls of gold, the dragons of gold and ostic creatures that writh-gold. Their splendour and the warm perfumed alr seemed to ver with desire around them: it was no illusion, The cables of the boat strained and shivered in the rushing current; the giltter-ing Jewels trembled in the glossy Dinekness of their hair, bright! with white odorous towers, as did the cut-glass lustres descending from the ceiling: all things responded to the throbbing of the vater which in the unfathomable night flowed on endlessly."
Everything on my trip was an introduction to China, and above all to China's mystery, T undorwent for the first time direct contact with the Chinese, It was not without disgust. On the deck, among the pens alive with two thousand pigs huddled 'a mass of flabby yellow human beings squatting over their unclean foods or petrified into attitude of stupor by the sickening fumes of opium. The obscene display of those nerveless bodies, swarming like clusters of yellow caterpillars," sickened me. And yet I could' not take eyes off them. T was fascio nated by the weird gestures of those delicate hands, by the shrill sing-song of those strange voices. never tired of serutizing those oily masks which grow wan beneath the sultry glare.
another place the author speaks of the mystery which appears in the impenetrable black enamel of the eyes of the Chinese and in their features impassive as death-mask.
Western Club and Sing-song Girls All this is certainly very bril ant—but then T must say, it ial brilliant. nonsense. Inthe frst. place, the flower boats and. singsong girls houses in China are not houses of prostitution. The song git!'s how lub of the Chinese.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.