Dear Sir, – The modern Chinese girls are very up-to-date in their dress and manners, but rarely converse with Europeans as they find English very difficult to understand and learn. Consequently it is a bar to us fellows in the army who would be pleased to know them as companions, but marriage is quite out of the question, as these mixed marriages are always a success; and what is more, they are not encouraged by the authorities.
There have been cases of such unions but they are very few and far between.
As regards fashions, the Chinese girls do not wear corsets, or, in fact any means of artificial support around the waist, and always wear low-heeled shoes.
Foot-binding is fast dying out among this race. I have only seen one case since my arrival here, and I cannot see where the beauty comes in. It is a crime now in China to bind a girl’s feet, and the parents are very severely punished if found out. There is a difference between a small, pretty foot, slightly pinched into high-heeled shoes and an ugly distorted foot which when the binding process is finished, looks like a badly-shaped ball.
There are a large number Portuguese in the territory, and although the girls are quite up-to-date and very beautiful to look at, they always wear tight corsets during the evening. I was quite surprised to see this, but it appears that owing to the heat the climate, the parents permit them to do without stays during the day-time, but at sunset when it is cool, their corsets are out in and to me they appear to be laced very tightly,
I have noticed several very young Portuguese girls about 13 or 14 years of age, walking out in the evening wearing very high heels on their shoes, and their carriage shows they have been laced up very tightly in stiff corsets. One young girl in particular, I noticed a few days ago, was wearing a pair of very long stays, which just showed below her short loose dress.
This girl was not more than thirteen years of age, and her tight-fitting stays did not appear to cause any distress. I could not guess the size of her waist, but I should say that it could not have been more than 15 or 16 inches. Her feet were wonderfully small and pinched into 5 inch heels. She made a pretty picture to look at and evidently enjoyed being looked at. She also wore very charming lace underwear, a thing I never saw in England for years.
Yours very faithfully,
R.S.
China.