By M. T. F. JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED LONDON   MCMXXII Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London TO MY CHINESE FATHER AND MOTHER WITH THE GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION OF THEIR AMERICAN DAUGHTER THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED I IN AMERICA...

I saw Chan-King Liang for the first time on a certain Monday morning in October. It was the opening day of college, and the preceding week had been filled with the excitement incidental to the arrival of many students in a small town given over to family life. Every household possessed of a spare room was impressed with the fact that good citizenship demanded that it harbour a student. Therefore, when I saw trunks and boxes and bags being tumbled upon the front porch of our next-door neighbour,

My first impressions of Shanghai are a blur. My husband and I drove rapidly along the Bund, over Garden Bridge, which might have been any bridge in America, past the Astor House, which was very like any American hotel, and then along the Soochow Creek, which could be only in China. On North Szechuan Road we stopped at a li , or terrace, of newly built houses in the style called semi-foreign. This li , which was in the International Settlement, was very bright and clean. It opened upon the main t

I clasped my hands in the Chinese way, smiled and bowed. My Chinese mother rose at once and took a step towards me, balancing on her tiny feet with the aid of a thick, gold-headed cane. I saw that she was unusually tall. Then, surprisingly, she extended her hand, American fashion, and I shook it, the eyes of each of us still searching the other's face. I saw in hers the look I needed for reassurance—the mingled kindness and apprehension—a trace of the anxiety that I am sure was the very counterp

As I followed my Chinese mother into her apartments, I thought of the benevolent croakings of friends. Their words rattled through my memory like pebbles shaken in a pail: "She can never be happy with a Chinese husband!" Later it was, "It is all very well in America, but wait until she goes to China." When I had happily established myself there, "Heaven help her," said they, "if she tries to live with her Chinese mother-in-law!" In Shanghai, foreign friends had predicted, "Oh, yes, she's lovely