Paragould soliphone., 1921-09-07
PARAGoULD soLIPHoNE, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER ', 1921


 binding society China was awaken | ing to the outside world and prog ress. and the society easily stirred 1 up public opinion. Petitions were presented to the queen doWager, ana she finally issued an edict to abolish l the old custom.
 My sisters feet" says MT. Chan, were only three inches long. She unbound them. All of her children have large feet. The older women could not benefit by the new style. After 30 years of age, the bones are set in the cramped condition and cannot relax. So now, small feet are rarely found except on the old women of China, and the women of far inland provinces, where customs take years to penetrate.
 "The new fashion made it possible for Chinese women to become more active in affairs. They entered business and even politics. In the
 most progressive province, Kuang- tung, woman suffrage has been es- tablished Nurses and telephone girls" have always been men in
 China, but recently girls in Canton
 have taken over this work And they are even ticket agents and conductors on steam trains. Canton, however, is taking some precautions against too conscientious copying of Western progress. There is municipal ordinance in Canton that no Western short skirts or short sleeve dresses shall be worn on the streets.'
 Two other changes Mir. Chan men tioned as having been especially i'm portant in helping to awaken China l from her lethargy
 One is the determined struggle against opium which has led the government to prohibit the poppy
 being grown If farmer raises q
 small patch of peoples in his garden the farm will be confiscated by the government. And in one repre- sentative province the penalty for smoking opium is fine for the first offense, imprisonment for the
 second, and the third time the of fender is cured-he is executed. The main difficulty in the drug situation is that Japan smuggles opium and morphine through Shan tung. China claims that that is one reason why Japan wants to hold the province, and this smuggling ham entirely to stamp out the drug habit
 The other big advance is the new alphabet which replaces the old written language. Mir. Chan points out that this written language was like the old Egyptian hieroglyphics, and that sign like two legs run ming represents man. Another l like figure with arms that seems to be sitting down is the symbol for a woman she could not run. The sign for COW looks like two horns and a tail; and a flat back, long tail, four legs, represents a horse. It was so hard to master the clas- sics in this difficult language that scholars sometimes spent all their lives in the attempt. The common people more. often than not were unable to read or write. But in 1912, the minister of education an nounced the new national phonetic system of forty-nine letters, and now women Who have never been to school are able to learn to read and write in less than two months. Pub lie school books, magazines, and newspapers are being printed in the new system.
 This alphabet was a body blow to the old Chinese tradition of rever- ence for the ways of ones ancestors. The filial Chinese had always ac-
 cepted the tradition that one must not disgrace these ancestors by i'm proving on the mode of life be- queathed by them. But ancestors, | like everything else, are beginning | to be regarded from d Twentieth
 century standpoint in China.