Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-08-26
General Feng
Doesn't Turn
Other Cheek

Other Cheek most conspicuous
ly free fro
charges of dealing under the table
with Japan. It was he, say the
news reports, who eased Chinese
troops into the Japanese Tientsin
concession, in civilian clothes, threw
japanese strategy into confusion
and pretty nearly wrecked it. The
peasants love him. If ever a hui
man tidal wave engulfs the invad-
ing Japanese, he will be riding it.
He has been fighting, off and on,
for about 40 years, sometimes as
regular and sometimes in more or
less private wars. The politicians
dislike him and every once in a
while have him sent off to the fog
belt. The last time was in 1929,
when he stirred up revolt in an
effort to start an "up-and-at-em"
movement against Japan. But they
always have to call him out of re-
tirement, as when Chang Kai-shek
was kidnapped last December.
Feng always has enough loyal SOL
diers in reserve to count him in in
any 1arge-scale ruction-he has
commanded as many as half mil
lion men. When Chang was res
cued, he made peace with Feng and
the latter assumed full responsible
ity for the national military coun-
Gil, Of which Chang is chairman.
He was born of coolie parents in
Chaohsien, Anhwei. In June, 1900,
-. he was a big hulk
missionary ing lad, stand
Unscranbles ing guard in a
Snake Dream, Picking compound,
where some
American missionaries had been
trapped by the Boxers. He became
friends with Mary Morrill,, mis-
sionary girl from Maine. One night
he had a terrible dream about
snake under his bed. He asked Miss
Morrill, to interpret it.
What Miss Morrill, made of the
dream is not recorded. A day or
two later, Feng saw woman be-
headed. He was troubled, without
knowing just why, and again saw
Miss Morrill,. She converted him to
Christianity. In the following years,
the fighting trade was brisk in Chi
ma, and Feng began to get a repu-
tation, now as a free lance and now
with the imperial armies. He
preached to his troops every day.
II his men didn't want to listen,
he used to pay them.
Each soldier wore a brassard,
pinned on with a safety pin, and
written on it the Ten Command
rnents. But Feng had done a re-
write job on the original. His ten
commandments gave specific direc-
tons for overcoming an enemy in
different situations. Every so often,
Feng would announce that, no mat
ter what the exigencies of battle
might be, it was important for a
man to discover his own soul.
On these occasions, he would 60
to the country, wearing an old pad
-, ded coolie coat,
Stops battle with vacuum
to Paint or bottle full of paint
ReoJ Poetry brushes hung from
a cord around his
waist. He would paint plum bios
SONS for while and then squat on
his heels and read Confucius or
Lao TIE. After a few months Of
this he would get back to his fight
ing.
When Chang Kai-shek counted
him out in 1929, he went to a howell
hung high on a rocky shoulder Of
Tai Shan, China's sacred noun
tain," a place set aside for citizens
who wanted to take spiritual inven-
tory. Nearby was the ancient "Hall
of the Five Sages."
Feng used the hall as a sort Of
private university. He hired fac
ulty of seven venerable teachers, he
being the only pupil. The curricu-
1um listed first course on "the
spring and autumn period of the
Chou dynasty"
Feng is an ascetic, abstemious in
his diet, wearing cotton coolie
clothes, subjecting himself to rigid
discipline. In his retreat on the
sacred mountain, he rose every
morning at four o'clock.
His task was to draw on each Of
four sheets of parchment the four
:. - most beautiful
NettTeS EoTty C h acters h e
at Retreat on could possibly de-
co.~eJ Mount wise. His furniture
consisted Of a
mat, a table and two straight
backed chairs and tiny oil lamp.
He always went to bed at $3.50
o'clock, to save oil, he said, and
to be rested for his early rising.
When Miss Morrill, converted
him, she made him member of the
overwhelmingly" which means
beautiful, beautiful society,"" It is,
in essence, the Chinese name for
the Methodist church, but to Feng,
the frustrated artist, it was an or
ganization for the propagation of
beauty.
So when he isn't fighting, he full
fills his Christian duty, as he sees
it, by searching out beauty. He is
4 -