[Illustration: NORTHERN CHINA and SURROUNDINGS Scale Approximately 212
Miles to an inch]
[Illustration]
CHINA
TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS
CHINA
A Geographical Reader
BY
HARRY A. FRANCK
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS, LARGELY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
F.A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
DANSVILLE, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1927
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Travels in Many Lands—China_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHERS’ FOREWORD
The very best way to give boys and girls a clear idea of just what life
is to their brothers and sisters of other lands is to take them through
those lands. If they cannot go in person (and of course few can), a
well-written story of travel will be a valuable substitute for personal
experience.
To be of educational value to the reader, a book of travel must first of
all be authentic. It must have been written by one who knows at first
hand the things about which he writes. A superficial knowledge gained by
flitting through a country along its main traveled routes is not
sufficient to enable a writer to tell a complete story about it.
Among the notable travelers of our time, probably none has more
thoroughly covered many countries than Harry A. Franck, the author of
this book. His travels have not been mere sight-seeing tours. He has
gone into the out-of-the-way places and lived in the homes of the common
people, to study their habits and manner of living. He has visited their
temples and schools. He has learned something of their language and
talked with them on all manner of subjects so as to become familiar with
their views of life.
From boyhood, Harry Franck had a desire to know about the great outside
world. In 1900, during his first summer vacation while attending the
University of Michigan, he set out, with only $3.18 in his pocket, to
see something of Europe. He worked his way across the ocean on a
cattle-boat, visited the principal cities of England, then Paris and the
Exposition that was being held there. He signed as an able seaman for
the return trip and reached Ann Arbor for the fall term, only two weeks
late.
Mr. Franck worked his way through college and intended to make teaching
his profession, but that first European trip gave him an appetite for
more travel. When he was graduated, he started out, with only enough
money to buy supplies for his camera, to work his way around the
world—which he did in sixteen months. After this trip he wrote “A
Vagabond Journey Around the World,” which is regarded as one of the most
remarkable books of the kind ever published. Since then he has written
many other volumes telling of his experiences.
During more than twenty years of travel, Mr. Franck has covered half a
hundred countries. He has journeyed 50,000 miles on foot and at least an
equal distance by primitive native methods. In gathering material for
this volume and for “The Japanese Empire” (in the same series), he
traveled for two and a half years through the Far East. He often endured
hardship and faced danger to give the world the truth about the Oriental
lands.
This book may be given to children as supplementary geographical reading
with the assurance that it is based on actual facts verified by recent
travel. The world to-day is not what it was even a decade ago.
Conditions, customs, the very people themselves have changed; some
greatly, some slightly. A book of this kind, to be really helpful, must
reflect these changes. It is no less true, however, that a book of this
kind should be concerned chiefly with those characteristics and aspects
of a country and its people which have an element of permanence. For
this reason, the history and perplexing political problems of China are
merely touched upon by Mr. Franck. To do more would be outside the scope
of a geographical reader.
Mr. Franck carries equipment for obtaining the best possible pictures.
Most of the illustrations in this volume are from photographs taken by
him personally, often under conditions that involved difficulty and
sometimes peril.
As children read about the land of China, we feel confident that they
will be impressed with the fact that the people of the whole world are
one great family; that what affects one nation affects all nations to a
greater or less extent. They will realize that while certain lands may
seem “backward” to us who enjoy the conveniences of Western
civilization, we are indebted to them for many things that have made our
civilization possible. For example, the compass, which was essential to
the development of navigation and which, as improved by the Italians,
enabled Columbus to make his great voyage of discovery, was invented by
the Chinese nearly 4000 years ago. Children, like adults, must be led to
see that people everywhere have their virtues and ambitions, their
trials and hardships, and that the misfortune or the prosperity of one
country is reflected in other countries far away.
Knowledge of these facts should prompt us to work for the peace and
well-being of all peoples, particularly through the channel of our
schools. In this connection, Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education for
Massachusetts, has aptly said: “Education in all lands should lead the
youth to recognize those interests which are common to humankind, to
magnify the virtues which all men hold in common, to minimize those
differences and distinctions which divide, and to interpret the history
of race and nation in those terms that are helpful to world progress as
well as to national self-respect.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the Century Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Franck’s
“Wandering in Northern China” and “Roving Through Southern China,”
grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use certain of the
author’s photographs which first appeared in one or the other of those
volumes. The illustrations referred to are on the following pages of
this book: 30, 36 (lower), 40, 46, 49, 53, 63, 66, 68, 72, 74, 78, 84,
85, 86, 90, 98, 108, 125, 127, 128, 137, 144, 156, 163, 164, 166, 181,
198, 201, 206, 209, 211, 216, 228, 232, 236, 238.
To the Chinese Consul-General, New York, who gave the proofs of
“China” a critical reading, both the author and the publishers are
indebted for suggestions and comments.
To Miss Lena M. Franck, the author’s sister, who, as an experienced
teacher, was able to give valuable advice, an expression of
appreciation is due.
[Illustration:
Area of “China proper” (east and south of heavy line) contrasted with
that of the ancient Chinese Empire which included also Manchuria,
Mongolia, Sinkiang, and Tibet.
]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I CHINA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD 11
II MANCHURIA, THE EASTERN THREE PROVINCES 21
III THROUGH THE GREAT WALL TO PEKING 34
IV OUR HOME IN PEKING 45
V SOME QUEER CHINESE CUSTOMS 58
VI ACROSS MONGOLIA TO URGA 70
VII SHANTUNG, LAND OF CONFUCIUS 81
VIII THROUGH THE HEART OF OLD CHINA 93
IX THE GREAT MOHAMMEDAN PROVINCE 104
X WHERE THE FISH WAGGED ITS TAIL 116
XI CHINA HAS HER OWN WAYS 129
XII THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLS 141
XIII FOREIGNERS IN CHINA 151
XIV ALONG THE GREAT YANG-TZE KIANG 159
XV DIFFICULT JOURNEYS 175
XVI DOWN THE SOUTHERN COAST 191
XVII IN THE PROVINCE OF KWANGTUNG 203
XVIII A SUMMER IN SOUTHWESTERN CHINA 215
XIX AMONG THE PRIMITIVE TRIBES 227
XX SZECHUAN, LARGEST OF PROVINCES 241
PRONUNCIATION LIST 253
MAPS
THE OLD CHINESE EMPIRE AND PRESENT-DAY CHINA 8
NORTHERN CHINA AND SURROUNDINGS Inside Front Cover
SOUTHERN CHINA AND SURROUNDINGS Inside Back Cover
[Illustration:
Keystone View Co., Inc., of N. Y.
The Chinese came very near inventing the skyscraper when they built
the first pagoda of this sort. One sees a great many of them in
China. They have either six or eight sides, and are always an odd
number of stories in height, up to thirteen. Often, as here, they
have graceful veranda roofs. Pagodas are religious structures, and
in form resemble somewhat the Christian spire and the Mohammedan
minaret.
]
CHINA
CHAPTER I
CHINA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD
China is the oldest living member of the family of nations. It is the
country in which conditions to-day are most nearly like what they were
thousands of years ago. The long journey we are about to make through
all parts of it will be like going to a great museum. But this museum,
instead of containing the relics of people long dead, will look, for the
most part, as if it were being lived in by an ancient race. Here and
there, however, we shall see things that make us think of our Western
civilization.
It seems hardly necessary to tell anyone where China is, or to say that
the Chinese make up nearly one-fifth of the whole human race. You
probably know that China occupies most of eastern Asia between Russian
Siberia and the Pacific Ocean, or the China Sea, and that its climate
ranges all the way from that of Canada to that of Florida.
Doubtless you know, also, that politically China is no longer an empire,
as it was for thousands of years. Since 1911 it has been a republic, in
name at least. This republic has not quite the same area as the empire
had, for after the revolution which changed the form of government,
several parts of the vast territory declared their independence. Even in
what we may call China proper, different war lords rule in different
regions and there is a great deal of confusion. Of course all the most
intelligent and patriotic Chinese hope that this condition is only
temporary.
Less than half the great territory that was once ruled over by the
Chinese Emperor (called the Son of Heaven by his people) is in China
proper. The rest of it consists of the great dependencies or colonies of
old China, almost all of which have now declared, or at least act as if
they had declared, their independence. Of them all Manchuria is the most
like China itself. The enormous lands of Mongolia, Sinkiang or Chinese
Turkestan, and Tibet are not Chinese any more than are the people who
inhabit them, but have very different soil and climate as well as
manners and customs. We shall find these former parts of the Chinese
Empire very thinly settled, some with hardly two persons to the square
mile, while in China proper there are as many as 675 people to the
square mile.
During our travels through the eighteen provinces of China proper and
most of its former dependencies, we shall see that the Chinese have
their own ways, which in many respects are quite different from our
ways. Yet if we pause to think as we read, we shall discover that they
(and all the rest of mankind for that matter) are at bottom much like
us. We shall find that every people’s outward peculiarities are mainly
the result of a particular environment, of climate, soil, opportunities,
and the like. We shall see how absurd it is to look down upon the
Chinese, who have adjusted themselves to their environment more
successfully than almost any of us. Is it not proof enough of this that
China is still a nation thousands of years after the disappearance of
its sister nations, Babylonia and Assyria?
Recent History in China
[Illustration:
Chinese ladies of wealth and position, showing examples of the
beautiful embroidery for which this people is famous.
]
Yet there are now many people who fear that China also is going to
disappear as a nation. In order to understand that point of view, we
shall have to look a little into recent Chinese history. For nearly
three hundred and fifty years China was under the rule of the Manchus,
who were really not Chinese at all, though gradually they came to seem
almost the same. It was against the Manchu emperor and the many less
powerful Manchu rulers under him that the Chinese revolted in 1911.
But though a republican form of government may seem natural to us, who
have been used to one for many generations, it was not a simple thing
for the Chinese suddenly to change so completely. Under their Manchu
emperors only a small proportion of the Chinese had ever learned to read
and write. They had never had the right to vote and had known little of
what their central government was doing. They had not had newspapers and
magazines to keep them informed. Millions of them, living far from
Peking, the capital, and without education, had gained no real idea of
what government means. They had had to pay taxes every year or oftener
to someone who said he was collecting them for the government, and each
one saw the elders of his own village attending to its affairs. Perhaps
they were sometimes taken before a mandarin sent out from Peking, to be
tried for some crime or misdemeanor. But that was all that the great
mass of Chinese knew about government.
We in America are great believers in education. In China there are
increasing numbers of men, many of whom have attended American colleges,
who realize that until the masses of the people learn to read and write,
at least, they cannot be expected to have intelligent ideas about
government. One Chinese, who is a graduate of Yale University, is a
leader in the movement for education of his countrymen, and he is
attempting to do away with illiteracy in one generation by means of a
simplified written language. Later on I shall tell more about language
difficulties in China, and more about the educational system in that
country. We can always be proud that the United States has done much to
bring educational advantages to the Chinese through the Boxer Indemnity
Fund. This fund consists of money which was due to the United States
from China because of lives lost and property damaged in the Boxer
Rebellion of 1900. Instead of using the money, our government turned it
back to China as a fund to establish Tsing-hwa University near Peking
and to bring promising Chinese students to America to be educated in our
colleges and universities.
[Illustration:
A screen in the palace of the late Empress Dowager in Peking is an
example of the wonderful artistic creations of the Chinese.
]
Naturally enough, the Chinese did not know how to elect a president and
a parliament and all the other officials that are needed to run a
republican form of government. It was natural also that men who wanted
to have important government offices found ways to get them without
being elected. One of the favorite ways was to collect a private army
and start ruling over a certain city or county or province, whether the
people liked it or not. A Chinese who had been one of the chief generals
of the Manchu emperor began to send out men of his own choosing to
govern the different parts of the country. Although he had been elected
president by a parliament or congress (which he had largely chosen
himself) even he had only a vague idea of what a republic is, and
finally he tried to make himself emperor and establish a new dynasty.
But there were too many other men who wished to obtain good positions
for themselves under this new Western form of government. Some of them
were subordinates of the president, and they knew that if he made
himself emperor their own chances of some day becoming president or
anything else of importance would be slight. So they opposed the
founding of a new dynasty, and the president who wished to be emperor
died in 1917 without having placed his family on the throne.
After he was gone, and there was no strong man left in the central
government at Peking, many of the military governors of provinces and
even local officials which this president had appointed, became
independent. They had their own soldiers, and the people could do
nothing against them. For thousands of years the Chinese have been used
to being ruled by force, without having anything to say in the matter,
so most of them cannot see why they should be expected to take any part
in governing their country.
How China Is Governed
This is what makes many people think that perhaps China as a nation, the
oldest nation on earth, is going to disappear. Since the revolution of
1911 nearly all its great dependencies have become practically
independent. Many men, under the name of _tuchun_, or marshal, or
general, and so on, have made themselves dictators over different parts
of China proper. Some of them are entirely independent of the central
government at Peking. Some only obey the orders of Peking when they wish
to do so. China no longer has a genuine central government. There is no
Chinese army, though there are millions of Chinese soldiers. Each
different ruler of different parts of the country has his own army,
which obeys him only. As we travel about this ancient country we shall
find that it seems like a collection of independent provinces or still
smaller divisions. Sometimes we shall find a single city divided between
two different generals.
Many of these rulers with their own armies are very selfish men, who
keep for themselves as much as possible of the money they gather in
taxes. Some of them are constantly fighting among themselves, trying to
drive one another out and take more territory for themselves. Things in
China to-day are much as they would be in the United States if each of
our generals and colonels took the division or the regiment he has under
him and ruled the part of the country he is stationed in, without paying
any attention to orders from Washington.
[Illustration:
Manchu women decorated for a holiday. Their headdresses are especially
elaborate, but they also use white and bright red paint (rouge) on
their faces when they dress up.
]
It will probably be some time before we know whether China is going to
break up into a number of small countries or remain the great nation it
has been for thousands of years. Some people think one of the marshals
or generals will finally conquer all the others and make himself
president or emperor of the whole country. Others fear that outside
nations may have to step in to establish order in China. Still other
people hope that the Chinese people themselves will be able sooner or
later to straighten out their own affairs, as they have done several
times before during their long existence.
While all this misgoverning goes on in China, the Chinese remain
hard-working and cheerful, as they have so long been. The civil wars
among the various generals in different parts of the country make life
very unpleasant for the people. Before our travels are finished, I am
sure you will decide that the Chinese deserve a much better government
than they now have. Almost all foreigners who live among them find them
very likable, though of course they have their faults, just as Americans
and all other peoples have.
[Illustration:
One reason why there is not a larger sale for American farm implements
in China is that in many parts of the country the farmers _raise_
their own pitchforks and other tools by binding small growing trees
into the desired shapes.
]
You may be surprised, as I was, that we can travel almost anywhere we
wish, in all the eighteen provinces, even while many civil wars are
going on. A few foreigners have been killed and a number have been
robbed in China during the past few years. But when I show you how I
traveled in all parts of the country, often entirely alone, and through
many out-of-the-way regions, without ever being hurt or robbed, you will
probably decide that the Chinese are pretty good people after all. When
I tell you also that my mother and my wife, with our two small children,
went anywhere they wished, even late at night, in many of the great
cities of China, while rival generals were fighting within or outside
the walls, you will certainly admit that the Chinese are our brothers
under their yellow skins.
[Illustration:
A soap factory in Mukden, Manchuria, where the cakes laid out to dry
are all bright yellow in color. It is hardly the sort of soap that
we would care to use on our skin.
]