OCR Text |
Show -3** I have been much interested in getting acquainted with a woman bearing the same Chinese surname that we do, who was at one time an employed mission worker, and s t i l l aarliar a teacher and governess in the home of Gen, Chang Hsueh-liang, who inherited the warlord- ship of Manchuria from bis father, Chang Tso-lin, when that astute general was assassinated. Of course if you had the chance you would want to know Mr, Has Nai-chan and family, Buring the war be served three years in Franca as interpreter for Cbinesa laborers. Ha is our stenographer, competent station accountant and assistant treasurer,- a cultured Christian gentleman. But I think you would be haunted for days if you saw the homes of red-eyed old Mrs. Chiang and har two widowed daughters* One of them whose husband, a riksha pullor, recently died, has four children. She gats a l i t t l e coarse sawing to do which is poorly paid for, and you would think har in abject poverty until you entered bar s i s t e r ' s home which is much worse,- five children in rags, one a help-lass cripple on the kang* I do not know what they live on* And near by l i v e s is Mrs, Chu of like class. Har kang bad very l i t t l e bad-ding on i t , and the stove but a tiny spark of fire in Jan* A tea kett l e and one or two broken dishoa seemed a l l I could see in the room except three children in d i r t y rags and har pitiable forlorn old mo t h e r . -- To change the scene, I am enjoying an Sngliah conversation class one hour per week in our good middle school with i t s 800 stud-a n t s . I wish you might have Joined the l i t t l e group of v i s i t o r s whom our Principal, Mr. Yang, showed around Just a few days ago. As I had not seen i t a l l before I want along, and listened to him explain not oniy the dormitories, class-rooms, library, laboratories, and features common to most schools, but also the practice gardens, the "model home" where a l l the g i r l s once in their course must live and manage l i k e a village family,for one month, the soap-making and radio labora t o r i e s , the primary free school which is one of the forma of sooial service the students carry on, the bicycles and bags for carrying condensed news sheets to outlying villages, the travailing l i b r a r y and museum cases that are taken out and l e f t for a month at a time with school teachers in village schools and then exchanged for others, ana the f i r s t aid k i t s of medicines taken out from our dispensary, A short time ago I attended part of a three hour concert given by this school on "Mother's Bay", recently observed* by government order, as was also children's Bay# In March tha Batter Homes Com, of the North China Christian #ural Service Union held three days of annual meeting hare. There were about twenty delegates, Chinese and foreign, from three provinces and five denominations, who met together to report on their year's work in trying to make batter homos. Health, social, economic and religious a s - pacta a l l came under consideration. Triad methods of influencing homes were reported upon, and p o l i c i e s , l i t e r a t u r e , and programs for tha future projectad. But I r e a l l y must bring this to a close at once or you will not have patience to road i t a l l , I'm sura you will be impressed by the fact that I haven't written a thing about my children; Also t h e r e ' s a husband about with his program of work, on which I am not undertaking to report, I hope ha will have time soma day to write you about that. With friendly thought for each one of you, Altia Cumings Gait |