air is a pleasing custom and a
pretty sight. But to see a lady wearing a long gown trailing on the
ground does not impress me as being elegant, though I understand the
ladies in Europe and America think otherwise. It would almost seem as
if their conceptions of beauty depended on the length of their skirts.
In a ballroom one sometimes finds it very difficult not to tread on the
ladies' skirts, and on ceremonial occasions each lady has two page boys
to hold up the train of her dress. It is impossible to teach an
Oriental to appreciate this sort of thing. Certainly skirts which are
not made either for utility or comfort, and which fashion changes, add
nothing to the wearer's beauty; especially does this remark apply to
the "hobble skirt", with its impediment to free movement of the legs.
The ungainly "hobble skirt" compels the wearer to walk carefully and
with short steps, and when she dances she has to lift up her dress.
Now the latest fashion seems to be the "slashed skirt" which, however,
has the advantage of keeping the lower hem of the skirt clean.
Doubtless this, in turn, will give place to other novelties. A Chinese
lady, Doctor Ya Mei-kin, who has been educated in America, adopted
while there the American attire, but as soon as she returned to China
she resumed her own native dress. Let us hear what she has to say on
this subject. Speaking of Western civilization she said: "If we keep
our own mode of life it is not for the sake of blind conservatism. We
are more logical in our ways than the average European imagines. I
wear for instance this 'ao' dress as you see, cut in one piece and
allowing the limbs free play--because it is manifestly a more rational
and comfortable attire than your fashionable skirt from Paris. On the
other hand we are ready to assimilate such notions from the West as
will really prove beneficial to us." Beauty is a matter of education:
when you have become accustomed to anything, however quaint or queer,
you will not think it so after a while. When I first went abroad and
saw young girls going about in the streets with their hair falling
loose over their shoulders, I was a little shocked. I thought how
careless their parents must be to allow their girls to go out in that
untidy state. Later, finding that it was the fashion, I changed my
mind, until by degrees I came to think that it looked quite nice; thus
do conventionality and custom change one's opinions. But it should be
re