Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1917-12-22
Finds New Life and Sur
rounding In the Orient
Interesting

| Miss Marie Hovdebo has received
the following interesting letter from
her Friend Mrs. Esther Plumer Schrei
ber, who left this city several months
ago for China Mrs. Schreiber and hel
husband, George H. Schneider, who
died early in the summer, were wei
known in Salem, both having gradu
ated from Willamette university. After
her husbands death, Mrs. Schreibel
left. for China to take up teaching. The
letter follows:
Marking, China, Nov. 8, 1917
Dear Marie: My WASH It l glad tC
find your letter waiting for me when
came home from school this noon. II
was almost as good as being able t.
chat with you between customers II
the store! l really forget where an
when l read home letters like that.
hope III hear from you often.
! suppose you think it long time
since you heard from me but you know
how it is when you go to new land
L have written hardly any letters ex
cept to my folks. 1t keeps one so busy
adiusting myself to new surroundings
And then of course there is the Ian
guage school every day Saturday
mornings, too) from $3.50 a. m. to
p. M and stiff work, too, / IL tell you
But oh, l enjoy +, il so much and i
really ism It half as bad as they tel
about it. 1t is so musical that it 8 more
like singing than speaking. Ny great
est trouble is to forget my English In
Elections and use the proper tones. Fol
instance | always want to raise my
voice at the end of question and IL
Chinese you never do unless the last
word happens to be on a high tone
One thing is so strange, they have ne
grammar at all, singular and plural are
all the same, the word for book ant
boohs is exactly the same and it ism
as confusing as one would expect be
cause they always say Zone piece
book,D or "ten piece book" " so yor
know exactly how many they mean.
This is certainly the easiest anc
best way to learn language, we nave
ne books or papers to get our vocabu
larry from. They teach us, instead, py
acting out the ideas so we learn a:
children learn. Each day we also spenc
an hour in the morning and one IN the
afternoon with private teacher anc
we are not allowed to speak any Eng
llish. 1t s lots of fun (if you have
good teacher) and the teacher changes
so we have a new one each week.
China is surely wonderful place
and much more pleasant for nome
than I ever hoped for. Of course there
are lots of disgusting things-filthines'
immortality, etc, but they (the peo
ple) are not as unlovable as one OF
ten hears. 1 find the people intensely
interesting. They surely need lots OF
help tho to put them where they ough
! to be. There is room here for every
| kind of people, in the business world
The trouble is tho that so many of the
business people instead of helping
these natives either cheat them or slnt
to their level of morals and SO detea
much of the work which Others are try
ing to do.
The whole trip over here was simply
Ideal. Not a bad day-not an hour o.
seasickness and lovely passengers. an(
good service. The month seemed 81
short for | enjoyed every minute OF IL
The other two girls, who went as ia
as Japan and the doctor and his WIZ
who also came to Marking, were al
congenial so we had lovely times to
gether and with others on the boat.
At Honolulu we took an auto ant
saw all the points of interest: tn
Pals, the aquarium, the fort, waikiki
beach and all the rest. The island is