University of Nanking - Linguist Yearbook (Nanking, China)

Page 62 text:

60 COUNTRY PEOPLE exclaiiming over the swiftly changing scenery without. And indeed it was strange ! For a time it seemed as if the whole country-side was one vasli sea of mounds. On every hand as far as the eye could. see, these graSS- covered hillocks dotted the plain like so many stacks of hay, often S0 close together that one might easily step from one to the next. As a rule they rose only two or three feet above the level of the plain but some l l f ' i ' V' ,. .,..,....j' f ' 'li 3 1-Y- The Land of the Dead towcred ten or twelve feet high, measuring twenty feet or more across their base and were surrounded by raised rims of earth to prevent erosion. For the rest of the journey and indeed from that time to the present I have never for more than a moment been out of sight of -these grave lands of the ancestors. China-a land into which one-fourth of the human race is crowded and yet a land where the dead far outnumber the living. l As we watched these scenes sweeping endlessly by the window, the overwhelming pity of that fact in its effect upon the present generation was borne in upon us with relentless force. Everywhere. numberless evidences of strictest economy stood out stark and bare before our eyes : fields crowded up to the very edge of the track: roads swallowedlup till nothing but the slenderest foot-path l'em21iI16d. Everywhere cultiva- tion of the most intensive kind prevailed, leaving not a square foot of available land unused. Hillsides and stony ground which at home would

Page 61 text:

4 -L ILLSTONES I A D W 'PERF RMS V J.M.p.! l 1 i U A-LING! Da-ling! Da-ling! The station-master was walking from one end of the platform to the other, bell in hand, and exhorting stragglers to get aboard. In that now crowded car we had been holding our seats for the previous half-hour, and it was well we had, for traveling second class from Shanghai to Nanking in a crowded Chinese train on a hot Chinese day is not calculated to be exactly palacial. Having landed in China less than a week previous, the long wait was not as tedious as it might have been. Each person to arrive added some new note of interest to the group. Some sat on the ends of the ear seats, jabbering over their long pipes with their neighbors, and filling in all dots and dashes with grotesque gestures. Across the aisle from us, two elegantly dressed Chinese women in gaudy silk attire and with fingers heavy with jewelry, sat gossiping vehemently together, cigarette in hand, every muscle ofthe face, hands, and body eloquently combining to give expression to their thought. What a sharp contrast to the extremely modest, dcmure maids of old Japan who had so charmed us with their attempts to hide shy retiring smiles behind flowing sleeves and low bgws, At last the train began to move and the air, which was now saturated with Chinese gibberish and cheap foreign tobacco smoke, began to Clem- somewhat. We had barely pulled out of the station before a Chinese lad appeared wearing a brass tag, Tea Boy, and depositing on each of the built-in tables which jutted out from under the car windows, 9, pot of Chinese tea, promptly proceeded to fill each with bililing water from a huge brass kettle which he carried. In between sips of tea from the livttle thimble-shaped cups furnished, my hride-of-three-months and I kept C593

Page 63 text:

THE LINGUIST Gl be passed by as worthless, here were put to most intensive use. 'lfhe very ground upon which the farmers' rude straw-thatched, niud houses stood, 300111011 to be begrudgingly given up. Even the spaces between and around the grave mounds were pursued by the relentless hand of necessity. But the dead reign supreme! Such is the reverence-or perhaps I should Say fear-with which this nation of ancestor worshippers regards these departed spirits that their graves lie unmolested clotting the plain, Oeeupying vast areas of valuable land, and scattered over the fields in 1 V Y P l'l10l0 'Ill .llisxiuli I'lm!o Bllrriull Human Labor, the Cheapest Commodity such a way as seriously to interfere with agricultural operations. Millions go hungry and even starve to death because the living will not use what the dead cannot. For an hour or more wc watched this swiftly Clluuging panorama Outside until we were suddenly recalled to the limfl of the living by the tea-boy asking if we would have til-fin. Yes, illdeed, we would. Which way is the dining-ear ? I asked. Oh ' - serve out here, was the reply in broken English.