Stories Of Everyday Life In Modern China Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from Men and Manners, of Modern China The pictures of Chinese life that are given in the pages of this work have been drawn from my own personal experience. I have lived in China for fifty years, and have mingled with almost every class in it. To do this has been a source of great pleasure to me. The more I got into the inner life of the Chinese the more did I feel my heart drawn to them. They are really a very lovable people, and when seen in their happiest moods, or when sorrow has been clouding their lives, or when aroused by some sense of injustice, they prove that they really possess the fibre of a great people. Some foreign visitors to China have complained that the Chinese have no original genius and that they have failed in the power of development. The real reason for any halting in the progress of thought is the Dead Hand of the past that has gripped the nation for so many long centuries. I have seen a banyan-tree with wide-spreading boughs that on a summers day could shelter a hundred people sitting beneath them so that the suns rays should not reach them. I have also seen another of the same kind in a small flower-pot, with branches so entwined and interwoven amongst each other that all growth had been effectually stopped. This is an emblem of the Chinese nation. But the fatal hand is being unloosed and its shadowy, spidery fingers are slowly dissolving into thin air. Erelong Nature will avenge herself for the wrong that has been done by a new creation of energy. The Chinese are a strong race. Two great deeds in their history prove this. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.