Adel High School - Scarlet and Black Yearbook (Adel, IA)

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-9- - -- - -- - A- - -- - 1- - ---- - -- - ------------- - --i- Letter from Miss Taylor -r-- W ------ww.---.v--vv---Wvv--v-v---v--f----U g --ra Nanking, China, Feb. l2', l9l5. My dear girls and boys in the Adel High School: l hope you still consider yourselves at least partly mine, 'even though l must share you with a number of new teachers and in spite of the fact that you have moved into a fine new home since l was part of your high school life. I shall never give up my claim on you so long as any of you whom l had in my classes are still in school. I have heard so much about the beauty and usefulness of the new building that l am very eager to see it for myself. l am sure it must be a great joy to all of you and you must all feel like doing your very best in such splendid environment. I scarcely know where or how to begin telling you about my work and experiences in China. It is all so interesting and so absolutely different from anything in America that it is hard to select the things which you may lind most appealing. The University of Nanking is a union institution sup- ported by several American mission boards. It is different from an Ameri- can university in that it includes a complete educational course, beginning with the primary school and ending with the college. l have the English in the middle school, which includes what corresponds to our sixth, seventh and eighth grades at home, although the pupils are for the most part older than pupils in these grades usually are, because the majority of them have had very little opportunity at an education aside from what they get in their own little Chinese private schools and this doesn't Ht them for the kind of work we give in the middle school. So my boys range in age from ten or twelve to eighteen or twenty. As a class they are a very studious, earnest lot and the majority of them are very bright and attractive, though some of them are exceedingly funny. There is one little fellow who wears an earring in one ear. This means that he is either an only son or the oldest son and his parents are trying to protect him from the evil spirits by deceiving them into thinking he is a girl. No doubt they would all look extremely queer to you in their long robes and funny little round caps which they wear in the house as well as outside. Their clothes are all made exactly alike, though differing in material. They consist of a long, straight robe or gwadzi, which fastens on one shoulder and clown under one arm and extends nearly to the ankle. The sleeves are cut in one piece with the body of the garment and there is a standing collar, open at the front. You can tell how many clothes a boy has by counting his collars. as every one has one and they stand up one inside of the other. These gwadzis are made of cotton, wool or silk and all who can afford it have at least one fur-lined one for cold weather. Under this robe they wear queer little tight-legged trousers, bound in closely about the ankle with a wind band of satin or cotton. Their shoes are always low, made of cloth, with thick paper or leather soles, and their stockings are made of heavy white cloth cut to ht the foot. This is the regulation Chinese costume, but many of the more wealthy, progres- sive Chinese are now wearing foreign shoes, stockings and hats. and a few

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wear complete foreign costumes. The women's clothes are very similar to the men's, except that their gwadzis are shorter, extending only to the knee. and their trousers are not bound at the ankle. They wear no hats, though married women have a shaped band of black satin or velvet, often beautifully embroidered, brocaded or braided, which they wear in the winter time, across their foreheads and over their ears, fastening it in with their hair at the back. I think our costumes, with their multiplicity of styles and especially our hats, must look excruciatingly funny to them. I came across this sentence the other day in one of my boy's grammar lessons: White women's dresses are very narrow around their waists. fIf he had said around their feet it wouldn't have struck me as so strange., But in spite of dress and other outward appearances I find these Chinese boys are very much like American bovs in many ways. They love fun and are especially fond of football, baseball and tennis. They have a very keen sense of humor and are quick to see a joke. At Christmas time they gave a play and their acting was as good as any amateur acting I ever saw. Indeed, they have a natural dramatic instinct which crops out constntly in their ordin- ary conversation. They are extremely polite and make me feel quite like a princess before her subjects when they all rise as I enter the room and remain standing until I am seated. I am already very fond of some of them and am hoping they may some day go to America to school. I must tell you some of their names so you can appreciate my task during the first few weeks of school, when I had exactly ninety of them to memorize. These boys are all in one class: Wei Shoh Run. Yuen Yung Kwan, Li Yas Fu, Tuan Chin Li, Lu Shun Yeh, Chang Pih Shang, Lo Tsing Lien, Djong Shui Fang, Uias Deh En, etc., etc. The first one is the surname, the other two given names. They are always called by all three. The Chinese have a queer custom regarding names. A child is gives' a name at birth, when he starts to school this name is changed and when he graduates it is again changed. When a girl is married she drops her given names entirely and is thereafter known only as So-and-So's wife, or. after she has a son, as So-and-50's mother. One day in a language on proper names my boys were to write the names of their father and mother. They wrote the first without any difficulty but when they came to the second they were puzzled and finally one of the braver ones said, My mother hasn't any name. Flow would you like that, girls? I-lowever, if a Chinese woman's hardships were confined to this necessitv of going through life nameless they would be a very minor matter compared to what they really are. No American woman can live in China long without feeling eternally thankful that she happened to be born in America instead of here. According to the old Chinese custom, you know, parents betroth their children when they are mere babies and as soon as the little girl is able to work she is taken into the home of her future husband, where she is the virtual slave of her mother-in-law. Not only is she deprievd of all the love and care of her own mother. but is only too often beaten, cursed and imposed upon by the entire family of her husband. The woe-begone, neglected looks of some of these unhappy little sec-fees, as they are called, are pitiful to see. This continues as long as the mother of the family lives. then the eldest son and his wife become the head of the household and dom- inate the younger ones. With the growing sentiment toward education for women this custom is losing ground and in many of the better families is no longer practiced. A Chinese wife is the property of her husband and has no rights before the