CHINESE NIGHT S ENTERTAINMENT

Keep an eye on him for me/' But I have seen another
Chinese policeman scatter with his boot to the side
of the road an old fellow's vegetables that he was
taking to market; and another belabour with his
truncheon a ricksha-puller who failed to obey a
traffic signal. (In the same situation I have seen a
Japanese policeman pull up a humble Japanese
ricksha-man, whom he threatened and hectored, but
was much more intent to humiliate than to strike.)

To return to the Chinese police attitude to prosti-
tutes, the police probably argue further, do not the
rich keep concubines? Then what is the difference?
In any case nobody minds, and certainly nobody
notices, so why bother about these gkls 2

Indeed, in the theatre no one remarked them;
fathers of families stood with their wives and watched
the play, engrossed, absent-mindedly handing a
sucking, whimpering or sleeping baby back and forth
every quarter of an hour or more—more, only if it
was the mother.

The spectacle that engrossed them, like the spectacle
that had engrossed the humbler audience earlier in the
evening, was not a whole play, but a single act. It
was a traditional play that must have been well
known to all the audience from thek childhood. As
I watched it, a feeling came over me that someone
had told me of the play. It was difficult to be certain,
for I could not understand what was being said, and