A virtue which the Chinese possess in an eminent degree is the rather
rare one of gratitude. A Chinaman never forgets a kind act; and what
is still more important, he never loses the sense of obligation to his
benefactor. Witness to this striking fact has been borne times without
number by European writers, and especially by doctors, who have
naturally enjoyed the best opportunities for conferring favours likely
to make a deep impression. It is unusual for a native to benefit by a
cure at the hands of a foreign doctor, and then to go away and make no
effort to express his gratitude, either by a subscription to a hospital,
a present of silk or tea, or perhaps an elaborate banner with a golden
inscription, in which his benefactor's skill is likened to that of the
great Chinese doctors of antiquity. With all this, the patient
will still think of the doctor, and even speak of him, not always
irreverently, as a foreign devil. A Chinaman once appeared at a British
Consulate, with a present of some kind, which he had brought from his
home a hundred miles away, in obedience to the command of his dying
father, who had formerly been cured of ophthalmia by a foreign doctor,
and who had told him, on his deathbed, "never to forget the English."
Yet this present was addressed in Chinese: "To His Excellency the Great
English Devil, Consul X."
The Chinaman may love you, but you are a devil all the same. It is most
natural that he should think so. For generation upon generation China
was almost completely isolated from the rest of the world. The people of
her vast empire grew up under influences unchanged by contact with other
peoples. Their ideals became stereotyped from want of other ideals to
compare with, and possibly modify, their own. Dignity of deportment
and impassivity of demeanour were especially cultivated by the ruling
classes. Then the foreign devil burst upon the scene--a being as
antagonistic to themselves in every way as it is possible to conceive.
We can easily see, from pictures, not intended to be caricatures, what
were the chief features of the foreigner as viewed by the Chinaman. Red
hair and blue eyes, almost without exception; short and extremely tight
clothes; a quick walk and a mobility of body, involving ungraceful
positions either sitting or standing; and with an additional feature
which the artist could not portray--an unintelligible language
resembling the twittering of birds. Small wonder that little children
are terrified at these strange beings, and rush shrieking into their
cottages as the foreigner passes by. It is perhaps not quite so easy to
understand why the Mongolian pony has such a dread of the foreigner and
usually takes time to get accustomed to the presence of a barbarian;
some ponies, indeed, will never allow themselves to be mounted unless
blindfolded. Then there are the dogs, who rush out and bark, apparently
without rhyme or reason, at every passing foreigner. The Chinese have a
saying that one dog barks at nothing and the rest bark at him; but that
will hardly explain the unfailing attack so familiar to every one who
has rambled through country villages. The solution of this puzzle was
extracted with difficulty from an amiable Chinaman who explained that
what the animals, and indeed his fellow-countrymen as well, could
not help noticing, was the frowzy and very objectionable smell of
all foreigners, which, strangely enough, is the very accusation which
foreigners unanimously bring against the Chinese themselves.
Compare these characteristics with the universal black hair and black
eyes of men and women throughout China, exclusive of a rare occasional
albino; with the long, flowing, loose robes of officials and of the
well-to-do; with their slow and stately walk and their rigid formality
of position, either sitting or standing. To the Chinese, their own
language seems to be the language of the gods; they know they have
possessed it for several thousand years, and they know nothing at all
of the barbarian. Where does he come from? Where can he come from except
from the small islands which fringe the Middle Kingdom, the world, in
fact, bounded by the Four Seas? The books tell us that "Heaven is round,
Earth is square;" and it is impossible to believe that those books,
upon the wisdom of which the Middle Kingdom was founded, can possibly be
wrong. Such was a very natural view for the Chinaman to take when first
brought really face to face with the West; and such is the view that
in spite of modern educational progress is still very widely held. The
people of a country do not unlearn in a day the long lessons of the
past. He was quite a friendly mandarin, taking a practical view of
national dress, who said in conversation: "I can't think why you
foreigners wear your clothes so tight; it must be very difficult to
catch the fleas."
As an offset against the virtue of gratitude must be placed the
deep-seated spirit of revenge which animates all classes. Though not
enumerated among their own list of the Seven passions--joy, anger,
sorrow, fear, love, hatred and desire--it is perhaps the most
over-mastering passion to which the Chinese mind is subject. It is
revenge which prompts the unhappy daughter-in-law to throw herself down
a well, consoled by the thought of the trouble, if not ruin, she is
bringing on her persecutors. Revenge, too, leads a man to commit suicide
on the doorstep of some one who has done him an injury, for he well
knows what it means to be entangled in the net which the law throws over
any one on whose premises a dead body may thus be found. There was once
an absurd case of a Chinese woman, who deliberately walked into a pond
until the water reached up to her knees, and remained there, alternately
putting her lips below the surface, and threatening in a loud voice
to drown herself on the spot, as life had been made unbearable by the
presence of foreign barbarians. In this instance, had the suicide
been carried out, vengeance would have been wreaked in some way on the
foreigner by the injured ghost of the dead woman.
The germ of this spirit of revenge, this desire to get on level terms
with an enemy, as when a life is extracted for a life, can be traced,
strangely enough, to the practice of filial piety and fraternal love,
the very cornerstone of good government and national prosperity. In the
Book of Rites, which forms a part of the Confucian Canon, and contains
rules not only for the performance of ceremonies but also for the
guidance of individual conduct, the following passage occurs: "With the
slayer of his father, a man may not live under the same sky; against
the slayer of his brother, a man must never have to go home to fetch a
weapon; with the slayer of his friend, a man may not live in the same
state." Being now duly admitted among the works which constitute the
Confucian Canon, the above-mentioned Book of Rites enjoys an authority
to which it can hardly lay claim on the ground of antiquity. It is a
compilation made during the first century B.C., and is based, no doubt,
on older existing documents; but as it never passed under the editorship
of either Confucius or Mencius, it would be unfair to jump to the
conclusion that either of these two sages is in any way responsible
for, or would even acquiesce in, a system of revenge, the only result of
which would be an endless chain of bloodshed and murder. The Chinese are
certainly as constant in their hates as in their friendships. To use a
phrase from their own language, if they love a man, they love him to the
life; if they hate a man they hate him to the death. As we have already
noted, the Old Philosopher urged men to requite evil with good; but
Confucius, who was only a mortal himself, and knew the limitations
of mortality, substituted for an ideal doctrine the more practical
injunction to requite evil with justice. It is to be feared that the
Chinese people fall short in practice even of this lower standard. "Be
just to your enemy" is a common enough maxim; but one for which only a
moderate application can be claimed.
It has often been urged against the Chinese that they have very little
idea of time. A friendly Chinaman will call, and stay on so persistently
that he often outstays his welcome. This infliction is recognized and
felt by the Chinese themselves, who have certain set forms of words by
which they politely escape from a tiresome visitor; among their vast
stores of proverbs they have also provided one which is much to the
point: "Long visits bring short compliments." Also, in contradiction of
the view that time is no value to the Chinaman, there are many familiar
maxims which say, "Make every inch of time your own!" "Half-an-hour is
worth a thousand ounces of silver," etc. An "inch of time" refers to the
sundial, which was known to the Chinese in the earliest ages, and
was the only means they had for measuring time until the invention
or introduction--it is not certain which--of the more serviceable
_clepsydra_, or water-clock, already mentioned.
This consists of several large jars of water, with a tube at the bottom
of each, placed one above another on steps, so that the tube of an upper
jar overhangs the top of a lower jar. The water from the top jar is made
to drip through its tube into the second jar, and so into a vessel at
the bottom, which contains either the floating figure of a man, or some
other kind of index to mark the rise of the water on a scale divided
into periods of two hours each. The day and night were originally
divided by the Chinese into twelve such periods; but now-a-days
watches and clocks are in universal use, and the European division into
twenty-four hours prevails everywhere. Formerly, too, sticks of incense,
to burn for a certain number of hours, as well as graduated candles,
made with the assistance of the water-clock, were in great demand; these
have now quite disappeared as time-recorders.
The Chinese year is a lunar year. When the moon has travelled twelve
times round the earth, the year is completed. This makes it about ten
days short of our solar year; and to bring things right again, an extra
month, that is a thirteenth month, is inserted in every three years.
When foreigners first began to employ servants extensively, the latter
objected to being paid their wages according to the European system, for
they complained that they were thus cheated out of a month's wages in
every third year. An elaborate official almanack is published annually
in Peking, and circulated all over the empire; and in addition to such
information as would naturally be looked for in a work of the kind, the
public are informed what days are lucky, and what days are unlucky, the
right and the wrong days for doing or abstaining from doing this, that,
or the other. The anniversaries of the death-days of the sovereigns
of the ruling dynasty are carefully noted; for on such days all the
government offices are supposed to be shut. Any foreign official who
wishes to see a mandarin for urgent business will find it possible to do
so, but the visitor can only be admitted through a side-door; the
large entrance-gate cannot possibly be opened under any circumstances
whatever.
No notice of the Chinese people, however slight or general in character,
could very well attain its object unless accompanied by some more
detailed account of their etiquette than is to be gathered from the
few references scattered over the preceding pages. Correct behaviour,
whether at court, in the market-place, or in the seclusion of private
life, is regarded as of such extreme importance--and breaches of
propriety in this sense are always so severely frowned upon--that it
behoves the foreigner who would live comfortably and at peace with
his Chinese neighbours, to pick up at least a casual knowledge of an
etiquette which in outward form is so different from his own, and yet in
spirit is so identically the same. A little judicious attention to these
matters will prevent much unnecessary friction, leading often to a
row, and sometimes to a catastrophe. Chinese philosophers have fully
recognized in their writings that ceremonies and salutations and bowings
and scrapings and rules of precedence and rules of the road are not of
any real value when considered apart from the conditions with which they
are usually associated; at the same time they argue that without
such conventional restraints, nothing but confusion would result.
Consequently, a regular code of etiquette has been produced; but as this
deals largely with court and official ceremonial, and a great part of
the remainder has long since been quietly ignored, it is more to the
point to turn to the unwritten code which governs the masses in their
everyday life.
For the foreigner who would mix easily with the Chinese people, it is
above all necessary to understand not only that the street regulations
of Europe do not apply in China; but also that he will there find a set
of regulations which are tacitly agreed upon by the natives, and which,
if examined without prejudice, can only be regarded as based on common
sense. An ordinary foot-passenger, meeting perhaps a coolie with two
buckets of water suspended one at each end of a bamboo pole, or carrying
a bag of rice, weighing one, two, or even three hundredweight, is
bound to move out of the burden-carrier's path, leaving to him whatever
advantages the road may offer. This same coolie, meeting a sedan chair
borne by two or more coolies like himself, must at once make a similar
concession, which is in turn repeated by the chair-bearers in favour of
any one riding a horse. On similar grounds, an empty sedan-chair must
give way to one in which there is a passenger; and though not exactly
on such rational grounds, it is understood that horse, chair, coolie and
foot-passenger all clear the road for a wedding or other procession, as
well as for the retinue of a mandarin. A servant, too, should stand
at the side of the road to let his master pass. As an exception to the
general rule of common sense which is so very noticeable in all Chinese
institutions, if only one takes the trouble to look for it, it seems to
be an understood thing that a man may not only stand still wherever
he pleases in a Chinese thoroughfare, but may even place his burden or
barrow, as the fancy seizes him, sometimes right in the fairway, from
which point he will coolly look on at the streams of foot-passengers
coming and going, who have to make the best of their way round such
obstructions. It is partly perhaps on this account that friends who
go for a stroll together never walk abreast but always in single file,
shouting out their conversation for all the world to hear; this, too,
even in the country, where a more convenient formation would often, but
not always, be possible. Shopkeepers may occupy the path with tables
exposing their wares, and itinerant stall-keepers do not hesitate to
appropriate a "pitch" wherever trade seems likely to be brisk. The
famous saying that to have freedom we must have order has not entered
deeply into Chinese calculations. Freedom is indeed a marked feature of
Chinese social life; some small sacrifices in the cause of order would
probably enhance rather than diminish the great privileges now enjoyed.
A few points are of importance in the social etiquette of indoor life,
and should not be lightly ignored by the foreigner, who, on the other
hand, would be wise not to attempt to substitute altogether Chinese
forms and ceremonies for his own. Thus, no Chinaman, and, it may be
added, no European who knows how to behave, fails to rise from his chair
on the entrance of a visitor; and it is further the duty of a host to
see that his visitor is actually seated before he sits down himself.
It is extremely impolite to precede a visitor, as in passing through a
door; and on parting, it is usual to escort him to the front entrance.
He must be placed on the left of the host, this having been the post of
honour for several centuries, previous to which it was the seat to the
right of the host, as with us, to which the visitor was assigned. At
such interviews it would not be correct to allude to wives, who are no
more to be mentioned than were the queen of Spain's legs.
One singular custom in connection with visits, official and otherwise,
ignorance of which has led on many occasions to an awkward moment, is
the service of what is called "guest-tea." At his reception by the host
every visitor is at once supplied with a cup of tea. The servant brings
two cups, one in each hand, and so manages that the cup in his left hand
is set down before the guest, who faces him on his right hand, while
that for his master is carried across and set down in an exactly
opposite sense. The tea-cups are so handed, as it were with crossed
hands, even when the host, as an extra mark of politeness, receives that
intended for his visitor, and himself places it on the table, in this
case being careful to use _both_ hands, it being considered extremely
impolite to offer anything with one hand only employed. Now comes the
point of the "guest-tea," which, as will be seen, it is quite worth
while to remember. Shortly after the beginning of the interview, an
unwary foreigner, as indeed has often been the case, perhaps because
he is thirsty, or because he may think it polite to take a sip of the
fragrant drink which has been so kindly provided for him, will raise
the cup to his lips. Almost instantaneously he will hear a loud shout
outside, and become aware that the scene is changing rapidly for no very
evident reason--only too evident, however, to the surrounding Chinese
servants, who know it to be their own custom that so soon as a visitor
tastes his "guest-tea," it is a signal that he wishes to leave, and that
the interview is at an end. The noise is simply a bawling summons to get
ready his sedan-chair, and the scurrying of his coolies to be in their
places when wanted. There is another side to this quaint custom, which
is often of inestimable advantage to a busy man. A host, who feels that
everything necessary has been said, and wishes to free himself from
further attendance, may grasp his own cup and invite his guest to drink.
The same results follow, and the guest has no alternative but to rise
and take his leave. In ancient days visitors left their shoes outside
the front door, a custom which is still practised by the Japanese, the
whole of whose civilization--this cannot be too strongly emphasized--was
borrowed originally from China.
It is considered polite to remove spectacles during an interview, or
even when meeting in the street; though as this rather unreasonable
rule has been steadily ignored by foreigners, chiefly, no doubt, from
unacquaintance with it, the Chinese themselves make no attempt to
observe it so far as foreigners are concerned. In like manner, it is
most unbecoming for any "read-book man," no matter how miserably poor he
is, to receive a stranger, or be seen himself abroad, in short clothes;
but this rule, too, is often relaxed in the presence of foreigners, who
wear short clothes themselves. Honest poverty is no crime in China,
nor is it in any way regarded as cause for shame; it is even more amply
redeemed by scholarship than is the case in Western countries. A man
who has gained a degree moves on a different level from the crowd around
him, so profound is the respect shown to learning. If a foreigner can
speak Chinese intelligibly, his character as a barbarian begins to be
perceptibly modified; and if to the knack of speech he adds a tolerable
acquaintance with the sacred characters which form the written language,
he becomes transfigured, as one in whom the influence of the holy men of
old is beginning to prevail over savagery and ignorance.
It is not without reason that the term "sacred" is applied above to the
written words or characters. The Chinese, recognizing the extraordinary
results which have been brought about, silently and invisibly, by
the operation of written symbols, have gradually come to invest these
symbols with a spirituality arousing a feeling somewhat akin to worship.
A piece of paper on which a single word has once been written or
printed, becomes something other than paper with a black mark on it.
It may not be lightly tossed about, still less trampled underfoot; it
should be reverently destroyed by fire, here again used as a medium of
transmission to the great Beyond; and thus its spiritual essence will
return to those from whom it originally came. In the streets of a
Chinese city, and occasionally along a frequented highroad, may be seen
small ornamental structures into which odd bits of paper may be thrown
and burnt, thus preventing a desecration so painful to the Chinese mind;
and it has often been urged against foreigners that because they are
so careless as to what becomes of their written and printed paper, the
matter contained in foreign documents and books must obviously be of no
great value. It is even considered criminal to use printed matter for
stiffening the covers or strengthening the folded leaves of books; still
more so, to employ it in the manufacture of soles for boots and shoes,
though in such cases as these the weakness of human nature usually
carries the day. Still, from the point of view of the Taoist faith, the
risk is too serious to be overlooked. In the sixth of the ten Courts of
Purgatory, through one or more of which sinners must pass after death in
order to expiate their crimes on earth, provision is made for those who
"scrape the gilding from the outside of images, take holy names in vain,
show no respect for written paper, throw down dirt and rubbish near
pagodas and temples, have in their possession blasphemous or obscene
books and do not destroy them, obliterate or tear books which teach man
to be good," etc., etc.
In this, the sixth Court, presided over, like all the others, by a
judge, and furnished with all the necessary means and appliances for
carrying out the sentences, there are sixteen different wards where
different punishments are applied according to the gravity of the
offence. The wicked shade may be sentenced to kneel for long periods on
iron shot, or to be placed up to the neck in filth, or pounded till the
blood runs out, or to have the mouth forced open with iron pincers and
filled with needles, or to be bitten by rats, or nipped by locusts while
in a net of thorns, or have the heart scratched, or be chopped in two
at the waist, or have the skin of the body torn off and rolled up into
spills for lighting pipes, etc. Similar punishments are awarded for
other crimes; and these are to be seen depicted on the walls of the
municipal temple, to be found in every large city, and appropriately
named the Chamber of Horrors. It is doubtful if such ghastly
representations of what is to be expected in the next world have really
any deterrent effect upon even the most illiterate of the masses;
certainly not so long as health is present and things are generally
going well. "The devil a monk" will any Chinaman be when the conditions
of life are satisfactory to him.
As has already been stated, his temperament is not a religious one; and
even the seductions and threats of Buddhism leave him to a great extent
unmoved. He is perhaps chiefly influenced by the Buddhist menace of
rebirth, possibly as a woman, or worse still as an animal. Belief
in such a contingency may act as a mild deterrent under a variety of
circumstances; it certainly tends to soften his treatment of domestic
animals. Not only because he may some day become one himself, but also
because among the mules or donkeys which he has to coerce through long
spells of exhausting toil, he may be unwittingly belabouring some friend
or acquaintance, or even a member of his own particular family. This
belief in rebirth is greatly strengthened by a large number of recorded
instances of persons who could recall events which had happened in their
own previous state of existence, and whose statements were capable of
verification. Occasionally, people would accurately describe places and
buildings which they could not have visited, while many would entertain
a dim consciousness of scenes, sights and sounds, which seemed to belong
to some other than the present life. There is a record of one man who
could remember having been a horse, and who vividly recalled the pain he
had suffered when riders dug their knees hard into his sides. This, too,
in spite of the administration in Purgatory of a cup of forgetfulness,
specially designed to prevent in those about to reborn any remembrance
of life during a previous birth.
After all, the most awful punishment inflicted in Purgatory upon sinners
is one which, being purely mental, may not appeal so powerfully to the
masses as the coarse tortures mentioned above. In the fifth Court, the
souls of the wicked are taken to a terrace from which they can hear and
see what goes on in their old homes after their own deaths. "They see
their last wishes disregarded, and their instructions disobeyed. The
property they scraped together with so much trouble is dissipated and
gone. The husband thinks of taking another wife; the widow meditates
second nuptials. Strangers are in possession of the old estate; there
is nothing to divide amongst the children. Debts long since paid are
brought again for settlement, and the survivors are called upon to
acknowledge false claims upon the departed. Debts owed are lost for want
of evidence, with endless recriminations, abuse, and general confusion,
all of which falls upon the three families--father's, mother's, and
wife's--connected with the deceased. These in their anger speak ill of
him that is gone. He sees his children become corrupt, and friends
fall away. Some, perhaps, may stroke the coffin and let fall a tear,
departing quickly with a cold smile. Worse than that, the wife sees her
husband tortured in gaol; the husband sees his wife a victim to some
horrible disease, lands gone, houses destroyed by flood or fire, and
everything in an unutterable plight--the reward of former sins."
Confucius declined absolutely to discuss the supernatural in any form
or shape, his one object being to improve human conduct in this life,
without attempting to probe that state from which man is divided by
death. At the same time, he was no scoffer; for although he declared
that "the study of the supernatural is injurious indeed," and somewhat
cynically bade his followers "show respect to spiritual beings, but keep
them at a distance," yet in another passage we read: "He who offends
against God has no one to whom he can pray." Again, when he was
seriously ill, a disciple asked if he might offer up prayer. Confucius
demurred to this, pointing out that he himself had been praying for a
considerable period; meaning thereby that his life had been one long
prayer.