The Honorable Mr. Koo

"At Home"*

*At a dinner in a Milwaukee club in honor of Indian
visitors, tablecloths of handwoven, hand-printed
Indian fabric were used.

"We hope it makes you feel at home," said a member
to one of the Indian guests.

The Indian visitor smiled in acknowledgment, then
voiced a complaint husbands the world over will recognize.

"The difficulty is," he said, "I can't get my wife to
use these. She thinks she has to have Irish linen."

***************************************************

"The Honorable Mr. Koo"*

*Back in the 1920s, Americans were not yet
accustomed to strangers of particularly exotic
appearance, and when Wellington Koo served
as Chinese representative at the Washington
Conference in 1921, he was much more a curiosity
that he would have been a generation later.

At one social function, a Washington lady found
herself next to Koo and was utterly unable to think
of a thing to say. Finally, after the soup, she nerved
herself to ask, in very clear tones so as to be
understood, "Likee soupee?"

Koo smiled and nodded. Worn out with the effort,
the Washingtonian attempted nothing more.

After dinner, Koo rose to deliver the speech of the
evening which, of course, he did in impeccable English.

When he sat down again, he turned to the red-faced
lady and asked blandly, "Likee Speechee?"
Received on Wed May 13 05:59:49 2009