Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/171

Rh endorse his prognostication that "the first generation of Chinese chemists will probably lose many of its number as a result of the process of mixing 'a few tens of grains' of something with 'several tens of grains' of something else, the consequence being an unanticipated earthquake"—and the thought made me feel almost happy. Conversation by question and answer becomes a sort of game. If you desire information upon any particular subject, you have to ask a question upon some other topic. The difficulty of hitting upon the right one is obvious. Over and over again, when putting a question through Joe, I would get an answer which could by no possible ingenuity be made to relate in any way to the question. "What is the name of this village?" I would ask. After a few moments of profound thought would come the reply, "Yes, that is a rice field," or any other equally useless and irrelevant reply. Joe gave up translating answers of this kind after he had been in my service for a short time, realising that information of this kind merely served to exasperate me. This particular Chinese characteristic is,