SHANGHAI YOUNGSTERS PUTTING THEIR HEADS TOGETHER TO MAKE US OUT
Yet though he was a Confucianist, he decried the family system. "Chinese cling too much to family," he said. "One man goes to America, then he sends for a brother simply because he is a relative. The brother may be a very bad character, but that doesn't matter. So it is in official circles in China to-day. Graft goes on, jobs are dispensed to relatives worthy or unworthy, efficient or inefficient. And the country is getting deeper and deeper into difficulties."
As though to prove the truth of his assertions, he told me of his own experiences as a child. "Chinese obey," he said. "My father paid for my education, therefore my duty toward him should know no bounds." His father had had ten children, only two of whom survived,—he and an elder sister. When his father died, he became the head of the family. Therefore he had to marry, even though then only fifteen years of age. He had been married for sixteen years. I should never have believed it, to judge from his appearance. He seemed no more than a student himself, but he assured me he had five children,—one daughter fifteen years old. Birth-control! Limitation of offspring! Why bother? If his father could "raise" a family of ten on "nothing" and then just let them die off,—why not he? So does duty keep the race alive.
And duty tolerates that which is sapping the very foundation of the race,—not only the enslavement of the wife in such circumstances, but the entertainment of the concubine. I saw the way that works.
At the opposite end of the city is the quarter where the concubines abound. Life there does not begin till eight o'clock in the evening, if as early. The clanging of cans and the effort at music is terrifying. Hotels of from four to five stories, with all their balconies illuminated, gave an effect of festive cheerfulness which the rest of the city lacked utterly.
Upon the ground floors, which opened directly upon the street, the women could be seen dressing for the evening. Nothing in their behavior or dress would indicate their profession,—so unlike the licensed districts of Japan. The women never as much as noticed any stranger on the street. At the appointed time each little woman emerged, dainty, clean and sober, and passed from her own quarters to the hotels and restaurants where she was to meet her chartered libertine. Her decorum approximated saintly modesty, and she moved with a childlike innocence. There was throughout the district no rowdyism, no disorderliness. Everything was businesslike and according to regulation. Strange, that with so much self-control should go so much licentiousness. But it is part of the mystery of the Orient.
THIS OLD WOMAN IS LAYING DOWN THE LAW TO THE WILD YOUNG THINGS OF CHINA
CHINA COULD TURN THESE MUD HOUSES INTO PALACES IF SHE WISHED—SHE IS RICH ENOUGH