Page 91 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
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GFA – A Different Drumbeat 91
population as our funds would permit, right through the summer months until the
harvest was realized, and, incidentally, to do all that lay within our power to assure
there being a harvest in those areas. In order to appreciate in some slight measure,
the magnitude of the task, I would ask you to try and think of a province with a large
proportion of its population adrift, wandering aimlessly over the countryside, many of
them by acts of violence preying upon their fellow men, and in a very literal sense of
the word “without hope.” Think of villages absolutely deserted, with every bit of wood
missing from the buildings, of cities made desolate, of whole families which have
simply ceased to exist, of village populations (in the slightly better off districts)
decreased forty, fifty and even sixty per cent. As I close my eyes I see upon the
screen of memory those terrible sights of last year; the roads littered with dead, the
large open graves piled with the bodies of the dead and unknown. Pictures I then
took of unburied remains of what had once been human have been refused
publication by Home periodicals and I have brought out this year pictures too terrible
to exhibit. However, it is not my intention tonight to play upon your feelings, nor stir
your emotions with stories of such agony and suffering.
I will, however, in order to outline further a background against which you will
see more clearly the scope of our effort this year, tell you two short stories. The first
shall be about a little laddie who, up to the spring of this year, rejoiced in the name of
“Mao-Er” or Cat. He came to one of our Mission stations at that time in seemingly
the last stage of exhaustion. Whilst enquiries were being instituted concerning his
story, he was given fifty cents which at that time was sufficient to purchase a pound
of bread. Later investigation revealed the fact that Mao-Er had used that fifty cents to
hire two men to carry the body of his mother, who had died the previous night from
cold and starvation, outside the city and there inter it in a shallow grave. Needless to
say Mao Er is now being cared for in that Mission station and is a bonnie bright
faced little chap of twelve rejoicing in his new name of John.
The second story is somewhat on the same lines and deals with another little
boy who lived with his parents in the west of the province. Starvation claimed the
mother last year. Father and son then took to the open road and became wanderers
on the face of the Earth; living on anything they could find. In the early spring of this
year they returned to the site of their former home, and if you have ever heard it said
that “home” has no pull or meaning for a Chinaman, forget it. They found the home
desolate and destroyed. Ere they again departed, the place was visited by some
brigands who, with the lust of plunder strong upon them, killed the father and raked
through the debris of the destroyed home. The father fell across the doorway of his
home and the little fellow, terrified beyond description, crawled into the hole of the
“k’ang”, or brick bed, the hole through which the fuel is put in winter to heat the
“k’ang”, and in that place he remained hidden for a period too long for him now to
determine. When he eventually crawled out again, half blinded as he emerged into
the brilliant sunshine, he found himself a deserted orphan in the great lone world.
population as our funds would permit, right through the summer months until the
harvest was realized, and, incidentally, to do all that lay within our power to assure
there being a harvest in those areas. In order to appreciate in some slight measure,
the magnitude of the task, I would ask you to try and think of a province with a large
proportion of its population adrift, wandering aimlessly over the countryside, many of
them by acts of violence preying upon their fellow men, and in a very literal sense of
the word “without hope.” Think of villages absolutely deserted, with every bit of wood
missing from the buildings, of cities made desolate, of whole families which have
simply ceased to exist, of village populations (in the slightly better off districts)
decreased forty, fifty and even sixty per cent. As I close my eyes I see upon the
screen of memory those terrible sights of last year; the roads littered with dead, the
large open graves piled with the bodies of the dead and unknown. Pictures I then
took of unburied remains of what had once been human have been refused
publication by Home periodicals and I have brought out this year pictures too terrible
to exhibit. However, it is not my intention tonight to play upon your feelings, nor stir
your emotions with stories of such agony and suffering.
I will, however, in order to outline further a background against which you will
see more clearly the scope of our effort this year, tell you two short stories. The first
shall be about a little laddie who, up to the spring of this year, rejoiced in the name of
“Mao-Er” or Cat. He came to one of our Mission stations at that time in seemingly
the last stage of exhaustion. Whilst enquiries were being instituted concerning his
story, he was given fifty cents which at that time was sufficient to purchase a pound
of bread. Later investigation revealed the fact that Mao-Er had used that fifty cents to
hire two men to carry the body of his mother, who had died the previous night from
cold and starvation, outside the city and there inter it in a shallow grave. Needless to
say Mao Er is now being cared for in that Mission station and is a bonnie bright
faced little chap of twelve rejoicing in his new name of John.
The second story is somewhat on the same lines and deals with another little
boy who lived with his parents in the west of the province. Starvation claimed the
mother last year. Father and son then took to the open road and became wanderers
on the face of the Earth; living on anything they could find. In the early spring of this
year they returned to the site of their former home, and if you have ever heard it said
that “home” has no pull or meaning for a Chinaman, forget it. They found the home
desolate and destroyed. Ere they again departed, the place was visited by some
brigands who, with the lust of plunder strong upon them, killed the father and raked
through the debris of the destroyed home. The father fell across the doorway of his
home and the little fellow, terrified beyond description, crawled into the hole of the
“k’ang”, or brick bed, the hole through which the fuel is put in winter to heat the
“k’ang”, and in that place he remained hidden for a period too long for him now to
determine. When he eventually crawled out again, half blinded as he emerged into
the brilliant sunshine, he found himself a deserted orphan in the great lone world.
