A SUMMER IN SOUTHWESTERN CHINA
Not one foreigner among a thousand who come to China ever travels into
the part of it we are now going to visit. Yet the least known parts of
many a country are often the most interesting. It would have been better
to have turned my travels about, and gone to Kansu in the summer and to
the other two great western provinces of Yunnan and Szechuan south of it
in the winter. But we cannot always arrange things exactly right in
traveling any more than in the other affairs of life.
The usual way to Yunnanfu now is by the railway from Haiphong, chief
northern port of the French colony of Indo-China. The trip takes three
days, but to go in any other way would take at least that many weeks.
The narrow-gauge railway, built by the French, is one of the most
remarkable pieces of engineering in the world, and the scenery along the
last two thirds of the way is magnificent. The trains do not run at
night, so the passengers have to go to hotels. The first night is spent
in the Indo-Chinese border town of Laokay and the second in the Chinese
town of Amichow.
Almost as soon as we had crossed the frontier again into China the
second morning, we began to climb up into rather bare mountains. The
train dashed from one tunnel into another, passing over many a
steel-arch bridge high above roaring mountain torrents. Sometimes the
engine and the last car came so close together that the train reminded
us of a kitten chasing its own tail. Once we were three hours making our
way in a horseshoe curve between two towns that were only a few miles
apart across a gorge. All the time beautiful mountain scenery surrounded
us. At two or three points the railway is more than a mile and a half
above sea-level. There is a saying that as many coolies lost their lives
in building that railroad as there are ties along it.
[Illustration:
The Chinese may not know what a picnic is, but they often eat outdoors
in such a makeshift restaurant as this. These people under the big
umbrella are having a meal just inside the city wall of Yunnanfu,
lofty capital of Yunnan Province.
]
A City in the Clouds
At last we came out high above a great blue lake and descended into the
capital of Yunnan Province. Though it is as far south as our Palm Beach,
this place is a favorite summer resort for the French of Indo-China,
because it stands six thousand feet above the ocean. Of course the older
part of it is walled, but the governor who has ruled it since the
revolution has cut conveniently wide openings in place of some of the
old gates, and has made a few good straight streets, well paved with
stone. Most of the streets are still narrow, and covered with
cobblestones worn so smooth that the least rain makes them as slippery
as ice.
Yunnanfu shows many queer contrasts. The new university owns some big
modern buildings, including laboratories and dormitories, and an
athletic field. Several of the professors were educated in Kansas. On
the other hand, the street cleaning is done by ragged and almost naked
prisoners, with great irons clanking on their legs. Many of the shops
are so shallow that customers have to stand in the street lined up along
the shop’s counter. Street-stands have rows of tin basins and towels for
those who wish to bathe, and combs and brushes are for rent.
Good and Evil Dragons
One day the governor came to the dedication of a new wing of the British
Mission hospital. He wore the long silk robes of the Chinese gentleman,
but had on his head an ordinary stiff straw hat. This, we fancied, was
the result of his Japanese training, which had given him many of his
modern ideas of governing. The people of Yunnanfu are so superstitious
that when a fire broke out near one of the governor’s new openings in
the city wall, they said he must have angered the spirits by cutting
into the wall. Claiming that this same action was to be blamed for a
great drouth, they paraded through the streets carrying the rain dragon
from one of the temples, and everyone threw water on it. They painted
out the sun god on the city gates and painted the rain dragon in its
place. They also dressed up a dog in the queerest costume they could
find and led him about town, while everyone laughed loudly at him; for
an old Chinese proverb says that if you laugh at a dog rain will come.
Sure enough, finally it did rain, but now so much water fell that crops
were drowned out, the railroad was broken in a dozen places, and the
whole city was in danger of being flooded. So the people decided that
they had prayed too hard for rain, and began to pray for it to stop.
They painted out the rain dragon and painted in the sun again. They
closed the northern gate, because they thought wicked spirits were
sending in the rain that way. Anyone living outside the north wall had
to walk a long way around every time he entered the city. At last the
rain stopped and the people were sure their gods had answered them.
Away on a Thousand-Mile Trip
It was during the first rains that I started on a thousand-mile trip to
the capital of the next province and beyond. Both the American consul
and the Chinese governor refused to let my family go with me. They said
it was too dangerous. But I was allowed to go myself, if I would let the
authorities send a military guard to protect me along the way.
[Illustration:
This blind girl, whose feet were bound, was carried for a week along
the trail that we took north from Yunnanfu. Her home was two hundred
miles inland.
]
The American agents of some of our big corporations doing business in
China sometimes have as many as five hundred soldiers with them on a
journey through Yunnan. I had visions of having to pay much more than I
could afford for the trip, for while the government pays the soldiers
their regular two or three dollars a month, the man they escort is
expected to give each of them at least ten cents every day. Suppose you
spent five hundred dimes a day for a month, how much less money would
you have at the end of that time?
Fortunately for me, the governor did not think that I was a very
important person. When I was ready to start only four soldiers were sent
to accompany me! Every day or two along the way other soldiers would
take their places. Sometimes there would be only one man, without even a
gun. Those who had guns did not always have cartridges. Once a soldier’s
rifle began dropping apart and he borrowed string from me to tie it
together! Perhaps my guard expected to scare the bandits, if we met any,
without firing a shot.
I took a horse with me on that trip, though I intended to walk a great
deal. In fact I often had to walk, for in many places the trail was so
bad that I could not ride. Yet I was following an ancient and important
highway between two of the three great provincial capitals of western
China. I had a servant, named Yang Chi-ting, who cooked very good
American meals, and did any other work I needed done along the way. He
walked all the time, until I was able to buy a horse for him nearly five
hundred miles north. Although his wages were only five dollars a month
(and he bought his own food), that was so much in Yunnan that along the
way I often heard him boasting of his high wages, and the people gasped
with astonishment when they found how much he got. A more faithful and
harder-working servant it would be very difficult to find anywhere. By
this time I had learned enough Chinese so that I could often have long
talks with Yang and for weeks at a time I did not speak a word of
English, unless it was to myself.
Opium Smokers
At the start I had four coolies to carry my baggage and supplies. Two
were enough on the last part of the trip. The coolies all smoked opium,
as do many people of Yunnan. The poppies from which opium is made grow
there profusely. Every morning I had hard work getting my carriers
started early, because they must smoke opium first and then eat
breakfast. If they did not eat after smoking, they would fall sick along
the way. When we stopped at noon they would lie down on the earth floor
of some hut and smoke again, and at night they would smoke for hours.
This dreadful habit finally makes wrecks of those who indulge in it. Yet
those coolies could carry a hundred pounds each, over terrible mountain
roads, for twenty-five or thirty miles a day.
Sometimes the trail was like a deep ditch full of stones, in which we
waded and slipped and sprawled. At other times it was as steep as the
roof of a church. Once we passed a caravan of more than two thousand
pack-mules, carrying opium and silver money. We were three days getting
past it. With it were many soldiers and rich men or officials riding in
sedan-chairs, carried by poor coolies who looked like worn-out horses.
Some day perhaps there will be a railroad through that part of the
world, and then all such freight and passengers will go by train. But
now the Chinese toil along just as their ancestors did a thousand years
ago, stopping each night in mud hovels where there is nothing but the
earth floor to sleep on, unless they have brought bedding with them.
Mountain Scenes
All the Chinese women along the way had bound feet. When they had to
walk in the mud they used little wooden sandals that looked like a
horse’s hoofs. In this mountainous province many of the people are so
poor that their clothing is nothing but rags. We saw children eating
cornstalks. Yunnan grows much corn and many potatoes, though it is so
far south that the potatoes at least would not grow at all if most of
the province were not higher than Denver. The majority of Chinese have
never heard of potatoes. Even in Yunnan they are called “foreign
vegetables.” In other parts of China people will not eat potatoes if
they can get anything else, and even the Yunnanese much prefer rice. But
most of them cannot afford it.
Among the places we stopped at for the night were Ta Pan Chiao, which
means Big Plank Bridge, and Hong Shih Ai, or Red Stone Cliff. As I have
said before, though Chinese names look and sound queer to us, their
mystery vanishes when we find what they mean. The same is true of the
gaudy wooden signboards that stand before Chinese shops. In one large
city I saw a sign that had been turned into English, and it said “Happy
Heart Furniture Shop.” Most Chinese signs would be as simple as that if
we could read them.
One of Many Adventures
I must mention one of the many adventures that happened to me on that
Yunnan journey. It had been raining all day, and we had been slipping
and sliding along the side of a high mountain, almost as steep as the
wall of a house. Many streams without bridges crossed the trail; the
biggest roared down a great gorge. Still, there was nothing to do but
try to cross it, unless I wished to lie out on the mountain side all
night. After driving my horse in, I went higher up and crossed on some
rocks.
[Illustration:
From this you can get an idea of the terrible road that we traveled
over for weeks on the overland route between Yunnanfu and Chengtu,
capitals of the great southwestern provinces of China.
]
When I reached the other side no horse was to be seen. Coolies whom I
could not hear above the roar of the stream waved their arms and pointed
down the gorge. I looked, and was horrified to see only the head of my
poor horse, whirling around far down in the rapids. Not far beyond, the
gorge fell into a deep and swift river that later joins the Yang-tze. I
fancied that the carcass of my poor horse, with the saddle and the
several valuable things in the saddlebags and the coat I had tied on it,
would finally be washed out into the ocean at Shanghai, about a month
later.
But Chinese horses are hardy, just as the coolies are. Some men ran down
to the edge of the stream and managed to catch the horse by the head.
Finally they got its front feet up on a rock. Without even waiting to
reach solid earth again, the animal began calmly eating the grass it
could reach. Perhaps if it had fallen a few hundred feet farther it
would have been still more hungry. But I found later that its nerves had
been badly shaken. For two days after that it trembled at every tiny
stream and I had to walk all the way, though sometimes the road seemed
to be almost vertical for half a day at a time.
The Chinese Make Felt Rugs
I spent the Fourth of July in a city named Tungchuan, but I did not hear
a single firecracker. Not only was there not another American within
several hundred miles of me, there was not even a white man of any
nationality; and as it did not happen to be a Chinese holiday, no
Chinese were shooting off firecrackers. (By the way, do you know that
firecrackers are red because that is the Chinese color for happiness?)
Tungchuan makes vessels of copper and brass. They are pounded out by
hand on little anvils stuck in the ground, and turned on crude lathes
run by a foot lever. You have perhaps seen a grindstone run in that way.
But the greatest industry of Tungchuan is the making of felt rugs.
Chopped up sheep’s wool is rolled out into a kind of thick blanket, just
as the Mongols make the felt for their movable houses. Then flour paste
is daubed on it, in patterns of flowers, birds, and so forth, after
which it is soaked in vats of dye. The dye colors the parts that are not
covered with paste, and when that is scraped off the flowers or other
designs remain white. Most of the Tungchuan rugs are bright red. Often
we saw trains of pack-mules loaded with them struggling along the trail.
[Illustration:
In Tungchuan one of the chief industries is the making of felt rugs.
The decorative designs are painted on in flour paste so as to remain
white when the rest of the rug is dyed bright red or some other
color.
]
Money for Use of Ancestors
Thousands of towns in China are noted for making one or two particular
kinds of articles, which may not be made anywhere else. Other things are
made in many places, nearly always by the same crude methods. False
money to be burned at graves is one of these things. In almost every
town, boys stand at a great wooden block driving a hollow chisel into
big piles of rice-paper. Each sheet comes out looking as if it were a
sheet of brass “cash,” and the pious people buy the sheets in quantities
so that their ancestors will have money in the next world. We met many
coolies carrying enormous loads of this coarse paper. In other towns men
take bars of tin and pound them for days at a time to make sheets of
tinfoil. These are folded together to look like the “shoes” of silver
that are still used as money in some parts of China. Some of the
“shoes,” painted yellow to represent gold, are burned by the richer
people at the graves of their ancestors.
[Illustration:
The two sides of a Chinese “cash,” issued in the reign of the Manchu
Emperor Kwang-su. Kwang-su was on the throne from 1889 to 1908,
although the Empress Dowager was the real ruler.
]