Page:A Pocket Guide to China (1943).pdf/48

This page has been validated.

soul. Friends may be charmed to have their pictures taken, but a crowd may turn ugly at the sight of a camera.

If a mother shields her child with her hand or her apron as you go by, don't be offended. There is a saying that foreigners sometimes cast an evil shadow. Smile and let it pass. When they know you, they will know that your shadow is not evil. Simply to say, "I am an Amer­ican," often removes the curse.

Bear in mind that many refined and well educated Chinese—professors, students, government employees—are today poor and underpaid. They have forsaken fam­ily, wealth, and the comforts of home, and have endured years of bitter hardship rather than submit to the Japanese yoke. Do not be too quick, therefore, in judging by appearances.


YOU ARE OUR AMBASSADOR

IN A SENSE, you go to China as an ambassador of the American people to the Chinese people in our new rela­tionship as allies. Some Chinese have seen a few Amer­ican missionaries or businessmen. But most of them have never seen an American of any kind. They have heard good things of America—that we have sent them relief in time of famine, that we have kept other nations from

44