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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 





Photograph from Lieut. Richard M. Vanderburgh 

 EXTREMES LABOR SIDE BY SIDE IN SHANTUNG 

 'How big- is a Chinaman?" is a frequent question. "How 



When 30,000,000 people 

 whose idea of a day's work 

 is 16 hours are crowded 

 into a province the size of 

 Iowa, there must either be 

 industrial development in 

 silk, lace, and hair or peri- 

 odic migrations of labor to 

 less thickly settled parts of 

 the world. 



In summer the Shantung 

 coolie is north along the 

 Amur mining gold or har- 

 vesting soy beans in Man- 

 churia. I have seen him 

 carrying Harbin flour 

 aboard the Sungari steam- 

 ers, and he laid hundreds 

 of miles of ties on the 

 Trans-Siberian. I have 

 seen him juggling gaily- 

 painted sticks at the Nijni 

 Novgorod fair, and compa- 

 nies of Shantung coolies 

 fought for the Bolsheviks 

 beside the Kremlin , and 

 against them near Tchita: 

 In ruined Van a Shantung 

 coolie, heavily dressed 

 against the bitter cold of 

 the Armenian plateau, 

 rolled into town ahead of 

 twenty of his compatriots 

 who brought flour to that 

 starving city. 



FRANCE-TRAINED COOLIE TO 

 BUILD HOME RAILWAYS 



big is an American ?" is a common answer. The Shantun_ 

 coolie is usually tall and well built, trained down to fighting 

 weight, slim-waisted and barrel-chested, although his awk- 

 ward costume conceals the latter excellence. 



Wall began to shut out the rest of the 

 world and 400 years before the birth in a 

 Bethlehem manger of Him who was to 

 affect China in a degree second only to 

 Shantung's great Sage. Christ — Confu- 

 cius ! They divide the thoughts of the 

 Shantung population today. 



The Grand Canal cuts across the very 

 base of Shantung. But the pressure of 

 population and the urge of the empty 

 stomach have made the strapping big fel- 

 lows of that province ever ready to mi- 

 grate to any point where the clink of hard 

 coin gives promise of a full dinner pail. 



Soon the Japanese will 

 be laying the rails for their 

 new railway concession 

 from Kaomi, near Tsing- 

 tau, to Hsuchowfu, whence a Trans- 

 Asiatic trunk line, which will be to the 

 Trans-Siberian what the Union Pacific is 

 to the Canadian Pacific, is some day to 

 link Lanchow and Kashgar with Peking 

 and Russian Turkestan. Another Jap- 

 anese line will run from Tsinan to cut 

 the Peking-Canton line at Shuntehfu. 



In building these railways the Shan- 

 tung coolie will have his rightful place, 

 and skill gained in France will stand him 

 in good stead in linking his home prov- 

 ince to the capitals of Eurasia from 

 Madrid to Tsinan. 



