Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-07-26
= A BOXER ON BOXERS

There is living in London-in fact
he holds high position in firm 81
eastern merchants-a Chinese gentle
man who has for many years belonged
to the boxers secret society in China,
and with whom a representative of the
Express has had a most interestin g
interview. 1t is astonishing how much
this terrible boxer had to say for him
self and his associates.
you English" he observed, speak
ing our language with remarkable
fuency, only look at the Chinese
matters from your own point of view
Oh, if you could only look at them
from ours. Western civilization is to
US a mere mushroom. 1t is thing Of
yesterday. Chinese civilization is I'm
numbered thousands of years old. We
consider ourselves at least 1000 years
ahead of you.
There was a time when We had.
like you, our struggle for life, our
race for wealth, our ambition for
power, our haste and hurry and worry.
We, too, had your clever inventions
we have lived long enough to find out
how essentially unnecessary all these
things are. We have also had our
periods of doubt, fanaticism and as
sension in matters of religion. We
have had our martyrs, our reforma-
tiOns, our nOn-cOnfOrmists, our in
tolerance, and, finally, our liberation.
4 g
But, as | say, we have outgrOWn it
all From the experience of past
centuries we have learned wisdom;
from the mistakes and disasters of our
ancestors we have learned that none Of
the things for which we strove were
really worth striving for Our
passions and ambitions have settled
down into a calm desire for happiness
in this world; our religion is reduced
to a philosophy of life which the test Of
the last two thousand years has proved
to oe absolutely sound.
I'VE believe that the best thing to
pursue in this life is happiness, and we
teach our children that their happiness
can only be secured by the per-
Torrance of duty, by the observance Of
moral and business obligations and by
surrounding ones self with a circle of
equally happy friends and relatives.
If Chinaman prospers beyond the lot
which falls to his kindred, he finds his
greatest happiness in sharing his good
fortune with them. And in China We
never cease to work. There is no
such thing as retiring from business.
Work is part of our pleasure, because
it is part of our duty.
I'VE believe in making the best OF
this life, which is the only one we know
anything about for certain. That is
the be all and end all of Chinese
philosophy All through China you
will find the same level, uniform spirit
Of content You may think we live
lives of ignorance and squalor and
idleness, but | assure you it is not So
We are all as we'll off as we want to be,
and no man can improve on that.
Now, these being our cirCum-
stances, you of the western world cone
to us with what you call your new
IDEAS. You bring us your religion, an
infant of nineteen hundred years.
You invite us to build railways so that
we may fly from place to place at a
speed which for us has neither neces-
sity nor charm. You want to build
mills and factories so as to deOase our
beautiful arts and crafts, and produce
tawdry fnery in place of the beautiful
textures and hues which we have
evolved after ages of experiment.
Against all this we protest We