The New China Author:Henri Borel Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: for mortar and bricks go to and fro—everywhere above me they knock and hammer. The porter tells me that they are adding a new story to the hotel. To me this knoc... more »king and hammering immediately after my arrival seems like a symbol, a symbol of the ugly, vulgar modernity, that is invading Peking. Just now my steed of steam, fuming and screeching, rumbled through a hole of Peking's ramparts. Now they are hammering and pounding over my head, for the brand new cosmopolitan Grand Hôtel des Wagons Lits needs another story for the globe-trotters from America and the -West who now overrun China because it has become the fashion ; it already has a season, the autumn season. I dress somehow and return to the hall, where by and by at one o'clock the gong will sound for tiffin. A glass of sherry, a cigarette, a French newspaper. Am I in Paris or Peking? Round about me nothing but " messieurs et mesdames," "Herren und Damen." Exactly the people one sees at Ostend, Biarritz, Wiesbaden, Cairo — English, American, German, French, Italian— something of everything. Types of smart business people and empty désœuvrés. -What, in Heaven's name, are these people doing in Peking? There goes the gong for tiffin. A modern dining-room ; just like the dining- room of every hotel except that the waiters here are Chinese boys in long, blue garments, who move about noiselessly in their felt slippers ; their long, plaited pig-tails hang down their backs. Happily, I secure a table for one in a corner, and sit looking at the bustling scene astonished, scarcely believing my eyes. There is a confusion of voices, a sibilant rustle of silken skirts ; clear-cut women's faces beneath immense modern Parisian hats ; gentlemen with buttonholes. The luncheon is excellent. The consommé is delicious, the carpe bleu ...« less