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SIDELIGHTS ON CHINESE LIFE
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Imperial History of China
Being the History of the Empire as compiled by the
Chinese Historians
_SECOND EDITION NOW READY_
Enlarged and brought up to date. Royal 8vo, half calf.
L1 1s. net. To be obtained of
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUEBNER & Co., Limited,
Dryden House, 43 Gerrard Street, London, W.
* * * * *
[Illustration: GOLDEN ISLAND (ON THE YANG-TSE).]
SIDELIGHTS ON CHINESE LIFE
by
REV. J. MACGOWAN
London Missionary Society
Author of "The Imperial History of China,"
"A Dictionary of Amoy Colloquial,"
"Pictures of Southern China," etc.
With Twelve Illustrations in Colour by Montague Smyth
and Thirty-Four Other Illustrations
London
Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., Limited
Dryden House, 43 Gerrard Street, W.
1907
[All Rights Reserved]
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited
Bread Street Hill, E.C., and
Bungay, Suffolk
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE CHINAMAN 1
II. FAMILY LIFE 21
III. CHILD LIFE 43
IV. RELIGIOUS FORCES IN CHINA 65
V. SERVANTS 94
VI. THE ADAPTABILITY AND TENACITY OF PURPOSE OF THE
CHINESE 112
VII. AMUSEMENTS 131
VIII. THE FARMER 150
IX. A RAMBLE THROUGH A CHINESE CITY 175
X. HADES, OR THE LAND OF SHADOWS 201
XI. A CHAPTER ON SOME OF THE MORE SHADY PROFESSIONS
IN CHINESE LIFE 224
XII. SCHOOLS, SCHOOL-MASTERS, AND SCHOOL-BOOKS 249
XIII. THE MANDARIN 272
XIV. PEDDLER LIFE IN CHINA 296
XV. THE SEAMY SIDE OF CHINESE LIFE 322
XVI. A TRIP THROUGH THE COUNTRY 346
LIST OF COLOURED PLATES
GOLDEN ISLAND (ON THE YANG-TSE) _Frontispiece_
AN IMPERIAL CONFUCIAN TEMPLE _To face p._ 65
THE WHITE STAR TEMPLE, NANKIN " " 89
JUNKS (ON THE YANG-TSE) " " 112
NETTING FISH " " 129
A FARM HOUSE " " 150
A HARBOUR SCENE (HONG KONG) " " 158
CHINESE FARMERS " " 169
A TEA HOUSE " " 225
A TYPICAL VILLAGE " " 249
ENTRANCE GATE (NANKIN) " " 272
CHINESE LOCOMOTION " " 346
UNCOLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS
A CHINESE GENTLEMAN _To face p._ 1
CHINESE EATING RICE AND DRINKING SAMSHU
(WHISKY) " " 9
A JOKE " " 17
SOME CHINESE BOYS " " 21
WOMEN CARRYING BABIES ON THEIR BACKS " " 24
AN OLD LADY " " 39
LITTLE URCHINS " " }
} 46
LITTLE LADS " " }
STUDIES OF CHINESE BOYS " " 51
A BOY CARRYING BASKETS " " 56
A SEDAN CHAIR " " 117
PLOUGHING WITH A WATER BUFFALO " " 124
A PASSENGER BOAT " " }
}126
A BOAT CARRYING SEDAN CHAIR " " }
A DRAGON BOAT " " 129
A STREET SCENE " " 131
ACTORS IN COSTUME " " 147
A BARBER AND HIS CUSTOMER " " 178
A REFRESHMENT STALL " " 184
A STREET SCENE " " 194
CARRYING A COFFIN " " 201
A BUDDHIST PRIEST " " 208
CEMETERIES " " 216
A SCHOLAR IN OFFICIAL DRESS " " 258
A POLICEMAN " " 280
A PEDDLER " " }
}296
A SHOEMAKER AT WORK ON THE STREET " " }
A PEDDLER " " 303
A WAYSIDE KITCHEN " " 317
FRUIT-SELLERS GAMBLING " " 327
A FAMOUS BRIDGE " " 361
[Illustration: A CHINESE GENTLEMAN.
_To face p. 1._]
Sidelights on Chinese Life
CHAPTER I
THE CHINAMAN
The Chinaman a puzzle--Oblique methods--Instances given--Mind
turbid--Shrewd--A bundle of contradictions--No love of truth in the
abstract--Hypnotizing power of the Chinese, in business, in foreign
official life--Full of human nature--Inability to be thorough.
The Chinaman's mind is a profound and inexplicable puzzle that many have
vainly endeavoured to solve. He is a mystery not simply to the foreigner,
who has been trained to more open methods of thought, but also to his own
countrymen, who are frequently heard to express their astonishment at some
exhibition of character, that has never occurred to them during the whole
of their oblique life. A Chinese cook who was living in an English family,
and who found life so intolerable through some petty devices and schemes
of his fellow-servants that he was compelled to resign his situation, was
so taken aback at the ingenuity and skill of the manoeuvres that had been
employed to oust him from his employment that, with flashing eyes and a
face flushed with excitement, he said, "I know the Englishman well, I can
accurately gauge his mind, and I can tell exactly how he will usually act;
but my own countrymen are a mystery to me that I do not profess to be able
to comprehend."
This of course was an exaggeration, as there must have been a great deal
in his own people that he must have been quite familiar with. He merely
meant that there were depths in the Celestial mind that even he had never
yet fathomed. Any one who has ever studied the Chinese character must have
come to the conclusion that the instincts and aims of the people of the
Chinese Empire are distinctly the reverse of those that exist in the minds
of the men of the West. An Englishman, for example, prides himself upon
being straightforward and of saying exactly what he believes. A Chinaman
would never dream of taking that position, simply because it is one that
he does not understand, and consequently he could never carry out. A
straight line is something that his mind recoils from, and when he desires
to effect some purpose that he has before him, he prefers an oblique and
winding path by which in a more roundabout manner he hopes to attain his
end.
It may be laid down as a general and axiomatic truth, that it is
impossible from hearing what a Chinaman says to be quite certain of what
he actually means. The reason for this no doubt arises from the fact that
a speaker hardly ever in the first instance touches upon the subject that
he has in his mind, but he will dwell upon two or three others that he
believes have an intimate relation with it, and he concludes that this
subtle line of thought ought to lead the hearer to infer what he has all
the time been driving at. One of my servants, for example, had a grievance
against another also in my employ. He did not dare to complain of him to
me, for he belonged to a powerful clan bordering on his own in the
interior, and if anything unpleasant had happened to this particular
member through any accusation that might be laid against him, they would
have wreaked their vengeance not only upon the man who had troubled him,
but also upon the members of the weaker clan who were connected with him.
The direct method that would have been pursued by a foreigner without any
regard to consequence, because he has no dread of hostile clans, and
because he has the law to protect him in case of need, evidently cannot be
adopted by the aggrieved person here, and so he naturally adopts the
method that he believes will secure him a redress of his wrongs without
any danger to himself or his clan.
He accordingly appears one morning with that blank expressionless visage
with which a Chinaman can conceal his thoughts, and asks permission to
return to his home in the country. He had just got news, he says, that a
brother of his has suddenly become very ill and is not expected to live,
and urgent entreaties have been sent him to come home as speedily as he
can. You are rather startled at this sudden demand to be left at a
moment's notice without a servant who is necessary to carry on the work of
the home; and besides, you have the uncomfortable feeling that this may be
one of those obscure but oblique ways by which the Yellow mind is working
to secure some end that lies concealed within its fathomless recesses.
You ask particulars, but he has none to give. He simply waves before you a
letter covered with strange and weird hieroglyphics, and hands it to you
for inspection, though he is aware that you can no more decipher it than
you could the wedge-shaped symbols of the Assyrian language, and he
declares that he knows no more about the illness of his brother than what
is contained in it. As you cannot read the letter, and moreover you would
get no light from it even if you could, you look him straight in the face
to see if you cannot discover some little ray of light on this perplexing
question; but no, it is just as impenetrable as the document he holds in
his hands as evidence of the bad news he has received from his home. It is
perfectly sphinx-like, and gives no clue to the thoughts that lie behind
it. The eyes are liquid and childlike, and just that touch of sadness that
harmonizes with his sorrowful feelings has laid its lightest shadow over
his features, and you begin to feel that you have been doing the man an
injustice by doubting him.
You have gone through similar processes before, however, and the memory of
them inspires you with caution, so you tell him to go away and you will
think over the matter. You call another of the servants whom you know to
be on good terms with the other, and you ask him if he has heard of the
distressing news that has come to his friend. A flash of surprise like a
streak of lightning out of a clear sky shoots across his face, which he
instantly suppresses, however, and with a calm and unruffled look he says,
"I have not heard that any letter has come, but there may have been one. I
have been busy, you know, doing my work, and so have not been told."
This is decidedly suspicious, for if there is one thing that a Chinaman
cannot do it is to keep a secret. After a little further conversation with
this man he remarks in a very casual off-hand way--
"I have heard that so-and-so had a brother; it is very strange, and I
cannot quite understand this business," and after one or two miscellaneous
remarks he suddenly looks round, goes to the door, and peers up and down
the hall, to assure himself that there is no one looking about. He then
walks on tiptoe to the open window, and gives a rapid glance amongst the
flowers and shrubs in the garden to see that none of his fellow-servants
are there to catch snatches of the conversation, and, still treading like
a cat that scents a rat, he comes up close to you, and whispering in your
ear he utters just one word, "Examine," and then with a face full of
mystery and with the same cat-like motion he vanishes out of the door with
a face covered with smiles, and you feel that you are now on a fair way to
find out the secret of the hieroglyphic letter and the alarming sickness
of the brother.
You "examine" the matter, and you find that the man never had a brother,
that the letter was written by a clansman next door, and that the whole
plot was devised to get you to rectify wrongs without arousing in the
offender a suspicion that he had been informed against. There is
consequently no feud and no vendetta, and after a few strong and forceful
words as to what may happen if people do not behave themselves, the
household returns to its normal state of order and quietness.
In order thoroughly to understand and appreciate the Chinaman, a man must
be possessed of large powers of inference, for it is almost certain that
what lies apparent in his conduct is not the real thing that he has in
view.
One day a Chinaman walked into my study in the free and easy way with
which people enter each other's houses in this land, with a basket of eggs
in his hand. He was a complete stranger to me, but he talked as glibly to
me as though he had been well acquainted with me. He told me that he had
brought me a present, that the eggs had been laid by his own fowls, and
that though they were too small a present to be accepted by one so much
higher than he was, he hoped that I should still condescend to take them
from him. "But I do not know who you are, and moreover I do not see why
you should make me any present at all." "Oh, I merely wished to do myself
the honour of meeting with you, for I have heard others speak with great
respect of you, and my wife and I thought that a few eggs from my own
farm, though not worthy of your acceptance, would be a little token of the
respect in which we hold you."
In spite of all his professions of devotion and esteem for myself, I felt
convinced that he had some favour to ask of me; but, true to the
peculiarity of the Chinese mind, he kept it at first in the background,
and after talking with him for about an hour, and after I had hinted that
I had an engagement that would compel me to leave him, he began to
stammer out that he was in great trouble with some persons in his village,
and as he knew that I had great influence, he had come to me to help him
out of his difficulty. The secret was now out, and the basket of eggs and
the hour's conversation about everything in the world, except the one
subject that he had come miles to discuss with me, were but oblique
methods of leading up to the one important thought that was filling his
mind.
The Chinese as a rule are a highly shrewd and thoughtful people. They are
keen observers of human life as well as of the natural world that lies
around them. It is very striking to notice with what intelligence the
uneducated countryman, who has never had any education, and whose life has
been spent in labours that never call forth any effort of the imagination,
will describe the leaves of the different kinds of trees, the habits and
lives of a great variety of birds in the region around, and the
peculiarities of insect life which they have never studied scientifically,
but simply with that keen power of observation which the Chinese seem
intuitively to possess.
In spite of all this it is quite safe to say that the Chinese mind is
wanting in lucidity, and in the ability of grasping an idea with the same
readiness that a Westerner does. This is specially the case with the
uneducated, and therefore with the great mass of people. You tell a
coolie, for example, to take a letter to the post-office. He has gone
there perhaps a dozen times before. He stands and gazes at you with a
perplexed look, as though you had told him to go to New Zealand. Knowing
this peculiarity of the Chinese mind, you repeat your order, and you ask
him if he knows where the post-office is? The blank look becomes more
confirmed, and he says, "I'll inquire of some one where it is." As you
feel anxious about your letter, you say, "Now tell me what I have asked
you to do." "Asked me to do?" he exclaims, and the dense look deepens on
his face. "Yes, I have asked you to take this letter to the post-office,
the place where you have often gone before. Do you know where it is?"
"I'll inquire," he says briskly, as though it was just beginning to dawn
upon him that he had some idea where the post-office was. He moves away,
and you have doubts in your mind whether your letter may not go astray and
never be posted, when the coolie returns with hasty steps and with an
anxious look on his yellow face, and inquires of you, "Did you say that I
was to take this letter to the post-office?" "I did, and I hope you
understand now where it is." "I'll inquire," he says, and vanishes.
This singular feature in an otherwise intelligent mind is a continual
source of irritation to a foreigner, who has never had any experience of
such turbidity of thought in matters that seem to him to require no
exertion to grasp at once. You say to a man, for example, more for the
purpose perhaps of having something to say than anything else, "How old
are you?" A blank look of amazement comes over his countenance, much as
though you had asked him if he had committed murder. "Do you mean me?" he
asks. "Yes, I mean you; how old are you?" "How old am I?" and now the idea
seems to have filtered into his brain, and the vacant, dazed look is
replaced by a slight smile that ripples over his face, and he tells you
his age. It is no exaggeration to say that all over this great empire,
wherever the above questions have been put, the same comedy has invariably
been gone through in getting a reply to them.
This haziness of thought is especially annoying to the medical men who are
in charge of general hospitals, where all classes of people come for
treatment. One day a woman came to one of these to consult the foreign
physician about her health. She was tall and severe-looking, with a face
that forbade any attempt to trifle with her. She was evidently a person
that never indulged in a joke, for the lines on her countenance were hard
as though they had never been relaxed by any of the pleasantries or
humours of life. You could fancy her being a hard-working, industrious
housewife, but one that neither husband nor children would ever approach
excepting with a certain diffidence and restraint.
Coming to her turn to be treated, the doctor said to her, "What is your
name?" This question always seems to paralyze a Chinaman, so that he never
answers it at once. The woman's face was at once convulsed with amazement,
and her eyes became staring as she gazed intently on the doctor. "You mean
me?" she asked with every line livid with emotion. "Yes, I mean you," he
said; "what is your name?" "You mean my name?" she cried, and she struck
her breast with her open hand to make sure that she was the person he
meant. "Yes, I mean you; so answer me quickly, as I have no time to
waste." "I have no name," she answered, with a pathos that seemed to
tremble through her voice. "No name!" he said. "What do you mean? You must
have a name, everybody has some name or other." "I have no name," she
answered deliberately, whilst she slowly shook her head as if to give
emphasis to her statement. "May I ask," said the doctor, with a smiling
face, "what people generally call you?" "They do not call me anything, for
I have no name," she protested. "Well, when you were a girl what did your
mother call you?" "She called me 'Pearl,'" she said, and now a flash of
sunlight came into her face, as no doubt a vision of by-gone days rose
before her. "Very well," said the doctor, "I shall put your name down as
'Pearl' in my register," though if he had only persevered a little longer
he would no doubt have got the one by which she was commonly known amongst
her neighbours.
One of the reasons that has led the foreigner to entertain the idea
that the Chinaman is incomprehensible arises from the fact that he seems
to be an absolute bundle of contradictions. It is the existence of totally
diverse qualities in the same person that has made one feel that after an
intimate knowledge of him for many years there are still surprises in his
character that show the complex nature of his being, and the difficulty of
predicting what he will do in the future under any circumstances. He would
be a daring man indeed that would take upon himself the _role_ of prophet
about any individual, no matter how well he might be acquainted with him.
[Illustration: CHINESE EATING RICE AND DRINKING SAMSHU (WHISKY).
_To face p. 9._]
A coolie, for example, is engaged by you to do general household work. He
comes to you from an inland country where poverty is the prevailing
characteristic of the whole population. Sweet potatoes are the staple food
three times a day, year in, year out, helped down perhaps by salted
turnip, bean curds and pickled beans--for it is only on special occasions
that they have the rare happiness of indulging in the luxury of rice.
He has absolutely nothing excepting what he stands in, and so few cash
that no sooner have you agreed to employ him than he at once asks for an
advance to buy his next meal. The sum you promised him is princely when
compared with what he could earn in his own country, and his mode of
living is on a most luxurious scale, when contrasted with the meagre food
he had in his native village. Now he has rice every day and fish, and
luxuries brought from northern seas, no longer a vision of dreams, but
realities that he indulges in every day.
Now, judging from an English standpoint, one would imagine that this
poverty-stricken Chinaman, whose experience of want has been so real,
would hold on like grim death upon a situation where life has been made so
easy for him. But here comes in one of the surprises that often makes the
Chinese character so inexplicable. A month goes by, and one day with the
silent tread of his shoeless feet he sidles up to you, and he says he
wants to tell you that he is going to leave you. You are astonished, and
you ask him, with a look of wonder on your face, what he means and what he
intends doing? He is not going to do anything, he declares, and he gives
you nine reasons for his conduct, not one of which is the true one, the
tenth and real one being hidden away in that mysterious brain of his, and
he leaves you. A few days hence you see him loafing about with no apparent
means of livelihood, and he is fast reverting to the original potatoes-fed
type that he was when he left his country home.
Another point that is inexplicable in the Chinese is his amazing
credulity. His character is naturally a strong one, his common-sense of
the broad and robust kind. There is hardly any subject in common life
where his opinion is not of a healthy, breezy description. It is one of
the mysteries of the inscrutable Chinaman that at times he seems to be as
credulous as the most unenlightened African that trembles before the
decision of the Obi doctor.
In the early years, when the foreigner was an unknown and dreaded
character, the wildest and most improbable stories were circulated amongst
the common people, and more believed in. A mandarin in a large city in the
northern part of the Empire, where the people were inspired with a dread
lest they were going to be attacked by the English, took advantage of
their credulity by putting out proclamations all over his district, which
informed them that they had no reason whatever to fear the foreigners,
because, as they had no knee-joints, when they fell down they could not
rise up again. This was at once accepted as a truth, and the agitation and
alarm from that time passed entirely away.
About the same time, in a very wide and extended district, a rumour arose
that the missionaries, when any of their converts died, took out their
eyes and made them into opium. The thing was so utterly absurd and the
number of Christians then so very small, that it seemed as though the
monstrous report must speedily die a natural death. But this was not the
case. It spread with remarkable rapidity through towns and villages and
hamlets, and was implicitly believed in not merely by coolies and rough,
uncultivated labourers, but also by scholars of high degree and by great
mandarins, and for more than twenty years it was a prime article of faith
with millions of people.
It is the unexpected that so often happens in Chinese life that has given
such an air of mystery to this strange and wonderful people. The very
opposite virtues and vices seem to flourish and exist in the same
individuals. The Chinese, for example, in ordinary and everyday life have
no sense of truth. It is not that they are any worse than other nations of
the East. The moment you pass through the Suez Canal and have come upon
the confines of the Orient, you realize that truth as it is looked upon in
the West does not exist in all the vast and glowing regions beyond.
You are in a new land, and the atmosphere of straightforward honest
expression of thought has vanished, and now it seems that, except in the
most trivial affairs of life, where concealment is unnecessary, you are in
a world where every one has a mask on, and the great aim is to conceal the
face that lies behind.
The oblique and angular way by which a Chinese loves to express the
intention he has in his mind has no doubt intensified the Oriental
disposition to lie, until now he seems to have absolutely no conscience on
the subject. A Chinese coolie one day made some statement to me that I
knew to be false. I was exceedingly annoyed at this, and so told him, and
yet I could not help being amused, for the look of childish simplicity and
artlessness that beamed over his face was so real and natural that I
could not but admire the perfect acting of this rough, uncultivated
fellow. "You are mistaken," he said to me, "when you accuse me of telling
you a falsehood, for I assure you that I never told a lie in all my life."
I instinctively thought of a picture that appeared in _Punch_ many years
ago, where two rough miners stood by the roadside, one of them having a
kettle in his hand, which was to be given to the one that could tell the
greatest lie. A person comes along who asks them what they are talking
about? When told, he was shocked, and declared that he had never told a
lie in his life, and he was rather taken aback when the kettle was handed
to him, and he was told that he rightly earned it. I thought if only I had
had a kettle at hand I would have passed it over to him and told him the
legend.
Now the contradictory element in the Chinaman's character comes out
particularly strong in connection with this national defect of
untruthfulness. A lie to him has no moral side, it is simply a display of
cleverness, and the more perfectly it succeeds the greater is the applause
it elicits; and yet there are occasions when the Chinaman's word is as
good as his bond, and is as much to be relied upon as that of an
Englishman who may have gained a reputation for integrity and honour.
A Chinese merchant, for example, makes a contract months before to deliver
so many chests of tea at a certain rate. The market in the meanwhile
rises, a dearth has suddenly occurred in the foreign trade, and the buyer
finds that if he keeps his engagements he will lose thousands of dollars.
He never for a moment hesitates as to what he shall do; he does not even
attempt to get the purchaser to make an advance upon the terms agreed to.
The tea comes down the river from the mountain side on which it is grown,
over rapids and down through whirling gorges, and away from the pure
breezes of the hillside, and it is brought to the city where the merchant
lives, and is handed over to him with as scrupulous a care as though he
were being paid the advanced price that the later teas are getting.
It is no uncommon thing for foreign merchants to bear testimony to the
perfect honesty of the Chinese with whom they may have large business
transactions, and one manager of a banking concern even declared in public
that, though business extending over hundreds of millions of taels had
been transacted with Chinese, the bank had never suffered by one single
defaulter. This is all the more extraordinary, and is one of the startling
perplexities in the Chinese character, since we know that in ordinary
business life one has to keep one's weather eye open or he will find
himself cheated most unmercifully.
In spite of the complex nature of the Chinese, and the veiled way in which
that mysterious brain of his works, there is no doubt but that there is a
fascination about him to the men of the West such as none of the other
nations of the East possesses. It is not because he is handsome, for,
taking the ordinary run of Chinese that one sees in the streets, they are
entirely wanting in all the elements of beauty that constitute the
standard of the West.
The features of the face, with the exception of the eyes, have not a
single good one amongst them. The cheek-bones of the typical Chinaman are
high and protruding; the nose is flat, as though the original progenitor
had had his bruised by falling on a fender and had transmitted it
flattened and disfigured through successive generations, and the mouth,
too, is large and sensuous looking. In addition to all this there is a
yellow strain that lies as a foundation colour through all the others that
nature or the burning sun lays on, and the effect is not at all a pleasing
one. That there are really handsome women in common life and amongst the
more refined classes, and that there are good-looking men in all grades of
society is undoubtedly true, but they are by no means common. The great
mass of the people are exceedingly plain-featured and unattractive, and
they are wanting, too, in those delicate and refined graces that of
themselves are sufficient to give a charm even to a personality that is
otherwise anything but pleasing.
The attraction lies in the people themselves, and without any effort on
their side the foreigner feels himself drawn by a kind of hypnotism
towards them. You cannot explain this and you cannot tell the reason why.
A rude, rough-looking coolie comes in, and you do not feel repelled by him
as you would were the person a countryman of your own who had suddenly
appeared out of the slums. A man has cheated you, and you know that he
has, and though you may at first feel indignant, it is not long ere you
are laughing at the whole affair because of the grotesque side that almost
invariably accompanies such a transaction. A person comes to see you about
whom you are suspicious. You stand on your guard, and you put on your
coldest and most reserved air, as you ask him to be seated. The Chinaman
acts as though he were quite oblivious of your state of mind. There is a
smile upon his face that travels over the rough hollows of his expansive
countenance, and spreads to the back of his neck, and seems in some
mysterious way to vanish down his long tail. No amount of coldness can
long resist the eyes that are flashing with good humour and the features
that are lighted up with such a pleasant look. Insensibly you begin to
thaw, and before you are aware of it you are talking with him on the most
friendly terms. You laugh and chat with him, and when he leaves, you
accompany him to the door, and with the usual polite phrase to the parting
guest, you entreat him "to walk slowly, and come again as soon as he can."
Ten minutes after he has gone, your old suspicions revive, and you wonder
at yourself in being such an egregious fool as to give yourself away as
you have done. The fact is, it was the nameless something about the man
that worked the miracle, and now that the bright black eyes have gone, and
the moorland of smile has vanished, and the hypnotism no longer works, you
come back to the old thoughts that you had before, which you are certain
after all are right.
Circumstances of this kind are of exceedingly frequent occurrence. You go
into a bank that has a large business. The manager is an energetic, shrewd
business man. He is full of schemes and plans to promote the interests of
the establishment, and people speak of him as being the cause of the
prosperity that is now giving it a golden reputation. The real man who
lies at the back of all this success is the Chinese compradore. He is a
most unpretentious man, and if you visit him in the little room that he
uses as an office, you would be anything but struck by him. His clothes
are of a very common description, rather slovenly and untidy, and his
shoes are slipshod. He is perhaps smoking a long bamboo pipe of
vile-smelling native tobacco, but this quiet, unassuming Chinaman is the
force that lies behind the business that brings in such large dividends to
the shareholders. He has the whole of the markets in his brain, he knows
which of the clients of the bank are prosperous and which are tottering on
the brink of bankruptcy. He finds out to whom amongst his countrymen loans
may be made with safety, and he will know by a single glance at documents
that have been drawn up in the hieroglyphic language of the Chinese of
what value they are for the purpose of negotiating large monetary
transactions. No bank in China, and no large business firm could exist for
a month without its compradore.
The hypnotic influence of the Chinaman is seen in almost any direction in
which you like to turn. The mistress of a home is as wax in the hands of
her cook, whose words, as far as the table is concerned, are a law that
even she would be very chary of opposing. A foreigner engages a Chinese
teacher, and ere long he comes so thoroughly under his influence that he
will accept every word that he says about Chinese subjects, will repeat
his very mistakes, and will refuse to listen to any criticism that
outsiders may make either regarding his scholarship or his methods of
teaching.
Perhaps the most conspicuous instance of the dominating influence of the
Chinaman is seen in the foreign Consulates. In each of these there is a
Chinese official employed that is called a writer. He is a gentleman and a
member of the literary class. His duties are to write dispatches in
Chinese to the mandarins and to be the one connecting link between the
native authorities and the particular foreign Consul in whose service he
happens to be. All petitions or complaints from the Chinese have to go
through his hands, so that his position is one of great responsibility and
power.
If the Consul happens to be a man of strong, independent character he will
hold his own, and the business of the Consulate will be in a large measure
under his own control. If he is, however, easy-going or of average
intellectual ability, he comes at once under the hypnotizing influence of
the wily self-contained Chinaman, who before long becomes the master
spirit in the office. This fact is so far realized by the leading mandarin
of the place that he actually subsidizes him to influence the policy of
the Consul to be favourable to him. A hostile writer could so easily
influence his mind against the former, and cause such strained diplomatic
relations, that he would incur the resentment of his superiors and be
dismissed from his office.
I have known a case where the whole policy of a Consulate was dictated by
the writer, who was a clever, intriguing scamp. All Chinese documents had
to pass through his hands, and it depended upon the amount of the bribes
received whether any of them got a dispassionate investigation at the
hands of the Consul. His reputation became so bad that he was finally
asked to resign, but he did so with a very comfortable fortune that
enabled him to take a commanding position amongst the leading men in his
neighbourhood.
[Illustration: A JOKE.
_To face p. 17._]
In whatever direction one likes to take the Chinaman, he seems to have an
hypnotic power that secures, if not favour, at least attention. An English
mother takes her little girl, a delicate, fragile little morsel, with blue
eyes and golden hair, and she puts her into the arms of one of her coolies
to amuse and care for her. He is about as ugly-looking a specimen as you
could pick out. He has large, uncouth features and hair unkempt, and the
general air of a rowdy. You would naturally suppose that the
refined-looking little mortal would shrink from him, but nothing of the
kind happens. Her eyes glisten, and she jumps into his arms with alacrity,
and by and by you will see her with one arm round his neck and looking
with pleasure into his face, full of the most perfect content.
There is no doubt but that one secret of the extraordinary power that the
Chinese undoubtedly have is the very large amount of genuine human nature
with which as a race they are endowed. The Chinaman is a person that is
full of fun. It would seem as though a sense of humour lay at the basis of
his character and tinged everything with its subtle influence. A joke with
the Chinaman is a solvent that disperses anger and drives away passion
from the heart, and makes the broad, uncouth faces shine with a light,
like sunbeams playing upon the rugged sides of a hill. If the Chinese had
been a nation of sombre, gloomy people, without a gleam of humour in their
natures, they would have been a positive peril to the world. As it is, the
genial strain that is the woof and warp of the Celestial's being makes him
a person that can win his way into the hearts of strangers, and slowly
dissipate the prejudice that they at first have, because of his homely and
unattractive features, and the yellow hue that tinges his skin with a
most inartistic colour.
He can be very cruel when the passion is upon him, but under ordinary
circumstances he is full of kindness and sympathy, and he will exercise
these qualities in such a genial way that one's heart feels drawn out
towards him. When one gets beyond the outside formalities and into the
inner life of the people, and beyond the crust of selfishness that
heathenism has caused to gather round their hearts, one discovers a fund
of possible human virtues that under the influence of Christianity will
expand and develop so that the nation that the world has been accustomed
to look upon with a smile, and as simply an ingenious puzzle that the West
has never been able to put together, will turn out to be amongst the most
fascinating and most attractive of the peoples of the earth.
There is one feature about the Chinaman that, from a Western point of
view, is a most disappointing one, and that is his apparent inability to
be thorough. The watchword of the West is "thorough," and in every
department of life the aim is to do everything as perfectly as human hands
or brains can make them. Now in China there is no such ideal motive
anywhere to be found. A workman, for example, will make some exquisite
work of art, and yet he will finish off some part that is not obvious to
the eye in the most slovenly and inartistic manner. You order a hardwood
table, to be inlaid with pearl, and after weeks of patient toil and most
elaborate workmanship, that will bear the keenest investigation, you find
the legs, or perhaps the underside of the table, finished off in a
slovenly, careless way, more suited to an article that was intended to be
used in the kitchen. One is being continually provoked by Chinese workmen
bringing in things, that have been ordered, without proper finish. You
remonstrate with them, and they look at you with amazement. They are
amused at your being annoyed at something which the turbidity of the
Yellow brain never discovers as being at all wrong. A broad smile
illumines their faces, and they say, "Oh, well, never mind, for after all
it is a matter of no importance; let it go."
This tendency of the Chinese mind is visible in every direction. You
arrange with a builder for some work to be done. You impress upon him that
the matter is urgent. You give him your reason for thinking this, and he
agrees with you, and you finally settle with him a near day when he will
have his workmen assembled and operations will be begun. As the Chinaman's
brain is apt to work slowly, and it is difficult to get him to grasp a
consecutive statement of any length, you go over the whole thing to him
once more, and finally you make him repeat in his own words the ideas you
wish him to carry out. Everything now seems plain, and although doubts
will flash through your brain, you dismiss them at once as unreasonable,
and you look with certainty to the contract being carried out.
The day arrives and you proceed to the spot, expecting to see a hive of
busy workmen, but not a soul turns up. You send for the builder, and you
ask him how it is that he has broken his agreement with you. He smiles and
looks amused that you should be in such a hurry. He cannot understand it,
for the difference of a day or two, or a week even, is such a trivial
matter in this land, that the Chinese are constantly wondering why a
foreigner gets excited if a thing is not done at the precise time that has
been agreed upon.
The fact is the great Eastern Sun is in his eyes, and his rays have
entered into his blood, and the languor of the Orient is upon him, so that
time marches by and he feels that he dare not attempt to keep step with
it. To be efficient and thorough means intensity, but that the Chinese
race will not attempt. Some writers have predicted that a day may come
when, inspired by a spirit of war, they will flash their swords in a wild
conquest of the West. This is a dream that will never be realized. Both by
instinct and by ages of training, the Chinese are essentially a
peace-loving people. The glory of war is something that does not appeal to
them. Trade, and commerce, and money-making, and peaceful lives are the
ideals of the race. No sooner is a clan fight begun, or a war with another
nation, than the air at once resounds with the cry, "Mediate," "Mediate."
Mediation is in the very blood of the nation, and the man who is a
successful mediator is one that wins a golden reputation for himself.
What the West has to fear is not the warlike spirit of the Chinese, which
has never been a very important factor in their past history, but their
numbers. They are a people that multiply rapidly, but through the
operation of Fung-Shuy and other endless superstitions, the resources of
China have never been allowed to be developed so as to support the huge
population. Large numbers of people have consequently been compelled to go
abroad to earn a living.
These, as far as the native populations have been concerned, have rarely
been desirable immigrants, but this is especially the case with the great
nations of the West. The Chinese are a strong race, and can live in
comfort, and even luxury, on incomes that would mean starvation to
American or Australian workmen. The battle of the future with the Yellow
race will not be fought on any battlefield, but in the labour markets of
the nations that they would invade.
[Illustration: SOME CHINESE BOYS.
_To face p. 21._]