Photoplay Magazine, January 1921 (anuary 1921)

West Is East, Hey? War smiled upon Yung Han and took him to the movies. By LIGE MEE THE report of the Y. M. C. A. engaged in welfare work among the half-million Chinese coolies who comprised the labor battalions near the front, in the great war, lays emphasis upon the fact that the nightly moving picture en- tertainments proved to be the most important factor in sus- taining the morale and erasing home-sickness among the yellow men who became great "fans" after their first fears of bedevilmenl and witchery were overcome. THREE years and three months, to the day. from the time Yung Han left his humble dwelling-place in the Street of the Parrot Cages, in his native Canton, did he return. In the interim, whilst Yung Han had been engaged in an interminable round of adventure not unmixed with a certain modicum of toil, and all in a strange and fascinating land, his faithful wife, by name Fan Mock, had held together the shabby household chattels that were his all-in-all. There had been no written word pass be- tween them in this long succession of moon upon moon, and had Fan Mock been any less of a devoted wife, it might have fallen that on this smiling May day, Yung Han would not have found his dwelling-place as it was when he went away. But there it was. And inside, scrubbing the yellow stones of the hearth, was the faithful Fan Mock, just the same as before, save that she was older and thinner and her eyes a bit dimmer, perhaps. But Yung Han. the wanderer, returned: Alas, he was not the same Yung Han at all, and as his shadow fell upon the floor of hard- ened earth, his wife leaped to her feet and uttered a faint cry of alarm. "Ai-ya," said her hus- band placidly, "and what is the matter with you?" Fan Mock gulped in her surprise. "It is my husband, Yung Han," she cried, happiness crowding into her features. "Indeed," returned that worthy, "and whom else should it be?" But the insolent fellow knew in his grinning heart that his coming had caused a sensation within the soul of his wife and he was not at all displeased. No wonder that she scarce recognized him, for in the place of the nondescript garments that hung upon his angular frame when he had been taken away from Canton to go to the other side of the world which was bathed in the blood of a mighty conflict, our hero, this same Yung Han, wore garments of smart military cut and upon his swelling bosom there glittered that medal which the 68 Republic of France had awarded to all the coolies who had worked faithfully for three years and more. "My husband," cried Fan Mock, making genuflection, "all is well with thee?" "Aye, my wife," replied Yung Han loftily, "all is indeed well with me." He patted an odd swollen place at his side and there came the clink of metal upon metal. "Thy arms?" "Arms," he scoffed. "Bah! You are a woman of no per- ception." "I discern thou art become a personage," she said, timorously. "Aye. a personage and a rich man, a very, very rich man, vmchere." Fan Mock lowered her eyes to the floor. "I fear my lord husband that I have offended that thou should curse me thus," she whimpered. "Cursed?" "Aye—those strange words, they are of the tongue I know- not of." And she stared at him uneasily. The wicked wanderer smiled slyly. "You will learn pres- ently," he said. His eyes sought the hearth and Fan Mock hastily prepared the tea, taking from the high shelf above her head the chest of the pre- cious Seven-Temples-On- Seven-Hills, not one single tiny curled leaf of which had been brewed since that winter day when the white men had bidden Yung Han leave behind his Canton and his wife. Yung Han sipped of his tea with relishing tongue, whilst his wife, as becomes a Cantonese wife of fair deportment, sat beyond and waited. "I have seen the won- ders of the earth and the waters and the sky, Fan Mock," said the. great personage, her husband, "and they are very good to know." "Ai-ya." His wife saluted gravely. "I have gold, more than enough to provide for this household and for the children of my children." Fan Mock blushed and a guilty chill swept into her heart, for she had borne her lord husband no sons, since she had been but a bride of four-and-twenty days when the call had come, more than three years gone, and her husband had marched away. True, she was but the unwanted daughter of a river-woman and the lousy matting of a sampan had been her cradle. Still, she had taught herself to read, and she knew the tablets, and she knew that it is the unforgetable sin—that to be a wife and to eat of her husband's rice without bearing him a son that might live to burn red papers at the grave of his father. (Continued on page 113) "Like joss? It has got joss skinned to death!"