The chinese character

New arrivals are struck by obvious evils: the beggars, the terrible poverty, the prevalence of disease, the anarchy and corruption in politics. Every energetic Westerner feels at first a strong desire to reform these evils, and of course they ought to be reformed. The Chinese, from the highest to the lowest, have an imperturbable quiet dignity, which is usually not destroyed even by a European education. They are not self-assertive, either individually or nationally; their pride is too profound for self-assertion. The corruption and anarchy in Chinese politics do much less harm than one would be inclined to expect. The business of “saving face,” which often strikes foreigners in China as ludicrous, is only the carrying-out of respect for personal dignity in the sphere of social manners. The educated Chinese are well aware of the foreign menace. China is much less a political entity than a civilization— the only one that has survived from ancient times.