August 4, 1933

Dear Mother and Dad,-

The heat the last three days has been unbearable. We have been in a sweat for too long. Last night a rain storm came up, and today we have splendid relief. Stu and I say that we do not look forward to spending another summer in this place. We have figured and figured and we cannot yet see our way clear to come home for another year. If we just had enough to live on for six months we would pack up and depart. To date we have 650 in the bank- gold. We can save, we figure, 75 a month from now until January which will end the year here. That along with the 300 we have in the bank at home will be 1325. It will cost us 450 to get home, and six hundred to buy a car which would be necessary. The result is 275, which as you can see is not very much to look for a job at home on. Oh hum. If we stay here another year, we will have enough capital to live six months until Stu can find a job, and besides Stu will have hours which will enable him to get what is now out of reach because of limited hours in the air. The fly in the ointment is this jernt. We do not like the idea of staying here any longer. Alas we must eat. However Stu is keeping up on his contacts at home and they might possibly spring a leak. We figure we would be better off at home on less salary, but on the other hand we would be better off here than at home with no salary. We feel that we are fortunate to be having the world of experience that this place offers, and that we can here while things are so hopeless at home. But every letter we get from home saying that things are better, we cheer lustily. Perhaps the corner has been reached. I doubt it, but we hope so never-the-less.

We have been taking Scott's Emulsion. It has a terrible taste, but I was worrying about not getting the proper vitamins, and the Emulsion insures us against rickets, poor blood, skinniness, flat feet and what have you. It is the only cod liver oil we can get here, but it is better for us, because it contains calcium and lime which we do not get in our food because of the hard cooking everything undergoes. Last night we had two tea[sic] bone steaks, and we certainly did them dirt. We eat chicken and fish for the most part, because the doctor says it is healthier in hot weather, but last night the rain cooled things off and we had a swell time with our two cows.

Yesterday, I had a lot of fun shopping. I bought two little silver dishes for pickles and olives. They have handles on them and are quite attractive. The silver here, as I have told you is ninety percent. The workmanship in many things are crude, so we are not going to get much of it, but some things are lovely. The fifteenth of this month we are going to get the chest. I guess you will be as glad as we are to get it. I have written about it so much. I want one that I can use as a dining room buffet. I want it to have drawers in the top and have [a] door in the rest of it, then it can be used for the silver and linens. A lot of people here have about six or more of them, but what in the world would we do with six big chests? There are too many other things I want. The blackwood is about the nicest thing here however, but the embroidery and linens take my eye more. The chest will make a nice packing box to take home also. We can fill it full of stuff, crate it up and send it off. We want to get a nice rug too. this is not the part of the country where rugs are made, they are made up north, and can be bought very much cheaper there. Here, though, we can get the rugs if you pay for them. Stu and I have figured that it will be cheaper to pay the additional price and use them in our home here so that we will not have to pay duty on them when we come home. You do not have to pay duty on household goods, but rugs are closely examined, and they can tell about how long they have been used by the condition of the nap. You have to have had a year to get it in duty free. We could stop in Shanghai on the way home and get one, but then it would be brand new and the duty would be a terrible wallop.

By the time we get through collecting, we will have quite a few things to make a home attractive. I told you about the ivory I guess, but anyway, they have lovely carved ivory here. None of it could be used to any practical end, and I am not so terribly fond of things that just sit around and clutter up the space. I did get the little ivory man I think I told you about though. He is only three inches high and has a very funny expression, and Stu and I have grown very fond of him.

We went to the movies the other night and saw 'The Animal Kingdom'. They got the reels all mixed up, and the result was very annoying. We enjoy the Fox news items the most although we have often seen them before. The Chinese are very fond of American comedies. They have many imitators of Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin. I have never seen them in action, but you can imagine what a Chinese Laurel and Hardy would be.

Tomorrow we are going to Colonel Ding's for dinner. He is a very nice Chinese officer at the field and he has a foreign wife. We think we may get European food. If they have Chinese food I will turn up my heels and pass away. Somehow every time I see Chinese food coming I nearly die. Yesterday I went out to into our kitchen and beheld a whole dish of crawling snails. I asked the Amah what in the world that was, and she said 'Chow' meaning in slang, eat. I said rather you than me, and made a face. It tickled her to think that I could see nothing relishing about eating a bunch of slimy crawling snails. Oi Oi. They say our food looks as bad to them as theirs does to us, but I don't see how it can. Even the Chinese here who have been educated in America eat their own food. They feel that it is far superior.

The other night on Shameen the typhoon signal went up in the harbor. This is the time of the year when the big wind storms come, and when they do, they blow matsheds all over China. When the weather agents see a typhoon coming the put up the signal, and the harbor is cleared. All the little sandpans run for shelter. [They] tie themselves onto bridges or anything else stable. Our host were about to put us up for the night, but the storm did not come until the next morning, and then it was not bad.



Lots of love to you all,

Jeannette.