One the subject of national character, here is an interesting passage about the Chinese from a book that was published in 1942! It's Han Suyin's
Destination Chungking.
It is not strange that in a time of governmental impotence such opportunists set up each his own sphere of dominion and fought, each with his neighbour, to extend his sovereignty. What is strange and a matter of admiration and wonder is that, throughout the era of the warlords, China still considered herself one nation - was one nation, undivided in spirit. Her people were united as a people. Except in time of active fighting in some limited area, people passed freely from one region to another, and education spread, and gradually the idea of a Republic of China penetrated past all barrier and through all classes of society. So strong was this inner consciousness of "one people under heaven", as the old Chinese proverb states it, that even the most despotic of the warlords paid their respects to it. Some kind of national government persisted for diplomatic and educational purposes. No warlord ever seceded from China. Each still considered his private kingdom as a section of one nation, to be united politically in good time (preferably under himself as emperor or the equivalent). And regardless of the rivalries of her petty masters, China - the people - remained unperturbed by any sectional hatred, consciously one race, one people, under a government temporarily somewhat disjointed.
