Very far east / by C. Winifred Lechmere Clift ; with preface by Albert A. Head.

  • Clift, C. Winifred Lechmere.
Date:
[pref. 1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Very far east / by C. Winifred Lechmere Clift ; with preface by Albert A. Head. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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writhes with the pain, but the other day Mrs. Child lent her a doll to play with, and this so fascinated her that she kept comparatively still and the dressing was done much quicker. The doll’s clothes were made to take on and off, and this occupied a long time. It is quite a pleasure to me when a woman patient comes and H. calls me down to the dispensary, for language study gets monotonous this hot weather, and a few minutes’ change is very welcome. I am afraid I still speak with a Cantonese accent; it is not easy to drop it. The Cantonese drawl out their words to a great length, and the Mandarins snip them off; but I hope I shall learn the trick in time. It was in one of Seton Merriman’s books that some one said, rather inelegantly, that the power to learn new languages quickly was merely “ a monkey trick and a gift of the gab.” A mild little joke, of a missionary type, out here, is that the women missionaries always learn to speak Chinese quicker than the men because it is an absolute necessity to a woman to be able to talk ! The compound has been turned upside down lately with a number of Chinese builders building up a wall that threatened to fall down. They built it up wrong the first time, and then had to pull it down again. However, at last it was really finished and the builder disappeared with his men. There was rather a funny little sequel, of a thoroughly Chinese kind— The shopkeeper next door called in Mr. Song, the Cate- chist, and said, “ Where is that builder you have had about lately ? I’ve not seen him the last day or two.” “ Oh,” said Mr. Song, “ he has finished the wall and gone home.” “ Well,” said the neighbour, “ I wish you would invite him to come to my house. I am thinking of building a house, and I want to talk to him.”