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Show CHINA TRULY TOPSYTURVY Apostle McKay Writes to Ocj den of His Experiences At Shanghai Thar everything In China is realT "upside down" is the discovery mad' by Apostle David . .Mr Kay who send the following Interesting letter (o President John Watson of the Weber stake. Apostle McKay together with Hugh Gannon of Salt Lake, Is on a world missionary tour in the interests of the Church of Jesus Christ of I. at ter Day Saints. The letter follows: CHINA TOPSY TURVY. 8. S. Tenyo Main. Jan. 16, 1921. Before we j;et entirely out of sight of Shanghai and ( hlna. 1 wunt to write-you write-you Just a line or two while some of i he man interesting and surprising Incidents with which we have met are Still fresh on my mind. When 1 was a boy at school. 1 remember re-member having been told that the poer 'Chinaman had to walk "upside down " A few years later, of course, I under stood how their being on the opposite side of the ealrh would give rise to this erroneous thought. Hut now that I have traveled several thousand miles in the orient, I'm convinced that while tin people do not walk "upside down" they do nearly everything else In an Inverted manner. To enumerate hair a tithing of the many little things that illustrate this would occupy all the pages of my letter, let-ter, and there are other things I want to mention before getting down to tli-usual tli-usual place for the signature; but I shall name one or two anyhow. When we went into til' ' Forbidden City' the otlrer day In Peking, we were asked to register our names. 1 picked up the pen and began to turn the pages to the riiiht for the latest signature signa-ture but every page was lull. The Chinaman Chi-naman then returned them to the left, and pointed to a clean page upon which the last visitor had signed Maids will tend babies until the lat ter are put in baby carriages, then men servants must wheel the baby btlggy while the maid walks by the "Side LACK AUTHORITY. But this is not 'so- surprising in a land where the men wear the skirls and the women the trousers. "The trousers in this case, however, like the "darkie's near beer" seem to "lacic de authority." From the time that the bride prostrates herself at the groom's feet, while he etands on a chair to symbolize his lordship oer her. until she becomes a mother in law, she has very little to say about the affairs in her own home. Even the wedding presents pres-ents are given to he bridegroom. When a young man of humble rank Irises In the station of life, as many young Chinese may do by earnest and indefatiguablo study, and he Is "knighted" so to speak, Ihe title is not transmitted to his son and his son's son, but, true to Chinese inversion of everything, reverts back to his dend grandfather and great grandfather. And so it goes; but I must change ths subject. The money market in China seems . to be as upside down as many other things. I cashed a check (L) t. traveller's travel-ler's check) ln'reking for $20, receiving receiv-ing in exchange '30.80 (silver basis). Walking over to a newsstand. I purchased pur-chased B paper costing 10 cents, for which 1 handed the man a silver dol-! dol-! lar and received $1 1" in exchange "Big" money Is worth that much more , than "little" money. A $20 bill on 'the 'International Banking corporation" in Peking will be cashed by the same firm in Shanghai Shang-hai only at 2 per cent discount. We learned right at first to refuse all bills on the China bank, for they are aT most worthless In Shanghai SHORT SERVICE. You will be Interested to learn that at noon on Sunday, January 9, Brother Cannon and 1 had a short service In a gTOve of cypress trees almost in the heart of the historic old city of Pek ing, and I dedicated and set apart the Chinese realm lor the preaching oi ! the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed re-vealed to the prophet Joseph Smith. This official act unlocked the door lor the entrance of the authorized servants ser-vants of the Lord into this land at I such time in the future as the pre-i pre-i siding authorises feel impressed to call them It was a most solemn anil me morable occasion, one never to be for gotten by the two numb missionaries missionar-ies participating therein This Is a mo-t wonderful experience, very hour on land being full of Interest Inter-est and surprises, but, oh, it will be I glorious to get home again where we ' can hear spoken the good old English language, and mingle onco more witb j cherished friends and loving compan-' compan-' ions. |