. An American engineer in China . omthe interior cares not a whit whether Germanyoccupies Shan-tung, or whether Russia has seizedthe Liao-tung peninsula — that is the pigeon[, business] of the Shan-tung man. On a jour-ney of some thirteen hundred miles between pointsof civilization which our expedition in its variousparts collectively covered, with the single excep-tion of a tug belonging to the China MerchantSteamship Company which, according to the cus-tom of that company, carried the Chinese flag, andwhich we happened by chance to meet on theSiang River, we saw not a single Chinese nati
. An American engineer in China . omthe interior cares not a whit whether Germanyoccupies Shan-tung, or whether Russia has seizedthe Liao-tung peninsula — that is the pigeon[, business] of the Shan-tung man. On a jour-ney of some thirteen hundred miles between pointsof civilization which our expedition in its variousparts collectively covered, with the single excep-tion of a tug belonging to the China MerchantSteamship Company which, according to the cus-tom of that company, carried the Chinese flag, andwhich we happened by chance to meet on theSiang River, we saw not a single Chinese nationalemblem, except the one that I flew on my ownjunk alongside of the Stars and Stripes. Fromno official yamen, from no city wall or militarycamp, was it once displayed. No river gun-boatthrew it to the breeze, nor did any body of troopscarry it at their head. Flags everywhere were inprofusion, and in great profusion of colors and de-sign, but they were always of a local or personalcharacter. Every gun-boat carried at least two. Chapter IV: My Chinese Impressions i4S beautiful red ones with huge white hieroglyphics—the name of the commander. The regiment orguard that marched with us bore standards onwhich was inscribed the designation of their cap-tain. The flag of China was everywhere was but one man in that long journeyfound to do it honor, and that man was a for-eign devil. Undoubtedly there were thousandswho saw for the first time the flag with the yel-low field and the blue dragon, which they sup-posed to be the fanciful and decorative creationof the foreigners mind. The personal bearing of the upper-class China-man, even in the interior where he never comesin contact with the outer world, is kindly, courte-ous, and polite, and quite up to what is found insimilar classes in other countries, to which we ap-ply the term civilized. On my inland journey,when approaching a town or city, I was invaria-bly met, at some distance outside the walls, by asubofficial
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectrailroa, bookyear1900
