sucking the tea or soup noisily from the spoon to show
that it is hot, and belching to show that it is enjoyed. Often,
a dignified official would let his tea stand until it was cold, but
when he took it up, he would suck it with a loud noise as if it
were scalding hot, as he was too polite to act as if it were cold.

But the American or European, who inwardly groans at a
Chinese repast and who felicitates himself on the alleged
superior methods of his own race, may well consider how his
own customs impress a Celestial. A Chinese gentleman who
was making a tour of Europe and America wrote to a relative
in China as follows:


``You cannot civilize these foreign devils. They are beyond redemption.
They will live for weeks and months without touching a mouthful
of rice, but they eat the flesh of bullocks and sheep in enormous quantities.
That is why they smell so badly; they smell like sheep themselves.
Every day they take a bath to rid themselves of their disagreeable odours
but they do not succeed. Nor do they eat their meat cooked in small
pieces. It is carried into the room in large chunks, often half raw, and
they cut and slash and tear it apart. They eat with knives and prongs.
It makes a civilized being perfectly nervous. One fancies himself in the
presence of sword-swallowers. They even sit down at the same table with
women, and the latter are served first, reversing the order of nature.''


So I humbly adapted myself as best I could to Chinese customs
and learned to like many of the natives' dishes, though to
the last, there were some that I merely nibbled to ``save the