Maung Tun Thu - Beijing (Part 2)

"Most Chinese people believe that our eyes can see three feet into the ground. Because our eyes are blue."

The tall, calm, and composed Lancashire missionary, whose body was red and sunburnt, smiled as he spoke.

"They think we used those eyes to find gold in China. But the strange thing is, we know that the owners of blue eyes can't see through the crystal clear water."

The missionary's smile grew more expressive. He could even see his white teeth. His handsome, slender face had taken on a coppery hue from years of exposure to the Asian sun and wind. In the drab, brown church hall, the missionary's face shone brightly. The hundreds of Mancunians in front of him listened intently to every word he said.

“They call us ‘Yang Dao Zu’, ‘evil foreigners.’ And they say, ‘Our people kill Chinese children in our missionary orphanages.’ They take out the intestines of the children and use them to make lead into silver.

"And the spires of the temples we build in China crush their spirits in the air. And the railways the British engineers build and the mines they dig destroy their benefactors who lie beneath the earth."

Sitting between his parents on one of the wooden benches at the back of the hall, Jacob Kellner suddenly shifted. His eyes were the same blue color he had inherited from his Swiss father. He looked away from the missionary who was speaking with interest and down at the floor beneath his feet. He was only ten years old, thinking how wonderful it would be if his eyes could pierce the wooden floor and see the ground.

Who would have known that there were unknown English dragons lurking beneath the industrial city of Manchester? That's what I've been wondering. The cotton mill chimneys of northern England are so fascinating because of the huge plumes of smoke that billow from their chimneys every day. Could it be that the huge plumes of smoke that rise from the chimneys of these factories are actually coming from the mouths of these giant creatures that blow smoke?

In fact, it was the area's industrial and manufacturing hub that attracted his father to come to England from Zurich, Switzerland, across Europe. His father had come to this part of the country to work as a textile engineer.

Had those magical dragons brought his father to this region? Had those same dragons also made his father meet his English mother, who was teaching him new techniques in the art of embroidery?

His father, whose large, bone-crushing hands were always covered with grease, was folded across his chest. He was not a man of the habit of drinking bitter water like other men. He was calm and quiet, and spoke very little. Now he was in the church on the cobblestone street behind Moss, sitting down to please his wife.

His father, like everyone else in the hall, was listening intently to everything he was saying. He had come to understand the hardships and hardships of life in the dark, dirty streets surrounding the factories, so he didn't take it too seriously. He had the stamina, didn't he?

Manchester is notorious for its constant rain and thick fog. On this Sunday in midsummer 1921, the rain and fog were still a nuisance. On the gravel road outside the hall

It was raining non-stop. Looking out the dirty windows, we could see a dark sky.

How wonderful it would be, thought Jack, if only the great underground dragons, invisible to human eyes, could control the harshness of the weather. If only the sun could pour its heat over Manchester as it does in China, things would be different.

Especially since it was possible that the missionary, who had returned home after more than ten years away, would be able to do so. Then, Cox thought, the weather in Manchester would be as good as in China.

“They call the telegraph poles and wires we have built in the remote interior of China ‘the great iron snakes.’ When the rain falls on the telegraph poles and wires, they say, it is the blood of the dying souls in the air,” the missionary’s voice continued.

“If there is a famine or a drought, we missionaries are blamed. They say that the spirits are angry because of our work. So we try very hard to overcome the lack of knowledge. China is a very large country, so we have to go all over the place. It is a huge undertaking that requires a lot of effort.”

Jack looked up at the priest, who was dressed in a large Chinese silk robe. The priest had taken off his black silk hat, and held it in one hand, with a fake Chinese braid hanging down the back of the hat. He put the hat back on over his white hair. Then, tucking each hand into the wide sleeves of his shirt, as the Chinese do, he turned to the audience and bowed.

“There were many missionary men and women who gave their lives in China. That is why, if you travel among the mountains, if you dress like a Chinese, as I do now, the Chinese bandits who hide on the mountaintops will think you are Chinese and let you go without doing anything. If you do not dress like that, you will be robbed. You will be kidnapped. You will be killed.”