China's crossroads

Introduction

DR. ELLIOTT I. OSGOOD has been in Central China for many years and few missionaries have lived in more intimate touch with the Chinese people than he has. For more than fifteen years he has been a medical missionary in connection with the hospital at Chuchow, Anhwei Province, China, under the Board of Disciples of Christ. Living in a district with a population of a million people and having the only hospital in that section of China, his experience has been most varied and interesting. Although a medical missionary, he has also been an evangelist. His theory has been to link up very closely the healing of the body with the healing of the soul. From the beginning Dr. Osgood has actively entered the social and governmental life of his little city and has had a remarkable part in the shaping of sentiment and ideals for the young Chinese in his section. He rendered incomparable aid to his city and his people during the revolution and counter revolution in China, and by close touch with business men and the officials of Chuchow he has been able to guide the Chinese in many constructive ways. The chapters of this book have grown out of his rich experience in dealing with the people. Few can interpret the real situation in China better than Dr. Osgood. He has lived so long with the people that he, in a real sense, ''thinks" Chinese. The readers will be inspired and uplifted by his stories of the application of Christianity to real Chinese life. This volume, in a way a sequel to his first volume ''Breaking Down Chinese Walls," should have a wide reading among those who are interested in the welfare of new-old China.

STEPHEN J. COREY.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction 3

Preface 9

Preface

TT^HE eyes of a doctor see, more than any- J^ thing else, symptoms of disease in human beings with whom he comes in contact. He has studied his medical books and sick people so long that he becomes accustomed to searching for symptoms in every man he meets. He likewise has learned to see the things which cause disease. He has learned to look at a building, or a school-book, or a suit of clothes, or a street or alley, as a possible disease spreader. He is forever on the still hunt to cure disease and to eradicate things which cause it. His very conversation, consciously or unconsciously, dwells on healing, operations, preventative measures and germs. He longs to create a physically human society.

The missionary doctor in China sees symptoms of disease on nearly every person he meets. Trachoma,malaria, skin disease and social diseases are working their ravages through every grade of society; farmer, laborer, soldier, merchant and scholar. Every disease found in modern society is here, and in aggravated form. Among these four hundred million people there are not a thousand modern trained doctors.

The missionary doctor is a practical Christian worker. He knows that the religions which have held sway in China tend to bring weakness to the body as well as to the soul. Fear of fate, selfishness and sin, ignorance and parasitism, are sapping the physical life of the people. Preventative medicine must find a way to clean these things from Chinese society, just as it must find means to clean the dirt from the streets and homes.

In this book we might have devoted space to educational, evangelistical and pastoral work. We have not done so. Others know those subjects far better, and we have been so long dealing with disease and seeking measures to prevent it, that we could not help but emphasize this side of the new life which is springing up in China.

The missionaries have been trying to save China, physically, intellectually and spirtually. Some emphasize one of these phases more than others. Perhaps we have underscored the first. They are all found in the human life and bound together. We cannot keep them apart. The thing which lifts up the spiritual life strengthens the physical. We have not found a cure for every ill, but we belive with all our hearts that the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior must be the foundation for the healing of the people and of the nation.

For twenty years young China has seen in America its ideal of a nation. She longs to here build up another nation like unto her. Recently many Chinese have begun dimly to realize that the foundation of America's greatness and power is in her faith and trust in God. It is a day of tremendous opportunity for America in China, so we have been constrained to write these pages that you in America may realize this and take up the job which God is laying upon you.

E. I. O.

A man thinks in a language. The language in which he thinks is usually the same one in which he makes known his thoughts to others. His thinking is colored by the books he reads, the community in which he lives and by the familiar objects which he daily sees. He thinks in terms of the community, the state or nation in which he lives and works. If he makes a tour of the globe, everything he sees is colored by the sights with which his eyes have been familiar since childhood. He is comparing every new thing with similar conditions in his home community or state. He is merely reasoning from the known to the unknown.

When a man goes from the Occident to live permanently in the Orient, he finds himself like a young tree dug up from its familiar ground and transplanted to another soil. For a time he seems to cease growing. He is dazed, shocked, withered. His whole system, physical, moral and spiritual, is affected by the change. He finds people talking in a language, living in conditions and working in ways absolutely contrary to his approved ideas of right living. He had probably not heretofore conceived that men could live in such a manner. He cannot get their point of view. His whole being is chafed by a hundred things which are going on before him. At first they pique his curiosity. Some of them are tragic; but most of them affect his nerves.

**Do you know that cook of mine whom I am trying to train put garlic in the pie today!" cried one woman in despair.

"That flock of women walked right through my house back to the room where I was lying down," cried our ranchman in disgust.

**The guard on that train ran several rods after me to give me an umbrella I had carelessly left on the train," another said in amazement.

"I don't see why these people cannot do the way I want them," irritably spoke another.

They cannot understand the ways of the Chinese people. They forget that very few of this nation are familiar with the ways of foreign countries. The new arrival wonders at the methods used by the older man. He finds himself criticising those who have been long in the country. Why has the old missionary grown so careless, so thoughtless, so forgetful of time, so discourteous? The older missionary may not be guilty of a single one of these things, but it all seems so to the newcomer. He marvels that the Chinese are not offended over the treat inent they are receiving. He would not treat them so. By and by the established philosophies which he had held so dear begin vanishing into thin air. Things become unstable. His religious ideas are being broken down to their simplest forms. His prayers become appeals. At times an appalling feeling of helplessness grips him. His prayers seem to rise no higher than the ceiling. He has to grip his lifelong faith in God, in man, as a drowning man grips a rope, which, while saving him is dragging him through whirling, terrible waters.

Slowly the new missionary finds himself. There is something in the patient courtesy of the Chinese teacher which compels his admiration. That teacher daily sits opposite him at the study table and initiates him into the mysteries of the Chinese language. He has time to study him. He finds some orphaned heart in the mission school responding to the mother love in some teacher. He catches the mission doctor late at night coaxing life back into the body of some poor neglected piece of humanity. He gathers enough of the language to at least make himself understood by his teacher and thoughts at length begin to form themselves into Chinese setting, into Chinese words. The ground under his feet assumes solidity. He begins to see reason in the hitherto queer customs. Maybe the Chinese view is not so illogical after all. The homeland is less constant in his thoughts. The new land is taking on points of attractive beauty. Even the dirty-faced babies are beginning to fascinate him.

His roots are slowly gripping the new soil. The lure of the Orient is upon him. He finds himself thinking in the language of the Chinese. He may not be able immediately, or in the end, to put out of his own life the intense nervous activity which characterizes the American. He still rushes along the street as though on an errand of life or death, dodging around slow-going Chinese. He may even be able to put more energy into the servants and helpers who gather around him; but it does not worry him so much because he cannot hustle the entire East. They will hustle some time, he thinks, and lets them take their time.

Very likely in the beginning he had spoiled one or two servants by giving them a larger wage than his fellow workers were paying. He then had the chagrin of seeing those servants, like spoiled children, puffed up with their own importance and worthy of being dismissed. Now he had sadly to begin training others. It is easy for a servant to exaggerate his own usefulness when he is promoted too rapidly. Missionaries early learn this lesson and so give a wage but a little larger than do their Chinese neighbors. A common servant usually receives five dollars a month from the missionary. A cook may be paid nine or ten. A personal teacher receives fifteen. Better educated men get from twenty to fifty dollars a month.

These men pay per month from two and a half to five dollars for their food. In their own homes they live even cheaper. They figure that, on an average, a person will eat a little more than one pound of rice a day. Vegetables and meats are eaten as a relish, not as a major portion in their meals. Rich people eat more meat and less rice, but the poor man lives chiefly on the common cereal. Farther north rice is replaced with corn and wheat. A small corn pudding with fresh dates added to it is delicious on a frosty morning.

Shoes may be bought in their shops but ordinarily the women of the household make them for the family. Being made with cloth in form similar to our slippers, the soles chiefly of pasteboard and waste cloth, strongly quilted with hempen twine, these home-made shoes cost but a few dimes. The common people, when at work or traveling across the country, buy a pair of straw sandals for a few cents and carry their shoes. For v/et weather they may have a pair of hobnailed leather boots. These are kept oiled and last for years. In winter time they wear heavier socks, line their shoes with cotton or sheepskin with the wool still on the skin.

The poor man wears a cap or hat which can be bought for twenty cents or less. His strong bamboo and paper-made umbrella does not cost over thirty or forty cents. He is careful of his clothing and the outer garments may last for years. His cotton garments are patched until it is difficult to tell the original from that which is added. Clothing is worn by the poor until it is completely worn out. It may pass down to them from the rich and the poor even pass a garment on to the beggar or poor relative. Then it ceases to be a garment and becomes a bundle of rags. Finally the rags are gathered up and used to reinforce their pasteboard soles, to make mops and dishcloths or to be woven into cloth sandals or sold to the paper maker.

There are rich homes in China and there are many beggar huts. The rich man's home may be elaborately furnished, yet the home of an ordinary rich man in China might not be attractive to the average American who has not learned to "think Chinese." It has one redeeming feature. There is usually plenty of fresh air circulating through it for the doors are always open.

The poor man's home may have a table and chairs. A few wooden benches will sometimes increase the seating capacity. He usually has one or two cooking pots. These fit over a brick stove which may or may not have a smoke flue. The stove is a simple, cheap structure which uses the maximum of heat generated from the burning of wild grass. One never sees bonfires in China. Every possible part of the tree which can be used for lumber is so used. The remainder, twigs, branches and leaves are used for fuel. The poor man will have sufficient rice bowls to allow one for each member of the family. An extra one or two hold the vegetables. He uses no tablecloth, no napkins, no sheets, no pillow cases, no pajamas. In the winter his own clothing is used for extra bedding. If he has two rooms in which to live he is fortunate. Sometimes he constructs a cheap lean-to for a kitchen, otherwise his stove is also in his main room. He probably has a box in which he keeps special papers, but he needs no strong box for he has no valuables. His bed may be constructed out of bamboo or rough lumber, or a door laid across a couple of benches serves the same purpose. Sometimes he sleeps on the top of his table. He may spread a bundle of straw in a dry corner and curl up for the night. Such is a poor man's home in town.

Every single member of such a family works, — or is a parasite on some one else. They know how to save, how to economize so that nothing is lost. The children in the spring go out and gather greens for vegetables. These cost nothing but labor. Some of them travel about the streets with a basket of peanuts, selling them to passersby. They pick up cast-off sandals and carry them home for fuel. In the autumn any or all of them shoulder a carrying pole and hie them to the hills to gather their winter's fuel. At night they come staggering home under their heavy loads.

Such people do not have books nor newspapers. Few of them can read. They do not go to the movies. When a performing monkey, or a Punch and Judy show or a travelling circus comes to town, the children are to be found in the front row. But these are in the open air and the showman cannot extract much money. Temples get very little money from such people. The tax collector, too, gives them a wide berth.

The landlord is careful that they pay down a lump sum as a guarantee fund. When they can find some little corner of public land, they may give the constable a tip, and build their own little hut or cottage. Mud walls and thatch roof are cheap. Sometimes they find an abandoned hut and move in without troubling the constable. They do the repairing and act as though they had always lived there. Rainy days may find them short of grass fuel; then they eat the cold leftovers and tighten their belts until the sun shines again. They rarely call a doctor, for doctors cost money. Some old woman may give them a prescription, or they may buy a sticky plaster from some street vender. These are warranted to cure headache, toothache, boils, crick in the back, rheumatism, abscesses and sores of all kind. When one dies, a very cheap cofRn is bought or they may just roll up the body in matting and bury it on public land.

This is living the simple life with deadly intensity. It is getting indeed very close to nature. To the missionary doctor it seems more like dying an unnatural death. The hopeless look on more than half of the clinical faces in which he daily glances makes him feel all too keenly the life and death struggle being enacted before his eyes. It is a movie with a hopeless ending. "Doctor," they ask, "what must I avoid in my eating?" And the doctor exclaims, "Eat everything you can get; eat everything."

This is a description of more than two-thirds [20]

of all Chinese. With such a daily panorama moving before him, the missionary doctor learns to think, to think intensely in Chinese. He, too, learns to save, to economize. He is careful to see that waste leaves and grass in his yard are placed where poor people can get them. He allows them to come in and gather greens. He allows them to rake up his dead leaves. He puts the old clothing, the scraps of cloth, the old shoes, into the hands of some capable Chinese woman and tells her to give them where most needed.

Oft-times when we are cleaning the attic and getting rid of the accumulations of years, we chide ourselves for having laid away things which have been injured by time. Why did we not give them to some needy person instead of littering up a garret? One time when we were leaving for a vacation an old Christian woman came hobbling in. She had no property and only a distant relative on whom to depend. Her comforts were few, but she was not a beggar and she always showed appreciation for anything done to make her lot easier. She was a steady attendant at the church services.

'Teacher," she said this time, "Have you an old pair of leather shoes which you are going to throw away?" We remembered an old pair of meii's shoes which we could no longer use and turned them over.

"Oh, these are fine," she exclaimed. "They have good soles. Now I can get to church even when it is muddy." She will keep those old shoes oiled. She will stuff a little paper or cloth into the toes and make them fit her smaller feet. They will last her the rest of her days upon earth. They will in fact be a choice possession — and we were going to throw them away.

Is it any wonder that the missionary, after living for some years among such people, will learn to think in terms of the Chinese? Is it any wonder that while on furlough in his homeland he will look at things very differently from what he did when he went out for the first time? How to find solutions for these Oriental problems, how to bring life instead of death to these people, how to heal their sicknesses and to prevent more sickness, how to bring prosperity to the many and not just to the few, how to lift them up to a plane where they will be able to think of other things than just food and clothing and shelter, how to apply Christianity socially and lift them to a height where they can appreciate the spirit of Christ; these are the great problems which take possession of the soul of the missionary.

Furlough time comes around and we return to the homeland. We look out of the car window and see a pile of brush down by the side of the stream; or it may be a meadow with cocks of hay. Our minds fly back to China and the pile of brush and cock of hay become Chinese graves. Are they not likewise scattered by the side of the streams and over the fields? We see the end of a wooden culvert sticking out by the road side. It is surely some Chinese coffin from which the elements are [22]

removing the slight earth covering. We see posted on some wall a red poster with a white center or a white poster with a blue center. It must be the entrance to some Chinese home in which some leading member has died within the year. One early morning on the train we heard a little child prattling to its mother. Our sleepy ears were suddenly arrested by a word from the child which sounded for all the world like the Chinese expression, "foreign devil.'* How many times in the past years have we heard it from the lips of Chinese children!

So a missionary on furlough finds himself still thinking in Chinese, still seeing with Chinese eyes, still hearing with Chinese ears. The homeland seems to take on a value only in relation to the land of his adoption. He sees a group of school children come out of their school and march down the street, every child carrying an American flag. A drum corps leads them. These are perhaps the children of immigrant parents who were attracted to America's free soil. The children are drinking deep at the fountain of American life. They are singing the American national songs and hoisting the American flag over their school building. The missionary's mind again flies back to China and again, in spirit, he is watching a line of Chinese school children. They are all in white uniforms and each one is carrying two flags, that of his country with its five strips and the other of our own with its beloved stars and stripes. He sees them again as they marched that day into his compound and the compounds of many other American missionaries. He again hears them singing in honor of the missionary and the country which he represents. And the tears come once more to his eyes, as they did that day in 1912 when he saw the flag of his nation being given a place of honor by a backward nation, a nation which he has learned to love and for whom he is devoting his life energies.