Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-30

shops, Peiping girls haze their OtOn.
The models for the new trend in beauty,
fashions and hairdresSing are the Chinese and
foreign movie stars.
EEMTNINE actresses are an innovation In o
country where men always have taken fe~
male roles in the drama. But Chinese movie
queens are becoming very popular here, and
the young girls are patterning themselves aftex
them.
One unexpected result of this is that there
is a growing tendency among young Chinese
women to retain their maiden names after mar.
riage. In so doing many of them are under
the Misrepresentation that they are introducing
proper foreign customs in China, for the foreign
women they know most about are the Holly
wood motion picture actresses. They note that
Mary Pickford IS not called Mrs. Fairbanks
and that Gloria Swanson is seldom referred to
by her French title.
Equality of the sexes" which is being en-
couraged in many ways by the Nationalist gov
ernment has something to do with the new
mode in China. Why should the wife follow
the name of her husband, ask the maidens Of
today?
RUT the government is giving official sup.
port to this feminist movement, for ito
documents refer to Mrs. Sun Yat-sen, MRS.
the orthodox Chinese way. not as Soong Ching
ling and Coong Mei-lin, they are called by
some of their young admirers.
In general there is now feeling in China
that during the present days of reform some
things are being a bit oyerdone, and that the
emancipation of women is one of them The
Chinese happerS are being criticized on all
hands. Papers and magazines, as well as gov
eminent officials. have begun to view with
alarm 50. .is' .-.'.. .4a.
and when married they are burdens to their
husbands" lameflted Paul K Whang, an eligi-
BILE bachelor of Shanghai who recently started
something when he declared that young men
cannot any longer afford to marry Chinese
brides of the 1890 model. ,
t'The modern Chinese girl Is too much under
the influence of Western civilization and blinSlly
worShips everything imported from America"
asserted Mr.. Whang in an article in the China
Weekly Review. "She is afraid of no man. stays
out late at night and enjoys as much freedom
as her brothers.
SEWHH-E in pursuit OF pleasure and excite
ment. she looks upon home life as dreary
and domestic affairs trivial. She deheS the
orders of her parents and laughs at the teach.
ings of female virtue. We find these modern
Chinese girls everywhere now, and the young
man who has not yet married looks upon them
with suspicion and terror"
these flappers new-fangled education and
his criticism corroborates the findings Of DR..
Yamei Kim, one of China's first modern
women" who graduated from a Quaker medical
college in New York City in 1885 and who for
As years has been an inspiration to ambitious
women of her country.
Schooling for Chinese girls at present is
highly impractical" said DR.. Kim recently in
an interview in her home in Peping. ut has
been mistake to plunge students into courses
of liberal arts for which they are not prepared.
The result has been to make our womens coll
leges more fashionable finishing schools and
has given Western education, as such, q bad
name.
I'm the old days, when girls seldom went OUT
side their clustered courtyardS. they were
trained first by their mothers and then by their
motherS-in-law to be good housekeepers, and
50 they were fitted for their places in life.
Nov, after IL or IA years Of expensive edu.
cation, girl is At only to be an ornament in
society circles"
EVEN more severe in his condemnation -
Mr.. whang, for he insists that Chinese girls
today do not even learn liberal arts.
AT school their curriculum consists Of new
dancing steps and imported love songs" he
declares. "They do not attend school for an
education, but for lettering their chance 1or
selecting q husband"
= (COpyYight, leS0)