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Menpes Crown Series
CHINA
* * * * *
BY THE SAME ARTIST
BRITTANY
75 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
_Square Demy 8vo._
PARIS
24 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
_Large Crown 8vo._
INDIA
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THE THAMES
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SIR HENRY IRVING
8 PENCIL, AND TINT PORTRAITS
6¼ X 4 _inches_
VENICE
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_Square Demy 8vo._
JAPAN
100 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
_Square Demy 8vo._
WAR IMPRESSIONS
99 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
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PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK · SOHO SQUARE · LONDON · W.
_AGENTS_
AMERICA
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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* * * * *
[Illustration: A SHOEMAKER]
CHINA
by
MORTIMER MENPES
Text by
SIR HENRY ARTHUR BLAKE, G.C.M.G.
London
Adam and Charles Black
1909
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Description of China; Her Early History; Tartar Garrisons;
Chinese Soldiers; Family Life; Power of Parents; Foot-Binding 1
CHAPTER II
Marriage Customs; Ancestral Halls; Official Hierarchy;
Competitive Examinations; Taxation; Punishments; Torture;
Story of Circumstantial Evidence 15
CHAPTER III
Gradations of Chinese Society; Agriculture; _Fung Sui_;
Pawn Offices; River Boats and Junks; The Bore at Haining;
Fishing Industry; Piracy on Rivers; Li Hung Chang; The
West River; Temples of the Seven Star Hills; Howlick 33
CHAPTER IV
The Yangtze; Opium; Conclusions of Singapore Commission;
British and German Trade in the Far East; Town and Country
Life; Chinese Cities; Peking; Temple of Agriculture;
Spring Ceremony of Ploughing by the Emperor and his Court 56
CHAPTER V
Peasant Cultivators; Religious Beliefs; Theatricals; Famine;
Life in Coast Cities; Canton; Guild-Houses; Beggar Guild;
Official Reception by Viceroy; Chinese Writing; Life of
an Official 72
CHAPTER VI
Houses of Wealthy Inhabitants; Flower-Boats; Reform
Movement among Chinese Women; Shanghai Women's
Convention; Women's Superstitions; Chinese Ladies;
Fashions; Visiting 100
CHAPTER VII
General Description of Hong Kong; Happy Valley; Peak
District; Night View of Harbour; Typhoon; Energy of
Survivors; The Streets; Early Morning Life of the City;
Chinese Workmen; The Barber; The Sawyer; The Stonecutter;
The Coolie; Gambling; Some Street Games 111
CHAPTER VIII
Dragon-Boat Races; Festival at Macao; New Year; New
Year Customs; Hong Kong Races; Curious Forms of
Gambling; Charitable Institutions of Hong Kong; The
Future of China 126
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I., R.E.
1. A SHOEMAKER _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. A QUIET CANAL 8
3. A STUDENT 17
4. SAMPANS 24
5. CHOPSTICKS 33
6. ON THE WAY TO MARKET 40
7. A GRANDFATHER 49
8. A SUMMER HOUSE 56
9. A QUIET GAME OF DRAUGHTS 65
10. WAITING FOR CUSTOMERS 72
11. A CHINESE GIRL 89
12. JUNKS AT EVENTIDE 96
13. A TYPICAL STREET SCENE 105
14. A STREET STALL 112
15. ON A BACKWATER 121
16. A TEMPLE 128
Also 64 Facsimile Reproductions in Black and White
_These Illustrations were Engraved and Printed by the
Menpes Printing Company, Ltd., Watford, under the personal
supervision of Miss Maud Menpes_
CHINA
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
In attempting even a slight sketch of China, its physical features, or
some of the manners and customs of the various peoples whom we
designate broadly as the Chinese, the writer is confronted with the
difficulty of its immensity. The continuous territory in Asia over
which China rules or exercises a suzerainty is over 4,200,000 square
miles, but China Proper, excluding Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and
Turkestan, consists of eighteen provinces, covering an area of
1,530,000 square miles, with a population of about 410,000,000, or
about twelve and a half times the area of the United Kingdom, and ten
times its population.
This area is bounded on the west by southern spurs from the giant
mountain regions of Eastern Tibet, that stretch their long arms in
parallel ranges through Burma and Western Yunnan, and whose snow-clad
crests send forth the great rivers Salween and Mekong to the south,
the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers to the east, to fertilize the most
productive regions on the surface of the globe.
It is this conformation that has so far presented an insurmountable
barrier to the construction of a railway from Bhamo in Burmese
territory to the high plateau of Yunnan, from whence the province of
Szechwan, richest of all the eighteen provinces in agricultural and
mineral wealth, could be reached. Some day the coal, iron, gold, oil,
and salt of Szechwan will be exploited, and future generations may
find in the millionaires of Szechwan Chinese speculators as able and
far-seeing as the financial magnates who now practically control the
destinies of millions in the Western world.
The portion south of the Yangtze is hilly rather than mountainous, and
the eastern portion north of that great river is a vast plain of rich
soil, through which the Yellow River, which from its periodical
inundations is called China's Sorrow, flows for over five hundred
miles.
In a country so vast, internal means of communication are of the first
importance, and here China enjoys natural facilities unequalled by any
area of similar extent. Three great rivers flow eastward and
southward--the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, in the north, the Yangtze in
the centre, and the Pearl River, of which the West River is the
largest branch, in the south. The Yangtze alone with its affluents is
calculated to afford no less than 36,000 miles of waterways. The river
population of China comprises many millions, whose varied occupations
present some of the most interesting aspects of Chinese life.
The population of China is composed of different tribes or clans,
whose records date back to the dynasty of Fuh-hi, 2800 B.C. Sometimes
divided in separate kingdoms, sometimes united by waves of conquest,
the northern portion was welded into one empire by the conqueror,
Ghengis Khan, in A.D. 1234, and seventy years later the southern
portion was added by his son, Kublai Khan, who overthrew the Sung
dynasty. It was during his reign that China was visited by Marco Polo,
from the records of whose travels we find that even at that time the
financial system of the Far East was so far advanced that paper money
was used by the Chinese, while in the city of Cambaluc--the Peking of
to-day--Christian, Saracen, and Chinese astrologers consulted an
astrolabe to forecast the nature of the weather, thus anticipating the
meteorological bureaux of to-day.
[Illustration]
There are, however, still districts in the southern portion of China
where the aboriginal inhabitants have never accepted the position of
complete incorporation with the Chinese neighbours. In the mountain
district between the provinces of Kwangtung and Hunan a tribe exists
known as the Yu people, in whose territory no Chinese officials are
permitted to reside, nor do they allow strangers to enter their towns,
which are built on crags difficult of access and capable of offering a
stubborn resistance to attack. Their chief occupation is forestry, the
timber being cut during the winter and floated down the mountain
streams when in flood. Their customs are peculiar. Among them is the
vendetta, which is practised by the Yu alone of all the people in the
Far East. But no woman is ever injured; and even during the fiercest
fighting the women can continue their work in the fields with safety.
Their original home was in Yunnan and the western part of Kwangsi,
from whence they were driven out by the Chinese in the time of the
Sung dynasty. The Yu, Lolos, Miao-tse, Sy-fans, etc. (all Chinese
names expressive of contempt, like our "barbarians"), are stated by
Ma-tonan-lin and other Chinese historians to have been found
inhabiting the country when, six thousand years ago, it was occupied
by the ancestors of the Chinese, who came from the north-west. The
savage inhabitants were gradually driven into the hills, where their
descendants are still found. Their traditions point to their having
been cannibals. Intermarriage with the Chinese is very rare, the
Chinese regarding such a union as a _mésalliance_, and the aboriginal
peoples as a cowardly desertion to the enemy. The embroideries worked
by the women are different from those of the Chinese and, I am
informed, more resemble the embroideries now worked at Bethlehem. They
are worked on dark cloth in red, or sometimes red and yellow.
[Illustration]
After the time of Kublai Khan, succeeding centuries found the various
divisions of the Chinese again disunited, in accordance with a very
old Chinese proverb frequently heard at the present day, "Long united
we divide: long divided we unite"; but the final welding took place
under Shun-chi, who established the Tsing dynasty in 1644, and imposed
upon all Chinese people, as a permanent and evident mark of
subjection, the shaving of the front portion of the head and braiding
of the back hair into a queue after the Tartar fashion--an order at
first resented bitterly, but afterwards acquiesced in as an old
custom. To this day the removal of the queue and allowing the hair to
grow on the front portion of the head is regarded as a casting off of
allegiance to the dynasty. In the Taiping rebellion that raged in the
southern provinces from 1850 to 1867, and which down to its
suppression by Gordon and Li Hung Chang is computed to have cost the
lives of twenty-two and a half millions of people, the removal of the
queue and allowing the hair to grow freely was the symbol adopted by
the rebels.
To secure the empire against future risings, the Manchu conquerors
placed Tartar garrisons in every great city, where separate quarters
were allotted to them, and for two hundred and sixty years these
so-called Tartar soldiers and their families have been supported with
doles of rice. They were not allowed to trade, nor to intermarry with
the Chinese. The consequence was inevitable. They have become an idle
population in whom the qualities of the old virile Manchus have
deteriorated, and supply a large proportion of the elements of
disorder and violence. Of late, the prohibition against entering into
business and intermarrying with the Chinese has been removed, and they
will ultimately be absorbed into the general population.
From the point of view of a trained soldier these Tartar "troops" were
no more than armed rabble, with the most primitive ideas of military
movements; but in the north the exigencies of the situation have
compelled the adoption of Western drill, adding immensely to the
efficiency but sadly diminishing the picturesqueness of the
armies--for there is no homogeneous territorial army, each province
supplying its own independent force, the goodness or badness of which
depends upon the energy and ability of the viceroy.
The pay of a Chinese soldier is ostensibly about six dollars a month,
which would be quite sufficient for his support were it not reduced to
about half that amount by the squeezes of the officers and
non-commissioned officers through whose hands it passes. He receives
also one hundred pounds of rice, which is not always palatable, the
weight being made up by an admixture of sand and mud to replace the
"squeeze" by the various hands through which the rice tribute has
passed.
While under arms he is clothed in a short Chinese jacket of scarlet,
blue, or black, on the front and back of which are the name and symbol
of his regiment. The sleeves are wide and the arms have free play. The
shape of the hat varies in every corps, the small round Chinese hat
being sometimes worn, or a peakless cap, while some regiments wear
immense straw hats, which hang on the back except when the sun is
unduly hot. The trousers are dark blue of the usual Chinese pattern,
tied round the ankles. The costume is not unsoldierlike, and when in
mass the effect is strikingly picturesque; but it must not be inferred
that all the men on a large parade are drilled soldiers. An order to
the officer commanding to parade his corps for inspection not seldom
interferes seriously with the labour force of the day. He draws the
daily pay of, say, two thousand men, but his average muster may not
exceed three hundred. This is a kind of gambling with Fortune at which
China is disposed to wink as being merely a somewhat undue extension
of the principle of squeeze that is the warp and woof of every Chinese
employee, public or private. But he must not be found out; therefore
seventeen hundred coolies are collected by hook or by crook, and duly
attired in uniform, possibly being shown how to handle their rifles at
the salute. The muster over, the coolies return to their work, and the
arms and uniform are replaced in store until the next occasion.
[Illustration: A QUIET CANAL.]
[Illustration]
The officers are chosen from the better classes, except when a more
than usually ferocious robber is captured, when sometimes his supposed
bravery is utilized by giving him an army command. The young officers
undergo some kind of elementary training. In Canton it was until
lately the custom to have an annual examination of their proficiency
in riding and archery. In a field outside the city a curved trench
about five feet wide and two feet deep was cut for about two hundred
and fifty yards. At intervals of fifty yards were erected close to the
trench three pillars of soft material each six feet high by two feet
in diameter. Into each of these pillars the candidate, who was
mounted on a small pony and seated in a saddle to fall out of which
would require an active effort, was required to shoot an arrow as he
passed at a gallop. With bow ready strung and two spare arrows in his
girdle, he was started to gallop along the trench that was palpably
dug to prevent the ponies from swerving, as the reins were flung upon
his neck. As the candidate passed within two or three feet of the
pillar targets the feat would not appear to have been difficult. If
all three arrows were successfully planted the candidate was at the
end of the course received with applause, and his name favourably
noted by the mandarins, who sat in state in an open pavilion close by.
But this description would not at present apply to the northern
provinces, where some of the armies are apparently as well drilled,
armed, and turned out as European troops. That Chinese troops are not
wanting in bravery has been proved; and if properly led a Chinese
drilled army of to-day might prove as formidable as were the hosts of
Ghengis Khan, when in the thirteenth century they swept over Western
Asia and into Europe as far as Budapest.
[Illustration]
It has been stated that the empire has been welded together by its
conquerors, but perhaps it would be more correct to say that it
coheres by the almost universal acceptance of the ethics of
Confucius, whose wise precepts--delivered five hundred years before
the birth of Christ--inculcated all the cardinal virtues, and included
love and respect for parents; respect for the Prince; respect for and
obedience to superiors; respect for age, and courteous manners towards
all. He held that at their birth all men were by nature radically
good, but "as gems unwrought serve no useful end, so men untaught will
never know what right conduct is."
The bedrock upon which the stability of China has rested for over two
thousand years is the family life, the patriarchal system reaching
upwards in ever-widening circles, from the hut of the peasant to the
palace of the Sovereign. The house is ruled by the parents, the
village by the elders, after which the officials step in, and the
districts are governed by mandarins, whose rank of magistrate,
prefect, taotai, governor, or viceroy indicate the importance of the
areas over which they rule, each acting on principles settled by
ancient custom, but with wide latitude in the carrying out of details.
Nothing is more charming in respectable Chinese families than the
reverential respect of children for their parents, and this respect is
responded to by great affection for the children. It is a very pretty
sight to see a young child enter the room and gravely perform the
kotow to his father and mother. No young man would dare to eat or
drink in the presence of his father or mother until invited to do so.
Among the princely families the etiquette is so rigid that if a son is
addressed by his father while at table he must stand up before
answering.
It is sometimes assumed that the custom of wealthy Chinese having two,
three, or more "wives" must lead to much confusion in questions of
inheritance, but there is no real difficulty in the matter, for
although the custom allows the legalized connection with a plurality
of wives, there is really but one legal wife acknowledged as being the
head of the house. She is called the kit-fat, or first wife, and
though she may be childless all the children born of the other "wives"
are considered as being hers, and to her alone do the children pay the
reverence due to a parent, their own mothers being considered as being
in the position of aunts. Strange though it may appear to Western
ideas, this position seems to be accepted by the associated wives with
equanimity. The custom probably originated in the acknowledged
necessity to have a son or sons to carry on the worship at the family
ancestral hall, where the tablets of deceased members are preserved.
Sometimes instead of taking to himself a plurality of wives a man
adopts a son, who is thenceforth in the position of eldest son, and
cannot be displaced, even though a wife should afterwards bear a son.
A daughter is on a different plane. She is not supposed to be capable
of carrying out the family worship, and cannot perpetuate the family
name. A daughter, too, means a dower in days to come, so sometimes a
father determines, if he has already a daughter, that no more shall be
permitted to live. This determination is always taken before the birth
of the infant daughter, the child in that case being immersed in a
bucket of water at the instant of its birth, so that from the Chinese
point of view it has never existed; but female children who have
practically begun a separate existence are never destroyed. In such
cases the father is quite as fond of the daughter as of the sons, and
in families where tutors are engaged the girls pursue their studies
with their brothers.
[Illustration]
The power of the parents is practically unlimited, extending even to
life or death. A mother might kill her son without fear of legal
punishment, but if, in defending himself, he killed his parent, he
would be put to death by the lin-chi--or death by a thousand cuts--a
horrible punishment reserved for traitors, parricides, or husband
murderers. Indeed, while theoretically the woman is in China
considered inferior, the kit-fat, or principal wife, is really the
controller of the family, including the wives of her sons. She rules
the household with a rod of iron, and has considerable, if not a
paramount, influence in the conduct of the family affairs. The wife of
an official is entitled to wear the ornaments and insignia of her
husband's rank, and in the Imperial Palace the Dowager-Empress of the
day is probably the most important personage in the empire after the
Emperor.
[Illustration]
In a Hong Kong paper a short time ago there appeared a paragraph
reciting that a wealthy young Chinese, whose mother controlled a large
business in Canton, had been spending the money of the firm too
lavishly, the attraction of motor-cars and other vehicles of
extravagance being too powerful for him. After various endeavours to
control him, the mother at length prepared chains and fetters, and had
him locked up. He, however, escaped, and the irate mother announced
her intention to exercise her maternal rights on his return by cutting
the tendons of his ankles and thus crippling him. The account
proceeded to say that this treatment is often resorted to by irate
parents with prodigal sons.
The most incomprehensible custom among Chinese women of family is that
of foot-binding, which is generally begun at the age of three or four,
the process being very slow. Gradually the toes, other than the great
toe, are forced back under the sole, so that when the operation is
complete the girl is only able to hobble about on the great toes. When
a Chinese lady goes out, not using her sedan chair, she is either
carried by a female slave pick-a-back, or walks supported on either
side by two female attendants. Nevertheless, Chinese women of the
humbler classes are sometimes to be seen working in the fields with
bound feet. Why their mothers should have inflicted the torture upon
them, or why, when they had come to years of discretion, they did not
attempt to gradually unbind their feet, seems incomprehensible. The
explanation is that not alone would the unbinding inflict as much
torture, but slaves and their descendants are not permitted to bind
the feet; the deformity is therefore a badge of a free and reputable
family, and a girl with bound feet has a better prospect of being well
married than her more comfortable and capable sister, upon whom no
burden of artificial deformity has been placed. The origin of the
custom is lost in the mists of antiquity. One would imagine that the
example of the Imperial family ought to have had an effect in changing
it, for the Manchu ladies do not bind their feet; but though several
edicts have been issued forbidding it, the custom still continues. To
Western eyes, bound feet are as great a deformity as is the
tight-lacing of European ladies to the Chinese; but physically the
former is much less injurious than the latter, which not alone deforms
the skeleton, but displaces almost every one of the internal organs.