_Last stages of long journey_. _Characteristics of the country_. _Sham
and Kachins_. _Author's dream of civilization_. _British pride_. _End of
paved roads_. _Mountains cease_. _A confession of foiled plans_.
_Nantien as a questionable fort_. _About the Shans_. _Village squabble,
and how it ended_. _Absence of disagreement in Shan language_. _Charming
people, but lazy_. _Experience with Shan servant_. _At Chiu-Ch'eng_.
_New Year festivities_. _After-dinner diversions_. _Author as a medico_.
_Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances_.
The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which
makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens
the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing
characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.
By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long
walking journey:--
Length Height
of Stage Above Sea
1st day--Nantien 90 li. 5,300 ft.
2nd day--Chiu-Ch'eng
(Kang-gnai) 80 li. ---
4th day--Hsiao Singai 60 li. ---
5th day--Manyüen 60 li. 2,750 ft.
6th day--Pa-chiao-chai | Approx. 1,200 ft.
7th day--Mao-tsao-ti | 55 English 650 ft.
8th day--Bhamo (Singai) | miles. 350 ft.
Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn
to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is
therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march
from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers
to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any
other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman,
daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going
for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the
dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving
Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible
patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the
Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The
benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and
have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and
accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to
be able fully to realize what the luxurious dâk-bungalows, with their
excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.
Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and
constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no
hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps
of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical
jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the
knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well
had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I
should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China
Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the
opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode
a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with
such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the
language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you
would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and
rode to Chiu-Ch'eng--two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest
under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry
indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.
But it was not to be for long.
Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward
military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is
populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now
live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some
tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the
man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them,
especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow
complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less
distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton
turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables
one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built
and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy,
healthy set of people.
Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble
outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to
prove the rule.
It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize
that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men,
and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who
looked on had a few words to say to these "Pai Yi"[BD] on the futility of
these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a
foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the
whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my
infallible "Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong" (I don't understand, I
don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the
Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with
every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could
not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the
dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with
me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower
of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a
boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the
infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I
gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped,
expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could
I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness
of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and
laughed, too. I yelled "Ts'eo," and we proceeded, leaving the Shans
again at peace with all the world.
Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the
borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in
all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Yün-nan tribesman in
that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the
Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to
Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the
whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the
same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a
Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry
on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of,
hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred
years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have
had no real political or commercial relation with each other.[BE]
I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating
strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they
are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found
varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an
exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese--notably in the
preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for
the general benefit of future travelers. _Never expect a Shan to work
hard!_ He _can_ work hard, and he will--when he likes, but I do not
believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther
south, is lazier.
As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose
Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a
man to come. "Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored." And the
European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should
want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be
to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on
the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a
large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to
work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters
still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he
objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could
not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at
1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He
left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery,
and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he
would require as salary, he replied, "Oh, give me a rupee every market
day, and that'll do me." The person was not in service when market day
rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of
this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.
Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as
I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.
I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to
career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous
indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the
village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility
led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several
women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the
village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed
through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway,
primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo
baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy,
old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers
of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of
wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three
old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and
last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up,
an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New
Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of
gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his
very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with
mine host and his six sons.
Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air--the
tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the
hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace--Shan almost
to a man--were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the
gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were
several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed
away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to
harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.
My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.
There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed
by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught
sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that
even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a
long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke,
then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way
to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to
close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man.
Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the
family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own
tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole
gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all.
There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged
couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed,
on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies,
seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly.
The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off
gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot
motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one
another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily
intensified. The husband of one of the women--a miserable, emaciated
specimen for a Shan--came forward, asking whether I could cure his
disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body
was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese
paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of
black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing
it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings,
whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the
door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.
The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
and make them better; but never a word of thanks--not even the mere
pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote BD: The Chinese name for the Shan.]
[Footnote BE: Vide _Yün-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,_ by
Major H.R. Davies.--Cambridge University Press.]