Tuesday 31 March 2009

Lady Hosie and China

Lady (Dorothea Soothill) Hosie had a ordinary Chinese name, 謝福芸。

From her Portrait of a Chinese lady and certain of her contemporaries (London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1933).

A legend is current in the West that the Chinese are an inscrutable joyless race, their faces made blank in order to deceive the innocent foreigner. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is, indeed, inculcated in every young Chinese that he should stand with eyes cast down before his elders and betters: and strangers are treated with this aspect of polite respect. But one walk down a Chinese street will dispel the other illusion. Its occupants are laughing, loiter-(p. 64)ing, chattering, calling to each other. There is animation and vivacity. Very different are the passers-by from the silent quick-stepping English folk who hasten down the grey streets of London Town. (p. 65)

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