Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang both work actively in the Movement, inspecting its branches and enterprises, speaking at its meetings, and supervising its functions. The Movement possesses a small but very active central staff, with Major-General Huang as Secretary-General and Dr. Chu Djang, a Johns Hopkins political scientist, as his assistant. Efforts are made to improve the daily life of the people. Shops are encouraged to join the Movement, on conditions requiring cleanliness, uniform prices, etc. Thus in addition to the work of a Y.M.C.A. for all ages and classes, the Movement attempts the role of a municipal health campaign agency, a better business bureau, and a civic service club. Marriages have traditionally depleted family budgets; many a Chinese farmer or worker has fallen into usurious debt because of the social necessity of extravagant feasting and celebration. The Movement accordingly organized inexpensive mass marriages, collectively celebrated under official auspices; the purpose is not to increase the population, but to circumvent a wasteful custom. Peep-show operators have been given displays which are patriotic instead of mythical, chivalric, or licentious. Story-tellers are taught new, public-spirited stories to tell. The New Life Movement seeks to reinvigorate Chinese society by adapting existing institutions or businesses to new needs. In addition to attempting change in traditional life, the Movement has introduced innovations. The only cafeteria in Chungking serving cheap but dietetically sound meals is operated by the New Life Headquarters. Chinese foods were hard to preserve and unpleasant to eat in the darkness of air raid shelters; China has had no sandwiches, crackers, or equivalent preparations; the New Life Movement concocted a cheap but tasty and nutritious wheat and soy biscuit, and scattered the recipe broadcast. News is distributed to the illiterates through lantern-slide lectures in market-places. Mass singing, virtually unknown in China until now, is making enormous strides with the war; the New Life Movement is diffusing this, along with calisthenics.[18] [Footnote 18: Most of these and the following facts, but not the interpretations, are based on interviews which the author had with the hospitable Major-General J. L. Huang in Chungking, on July 14, 1940, and subsequently.]