Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1905-01-28
YULETIDE
in THE
ORIENT
Miss Nellie Clark Writes An
other Interesting Letter
From Nanking China

Another very interesting letter from
Miss Nellie Clark, who is stationed as
missionary at Marking, China, has
been received by her parents in this
city, and they have kindly allowed The
Journal to publish it. A great many
people have evinced much interest in
the other letters which The Journal has
published from this entertaining young
writer in the far away country, and al
though they have not been intended
for publication by her, they are none
the less interesting. This letter, al
though mailed the 9th of December,
was received in Salem on January 20;
Marking, China, December 23, 1904.
Well, it is almost Christmas, and you
ought to see the way we are rushing
around First the bags of candy and
oranges must be prepared for the Chi
nese children. Then the little brick
chapel must be decorated for the exer-
cises, and of course Mrs. Danneberg
and have that to see after. We are
getting some of the Chinese Christians
to help us. They climb up and hang
the evergreens and flags and other dec
orations, and we tell them how to do
it. Our way of telling those who can
not speak English is curious to see, but
we make them understand us, and they
smile and do it. A large number of
the Chinese understand English, so we
can talk to them all right am learn
ing quite a number of Chinese phrases
and words and can talk to them ht-
tie. Day before yesterday Mrs. Dan,
nenberg and L went out, bargalned
with riek-sha-men, went to Shanghal
(the port of Marking, about four miles
from here), did some shopping, ana
came home without being cheated. You
see, between the two of us we talk
enough Chinese to do that.
December 26-Well, an old blind wo-
man came to see us and / had to stop
my letter, and have been so busy that
[ haven't had time to write scratch
until now. 1t is after supper, Miss hel-
lev is in her study at work on her ser
mon for tomorrow, Miss Lyon is at
school, the Dannenberg' have gone up
to Mr., Johnson s, and am in my study
at work, so / will finish this letter now
and get it off on the next foreign mail
steamer.
Did tell you about the johnson fam
lily in any of my former letters9 They
are English, and were for years mis-
sionaries under the Foreign Christian
Missionary society in Turkey, but they
were transferred to Marking and ar
rived here the day before the crowd
from America arrived. SO they are
new, too.
This evening Miss Lyon and 1 took
long walk after school. We went out
among the graves and passed little
heather temple where the people take
their dead children that they do not
want to bury. In front of this little
| temple is a sort of shallow box up high
ON sticks, and those who do not want
to, or who are too poor to bury their
little dead children place their bodies
| in this box and the priests inside the
temple see that they are buried. They
call this the baby tower. We took a
walk out among the bamboo trees ana
talked to some of the peasant women
whom we found working in their gar
dens. Or, / should say, Miss Lyon
talked and i listened. We came back
| by one Of the other compounds, where
the johnson s, DR.. Layton g and MI
Cory's families live,and called at their
houses. When we got home we found
Mary miss kelley back from her
country trip and every one hungry. we
did ample justice TO the supper. You
can imagine what did when ] tell you
we had scalloped potatoes, strawberry
preserves, canned peaches and pears,
nuts with plenty of filberts and Bra
zil nuts among them, and a fried pan
fish. You don't know what kind of
fish that is, do you3 l didn't until l
came here, but it is the best fish l
ever ate in my life. 1t is large hsh,
about the size of very small salmon
The meat is white and very sweet. one
makes a meal for us five people. IL Is
a Yangstee river fish, and as we are
on that river, we get fresh fish when
ever we want it.
In the last letter / got from you
YOU asked me if / had to eat CHINA
hen on Thanksgiving day. Say, please
that you are so fond of is native
that YOU are so wond of is native
of this part of the world. Whole rows
of them roOst on the fences all around
in this vicinity, and they don't roost
very high, either. We have all such
meat that we want. You may have your
turkey. thanks, / will take the China
pheasant IoNtNti1 VIC A"A NAN
Thanksgiving day. Cook took out al
the bones, stuffed up the holes where
the bones had been with dressing and
brought the duck on the table whole
with its wings aud legs sticking up Tor
all the world like it had bones in its
body, but when Emma miss Lyon
began TO carve it she sliced right
through the bird. You know we don't
have any eranberries here, but we have
the sanjas, a fruit favored somewhat
like the cranberry, but more like a
crab apple in looks. This makes hne
Jelly, and our cook keeps a supply, on
hand all the time. For this am glad.
And orangesi You know this is the
land of the honey-orange, and they
are fine. wish could send a box
home. They are your style Of orange
Oh, yesi ] must tell you about the
bamboo shoots. Great groves OF BAN
boo grow here, and the people cut tne
..ou ghnofa and aook and eat