Profiles from China | Page 8

is thinning a little.
On either side loom featureless black
hills, their summits
sharp and ragged.
The Great Wall is somewhere hereabouts.
My chair creaks rhythmically.
In another year it will be day.
Ching-lung-chiao

The Sikh Policeman: A British Subject
Of what, I wonder, are you thinking?
It is something beyond my
world I know, something
that I cannot guess.
Yet I wonder.
Of nothing Chinese can you be thinking, for you hate
them with an automatic hatred--the hatred of
the well-fed for the
starved, of the warlike for
the weak.
When they cross you, you kick
them, viciously, with
the drawing back of your silken beard, your
black, black beard, from
your white teeth.
With a snarl you kick them, sputtering curses in
short
gutturals.
You do not even speak their tongue, so it cannot be
of them you are thinking.
Yet neither do you speak the tongue of the master
whom you serve.
No more do you know of us the "Masters" than you
know of them the "dogs."
We are above you, they below.
And
between us you stand, guarding the street, erect
and splendid, lithe and male. Your scarlet turban
frames your neat
black head,
And you are thinking.
Or are you?
Perhaps we only are stung with thought.
I wonder.
Shanghai
The Lady of Easy Virtue: An American

Lotus,
So they called your name.
Yet the green swelling pod, the
fruit-like seeds and
heavy flower, are nothing like to you.
Rather, like a pitcher plant you
are, for hope and all
young wings are drowned in you.
Your slim body, here in the café, moves brightly in
and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine
and gleaming laughter,
with two nodding earrings--these are Lotus.
And in the painted eyes
cold steel, and on the lips a
vulgar jest;
Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to
the wrists and to the hair of men. These too
are Lotus.
And what
more--God knows!
You too perhaps were stranded here, like these poor
homesick boys, in this great catch-all where the
white race ends, this
grim Shanghai that like a
sieve hangs over filth and loneliness.
You
were caught here like these, and who could live,
young and so slender--in Shanghai?
Green satin, and a gleaming
throat, and painted eyes
of steel,
Hunter or hunted,
Peace be with you,
Lotus!
Shanghai
In the Mixed Court: Shanghai
Two men sit in judgment on their fellows.
Side by side they sit, raised
on the pedestal of the law,

at grips with squalor and ignorance.
They are civilization--and they
are very grave.
One of them is of my own people, a small man, definite,
hard-featured, an accurate weapon of small
calibre.
Of the other I
cannot judge.
He is heavily built, and when he is still the dignity of
the Orient is about him like his robe. His head
is large and beautifully
domed, his hands tapering
and aristocratic.
When he speaks it is of
subtleties.
But when he speaks his dignity drops from him. His
eyes shift quickly from one end of their little slit
to the other, his
mouth, his full brown mouth,
moves over-fast, his hands flicker back
and forth.
The courtroom is crowded with ominous yellow poverty.
The cases
are of many sorts.
A woman, she of the little tortured feet and sullen
face,
has kidnapped a small boy to sell. A man was
caught smuggling
opium. A tea-merchant, in
dark green silk, complains that he was
decoyed
and held prisoner in a lodging-house for ransom.
A
gambling den has been raided and the ivory
dominoes are shown in
court.
The prisoners are stoically sullen. The odor of them
fills the room.
Above them sit the two men, raised on the pedestal
of the law, judging their fellows.
I turn to the man beside me, waiting
his case.
"Tell me" I ask "of these men, which is the better
judge?"
He answers carefully.
"The Chinaman is cleverer by half.
He sees where

the other is blind. But Chinese magistrates are
bought, and this one
sells himself too cheap."
"And the other?" I ask again.
"A good man,
and quite honest. You see he doesn't
care."
The judges put their heads together. They are civilization
and they are very grave.
What, I wonder, is civilization?
Shanghai
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROFILES
FROM CHINA***
0. This file should be named 13118-8.txt or 13118-8.zip *******
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/1/1/13118

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set
forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge
for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not