Chinese mettle

by E. G. Kemp

The most interesting part of the morning was the service, despite the fact that I do not understand Chinese. The men sat on one side and the women on the other, but there was no partition, and men and girls respectively took up the collection on their own side of the hall. A Chinaman conducted the service, and the singing was hearty and reverent, without any starchiness. After the sermon, candidates for baptism were brought forward, each one by his or her sponsor, for the Church’s approval before admission to the rite; they had been already examined and under training for some two years. Some of the candidates were quite young, others grown up: the pastor’s son and another boy were about eleven years old. They were asked a variety of practical questions by the pastor, but when it came to his own son, he said, “Will some one else ask little brother’s son?” and this was accordingly done. After this the Church members voted as to whether they should receive baptism. I asked if the vote was ever adverse, and was told it was not infrequently the case, although they were not recommended for baptism till they were considered ready.

There are so many Cantonese in Shanghai that missionaries find it necessary to have special work amongst them: they are like a different race, with a different language.

There are all sorts of interesting things to be seen in Shanghai, but it takes time, and the only other place of special interest we saw was the old native city, just the same picturesque, dirty, crowded spot that it was hundreds of years ago, surrounded by its three-and-a-half-mile wall, of which the gates are still shut at night. The old willow-pattern tea-house I was glad to see is still intact, also the garden from which the lovers fled who were turned into doves. It is not safe to venture into the old city unaccompanied, and the beggars are truly awful.

From Shanghai I visited the neighbouring province of Chekiang, which is considered one of the most beautiful by many people. The capital, Hangchowfu, can be reached both by water and by rail, and I much regret that I only went by rail, as an economy of time: it was a mistake, for by all accounts the waterway is most lovely. The journey takes three or four hours by rail and eighteen by boat. As one passes through mulberry groves and wide-stretching rice fields, one sees most picturesque groups of buildings, standing up on slightly raised ground, like oases in the flat land, and lofty sails move slowly across the landscape. In the soft glow of evening light it was perfectly enchanting. We passed near two walled cities, but the railway lines as a rule do not break through such walls, and it is in many ways more convenient to have the station outside the cities. I could not but regret that this rule had been broken in the case of Hangchow, where the railway station was an ugly, though imposing, modern building, erected close to the breach in the wall through which the line enters the city.

On leaving the station by a wide new thoroughfare, you see numbers of European-looking shops, full of up-to-date European wares, for Hangchow is a large and wealthy manufacturing city, in the centre of an important agricultural district. Learning and Industry have flourished here from the earliest times, and now it has a population estimated at 35,000. I was thankful to get away from the modern town to a good old-fashioned Chinese quarter, where I shared the ever-generous hospitality of Dr. and Mrs. Main. Their hospitals are a sight worth seeing—although in certain respects they would challenge criticism; that is because they grew into being nearly forty years ago and were built up under every kind of difficulty by the untiring zeal of one man, and his hall-mark is seen in every part of them. The Chinese are an industrious people and put our own to shame, but even to them this object-lesson of what can be achieved by one individual is perhaps as valuable as the actual good done to the thousands who have found healing and comfort in these hospitals. There are no less than twenty-two departments of work, of which I shall only enumerate a few of the most important.

Directly after breakfast on the day after my arrival I started on a tour of inspection, and saw over the men’s and the women’s general hospitals, where a cheerful activity reigned. There is a family likeness about mission hospitals, so I shall say nothing further about them; but what amused and fascinated me was my visit to the maternity hospital, which is a thoroughly attractive place. Already five little new-comers into this sad world were lying in a row, all tidy and washed, and one was lifting up a loud remonstrance at her fate; another was only an hour old. Sometimes you may see as many as fifteen, and I hope they do not get mixed up. There were no less than a hundred and seventy-seven in-patients during the year. These maternity hospitals are an unspeakable boon to the country, the more so because they are training schools for midwives. How badly these are needed can only be known by dwellers in the East. The Chinese make admirable nurses, especially the women, and many hospitals who in deference to custom have been in the habit of having men to nurse their own sex, are now giving it up in favour of women, because they are found more reliable and conscientious. This I was told when I deprecated the change.

Next we visited the Lock Hospital, and then the Medical School, where fifty or sixty students are admitted annually. Numbers of well-trained men have passed through this school, but it is hampered by lack of funds, and the premises and gardens are quite inadequate for the number. Girls, too, I saw hard at work in the classrooms. One most interesting part of the work was the series of workshops, in which disabled patients are employed on all sorts of trades connected with the needs of the hospitals. No doubt it is not only a boon to the workers, but a great economy for the hospital, especially in these dear times. It is astonishing to see the metal work done there, not to speak of the carpentering, matting and brushmaking. All wooden cases coming to the place are rapidly transformed into useful pieces of furniture, and everything seems to be capable of being transformed into something useful.

In the afternoon in pouring rain we set off in rickshas to visit another series of hospitals for lepers, incurables, and isolation cases. It was a long drive to the lonely hill-side overlooking the city, where these pleasant homes are situated, for they are indeed homes, as attractive and comfortable as they can be made for lifelong sufferers. It needs something stronger than humanitarianism to tackle such a work, and the spirit of a Father Damien is needed to make it a success. Well may the poor patient say:

“My body, which my dungeon is.”

But they seemed wonderfully content, and eagerly welcomed the doctor’s visit. The expenses of these homes were only 2,788 dollars for the year. In cases of epidemics it is a special boon to have an isolation hospital outside the city, and the Home for Incurables needs no weak words of mine to commend it. All these buildings are newer than the hospitals in the city, and built on very hygienic principles.