There was even dignity in the common sight of a Korean baby taking nature’s nourishment under difficulties as its mother caught her train at a cowlike canter – thus killing too birds with one stone. The woman’s puny wisp of hair was coiled like a unicorn’s horn on her forehead, an older baby than the one at her breast was bound upon her lower spine by a crudely coloured blanket, her grey-white trousers twinkled beneath her voluminous skirts, the knot of her napkin had thrown its starchy jauntiness to the wind. But still Yi and I looked at her with the wet glamorous eyes of farewell, and she is part of Manchuria which has been so much kinder to us both than it promised to be.
“Yi – what have you done with that new fur hat of yours?”
“Oh, missy – hat have lose – work have lose – everything have lose …. Oh, missy, I no wantchee go away …. Yow-yow-yow-”
Collapsed in the corner of our Exclusive Compartment, the child-like fellow literally yelled with distress.
The mere green trees of Korea veiled from us our austere Manchurian uplands for the last time.
Good-bye Manchuria.