To the Editor of the "Nonrut-Cuma Dany News"
Su,—Though feeling some ditidence replying to anyone of Mr. Sowzmsr's journalistic ability T perhaps may be permitted to say that think he too lz somewhat wide of the mark. P.D.Q. would seem to have hit it mauch more nearly, I certainly did not think' of the' Shanghai. Mind in connection with anything so abstruse and stodgy the Land, Regulations.
One does. not belittle what Britons have done to-make Shanghai what it 4s, or the fact that British interests loom large here. Still less does one question Shonghal's loyalty, there was evidence enough of that at the commencement of the Wat But one cannot be here for any length of time without realizing that there is a something about many Shanghai residents that makes them different from people with whom one has come in contact in other parts of the world, Where there are fairly large. colonies. of British, both workers and the more leisured classes. A something not easy to define perhaps, but none the less felt. If, as your correspondent P.D.Q. states, famous scholars and olliers have come here with the object of studying, the Shanghai Mind and.writing about and have been: obliged to. admit themselves. baited by it, it is small wonder that less able folk find it too elusive to define, When PD.Q says that no right-minded Shenghai resident should be bothered by what anyone else may think except seme other right Shang-hal-minded person, he is putting it very aptly. Are not Shanghai men given somewhat to banding together cliques and patting each other on the back and saying, "What we do, we do and to..... with whoever presumes to criticize us"?
Do all Britons here uphold the tradition for fairplay and sportsman ship ascribed to them the world over? Rather the every man for himself principle is more in evidence, 'That a number of Shanghai residents do acquire an exaggerated idea of their own importance 1s true, but not only in the sense that' Mr. Sowemy means. Where else would tone see a page of the loading daily devoted to Mrs. So and So's tiffin, Mrs, Somebody's tea and Mrs. Other-boy's cocktail party. names of all guests given not to mention egg oggers and so on, day after day? One can understand important functions being described, but all these doings of quite ordinary folk surely need not peso punctiliously recorded, 'After all, we aren't most of us here to make our living—honest if we can, but to mak' it?
'P.D.Q. has summed up the Shang-hal Mind much better than 1 could have done so I will only point out to Mr. Soweny that those who have developed it are presumably not conscious of it and do not, recognize it in others similarly afflicted.
Shanghai, Feb, 6.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.