China and the West

Letter from Alice Chipman Dewey to Dewey children
[July 21, 1921?]
On Sayurday [23 July 1921] we are going up Paoshan. Laoshan is the second of the great mts of Shantung Perhpas yu know that Shantung means eastern mountains. The have a saying here Taishan is the greatest in height but Laoshan is the most magnificent of the Mountains of the province. I spose it sounds like a proverb in the native tongue. Well we are going with a picnic association of Chinese students. and shall probably spend the night on top Sat. On Snday we come back here and sail for Kobe on Tuesday the 2nd. I will tell you later what is a picnic association and about the trip.
We have met some misssionaries and they tell us the worst thing about the Jap management here now is the red tape, We had a specimen of the usefullnes of red tape this mroning. As soon as the Chinese gentlemen were well seated and had begun talking in our room there was a knock at the door, In walked a dapper ajp. The rooms here are so fixed that he was in an outer room and we were seated in the inner one. Well Lucy caught him quick and backed him out while talking. His errand was to bring a blank to be filled out to request the privilege of embarking from this Japanese port to another J port. The blank had the heading of the South Manchurian R. Way. It must be very good polcy to have many kinds of small business on hand which enables you to make an excuse to enter the guests room whenever any thing is going on which it is desirable to see, It was interesting to see that there was no conversation here on the part of the Chinese gentlemen which might not have hd witnesses safely, Tonight we shall go to a Chinese restaurant and we shall see what goes on there. One of them was recommended as knowing every thing worth knowing and seldom opening up, We hope we may smile on him and get him open. He was educated by a missionary whom we saw yesterday who lives in Weihsien. where very interesting things happened during the first occupation of this province. That story has much which the American people know nothing about and perhaps will not believe when they are told, I should like to have friend Wilson compelled to listen to those stories everyday the rest of his life.
We have been for the drive and have seen all the old German forts now deserted. It beats the bnd to see how they have abolished every ger word The streets look as if they had been born with the Emp when nothing else but Jap words existed, Before the i[n]vasion of Chinese civilization as they themselves have the nerve to say. The Imperial interpreter called on Pa a little wisp or wasp of a thing with a pinched face who said he knew Pa was here because he had read it in the papers, We said but not to him well you need not have added the because.
A man is waiting down stairs to escort us to the dinner party and this must start for Tsinan at nine tonight, so heres a goodby perhaps the last in China if this can be called China, Glad we have the dinner tonight to remind us of that part of the world. And here is the red letter telling you the winecups are clean and ready and waiti[n]g for you. Love and love till we get more time to write,
Mama.