About Hudson Taylor's clothing: Everything opened up after that in a new way. On the return journey to Shanghai he was not even recognized as a foreigner, until he began to preach or distribute books and see patients. Then women and children came around much more freely, and the crowds were less noisy and excited. While missing some of the prestige attaching to Europeans, he found it more than made up for by the freedom his changed appearance gave him in moving among the people. Their homes were open to him as never before, and it was possible to get opportunities for quiet intercourse with those who seemed interested.
Filled with thankfulness for these and other advantages, he wrote home about the dress he had adopted, "It is evidently to be one's chief help for the interior." And it was "the interior" more and more on which his heart was set."