Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-10-04
atiseellaneoas 8sadins.
PICTURES OF CHINESE LIFE.
Poppy Growers Who Keep the Man.
darins In Fear.


darins In Fear.
For five days journeying from
Paisiang in Shansi to Hwachow in
Shensi one notes a strain Of Greek
beauty and grace in the population.
Several times a day the eye lights
on a boy or youth who would serve
as a model for Ganymede or En-
dymion. With Hwachow the type
vanishes and the squat, knobby
faced, dull complexioned Mongol dom
ley of the Han, says a letter in the
Japan Advertiser of Toxic from Prof.
Ross describing his travels through
Shansi.
With the coarse and ugly cast Of
features of central Shens goes a stu
pidity that exceeds anything I have
ever experienced among American
negroes. You ask a peasant How
far 1t is to PaokI?" You repeat the
question twice and you have not
even stirred his attention. After
your third asking he is sufficiently
walked up to repeat, "Paoki?" In a
considering way. The fourth time
he catches the idea Of How far?"
The fifth asking may enable him to
connect the ideas "Paoki?" How
far?" and his face lights up with
comprehension. Often. however. no
amount Of questioning elicits any
thing more than grunts and "Ohs!"
Dullest Of all were the Kansuh reap
ers. returning north to their province
after the harvest. This oxlike slow
ness Of mental processes may be due
to hereditary deficiency. to lack Of
stimulation or which is more likely.
to the benumbing Of the faculties by
opium smoking.
For Shensi is one Of the worst Of
the provinces in this respect, and the
woman are worse than the men. 1t
men over forty smoke. Beyond Wu-
kung poppy fields began to appear,
and south from Fengsiangfu we
passed hundreds of them. About the
capital it has come to be disreputa-
BILE to grow the poppy. 1t is planted
in small patches in out Of the way
places, and sometimes the leaves and
flowers are cut off so 1t cannot be
recognized at a distance.
The poppy is by far the best pay
ing crop, and when interfered with
the farmers are near to rebelling.
Two stages west Of Sianfu the dis
trict magistrate went out In April
with a few soldiers to destroy the
poppy. The farmers rallied with
their forks and sickles a. he had to
flee for his life. In Kansuh the man
darins stand in fear Of their fierce
Mohammedan subjects and the pop
py is grown in the old way. Still the
reduction in poppy acreage in Shensi
has been 20 or 80 per cent and the
first year Of poppy prohibition will
aid next years efforts.
In all directions one notes how the
people stand in their own light by
neglecting to protect common inter-
ests from the encroachment OF indi-
viduals. The roadside bitches are
bailed out to get little fishes OF a
fingers length, because what one
does not take another WILL Each
picked as soon as one berry turns
red, most of the wild berries come to
the market unripe and not fit to eat
After a rain the great road Tung-
kwan to Sianfu is a canal from which
the water has no exit The mule
muscle wasted during the week In
pulling carts through the quagmire
would repair the road for a year.
For a furlong or more on each side
Of a village the stone paved road
over Tiensha Pass has been ruined
by the villagers stealing the stones
for their stoops and pigpens. Such
Is the natural and inevitable result
Of letting private interests have full
scope or doing nothing to protect
public interests.
The condition Of women in Central
Shensi is deplorable, but is quite
what Is to be expected when the male
sex takes upon itself to shape not
only its own standards and life but
also those Of women. Little girls or
nine years shrink away into the in
terror Of the house II your gaze lights
on them a moment. 1t would not be
proper to be looked at by woman.
All the women who are not old vanish
away into their apartments like
frightened birds when man heaves
in sight. The traveller might easily
suppose that all the females Of ten
to twenty-five years had been carried
off by a plague, so rarely does he see
one of them. Never does woman
travel unless she belongs to an OFF,
cial changing his residence.
The woman of the common peo-
pie probably get not a mile from
home in the course Of their lives.
Their feet are very tightly bound,
so much so that in Kansuh the house
wife crawls about her home on her
knees. The result is that crippled
in feet, crushed by conventional re-
strictions and regarded with con-
tempt, she shows none Of the home
making instinct that in America
brightens even the log hut Of the
mountain backwoodsman with crazy
quilts, tides and old newspapers scis-
sored into patterns and pasted round
the clock shelf or over the windows.
There is no effort to adorn, no bit of
white or color, no sign of woman's
hand There is not even a family
meal but each fills his bowl and
stands or lounges about eating when
he pleaSeS.