THE DESCENDANTS OF CONFUCIUS 



265 



tung before the war was over and the 

 Shantung decision made. New exten- 

 sions to Tsinan are being rushed to com- 

 pletion, and the old walled city, like the 

 intramural city of Jerusalem, is becoming 

 quite dwarfed by the modern settlement 

 that has sprung up all around it. 



BANDITS TERRORIZE CHINA'S HOLY LAND 



During the past three years Shantung 

 has suffered seriously from banditry and 

 the buying up of copper cash, which 

 forms the currency of the poor. 



Various forms of money have been 

 used in Shantung for 3,000 years. At 

 first these coins took the form of a knife, 

 and reproductions of this early money 

 are now used as paper knives in many 

 foreign homes in China. 



Other shapes resembled axes and 

 spades, but in the Chou dynasty, about 

 600 B. C, round coins were introduced. 

 These round cash, with a square hole or 

 several round ones in the face of them, 

 proved much more convenient than the 

 older and more bulky coins in the shape 

 of knives and axes. 



But the old coins for some time re- 

 mained the standard and the new coins 

 bore inscriptions showing that their value 

 was one "knife-coin" or one "axe-coin," 

 as the case might be. 



When war sent the price of brass and 

 copper soaring, thousands of tons of 

 these copper and brass coins were melted 

 down, thus robbing the country of its 

 medium of exchange, and the exporta- 

 tion of cash was forbidden. 



In China, however, the foreigner takes 

 large liberties, and smelters soon sprang 

 up in Tsinan and Tsingtau, to which long 

 lines of creaking wheelbarrows, heavily 

 laden with coins, were pushed by sweat- 

 ing coolies. 



the luscious fruits oe shantung's 

 market basket 



To the visiting foreigner Shantung of- 

 fers excellent fruit and vegetables, many 

 of which have been introduced by Chris- 

 tian missionaries. The average Chinese 

 pear is better suited for ammunition than 

 for food and tastes like a cure for a 

 canker sore, but a Shantung pear of the 

 improved variety oozes lusciousness as 



readily and irresponsibly as does an 

 American Bartlett. 



The peanuts and persimmons of Shan- 

 tung are famous, and Chefoo cabbages 

 are sold throughout the Far East. The 

 Chinese "date," which is truly a species 

 of jujube, is produced in large quantities 

 in Shantung and can be had in almost 

 any chop-suey palace in America, al- 

 though whole mule loads of this dried 

 fruit are carried westward to the Chinese 

 epicures of Shensi and Shansi. 



SHANTUNG A VAST RESERVOIR OE LABOR 



The Shantung farmer or coolie is a 

 stalwart, slow-thinking, but by no means 

 stupid fellow, slow to anger and slow to 

 forgive. His life is that of patient toil 

 with Nature, who has often proved a 

 fickle mistress. 



He lacks the ready wit of the trader 

 and the militant qualities of the soldier ; 

 but he is the finest human machine in 

 the world. He is adaptable and he at- 

 tains great skill in doing a simple task 

 well. 



As a vast reservoir of potentially high- 

 grade labor and as a way-station on what 

 promises to become a new world high- 

 way, Shantung toils on unconscious of 

 her fate and power, waiting for the day 

 to dawn when her many millions will 

 find sufficient food for their stomachs 

 and the peace which above all else the 

 industrious Chinaman covets. 



The Shantung coolie on the western 

 front has made good. Another quarter 

 million are expected to be recruited in 

 that province for reconstruction work in 

 France, and American-trained Chinese 

 are planning to teach these laborers sev- 

 eral modern courses, including phonetic 

 spelling that may be learned in one 

 month. 



War and politics have forced the Shan- 

 tung coolie into the limelight. He smiles, 

 toils, and watches the life around him. 

 No problem has balked him yet. With 

 his salvage and reconstruction tasks in 

 France completed, he may be expected to 

 return to his home, take one look at the 

 Yellow River, which he has so often 

 tamed, and then start in to clean up China 

 and bind it by bands of steel and crowded 

 waterways into a worthy republic. 



