isa-normaladvance-1914-00145

Description:	THE NORMAL ADVANCE145ter Co., the General Electric Co., the Westing- house people, the Eastern Kodak Co., the Gil¬ lette Safety Razor Co., the Proctor & Gamble Soap Co., numerous machinery manufacturers, and last, but by no means the least, the Stand¬ ard Oil Co. This last named in 1910 gave away five million tin lamps to the Chinese in differ¬ ent coast cities, and in so doing created a mar¬ ket for its products, and added a necessity to the Chenos growing list,Shanghai is not on the coast, but is built on the Woosung-kiang river, twelve miles from the Yang-tse-kiang estuary. Going up the river, we are treated with a view of a fine stretch of farming country. The Chinese in this coun¬ try certainly practice intensive farming, for every inch of ground is under cultivation. They even plant over the above ground graves, that are on each farm. You see men, women and children at work in the field the men at the plow, perhaps, that is drawn by women, or at the irrigation pumps—but working always as if the whole life depended upon it, as perhaps it does.The river is crowded with ships, flying every flag. And they are not only merchant ships, but fighting ships also. We see every type of battle ship from the old Chinese fighting junk that is propelled with sweeps and is armed with wooden cannon, to the most modern men-of- war. At last we come to anchor just off the French Bund and within a stones throw of the famous Astor House.Most interesting of all is Old Shanghai. This part is the original Shanghai, and has not been touched by white hand in all the progress of the city. Behind the three and a half miles of walls, some hundred thousand Chinese live the life that has been lived there for hundreds of years. The streets are narrow—hardly wider than our sidewalks. They wind in every direc¬ tion, and without a guide one is soon hopelessly lost. You find tea houses, temples and prisons within the walls, and one may spend many days without seeing all.Of course the chief income now is from the tourist, and there are thousands of little shops where you may see workmen doing pretty, deli¬ cate work to sell to the tourist. Ivory, wood, and metal seem to be the favorite raw materials. The work is nothing short of marvellous. They have the touch and the patience needed to do the most delicate work. And they sell their work for almost nothing. Their tools are crude look¬ ing, and their method of working seems strange. For example, see that man making a comb. He is sitting on a saw-horse, holding the comb with his feet while he saws out the spaces between the teeth with a saw about the size and shape of our buck saws. When he gets this done, he will polish each tooth, spending perhaps a day all told on it, and when it is finished, sell it for not more than ten cents of our money. It is marvellous to see them produce with such awk¬ ward tools such beautiful pieces of gold and silver jewelry.The temples are interesting. Here you see hundreds of idols—awful looking things they are—and their attending worshippers. There are gods for almost every happening in life—■ good and bad. It is noticeable that the bad gods receive the lions share of the worship.And last the prison. As you approach it you see prisoners wearing great wooden collars locked about their necks. These collars are of various shapes. In some cases the hands are locked in spaces provided for them. The jailer turns the prisoners out to beg food, since he gives them nothing to eat. Then there are the stocks for the feet, a device for stretching a man by making him stand on tip-toe to keep from strangling, and a hundred other awful in¬ struments of torture, and worse—all in use. I saw the blood-spattered place where twelve men were beheaded the day before and where an¬ other lot would be executed the following day, and I was glad I came the day I did for I was sick of all I had seen.In no city in China did I see any attempt to help the Cheno to help himself. I did not see
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/32601
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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