Paragould soliphone., 1921-09-07
CHINESE CUSTOMS
 CHANGING RAPIDLY

1OOteQ naClOn WHICH they Call u mind at mention of China absolute fly does not. exist, according to Pax Gnu Chan, who has been studying medicine and theology at American
 universities.
 q have been asked if all Chinese
 are laundrymen,n says MT. Chan in his perfect English. And though for 10 years it has been against the law to wear a queue, l find that l that there are no queues in China. v The queues was one of the strong traditions of the empire days-one of the apparent trifles which held China back in her unprogressive civ ilization. The Chinese in this coun- | try long ago found that the queues he so much treasured interfered with his being taken seriously as a business man. The pig taiP' of the Chinaman was certain to be a subject of jest. Accordingly, many Chinese had their queues cut off, well aware that by this act made 1 themselves exiles from China A queueless man in the Chinese empire was regarded as rebel against the
 state and the penalty was death at the headman's block
 l To find the reason for this sig lnificance attached to the queue, MT. Chan says, we must go back to l1644, when America was still strug- gling with it's first settlements. The
 Manchus arose and dominated China at that time The Manchu prince disarmed the Chinese people, but there were S,OO0,OOO Manchurians against several hundred million Chinese.
 l So, further to insure submission the conquering ruler ordered all Chinese to braid their hair into a
 queue. This he made sign of l loyalty to the new majesty. It was useful. too, because if a man tried to escape, he could sometimes
 be caught by the queue flying back of him. Some Chinese protested but the penalty was death.
 Eventually the Chinese got used to the queue and became attached to \ it. But when China opened her doors to other countries, the queue | became troublesome. Diplomats and business men wished to cut off the queue and to wear Western clothes. Many petitions were presented to the gemperor. Then, the republic was es- ! ltablished in 1911 and the new con Estitution of China said that all queues must be cut In one province MT Chan remembers, 10, 1000 queues were reported cut in one day. ! It caused some amusing situations.
 as the queue bound about the head was sufficient protection against cold and the sun Now, with short hair,
 they must have hats. They did not style in head coverings for men, ' but in the emergency they crowded
 into American merchandise shops to
 buy anything-straw hats, caps, even womens hats.
 At first few old men wished . to retain their. queues" Mr. Chan recollected with d smile. So they wrapped the queue around the head and covered it with cap. But the police are suspicious, and make any suspects take off the caps. If the queue is there, the policeman pulls
 out big knife and gives the man a free hair cut.
 | , Foot binding IS another fashion as passe in China as the wasp waist is | in America. The small feet girl | in China now has difficulty in get | ting husband The young men l want large feet" wives. Nor can
 a small feet girl go to the public
 or mission schools. She is as un- popular as the girl with unbound
 feet was a few years ago,
 Binding the women's feet, accord
 ing to Mir. Chan, is an even more ancient practice in China than wear 1 ing the hair in a queue. There are
 two stories of it's origin. One says that 1000 years ago, an exceedingly
 beautiful queen of the Tong dynasty had d deformity of her feet To hide lthis defect from the notice of the i king. she bound her feet tightly and pretended that she wished them to be very small as mark of beauty, even though it kept her from walk ling The other women of the court | all eager for the honor of being
 chosen as concubines by the king l Followed the new fashion to achieve
 beauty, And so foot binding spread
 over China.
 l The other theory is that the Chin ese men long ago found out that | the best way to keep woman in the home was to render her help Hess, There would then be nothing
 to distract her from her home duties
 and she would look up to her hus-
 band as knowing so much more