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80 4  REGISTRATION OF WOMEN AND THE RETURN OF AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN DIPLOMATS  Sunday, January 2, 1938 From Vautrin’s Diary Warm, bright sunshine day. What a blessing for those whose homes have been burned and those whose bedding has been looted. As rice was being served this morning a car drove in with three elderly Japanese women, who were representatives of a women’s National Defense Organization. They did not make many comments but seemed interested in looking about. How I wish I could speak Japanese in order to explain something of what these refugees have suffered. At ten o’clock Mr. Li and I went over to Drum Tower to church. They had a very, very fine service—the speaker, who used to be on our Sunday school work at South Gate, then left distinctly religious work for a business career, largely selfish, showed by his sermon that he had learned a deep spiritual lesson through his suffering. There must have been eighty at the service. Religion has become a vital sustaining force in many lives; James McCallum said they had a fine service last Sunday also. The church was decorated in red, and really looked festive. This afternoon at 4:30 the English service was revived—after four or five Sundays of omission. I went to the service this morning and Mary this afternoon. We do not both like to leave the campus at the same time—in fact one of us is always here with the Japanese military police letter to drive off stray soldiers. +X&KLQGG $0 81 REGISTR ATION OF WOMEN, RETURN OF DIPLOMATS We have had three services on the campus today. Our 7:30 prayer service this morning, a 2 o’clock service this afternoon for women, and a 7:30 service this evening for campus servants. We have enough helpers on the campus so we can take turns—Miss Wang took morning meeting, Miss Lo afternoon and Mr. Chen the evening. Registration of Chinese continues tomorrow in eight places in the city. People are naively anxious to register, thinking the slip will be a protection. We have already heard of several instances where soldiers have torn up these registration slips. At 2 p.m. today five Chinese planes flew over the city and dropped some bombs. Our old friends, the anti-aircraft guns, sounded forth. Searle has received a letter from Lilliath,1 brought by a Japanese newspaper correspondent. Her last word from Searle had been dated November 14; although she had written him twelve times and wired six times, she had not heard from him. To date no one from outside has been allowed to come to Nanking. From Tsen’s Diary Yesterday, the merciful Miss Wu sent us two geese and one duck to consume. She did not give them to us for nothing; she wanted to be paid. Also, it depends on when she is willing to give them to us. Now it is even difficult to buy things even if you have money. This is also a time when we become slaves of a crushed nation. It was the Chinese New Years day yesterday, so we had geese to eat. If it were not for the two Westerners,2 I myself could not afford to buy the geese, nor did I want to eat them. How can a refugee have any appetite to eat goose? Today is Sunday. No incidents happened. Vautrin and Twinem cannot go outside at the same time because we have to have one Westerner here. Although Twinem is a Chinese,3 her face is that of a foreigner. Our country’s airplanes came to bomb several places. I have no idea where. Three Japanese women devils came to visit and they are from the Women’s National Defense Assistance Committee. Vautrin took them to see various places and to meet me. I really did not want to see them and became much angrier when I saw them. Also, one more hateful thing made Vautrin and me deadly mad: when the three women devils were leaving, they gave away several rotten apples and a small amount of candies. Some middle-aged women refugees surrounded the Japanese to fight for the goodies and grab for a couple of coins in the devils’ palms. They indeed lost the Chinese people’s face totally. It made me angry to death, and I scolded them. So did Vautrin. Several refugees also cursed them. Those women simply have no...

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