| Show MISSION LIFE IN CHINA I Dr Edna Blackburn Parkss Entertaining Enter-taining Letter Carlinvllle IlL July 5The following interesting letter has been received by a friend in this city from Dr Edna Blackburn Parks who Is In China as a medical missionary She Is a daughter or a Presbyterian preacher Miss university Parks is a graduate of Blackburn versity of this city and of a medical C college in Chicago and has been in China for three years The letter is Interesting at this time as she describes de-scribes the situation in the empire tells of the customs of the people the hardships hard-ships of the missionaries as well as the pleasures to be found in the called city The letter dated Wei Ilien ShanTung China May 20 1000 follows I fol-lows I am as you see by this letter still I In Wei Hien but my ultimate destination destina-tion Is slil unsettled The Boxers or Big Knife society as it is known here is quiet just at present but they have wrought great havoc In the western part of the province and mission work In the country Is almost stopped in some places But our missionaries In that region say that the persorutlon I h and that has strengthened the church thi the members are more earnest and zealous and the inquiries are as many J or more than they have been for some years The murder of Mr Brooks was a sad iffair but we have the satisfncllon cf mowing that justice was meted out to his murderers in as sure a fashion as can be done in China Tho English rlccConsul 1 went at once to Chilian Fu the capital of the province went nil over the ground personally per-sonally attended the trial and remained I re-mained until he saw the del tl sentence actually curled put Had be not done ltuulr LC so and gone away It Is probable l that the murderers would have suffered no penalty But the real feeling of Ihe Chinese Gqyirnment vestal just now In the Empress Dowager is shown by the treatment of the Governor of Shun Tung at the time of the murder He was degraded from his office as Governor Gov-ernor at the demand of the English Government and proceeded to Peking to be publicly paled on the back by the Empress Dowager for his antifor eign zeal and appointed Governor of Shanghai the province nect to up This is Chinese consistency ANTICIPATE TROUBLE The country in this section is very 14 peaceable but the railroad difficulties tire drawing nearer and trouble Is Scared at any moment The Germans are surveying a railroad from their new post Keadchow or Tslng Tao up to Qh the capital of the province I will etfu tap the mines at this point The peo 4L pie as a rule oppose the innovation nnd destroy the slakes of the survey era as fast as they can put them in unless they are carefully guarded I Recently sonic of the engineers were attacked at an Inn only twenty miles I liom us and morally had to run for r their lives leaving all their pobscssions behind them They took refuge in our u compound but the mob did not follow them thlsfar They were warned jm tin eS t-In t imp to escape the mob again when they tried lo resume their work at the fiamo place some weeks later but I have not heard whether they are trying otO try-ing to resume again or not An amusIng little Incident occurred 14 near our village recently where the icx railroad men were surveying a now road Every night their slakes set so carefully and with so much cost during jjI dur-ing the day disappeared at nIght The LV chieCtcnglnper went to the chief man cf thd village or Mayor as we would Iio cal him and demanded protection for his work and It was very cheerfully promised The next day the stakes Ia were gone as usual and he went In rage to the Mayor again to Inquire Into I i To hfc 1 surprise tho Chinaman assured Mm the slakes were all right and to prove his slatmcnt he showed them in a nlpf pile by tho door I was thrn 4f that the surveyor poured out the vials n of big wrath in the choicest German expletives on the celestial But the dflf f I Y celestial only smiled and said If I had not brought them In for you someone some-one would have stolen them Such are tho vicissitudes of railway building In China OFFICIALS OPPOSE FOREIGNERS There aie perhaps a good many of I the more iniclllgent officials who really favor foreign ways but in tho present condition of affairs with the Empress Dowager at the head It Is as much us their lives are worth or at least their i official heads to seem to favor foreigners for-eigners if J only to a small degree As I for myself my work is still a language study Chinese Is such a mountain and sIX months Is such a little time that I feel l that I have not yet begun the ascent 1 enjoy It though very much especially reading the New Testament Tes-tament I all seems so new and fresh The New Testament especially John which I am reading Is quite easy but the talking Is more difficult The Chinese Chi-nese dress Is one of the queer things lo Americans Tho gentlemen in the interior wear it altoegther I Is not required at all by the missionary board but it gains the confidence of the people peo-ple and attracts less attention which is t in this where I ISn great point country we have so much more attention than we care for I Is also more comfortable comfort-able they say warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer A few foreign for-eign gentlemen wen queues but that is not necessary none of our mission have them We ladies wear the upper garment when we go to church to the country or outside oc the compound where strangers see usXior they consider con-sider our tlghtwaisted dresses very Immodest as much so as we would consider con-sider the trousers of the Chinese omen o-men If worn in America It Is alla matter of custom I think that with the exception of the bound feet Chinese dregs has a great many points of advantage ad-vantage over ours but such is the Influence In-fluence of custom over all of us that of course I would not be willing to change for all time SOCIAL LIFE IN CHINA One of the greatest disadvantages we have to contend with in China Is the social life Think of being in a town with but eight Englishspeaking people to confide In and converse with For u few days or weeks this would not be tiresome but for a year or two years it Is diiferegl and yet It is exceedingly desirable to be congenial This was the case at Chlnan Fu I was more like 0 family than anything else but every one was so good to me that It made the new life very easy There were two doctors there besides me a I ani not considered a doctor or supposed sup-posed to do anything the first year or so except to study Chinese Hardly had I settled down to work nicely than word came to me from this place that the only doctor here was on the verge of 0 breakdown and I was wanted to relieve him n little and be here to take care of the foreigners in case he had to go away So I packed up and came dou n here and had my first experience experi-ence of country travel We traveled In sheigers and went north from Shanghai Shang-hai sailing at once so I only stopped there to transfer Two days in a miserable mis-erable little coast steamer on a rough sea took me to Che Foo There I spent a pleasant ten days with members of our mission waiting for a party to go into the interior The time was spent in getting acquainted gelling our outfit out-fit ready for Interior life securing pass ports etc i GETS A CHINESE NAME There I also became possessed of a Chinese name I am now Lei Tal Toe to the Chinese a translation of the name Parks From Che Foo a still smaller steamer carried me to the mouth of a small canal which connects con-nects the Yellow river with the sea at that point Thee I left civilization and steam and ended my long journey sy four days in a houseboat My destination des-tination was Chinan Fu the capital 1 city of this province of Shan Tung which Is the center of the German Interests in-terests in China You can form no Idea of what it Is to stay at nights in the native Inns We were so fortunate each night as to secure the best apartments apart-ments but these palatial accommoda tions consisted of rooms with mud floors paper windows and doors that would not lock The furniture was a brick kalian bed a table and ore or two trestlelike benches We carried all our own bedding toilet articles even to washpans and food It was a decidedly novel experience It speaks well I think for this r that wel country tho we two women could thus travel alone with only a Chinese servant and meet with nothing but the utmost courtesy oCa Chinese sort This station is fully as pleasant as Chlnan There are nine adults and seven crown children in our station We are not so Isolated as we were at Chlnan as there arc several families I of Germans near us and other foreigners foreign-ers are not so uncommon The rail road which tho Germans are getting In from theli new port will cohnect I Wei Hcln with the coast in three years if promises are fulfilled The feeling against the Germans is very strong STUDYING THE LANGUAGE lam now putting In five and six hours each day with my Chinese teacher and it Is hard work but I am enjoying it very much and beginning to get hold of the language I Is a most Irrational affair that the Chinese language contains no grammar One 1 seemingly hns to memorize words i characters tones idioms My teacher is a young Chinese college student quite a nice fellow He is studying English and frequently comes to me for help in It so wc have mutual Interests In-terests I realise when listening lo his English just how my Chinese musts must-s uld to these people The more I see of the people the better I like them It Is such a barrier to be nimble to communicate 1 ujlth those around one The climate hero is fine 1 much the same as lh tOr SouthernV lllnois or Kentucky but very dry The mission plant is outside of the city In a compound com-pound of Its own so we miss much ol1 the sights and sounds of the city We have a church boys and girls high school mens hospital and womans hospital the foreign homes and other class and schoolhouses all In one large compound containing six acres of land surrounded by n high wall I is really quite a little village V looked delightfully foreign after my I four days In the country I A parish with a radius out here of almost 100 miles In all directions la worked from here There are many villages and cities where there Is no work done because there arC no workers Nothing has Impressed me I since I came as has the multitude of people and the numberless graves It is a country of deal even In life The need of more missionaries certainly Is not exaggerate at home Letters arc the greatest pleasures Imaginable out here Pray for this country this people peo-ple and for me that my mouth maybe I may-be filled with this strange language and that I may be able to do more good for him who sent me Correspondence I pondence Chicago Inter Ocean |
