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Women's Best Is a Great Deal, Declares Miss Lee Ya Ching

By Grace Miller Rosenthal
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Chicago

Women who want to help win the war should just go out and do whatever they are best fitted to do, and perhaps that's sewing or cooking, says Miss Lee Ya Ching, China's first aviatrix, who is making a good-will tour of the United States, helping to raise money for the relief of China.

"We women must just do the best we can, and that is a great deal," she says earnestly, in perfect English, dark eyes sparkling. "The thing is not to fuss about it, but just go out and do it. The trouble is often that we talk too much and nothing is accomplished."

Miss Lee Ya Ching's home is in Hong Kong. She has been in this country three years, voluntarily seeking to enlist aid for China. "It is not a personal thing," she says, "but a job to be done."

Grateful for American Aid

"Of course, when I started," Miss Lee remarked, "the United States was not in the war. This country has been so friendly and so wonderful to China that it was just natural to think of coming here for help. And the Americans have been so splendid in co-operating."

One aviation company loaned her a plane to use on her trips, and then another company gave her a plane outright. She is flying this from place to place now, and hopes, when the war permits, to ship it back to China. She would like to get back to China and fly a plane in non-combat service in the war. Women aviators could help much in the war, she declares.

"Women can ferry planes from place to place," she explains. "They can do transport work, patrolling, aerial surveying." This last she intends to take up some day.

It was because of the great distances in China that Miss Lee wanted to learn to fly. "Transportation is such a problem there," she said. "I saw how long it took to get from place to place, and how airplanes could cut the distances and bring people closer together."

Learned to Fly in Geneva

But there were no aviation schools in China where women could learn to fly. So Miss Lee learned in Geneva, Switzerland. She was the first woman to obtain a license to fly in Switzerland, and the first Chinese aviatrix. That was nine years ago, and Miss Lee has been flying ever since.

After learning in Switzerland, she heard of the Boeing School of Aeronautics in the United States. She wanted to take the advance course it offered in instrument flying, dynamics, radio, and such, and came to this country. But when she presented herself at the school, they did not think she could do it.

But she did. She is the only woman to have graduated from the Boeing School, though several have started the courses and then given up. Even men, says Miss Lee, find the courses hard.

What did Miss lee think were China's chances for victory in the war?

"The question should not even be asked," she answered quick as a flash. "How do you think our boys could fight so long, and for so little, if they were not certain of victory."

Women, too, are fighting in China's army, carrying guns, organizing guerrilla fighters.

The women of China are very progressive, she states. In the last 30 years, especially during the last 20, they have been given the opportunity to show what they can do. And they are doing it. There are banks in China owned and operated exclusively by women. They are making money, too, Miss Lee laughingly declares. There are colleges owned and managed entirely by women, and women are the teachers.

China's need at the present time is money for relief, and airplanes, Miss Lee states. According to her, China needs $7,00,000 for relief right now, for education, reconstruction, child welfare, help for the Christian missionaries, for ambulances, for means of transportation.

Will Need Leaders

When schools and factories are bombed out, she explains, the Chinese pick up the books and materials that remain, take them back into the interior of the country, and start up again as best they can. Every effort is being made to keep students at their books. It's realized, says Miss Lee, that China will need leaders more than ever when this war is won, leaders to help reconstruct the country.

Some of the relief money will go to help schools and factories start again. Five to seven dollars will set a refugee who has been bombed out back on his feet, she states. That is what they are being given today. Several such refugees then get together and set up a little shop where they make clothing, or some other thing needed by civilians and soldiers. China calls these workers the "vest-pocket industrialists."

She Is Serving Voluntarily

Miss Lee's tour on behalf of relief for China is entirely voluntary. She is not officially a representative of the Chinese Government.

"I have to work on a volunteer basis. I can't do a job unless it comes out of my heart. I don't like to be told," she explains with an apologetic smile, "you must do so and so."

She thinks it perfectly natural to be flying about the United States, seeking aid for China. People in China, she says, are taught to think in terms of what is good for their country, not about themselves.

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
An International Daily Newspaper
BOSTON, TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1942 - VOL. XXXIV, NO. 124

** ATLANTIC EDITION

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