China; Chinese -- United States -- Education; Education -- China; Yung, Wing, 1828-1912
The Scotchman, after the incident, did not appear in public for a whole
week. I was told he had shut himself up in his room to give his wound
time to heal, but the reason he did not care to show himself was more on
account of being whipped by a little Chinaman in a public manner; for
the affair, unpleasant and unfortunate as it was, created quite a
sensation in the settlement. It was the chief topic of conversation for
a short time among foreigners, while among the Chinese I was looked upon
with great respect, for since the foreign settlement on the
extra-territorial basis was established close to the city of Shanghai,
no Chinese within its jurisdiction had ever been known to have the
courage and pluck to defend his rights, point blank, when they had been
violated or trampled upon by a foreigner. Their meek and mild
disposition had allowed personal insults and affronts to pass unresented
and unchallenged, which naturally had the tendency to encourage
arrogance and insolence on the part of ignorant foreigners. The time
will soon come, however, when the people of China will be so educated
and enlightened as to know what their rights are, public and private,
and to have the moral courage to assert and defend them whenever they
are invaded. The triumph of Japan over Russia in the recent war has
opened the eyes of the Chinese world. It will never tolerate injustice
in any way or shape, much less will it put up with foreign aggression
and aggrandizement any longer. They see now in what plight their
national ignorance, conceit and conservatism, in which they had been
fossilized, had placed them. They were on the verge of being partitioned
by the European Powers and were saved from that catastrophe only by the
timely intervention of the United States government. What the future
will bring forth, since the Emperor Kwangsu and Dowager Empress Chi Hsi
have both passed away, no one can predict.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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