University of Nanking - Linguist Yearbook (Nanking, China)

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100 THE LINGUISTH initial consonants, the proverb f'Tl1ere is no task under Heaven whicha zealous man fears was made to say There1s no task under Heaven which a newt servant-fears. Our own unanimous opinion was and is that there is no task under Heaven which our Christmas and New Year and then a new class. It wasin honor of the'-Ianuary class that the stupendous theatrical production 1ljacobi or The Poisoned Peanut was first staged-.in Nankmg. The audience, while appreciative, was strangely indifterent tothe pathos of the play- -a tragedy in three acts-- -and it was received with peals of laughter. The cast was as follows. jacobi, a self-made boot-black trillionaire ..... ...... E arl Otto Lucy Ann, a simple country maiden ...... ...... E rua Flatter Sophronia, a sophisticated city girl ..... - .. .Emelme Bowne teachers could not accomplish. T g g 6 The acting left nothing to be desired either in actual portrayal or in the atmosphere which it created. From the moment when the hero expressed his wish to share 'Whfith one dear girl, my own my early love, My Lucy Ann, sweet gentle little dove' we knew that complications were bound to arise, so that when Sophronia appeared, we were not surprized to find her luring away jacobi's atTections. But true worth ever conquers, even though it perish in the attempt. Lucy Ann in spite of her temporary anger and command to Take back thc box thou hast given lfVhat is thy polish to me F p had agreed to receive Jacobi once more into her good graces when alas! alas !' enter the villainess, and in the end a sad, sad triple suicide and murder. It was with difficulty that we could resume sufficient composure to play games under the direction of Dorothy Bascom and Mr. Keen-which may account forthe fact that nine- tenths of the group were relegated to the floor during the playing of The Chinese do not like 'l ' and that a few of the men were notice- ably preoccupied and had to be inspired by their partners in the race to exchange chairs. p

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SOCIAL LIFE 99 us a shocking exhibition of reversal to type, when he appeared rouged. coiffed, and powdered to the nth degree as a Broadway-or Main Street-flapper. It is no exaggeration to say that he took the prize-a Chinese lantern. Aunt DinahQDr. Brown,jwho as a colored mammy was jest so sca'ht o'dem dare, ghost'es dat she plum knew she was goin' t' have de hydrostatics carried off the other lantern. One could scarcely have called Mr. Keen the lion of the occasion. but he undoubtedly was the elephant. Conjecture as to the identity of the peanut hunting animal had been widespread for some time before unmasking, and it was a great surprize to the combined collection of darkies, ghosts, Indians and clowns to find that our dignified Dean had consented to play this role. fThe morale of the student body has been noticeably lower ever since, but after all this is beside the point and a Language School secret.j We ended the evening with games on the lawn, and so our first Chinese Halloween passed into the realm of delightful memories. The air is full of mystery, And secrets are awing was as true of Nanking Language School just before Christmas as it ever is of any school anywhere. Knowing that it has become custom- ary for the teachers to present a play as a part of the Christmas activities, it seemed strange that all of them should feign ignorance. Not a word did they breathe about their preparations for the play. Meanwhile stockings were made and filled with a variety of Chinese goodies to be distributed to the children of the teachers on the day to which we were all looking forward. Loving the teachers as we do, we had long been anxious to meet their wives and families, so that it was with great pleasure that we greeted our guests. How the thought of those Chinese children lingers in our minds- -black hair smooth and shining, dark eager eyes half afraid, half curious, and each child seeming to rival the others in the brightness of his clotn- ing and the number of padded garments he could wear without falling over. But there is neither East nor west When it comes to children at a Christmas party. Although they could understand and enjoy the tableau which depicted Christmas Eve in a Christian home and were pleased by the charming songs and finger plays of Mr. Chia's two little girls, it was evident that to them the climax of the afternoon lay in the tree and the stockings not to mention that presid- ing spirit, Father Christmas. To us. however, the play's the thing. How,the,teachers for three-quarters of an hour maintained aplav containing notonly quick and witty repartee but having a sound plot as well, and all within the limits of our vocabulary, will forever remain a mystery. But they did it, in their own inimitable manner and with the sense of humor that characterizes all Chinese from the highest to the lowest. Much of the delightfulness of the presentation lay in the subtle play on words and the. interchange ,of words having the same pronunciation both in English and Chinese. Any interpretation must necessarily be lame, but it is a temptation to quote one example. For instance, with the exchange of only two

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SOCIAL LIFE 101 To Mrs. Keen's birthday, we owe the party held in the Keen home on january 29. It was intended to be a surprize, but if you have ever tried to pilot sixty Language School students up a slippery narrow Chinese road when the air is so clear and cold and crisp that the slightest sound penetrates and carries, you will have your doubts- as to the genuine amazement which our coming could have brought. But surprize or no surprize, everyone joined heartily in wishing Mrs. Keen Health and wealth and happiness, while Earl Otto, again in the foreground, presented her with a bouquet of flowers red and green and yellow, congratulating himself in song during the presentation that he was a lucky fellow. Perhaps he was, but the rest of us had our share 'oi good fortune. For once. regardless of -our tests in Chinese characters, we could all be monkeys, and most of US proceeded to prove it by the alacrity with' which we moved in the alphabet game--the vowels especially being called on to display a truly simian agility. The chief difficulty lay in a confusion of phonetics, poor English, and Chinese. Mrs. Anderson electrified us in one of the other games by announcing that her name was Lea, Lea, Lea, and even some of the men showed sudden inability to tell who they were. Not so with the Reformed Mission. Between 'iAnk -Ank-,Ank., and Yauk-,Yauk-,Yauk-, they succeeded in giving us a lively representation of Detroit and its leading industry. XVe wish it were possible to continue to draw for you the intimate close companionships of our everyday life and the bonds which are binding us more and more closely together as the days go by, but that is beyond the scope of this resume. For all who come'after us, we can only wish the same union in common Christian fellowship and the same harmonious relationships, as they prepare to give their lives in the most worth-while of all services. BERTIIA Smrrit Q' C C U A young house-wife Cnot one of the present Language classl knew some Chinese. but even then it is easy to use the wrong tone or the wrong word in managing a house-hold. This special time there were to be guests to dinner and the table boy was told to go upstairs and bring the chairs from all the rooms and to be sure that there was one piecie chair at each place at the table. XVhen the guests arrived and went to the table, the hostess was -astonished to iind a bar of soap beside each plate. lf there is one thing we are more careful about than another in China, it is that the water we are to drink be carefully boiled. Thus treated, it is spoken of as drinking water. I heard the other day about a woman who was planning a dinner for guests and she told the cook in preparing sliced cucumbers for the table, to put them to soak in water. She was very anxious that he put them in water that had been boiled so specilied drinking water. When she lead the company to dinner, they were all ,surprised to find a few slices of cucumber in the glasses of water at each place.