Then the musical comedy producers, following their usual custom of religiously avoiding anything original, began to send the pony ballets and soubrettes on the stages without their hosiery and with their knees clad in nothing but a coat of whitewash (sometimes they even forgot to put on the whitewash, and then the sight was horrible).

The human form divine, with few exceptions, is a devilish spectacle unless it is properly made up.

Some twenty years from now managers will discover what audiences found out months ago, that a chorus girl's bare leg is infinitely less beautiful than the same leg when duly disguised by petticoats and things." [1] In his discussion of actors, Wu Tingfang does not seem to be aware that the idealization of actors in the West is comparatively recent, and that historically, and even now in some parts of society, actors and the acting profession have been looked down upon in the West for many of the same reasons he gives for the same phenomenon in China .-- A.
R.L., 1996.
[2] Wu Tingfang is quite correct to deplore this statement as a description of Chinese music.

However, in all fairness, it is an accurate description of how a Western ear first hears CERTAIN types of Chinese music.

After successive hearings this impression will fly away, but until then CERTAIN types are reminiscent of two alley-cats fighting in a garbage can.