China and the West

Letter from Alice Chipman Dewey to Dewey family
[June 13, 1920?]
There are so many things like these that I want to tell you after reading your lively letters that I scarce know where to begin. But anyway I wish you would come to China, I like it more the more I want to see you all and I always wish this were the last day of my stay on the day your letters come. Well here we are. new surprises waited for us this time, Hangchow did not want us to come and was none too glad to see us. Last night they impeached their Gov on six charges and he resigned. Three of the sis were financial, he is a famous gambler and runs lotteries all over town, not to speak of opium, The conservatives have there at present and we are thot Bolshevicks and the students complained because Papas lctures were not intellectual enough, (Think how China has cahnged Pa) and so he gave them as a farewell a lecture on Elementary schools in which he told them it was not theories abkut sociallsm and free thought and free lve that China needed, it was teaching the people how to improve agriculture and cotton and silk and more especially their own lives. With it all we did not see as much as we wanted to, we were kept busy and out of mischief, but the girls will tell you what they saw and it was so hot we could not sleep much and Ec was getting very tired so we came up with Pa when we might have staid lnger. Lucy goes back to Nankin with Pa tomorrow morning to stay there with Winnifred Miller, but Ev and I are daring the excitement a lttle lnger. Only we are denying our selves one bird cage for Pa goes way beyond Nankin and then comes clear back south again a ten hours ride to Soochow, Now Soochow is only two hours from here, so we shall stay at this hotel which is cheap being only seven dollars a day and good whereas the Burling is eight and bad, and the others are ten and more fashionable and to them all the people go who dont know any better, The housekeeper here is a real German haus frau and I wanted to embrace her when I saw her swelling bosom and her tight little wisp of hair on the tip of her head and the food is good and real mattresses on the beds. I dont think I ever told you about Chinese beds. They are of woven rattan like our cane seats, or else boards (one of ours in Pekin is just like the seats of chairs,) and over the cane they throw a comfortable and one sheet, and there you are.
[Alice Chipman Dewey]