stirred up by orders dissolving their associations, and by the
"mandates" criticising the Japanese boycott and telling what valuable
services the two men whose dismissal was demanded had rendered the
country. So they got busy--the students. They were also angered because
the industrial departments of two schools were ordered closed by the
police. In these departments the students had set about seeing what
things of Japanese importation could be replaced by hand labor without
waiting for capital. After they worked it out in the school they went
out to the shops and taught the people how to make them, and then
peddled them about, making speeches at the same time. Well, yesterday
when we went about we noticed that the students were speaking more than
usual, and while the streets were full of soldiers the students were not
interfered with; in the afternoon a procession of about a thousand
students was even escorted by the police. Then in the evening a
telephone came from the University that the tents around the University
buildings where the students were imprisoned had been struck and the
soldiers were all leaving. Then the students inside held a meeting and
passed a resolution asking the government whether they were guaranteed
freedom of speech, because if they were not, they would not leave the
building merely to be arrested again, as they planned to go on speaking.
So they embarrassed the government by remaining in "jail" all night. We
haven't heard to-day what has happened, but the streets are free of
soldiers, and there were no students talking anywhere we went, so I
fancy a truce has been arranged while they try and fix things up. The
government's ignominious surrender was partly due to the fact that the
places of detention were getting full and about twice as many students
spoke yesterday as the day before, when they arrested a thousand, and
the government for the first time realized that they couldn't bulldoze
the students; it was also partly due to the fact that the merchants in
Shanghai struck the day before yesterday, and there is talk that the
Peking merchants are organizing for the same purpose. This is, once
more, a strange country; the so-called republic is a joke; all it has
meant so far is that instead of the Emperor having a steady job, the job
of ruling and looting is passed around to the clique that grabs power.
One of the leading militarist party generals invited his dearest enemy
to breakfast a while ago--within the last few months--in Peking, and
then lined his guest against the wall and had him shot. Did this affect
his status? He is still doing business at the old stand. But in some
ways there is more democracy than we have; leaving out the women, there
is complete social equality, and while the legislature is a perfect
farce, public opinion, when it does express itself, as at the present
time, has remarkable influence. Some think the worst officials will now
resign and get out, others that the militarists will attempt a coup
d'etat and seize still more power rather than back down. Fortunately,
the latter seem to be divided at the present time. But all of the
student (and teacher) crowd are much afraid that even if the present
gang is thrown out, it will be only to replace them by another set just
as bad, so they are refraining from appealing to the army for help.
Later.--The students have now asked that the chief of police come
personally to escort them out and make an apology. In many ways, it
seems like an opera bouffe, but there is no doubt that up to date they
have shown more shrewdness and policy than the government, and are
getting the latter where it is a laughing stock, which is fatal in
China. But the government isn't inactive; they have appointed a new
Minister of Education and a new Chancellor of the University, both
respectable men, with no records and colorless characters. It is likely
the Faculty will decline to receive the new Chancellor unless he makes a
satisfactory declaration--which he obviously can't, and thus the row
will begin all over again, with the Faculty involved. If the government
dared, it would dissolve the University, but the scholar has a sacred
reputation in China.
June 7.
The whole story of the students is funny and not the least funny part is
that last Friday the students were speaking and parading with banners
and cheers and the police standing near them like guardian angels, no
one being arrested or molested. We heard that one student pouring out
hot eloquence was respectfully requested to move his audience along a
little for the reason that they were so numerous in statu quo as to
impede traffic, and the policeman would not like to be held responsible
for interfering with the traffic. Meantime, Saturday the government sent
an apology to the students who were still in prison of their own free
will waiting for the government to apologize and to give them the
assurance of free speech, etc. The students are said to have left the
building yesterday morning, though we have no accurate information. The
Faculty of the University met and refused to recognize or accept the new
Chancellor. They sent a committee to the government to tell them that,
and one to the Chancellor to tell him also and to ask him to resign. It
seems the newly-appointed Chancellor used to be at the head of the
engineering school of the University, but he was kicked out in the
political struggle. He is an official of the Yuan Shi Kai school and has
become a rich rubber merchant in Malay, and anyway they do not want a
mere rubber merchant as President of the University, and they think they
may so explain that to the new Chancellor that he will not look upon the
office as so attractive as he thought it was.
There is complete segregation in this city in all public gatherings, the
women at the theaters are put off in one of those real galleries such as
we think used to be and are not now. The place for the women in the hall
of the Board of Education is good enough and on one side facing the hall
so that all the men can look at them freely and so protect that famous
modesty which I have heard more of in China than for many years
previously.
Gasoline is one dollar a gallon here and a Ford car costs $1900. Ivory
soap five for one dollar. Clean your dress for $2.50. Tooth paste one
dollar a tube, vaseline 50 cents a small bottle. Washing three cents
each, including dresses and men's coats and shirts; fine cook ten
dollars a month. They have a very good one here, and I am going right on
getting fat on delicious Chinese food. The new Rockefeller Institute,
called the Union Medical College, is very near here, and they are making
beautiful buildings in the old Chinese style, to say nothing of their
Hygiene. They have just decided to open it to women, but I am rather
suspicious the requirements will prevent the women's using it at first.
Peking is still much of a capital city and is divided into the diplomats
and the missionaries. It seems there is not much lacking except the old
Dowager Empress to make up the old Peking.
PEKING, June 10.
The students have taken the trick and won the game at the present
moment--I decline to predict the morrow when it comes to China. Sunday
morning I lectured at the auditorium of the Board of Education and at
that time the officials there didn't know what had happened. But the
government sent what is called a pacification delegate to the
self-imprisoned students to say that the government recognized that it
had made a mistake and apologized. Consequently the students marched
triumphantly out, and yesterday their street meetings were bigger and
more enthusiastic than ever. The day before they had hooted at four
unofficial delegates who had asked them to please come out of jail, but
who hadn't apologized. But the biggest victory is that it is now
reported that the government will to-day issue a mandate dismissing the
three men who are always called traitors--yesterday they had got to the
point of offering to dismiss one, the one whose house was attacked by
the students on the fourth of May, but they were told that that wouldn't
be enough, so now they have surrendered still more. Whether this will
satisfy the striking merchants or whether they will make further
demands, having won the first round, doesn't yet appear. There are lots
of rumors, of course. One is that the backdown is not only due to the
strike of merchants, but to a fear that the soldiers could no longer be
counted upon. There was even a rumor that a regiment at Western Hills
was going to start for Peking to side with the students. Rumors are one
of China's strong suits. When you realize that we have been here less
than six weeks, you will have to admit that we have been seeing life.
For a country that is regarded at home as stagnant and unchanging, there
is certainly something doing.
This is the world's greatest kaleidoscope.
Wilson's Decoration Day Address has just been published; perhaps it
sounds academic at home, but over here Chinese at least regard it as
very practical--as, in fact, a definite threat. On the other hand, we
continue to get tales of how the Washington State Department has
declined to take the reports sent from here as authentic. Lately they
have had a number of special agents over here, more or less secret, to
get independent information.
In talking about democratic developments in America, whenever I make a
remark such as the Americans do not depend upon the government to do
things for them, but go ahead and do things for themselves, the response
is immediate and emphatic. The Chinese are socially a very democratic
people and their centralized government bores them.
June 16.
Chinesewise speaking, we are now having another lull. The three
"traitors" have had their resignations accepted, the cabinet is
undergoing reconstruction, the strike has been called off, both of
students and merchants (the railwaymen striking was the last straw), and
the mystery is what will happen next. There are evidences that the
extreme militarists are spitting on their hands to take hold in spite of
their defeat, and also that the President, who is said to be a moderate
and skillful politician, is nursing things along to get matters more and
more into his own hands. Although he issued a mandate against the
students and commending the traitors, the students' victory seems to
have strengthened him. I can't figure it out, but it is part of the
general beginning to read at the back of the book. The idea seems to be
that he has demonstrated the weakness of the militarists in the country,
while in sticking in form by them he has given them no excuse for
attacking him. They are attacking most everybody else in anonymous
circulars. One was got out signed "Thirteen hundred and fifty-eight
students," but giving no names, saying that the sole object of the
strike was to regain Tsingtao, but that a few men had tried to turn the
movement to their own ends, one wishing to be Chancellor of the
University.
PEKING, June 20.
Some time ago I had decided to tell you that here I had found the human
duplication of the bee colony in actual working order. China is it, and
in all particulars lives up to the perfect socialization of the race.
Nobody can do anything alone, nobody can do anything in a hurry. The
hunt of the bee for her cell goes on before one's eyes all the time.
When found, lo, the discovery that the cell was there all the time. Let
me give you an example.
We go to the art school for lectures, enter by a door at the end of a
long hall. Behind that hall is another large room and in back of the
second room somewhere is a place where the men make the tea. Near the
front door where we enter is the table where we are always asked to sit
down before and after the lecture, whereat we sit down to partake of tea
and other beverages, such as soda. Well, the teacups are kept in a
cabinet at the front end of the first room right near the entrance door.
Comes a grown man from the rear somewhere; silently and with stately
tread he walks across the long room to the cabinet, takes one teacup in
each hand and retreads the space towards the back. After sufficient time
he returns bearing in his two hands these cups filled with hot tea. He
puts these down on the table for us and then he takes two more cups from
the cabinet, and retires once more, returning later as before. When
bottles are opened they are brought near the table, because otherwise
the soda would be spoiled in carrying open, never to save steps.
The Chinese kitchen is always several feet from the dining room, under a
separate roof. Often you must cross a court in the open to get from one
to another. As it has not rained since we have been here, I do not know
what happens to the soup under the umbrella. But remember, the beehive
is the thing in China, and it is the old-fashioned beehive in the
barrel. When you look at the men who are doing it all they have the air
of strong, quiet beings who might do almost anything, but when you get
acquainted with them, how they do almost nothing is a marvelous
achievement. At Ching Hua College, said being the famous Boxer Indemnity
College, the houses are new and built by American initiative, and the
kitchen is forty feet from the dining room door in those. I will not
describe the kitchens, but when you see the clay stoves crumbling in
places, no sink, and one window on one side of the rather dark room, a
little room where the cook sleeps on a board and where both the men eat
their own frugal meals, it is all the Middle Ages undisturbed.
PEKING, June 20.
Last weekend we went out about ten miles to Ching Hua College; this is
the institution started with the returned Boxer Indemnity Fund; it's a
high school with about two years college work; they have just graduated
sixty or seventy who are going to America next year to finish up. They
go all around, largely to small colleges and the Middle West state
institutions, a good many to Tech and a number to Stevens, though none
go to Columbia, because it is in a big city; just what improvement
Hoboken is I don't know. China is full of Columbia men, but they went
there for graduate work. No doubt it is wise keeping them away from a
big city at first. Except for the instruction in Chinese, the teaching
is all done in English, and the boys seem to speak English quite well
already. It's a shame the way they will be treated, the insults they
will have to put up with in America before they get really adjusted. And
then when they get back here they have even a worse time getting
readjusted. They have been idealizing their native land at the same time
that they have got Americanized without knowing it, and they have a hard
time to get a job to make a living. They have been told that they are
the future saviors of their country and then their country doesn't want
them for anything at all--and they can't help making comparisons and
realizing the backwardness of China and its awful problems. At the same
time at the bottom of his heart probably every Chinese is convinced of
the superiority of Chinese civilization--and maybe they are right--three
thousand years is quite a spell to hold on.
You may come over here some time in your life, so it will do no harm to
learn about the money--_about_ it, nobody but the Chinese bankers ever
learn it. There are eleven dimes in a dollar and six twenty-cent pieces,
and while there are only eleven coppers in a dime, there are one hundred
and thirty-eight in a dollar. Consequently the thrifty always carry a
pound or two of big coppers with them to pay 'ricksha men with. Then
there are various kinds of paper money. We are going to Western Hills
tomorrow night, and under instructions I bought some dollars at
sixty-five cents apiece which are good for a whole dollar on this
railway and apparently nowhere else. On the contrary, the foreigners are
done all the time at the hotels; there they only give you five
twenty-cent pieces in change for a dollar, and so on--but they are run
by foreigners, and not by the wily Chinese. One thing you will be glad
to know is that Peking is Americanized to the extent that we have ice
cream at least once a day, two big helpings. This helps.
A word to the wise. Never ask a Chinese whether it is going to rain, or
any other question about the coming weather. The turtle is supposed to
be a weather prophet, and as the turtle is regarded as the vilest
creature on earth, you can see what an insult such a question is. One of
their subtle compliments to the Japanese during the late campaign was to
take a straw hat, of Japanese make, which they had removed from a
passerby's head, and cut it into the likeness of a turtle and then nail
it up on a telephone post.
I find, by the way, that I didn't do the students justice when I
compared their first demonstration here to a college boys' roughhouse;
the whole thing was planned carefully, it seems, and was even pulled off
earlier than would otherwise have been the case, because one of the
political parties was going to demonstrate soon, and they were afraid
their movement (coming at the same time) would make it look as if they
were an agency of the political faction, and they wanted to act
independently as students. To think of kids in our country from fourteen
on, taking the lead in starting a big cleanup reform politics movement
and shaming merchants and professional men into joining them. This is
sure some country.
PEKING, June 23.
Last night we had a lovely dinner at the house of a Chinese official.
All the guests were men except me and the fourteen-year-old daughter of
the house. She was educated in an English school here and speaks
beautiful English, besides being a talented and interesting girl.
Chinese girls at her age seem older than ours. The family consists of
five children and two wives. I found the reason the daughter was hostess
was that it was embarrassing to choose between the two wives for hostess
and they didn't want to give us a bad impression, so no wife appeared.
We were given to understand that the reason for the non-appearance was
that mother was sick. There is a new little baby six weeks old. The
father is a delicate, refined little man, very proud of his children and
fond of them, and they were all brought out to see us, even the six
weeks older, who was very hot in a little red dress. Our host is the
leader of a party of liberal progressives, and also an art collector. We
had hopes he would show us his collection of things. He did not, except
for the lovely porcelain that was on the table. The house is big and
behind the wall of the Purple City, as they call the old Forbidden City,
and it looks on the famous old pagoda, so it was interesting. We sat in
the court for coffee and there seemed to be many more courts leading on
one behind another as they do here, sometimes fourteen or more, with
chains of houses around each one.
As for the dinner, I forgot to say that the cook is a remarkable man,
Fukien, who gave us the most delicious Chinese cookery with French names
attached on the menu. Cooking is apt to be named geographically here.
Most everyone in Peking came from somewhere else, just as should be in a
capital city. But they seem to keep the cooks and cook in accordance
with the predilections of the old home province. They have adopted ice
cream, showing the natural sense of the race, but the daughter of our
host told me that they do not give it to the sick, as they still have
the idea that the sick should have nothing cold.
They are now thrashing the wheat in this locality. That consists of
cutting it with the sickle and having the women and children glean. The
main crop is scattered on the floor, as it is called, being a hard piece
of ground near the house, and then the wheat is treaded out by a pair of
donkeys attached to a roller about as big as our garden roller. After it
is out of the husk, it is winnowed by being tossed in the breeze, which
takes the time of a number of people and leaves in a share of the mother
earth. The crops are very thin round this region and they say that they
are thinner than usual, as this is a drier year than usual. Corn is
small, but there is some growing between here and the hills where we
went, always in the little pieces of ground, of course. Peanuts and
sweet potatoes are planted now, and they seem to be growing well in the
dust, which has been wet by the recent day of rain.
PEKING, June 25.
Simple facts for home consumption. All boards in China are sawed by
hand--two men and a saw, like a cross-cut buck-saw. At the new Hotel de
Peking, a big building, instead of carrying window casings ready to put
in, they are carrying big logs cut the proper length for a casing.
Spitting is a common accomplishment. When a school girl wants excuse to
leave her seat she walks across the room and spits vigorously in the
spittoon. Little melons are now ready to eat. They come like ripe
cucumbers, small, rather sweet. Coolies and boys eat them, skins and
all, on the street. Children eat small green apples. Peaches are
expensive, but those who can get the green hard ones eat them raw. The
potted pomegranates are now in bloom and also in fruit in the pots. The
color is a wonderful scarlet. The lotus ponds are in bloom--wonderful
color in a deep rose. When the buds are nearly ready to open they look
as if they were about to explode and fill the air with their intense
color. The huge leaves are brilliant and lovely--light green and
delicately veined. But the lotus was never made for art, and only
religion could have made it acceptable to art. The sacred ponds are well
kept and are in the old moats of the Purple City--Forbidden. There are
twice as many men in Peking as women.
Sunday we went to a Chinese wedding. It was at the Naval Club--no
difference in appearance from our ceremony. Bride and groom both in the
conventional foreign dress. They had a ring. At the supper there were
six tables full of men, and three partly full of women and children.
Women take their children and their amahs everywhere in China--I mean
wherever they go and provided they want to; it is the custom. None of
the men spoke to the women at the wedding--except rare returned
students. Eggs cost $1.00 for 120--we get all we want in our boarding
house. Men take birds out for walks--either in cages or with one leg
tied to a string attached to a stick on which the bird perches.
PEKING, June 27.
It's a wonder we were ever let out of Japan at all. It's fatal; I could
now tell after reading ten lines of the writings of any traveler whether
he ever journeyed beyond a certain point. You have to hand it to the
Japanese. Their country is beautiful, their treatment of visitors is
beautiful, and they have the most artistic knack of making the visible
side of everything beautiful, or at least attractive. Deliberate deceit
couldn't be one-tenth as effective; it's a real gift of art. They are
the greatest manipulators of the outside of things that ever lived. I
realized when I was there that they were a nation of specialists, but I
didn't realize that foreign affairs and diplomacy were also such a
specialized art.
The new acting Minister of Education has invited us to dinner soon. This
man doesn't appear to have any past educational record, but he has
pursued a conciliatory course; the other one resigned and disappeared
when he found he couldn't control things. The really liberal element
does not appear to be strong enough at present to influence politics
practically. The struggle is between the extreme militarists, who are
said to be under Japanese influence, and the group of somewhat colorless
moderates headed by the President. As he gets a chance he appears to be
putting his men in. The immediate gain seems to be negative in keeping
the other crowd out instead of positive, but they are at least honest
and will probably respond when there is enough organized liberal
pressure brought to bear upon them.