Almost all Europeans like China,
both those who come only as tourists and those who live there for many
years. In spite of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, I can recall hardly a
single Englishman in the Far East who liked the Japanese as well as the
Chinese. Those who have lived long among them tend to acquire their
outlook and their standards. New arrivals are struck by obvious evils:
the beggars, the terrible poverty, the prevalence of disease, the
anarchy and corruption in politics. Every energetic Westerner feels at
first a strong desire to reform these evils, and of course they ought to
be reformed.
But the Chinese, even those who are the victims of preventable
misfortunes, show a vast passive indifference to the excitement of the
foreigners; they wait for it to go off, like the effervescence of
soda-water. And gradually strange hesitations creep into the mind of the
bewildered traveller; after a period of indignation, he begins to doubt
all the maxims he has hitherto accepted without question. Is it really
wise to be always guarding against future misfortune? Is it prudent to
lose all enjoyment of the present through thinking of the disasters that
may come at some future date? Should our lives be passed in building a
mansion that we shall never have leisure to inhabit?
The Chinese answer these questions in the negative, and therefore have
to put up with poverty, disease, and anarchy.
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