Suicide is very common among the women of China. When the mother-in-law becomes too oppressive, or life becomes intolerable from other causes, the wife often takes the law into her own hands and takes opium or jumps into the well. She then not only receives surcease from her sorrows, but, according to Chinese superstition, her spirit will linger around the home, haunting and tormenting the person who was the cause of her taking the fatal step.
There is very little intercourse between foreign and Chinese women. The latter do not seem to care about making the acquaintance of the women from over the seas. It is only of late years that the wives of foreign officials in Shanghai have had any intercourse with the families of the local officials. Such intercourse consists simply in an interchange of calls, and a luncheon given once a year by the wife of the senior Consul, and returned by the wife of the Chinese taotai or mayor. There can never be any degree of friendship between the Chinese woman and the European. Their lives are radically different; the Chinese woman’s ideals are not the same as those of her foreign sister. Their only common subject of conversation is in regard to their children; and even there a bar is soon put across the conversation, as the Chinese mother has different hopes and ambitions for the future of her children than those of the woman from England or America. She knows nothing of the outside world, and her only subjects of conversation relate to household gossip, clothes, and the actions of her friends. In Shanghai a society is formed that is trying to bring the women of all nationalities into touch with one another, but it is not a very great success so far as the Chinese lady is concerned. She feels awkward and ill at ease in the presence of these women, who talk so easily on matters of which she knows nothing, and she much prefers the quiet of her courtyards, amidst the life she understands.
When a Chinese lady is persuaded to go into the world she is always most dignified, even under embarrassing circumstances. I once gave a luncheon for the wife of a Governor of a province, to which the wives of the consuls and a few other ladies were invited, about twenty in all. When the guest of honour arrived all the other guests rose to meet her. As she entered the doorway her tiny bound feet stepped upon a rug, which slipped from beneath her, and instead of swaying gently across the room she sat down and slid to the feet of her astonished hostess. She was helped to rise by the frightened guests, and turned and shook hands with them gravely, without a flicker of the eyelids to indicate that sliding was not the usual mode of entering a drawing-room.