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w we wr csany ca ween | a" Y G443 rapout We have many misconceptions, says Pearl Buck. and they prevent adeption ef a sound policy. Dy PRARI. S&S. BUCK UR Amenican policy toward China @) today is in an interesting state of flux. No one knows, quite what it should be, and therefore no one can do \more than guess what it ia going to be. It may be wise enough for us to do noth- ing for a brief space, during perplexity, so far as China is concerned, but equally wise would it be to do some preparatory attic cleaning meanwhile in our own minds, for there is an amazing amount of trash in our mental attics when it comes to the Chinese. Age-old fragments of misinformation till clutter our thinking, and added to the moary accumulation is new muainforma- Rion, ladled out by persons who have been in China very recently, very briefly, and who have gone there with a job to do, & purpose to accompliah--a fatal atmoe- phere in which to approach any peo- ple, No one who goea with a misaion to @ people ever jJearns anything about them, neither what they are nor what they want. It is inevitable that moat Misaions, re- eS PEARL S. BUCK, Nobel prize winnes, lived ia China for many years. For “The Good Earth” she tecewed the @ultze: prise sa 1932. Har letest boot «s “Kinfoll,” pubbshed carly thes yeer, MAGAZINE. OCTOBER 23. i428. Letters CHINA'S FOOD To THE Evitoa: indeed heartening to rte Buck's “Our Dan- ligious, political and military, are usually failures. It will not be possible very soon to clear our attica entirely of the residues of & century or so, but certain large and cum- beraome myths might be cast into the bottom of the sea for good and all. First of all, 1 would reject the myth That China’s basic problem is hunger. It will be a myth difficult to relinquish, for it is an easy explanation of China's troubles. A hungry man can always be handed bread and the bread then becomes a debt. Did I not feed you when you were hungry? Thus bread turns into stone. . Tax actual fact is that hunger is not China's chief problem. Anyone who lived in China before the last war knows that in spite of the overthrow of one govern- ment and the setting up of a new military government under Generaliiasimo Chiang Kai-shek, never thoroughly accomplished, | is prac- China.” repos: Not acre- be About . gerous Myths _ which contained the gratifying w (Misa Buck and in spite of consequent continued re- gional civil war, the Chinese fed them- selves heartily and well, as they have Gone for a very long time indeed. True, there were occasional famines, of which Americans beard very much through other Americans, mostly kindhearted missionaries. But these famines were not the resut of basic food shortage. They were caused by catastrophe, by flood or drougbt. Flood and drought are not al- ways preventable but they are always tocal. . _ Crtna's vast territory, much larger than ours, can easily remedy any local famine, were there roads enough. Lack of com- munications ia a basic problem in China and haa been for a very long time In my own experience it was often cheaper and actually easier in some famines to ship wheat across the Pacific Ocean from une United States and Canada than it was to bring it over three bundred miles of 1 recisely the potnt raised in my article of North America on p' fully dears it out.) TRADITION ®" Chineas country road on donkey and man back. During the eight years of the last war, of course, many farm families Med and the food situation was disrupted, and loca} disruptions will continue until the country has peace. Yet in spite of war and dis- turbance the Chinese farmer even now Produces vasi quantities of food which he would be glad to market more widely were it possible The Chinese earth is nch in food production, and the Chinese farm: er ia skilled in conserving the sol Thx Chinese are farmers of forty centumes and Uhere they have much to teach the reat of the world. They need help in scientific seed selection and in dis- ease and insect control, which can easily be given them The primary neet of the Chinese farmer therefore, is not food but more markets for the food he has The abundance of fod production on China is more than the result of necessits The Chinese are extremely modern in their outlook on life Centuries before Heming- way set the fashion for naturalism America’e young Chinese were Marrow for men and women the naturalistic to their very Every «Contimued on Payer 65 9