Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United States Army

“ Then, too, we are both practical peoples. The Chinese are shrewd businessmen, generous friends, and they be­lieve in having a good time on earth while they are alive. In the main, so do we. They are better than we are, perhaps, at human relationships. They value these above all else, and have learned to get along with people through centuries of getting along with each other. The Chinese family system keeps several generations under the same
American gag—China gag—all same. ”

“ Modern Chinese cities, of course, have wide streets and good sewers but we are speaking of the places you will probably see most often.
You may be shocked, at first, to see how desperately poor most Chinese are. Their houses and their clothing seem dirty and unkempt. There are mangy and flea-bitten dogs that you had best keep away from. You will see human strays, too, beggars of the most sorrowful sort. Do not give anything to them or you will be besieged. And nowadays there will be others—refugees and homeless poor and war-wounded. For China has suffered terribly. ”

“ Japan will harp on the color question first, last, and all the time. She will tell the Chinese what she has been telling them ever since Pearl Harbor—that Americans look down on nonwhite peoples and that the Chinese can never hope to be treated on terms of equality by America. "Why fight for the white man?" Japan dins into Chinese ears.
To counteract this propaganda you have to show the Chinese that Americans treat the Chinese as we treat any of our allies, and that we respect them as human beings on an equality with ourselves. ”

“ The Chinese love a joke just as well as we do, and they laugh at the same sort of thing. Their stock jokes are the same as ours—about professors, and doctors, and Irishmen—the Chinese equivalent for the Irish being people from Hunan province. They laugh about stingi­ness, about country hicks, and smart city people. Their conversation is full of wit, and lively humor, and they love slapstick stuff, their own and ours. Listen to a Chinese crowd laughing at Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd or Laurel and Hardy and you’ll think you are at home. ”

“ THE modern Chinese girl, in her long, closely fitting gown, her bare arms and short hair, is often very pretty. Yet it is well to remember that in China the attitude toward women is different from ours in America. Chinese women in some ways are more free than they are here in America—that is, they do some things which American women don’t yet do. They are in the Army, for instance, and they fight side by side with the guerrillas. But in their relations with men they haven't the same freedom as women have in America. ”

“ THE Chinese are famous cooks. In fact, many an epicure maintains that no cooking in the world—not even the French—approaches the Chinese as an art.
If you want a good meal in a Chinese restaurant, take your buddies with you. It is best to go not fewer than four in number, the rule being to order the number of different dishes that there are persons, plus a soup. Rice, of course, comes with the meal. You will drink only wines and tea—milk is not a product natural to China and is found only occasionally, in imported cans. ”

“ It is customary for the shopkeeper to ask con­siderably more than an article is worth. If you pay what is asked he will not respect you for it. If you argue him down too much, he would prefer not to sell to you at all. If you pay about half to two-thirds what he asks, he will admire you and enjoy the transaction. But above all keep good humored throughout. In China it is a sign of bad breeding to grow heated over a purchase whether it is made successfully or not.
If you have learned the Chinese coinage you will not need language—you can simply put down your money bit by bit. ”

“ Since China is an old and populous country, germs as well as people have flourished there for centuries. The result of this is that Chinese have developed either an immunity to many of the diseases that kill the white man so easily, or the weak die and the strong survive. You should therefore follow one simple rule—eat nothing that is not so hot that you know it is only recently off the fire. Do not yield to the temptation of a fruit that cannot be peeled or cut before your eyes. It is better not even to use a uten­sil—knife, chopsticks, etc.—that has not been scalded with boiling water. ”

“ China her­self has no color prejudice against anyone with a different colored skin. She is prepared to treat everyone on terms of human equality, and you cannot do better than ap­proach China in the same spirit.
Discourage anyone who acts as though the Chinese are queer. They are not queer. After all, there are more peo­ple in the world eating Chinese food and wearing Chinese clothes than there are Americans eating Amer­ican food and wearing American clothes. They live their way and we live ours. If you respect them, they will respect you. ”

“ THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS ready and China's wounded can today be counted in the millions. What you can do to help them must be left to you. In general it is best to give money only privately, or through some reliable organization, such as the United China Relief.
After a time, however, you will discover that Chinese peasants and workmen are almost never demoralized. They keep their chins up, take what comes, help each other out, and live with amazing contentment amid the terrific struggle for the bare necessities of life. ”

“ A village usually has only one business street and here you will find a simple inn, its unpainted tables under an awning of patched blue cloth. You can get a good bowl of noodles and soup here if you are hungry—and plenty of tea. If you are willing to wait, the inn-keeper will per­haps make you some scrambled eggs to eat with a bowl of rice, a dish of green cabbage, and bean curd or a brown fish. The bean curd you will not like at first but try it until you do—it has valuable protein qualities and is the poor man's meat. ”

“ There has long been a close tie between China and the United States. Many Chinese young men have come to our universities to study and it was only natural that they should take back American ideas. But it is not easy to establish a new government in any coun­try. It took some years to do it in China, all the years between 1911 and 1927, and even then the job wasn’t finished. In the meantime Sun Yat-sen died, and his successor was Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek who in the early days of the Republic had been a brilliant fol­lower of Sun Yat-sen. ”

“ Americans who have been in China, missionaries, doctors, teachers, officials, and businessmen, have a good record. So the way to friendship is all paved for you. Added to this is the fact that we are allies—a fact in which the Chinese take pride. The first thing you should learn to say in China is “I am an American.” It is the best passport you can have.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE ARE LIKE AMERICANS
OF ALL the peoples of Asia, the Chinese are most like Americans. Those who know both peoples often remark at the likenesses. ”

“ IN A SENSE, you go to China as an ambassador of the American people to the Chinese people in our new rela­tionship as allies. Some Chinese have seen a few Amer­ican missionaries or businessmen. But most of them have never seen an American of any kind. They have heard good things of America—that we have sent them relief in time of famine, that we have kept other nations from dividing up China’s territory when she was too weak to resist. The planes we have been able to send them have carried far more than their own weight in good will for us. ”

“ THERE are many Chinese living in America. You prob­ably have seen some of them, and from them have formed notions about all Chinese. Perhaps those you saw were typical or perhaps they weren't. China is a big country, larger than Europe, half again as large as the United States, and with three times as many people as we have. Those you saw in America may have come from one small spot in China—the city of Canton. ”

“ There is about as much of it in one country as another, but the Chinese pay more attention to preserving it than we do. They do not criticize each other as frankly as we do, and there are certain rules of courtesy, particularly to the old, from the young. Old peo­ple in China are highly respected, even revered, and their advice valued. Lack of respect to the old is therefore a sign of bad manners.
Don't worry about "face" and complicated courtesy. Simply be an American, in the best sense. The Chinese don’t expect you to know all their ways of polite behav­iour. ”

“ Theaters are more numerous than movie houses. Few Americans really understand the Chinese theater but those who do, find its acting a sensitive and mature art. Go at least once if only to marvel at the audience. People eat hot food that is brought in by waiters, crack watermelon seeds between their teeth, drink pots and pots of tea, talk, play with their children, and catch the hot towels that are thrown over the heads of the crowd by expert towel throwers. ”

“ The Chinese people vary widely. In the north the people are tall and handsome. In mid-China they are of average height and in the south they are short and stocky.
During your tour of duty you will see cities, towns, and countryside. Chinese cities are of two kinds, those which have been modernized and those which remain as they have been for centuries. The largest of the modern ones are Shanghai, Tientsin, Nanking, Hongkong, Canton, Hankow, Peiping—now, temporarily, all in Japanese hands. ”

“ Her cultivated soil is generally rich, for the Chinese are famous farmers and have conserved the soil through over 40 centuries. But she has cut down many of her forests and the familiar landscape of China has the sharply beau­tiful outline of grassy hills or rocky mountains. The climate varies, and, depending on where you are, you will find much the same changes as you will in America. On the whole the north is dry and desertlike, and the south damp and tropical.
Farmers do not live on isolated farms—they live in villages. Most of the villages belong to a single family or clan. ”

“ Men from the poorest families, if they had the ability and education, could enter for them. Thus, even the officials of old China often came from humble beginnings.
In 1911 the old regime was overthrown by Sun Yat-sen, who believed that China must modernize herself in order to live in a modern world. Perhaps the ability to change with the times is one reason China has been able to live until today. The empire was overthrown and a new republican government was set up, modeled after that of the United States. ”

“ China had three strategic assets to combat a Japan who was technically superior in every arm—her courage, her manpower, and space. As one military commentator has pointed out: "The vast distances of China and the rugged character of the country are among the important points which favor its defense against invasion. Other major factors are the ability of the people to endure hardship, be content with a meagre ration, and to live in relatively self-sufficient economic groups. ”