Nor is the Manchurian uncivilized. He has, indeed, reached quite a state of development, for he is the abject slave of fashion—at least his wife and daughter are. They bandage their feet until where a No. 8 boot should go they wear baby 6’s. This, I dare say, is a less harmful fashion than that other silly one of corsets, for surely the organs beneath a shoe lace are not so vital as those under a waistband, but it looks sillier. To see women in the harvest fields, by the roadside washing clothing, cleaning the donkey stable, baking bread, spanking boys, suckling babies, attending husbands, all the time balancing themselves as a première danseuse on her toes, is to think of stake and rack! They say that this is not real Manchuria, that up North, where the other army is, the women do not bind their feet. The present Dowager Empress of China, considered by many the most remarkable living woman, is a native of northern Manchuria. In all this vast country the women are noted for modesty and virtue. Ten years ago, during the China-Japan War, many committed suicide to escape expected ravishment. But it was well learned then that the Japanese never outrage a woman. An incident of such atrocity by Japanese, in either war, has yet to be recorded. It is said that the Russians are different, though it is difficult to see how any Westerner could look with more than curiosity on a Manchu woman. Certain it is that they go about their lives here in complete freedom and security. Not only do the Japanese respect women; they respect property also. Here is a fertile country with rich crops sustaining a vast army, yet no farmer has lost a bushel of grain, except when the chance of battle has substituted shot for scythe.
ORPHANS
Driven from home by shells which killed their father and mother, these brothers tramped from camp to camp selling eggs.
A son of the soil is the Manchurian, but not a friend of nature, with whom he wars valiantly for his daily bread. He fights terrible suns in summer and ghastly winds in winter. When the winds and snows drive out the flies that eat him up, the lice come in until the sun and flies can have another turn. So can you blame him for being a money grabber? He thinks only of this season’s maize crop and of next spring’s plowing. Whether the Russians or the Japanese or the Chinese rule the land is much the same to him. He will put his tax into the Governor’s coffer and go on with his toil. Why should he bother? He remembers that Confucius was born on the Liaotung and that Confucius taught to resist no violence and remember the fathers. Consequently he fills the country with tombstones and babes while other men fill it with war and nameless graves. Over in the valley is a granite monolith erected in the memory of one who honored his father and mother. A Russian shell has struck it in the pit of the stomach and Japanese bullets have shattered its back.
Patriotism? No. But he has his religion and it is this: to remember the fathers and owe no man.
Recently the master of our house went out with us for a day to carry supplies. A stray shell passed over us, perhaps twenty feet above. We all ducked, but as soon as the coolie recovered he ran. We called him, for we were without other help. He kept running. We sent a soldier. The coolie came back grudgingly. Finally we gave him a yen. But he shook the yen impudently in our faces, and fell back simulating death, crying out: “Coolie dead, yen no good.”
He should be used to danger now. His neighbors are. The shells and bullets are to them what blowsnakes and mosquitoes are to an American country district. To-day I saw children playing among corn stubble while three shells burst within a hundred yards. The children did not look up. For three months the Russians were in the land; now for three months the Japanese have been in the land. For three months the Manchurian nonchalantly carried Russian wounded into Port Arthur and buried Russian dead by the roadside for fifty kopeks a day. For three months he has nonchalantly carried Japanese wounded into Dalny and buried Japanese dead in the fields for fifty sen a day. What concern is it of his which survivor he gives up sen and kopek to afterwards?