Page:A Pocket Guide to China (1943).pdf/13

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roof—grandparents and parents, sons and daughters and their families, and this has taught them the art of living together. In fact, consideration for an individual's feelings is one of the great Chinese virtues.

The Chinese loves his home and his family. He is sen­timental about his children and his old parents. He loves his own bit of ground and his own roof, even if it is poor, and he never forgets his own people.

We are alike, also, because of our natural democratic tendencies. There are few class distinctions in China, no hereditary aristocracy. Anybody can get anywhere, if he can prove himself able and intelligent enough. The Chinese have their great men who were born in cabins, just as we do. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek himself is the son of poor parents, and Sun Yat-sen, their George Washington, was a poor boy. The rich in China behave like the rich anywhere except that they don't feel them­selves permanently rich. They know that poor and rich change places quickly in the changes of democratic life. And the poor man in China is independent and energetic. He knows he has a chance to rise in the world.


WHAT DOES "FACE" MEAN?

THE Chinese are a proud people and also a courteous one. This means that they consider it important not to hurt

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