National Affairs: A Little Rain

In Manhattan, Sept. 18 was a rotten day; but it was also the anniversary of that day in 1931 when, in Mukden, a garrison of Japanese soldiers struck the first, low blow of World War II. That fact meant incomparably more to thousands of men, women & children crowding the streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. With love, skill and patience they had worked for days perfecting their delicately ferocious and gay paper dragons, their butterfly-cheerful costumes, their happy floats.

When the Mayor’s office suggested that they postpone their victory parade, their organizer and spokesman T. W. Chu, chairman of the Chinese Benevolent Association, pleasantly replied: “Our people fought for fourteen years in all kinds of weather, and a little rain could hardly dampen [our] spirits … on this anniversary.”

By a little after noon some 12,000 Chinese poured out of the heart of their town and started their three-hour march from Chinatown up Fifth Avenue. The women and children mostly had raincoats and umbrellas; men, wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, marched wholly unprotected, imperturbably drenched. Wherever the rumpled weather had even a little pity, people massed the sidewalks.

On the Avenue. On the stand in front of the Public Library, to salute the marchers, waited Major General Claire Chennault and Dr. Chen Chi Mai, Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy; Dr. Frank Lee, former Chinese Minister to Portugal, and Mrs. Lee; former Ambassador Dr. Hu Shih; Dr. Tsune-chi Yu, Chinese Consul General in New York; Author Lin Yutang. By the time the paraders approached the stand, rain had reduced their pretty dragons to big plaster grins trailing a skeletal pulp. But they gave the standees the best show they had.

An immense revolving disc displayed alternately the face of Chiang Kai-shek and the legend GOD BLESS AMERICA. Following the high-kneed, fancy twirling majorettes, some 30 bands gave out, in the simple-hearted braveries of Western brass and the intricate Oriental din of bells, cymbals and gongs. Fifteen floats embodied scenes from Chinese history. There were seven lion dancers. The half-dozen drabbled dragons pranced and writhed and reared proudly. Painted players and acrobats on stilts—designed by their ancestors for high visibility in crowded market places—enacted bits of traditional drama. The band of the 22nd Regiment of the New York National Guard played San Min Chu I, China’s National Anthem.

The weather got still worse, but by the time the end was reached at 62nd Street, it was clear to everyone that the occasion was far less pathetic than joyful. The world has never known a more gallant and admirable people than the Chinese; Manhattan has never had a more gallant and admirable parade.