p. 15 | Chinese Charity

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 21, 1902

Chinese Charity

The almost painful cleanliness in a Japanese house is a never-ending subject of comment by foreigners, and the heartiness with which the maids of all work rub and scrub and deluge with water every available bit of woodwork is a real revelation of the innate cleanliness of the “little brown man” and of all his belongings. The result of all this persistent cleaning, writes Commander Webster, U. S. N., in the National Geographical Magazine, is that throughout the empire not an evil smell or a filthy spot can be found.

With the Chinamen all this is almost completely reversed. A Chinese house is built in the most substantial manner, of stone or tiles. It is, in fact, according to a trite proverb, intended to last forever, and its condition, while neat, is not especially clean. The condition of the streets in a Chinese city literally staggers belief. The villainous smells rising from the nameless filth of a street in a populous city cannot be adequately described.

The charitable organizations among the dwellers in the Celestial Empire are the wonders of the Western observer. The altruism born of countless centuries of civilization finds expression in charity as comprehensive in its methods as it is universal in its expression. In China there is scarcely a type of misery, of poverty, of sickness, of distress, without its corresponding charity among the more fortunate classes.

Not only are the distressed and sick assisted, but the cooly, the laborer on the bund, the bearer of burdens, is the object of care and charity, and close beside the streets crowded with porters, “pole coolies,” and wheelbarrow carriers, huge earthenware jars of tea are set out, furnished with cups, for the use of those who have no season of rest save on completion of the task in hand. It is a pleasant sight to see the smile with which a well-dressed Chinaman will hand a cup of tea to his ragged, sweating brother, burdened almost to exhaustion and parched with thirst.

In these charities, as in all other things, the Chinaman is practical, and fine-spun theories give way to the actualities of every-day life.

In the eyes of the Chinaman the soldier is a man defiled with blood, and in the social scale the fighter finds a place in popular estimation with the butcher, the tanner, and the preparer of the dead for burial. It follows from this that the dependence of the empire for its defense is now, and has been for many centuries, the arts of the diplomat rather than the generalship of the soldier.