It requires energy to seize an opportunity—it is much easier for those who are leaving to do some straight packing for the return to the U.S.A. and leave it at that. But there is an opportunity to seize. Things Chinese have a world appeal which is witness tothe artistry which goes to the making of them. They have held a high place ever since there was trade with the Orient and there is no danger of their ever going out of fashion. On the contrary they increase in value with age.
Things for the house bought in America will certainly be good—but are not likely to "increase in value with time, at any rate not "until the days of the grandchildren which is rather longer than most of us care to wait. At any time in the present owner's lifetime they are inclined to be simply "second-hand." Things Chinese never become "second-hand." So much of value, too, can be packed into so little space.
There is another angle on goodbye shopping. A Shanghai fur coat is excellent value, very well calculated to keep the wearer warm in a cold winter, which is.what she is probably heading for. Have you in your mind turned homeside fur coat prices into Chinese dollars? Do a little sum next time you are looking at the advertisement columns of the "New York Times."/ So, too, the Shanghai dressmaker cant give first line cut and workmanship. You may be an evacuee—but it is nicer not to look like one.
Also in Shanghai now are really fine antiques and works of art brought here by refugees from Europe—family treasures that would never in normal times come within the ken of the stranger. These are bits of history that can: be grasped and that stir the imagination and that really will be something for ne" pen to thank you for.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.