The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1898-05-22
WHITE WOMEN IN CHINA.
Queer Crotchets They Must Study
to Get Along.

"A Man Who Knows" writes to the
Sydney Bulletin vehement protest
against sending women missionaries to
China. He says he was born there and
speaks the language, and that in a
country where girl children are held so
cheap that they are killed to get rid
of them, and where wives are merely
bought chattels, it is silly to send Wo-
men to influence Chinawomen, with the
idea of this having effect upon China
men. Other arguments of his are that
alien women cannot hope to enjoy even
passably decent treatment in China,
and that since missionary women must
know the Chinese language we'll, there
is no getting away from the foul epith-
cts openly leveled at them. He sums
it up by saying it is hideous for a wo-
man to be a missionary to China.
Having seen only extracts from this
diatribe. | do not know how much he
tells about the relations of white wo-
men in China, but any one who really
knows could write very interesting
book upon the subject. He speaks OF
our women masquerading in native
dress. as if that were mistake, where
as it is the very wiseSt thing a white
woman ever does in China. But must
not criticiSe him on the strength OF
what the Irish call mere taste of his
quality" 1t will be more interesting to
tell what others have observed concern
ing white women in China.
European and American missionary
women who go about their work intelli-
gently know that the first essential is
to dress in Chinese fashion. | viii not
say that any missionary woman has
ever done herself up like a first-chop
lady, with a thick cream of rice paste
laid on her face and dried there, white
as death or a Drury Lane clown, or that
any such missionary has parted her
hair in five places across her crown,
and then braided and coiled it, and
coated it with dissolved slippery elm, to
glue ii in shape-''number one proper
as stiff as plank: or that she has
covered both sides of her head with
pearls or jadestones, set upon fanciful
creations of invisible wires to look like
sprays CT buds or tiny flowers; or has
grown her finger nails to a length of
ten or twelve inches. and carried them
in silver tubes to prove herself lady
above the need to work. But hundreds
have dressed in plain cotton coolie Wo-
mems jackets and trousers, and gone
about their business without attract
ing much attention
One does not need Sam Weller
double-million magnifying glass to see
that Europeans who wish to ingratiate
themselves with the Chinese take up a
bigger contract than merely learning
the Chinese language.
It is all very we'll for the sydney man
to say that Chinese wife is merely a
boughten chattel--if he does not mind
throwing stones while he lives in a
glass house In China a man may
have only one wife. The other women
he keeps are merely concubines. and
the more he can afford the prouder
| his wife becomes. 1t shows that her
husband is better off than most of his
neighbors. And, besides. concubines
rank as servants to a real wife, so
that the more her husband has the
easier things become for her. The
concubines are the boughten chattels.
When it comes TO real getting,
whether in China or Europe appear
ances differ more than realities.
In China the real wife comes to grief
when she fails to bear a son to her hus-
band. Girl babies don't count. No
body carves them. as apples or grapes.
to the credit of a mother on the head
stone of her grave, as is done in Tur-