BRITAIN'S ROCK IN ASIA
1
To one who had received his most vivid impressions of China from her
noblest philosopher, Lao-tsze, it was somewhat disconcerting to peep
through the porthole just after dawn and find oneself the center of a
confusion indescribable. The sleepy, heaving sea was more in tune with
the mystic "Way" of the great sage. I had not anticipated being thrust
so suddenly among the masses and the babel on which Lao-tsze, that
gray-beard child, had tried to pour some intellectual oil.
Yet, I had been living on the top floor of a Chinese "den" for
twenty-six days between Sydney and Hong-Kong. On board I was ready to
blame the steamship company for the crowding and the uncleanliness. Had
there been a dozen murders, I should not have regarded it as unnatural.
Had I been compelled to spend three weeks in such circumstances, I
should either have committed hara-kiri or killed off at least four
hundred and fifty-five to make the decent amount of room necessary for
the remaining fifty. So I was prepared to exonerate them, to praise them
for their pacifism and their orderliness in such conditions.
But when I peeped out of the porthole that morning and saw the swarming
thousands struggling with one another to secure a pittance of privilege,
which these five hundred had to offer by way of baggage, my heart went
out to the great sage of 650 B. C. He must have been courageous indeed.
Full families of them on their shallow sampans cooperating with one
another against odds which would sicken the stoutest-hearted white folk.
Yet in that Oriental mass there was the ever-present exultation of
spirit. Laughter and good-natured bullying, full recognition of the
other man's right to rob and be robbed. No smug morality teaching you to
be shy and generous in the face of an obviously bad world, a world
ordered so as to make goodness the most expensive instead of the least
expensive quality. But I soon discovered that beneath that external
jollity only too frequently fluttered a fearful heart, filled with dread
of the slightest change of circumstances.
The distance between the ship and the shore was not like Charon's river
Styx, but it was a way between the Elysium of an alien metropolis and a
Hades of hopeless nativity, none the less. Beyond stood the towering
hills of Hong-Kong with its massive palaces in marble at the very
summit. Chinese will to live had builded these, but the people had not,
it seems, enough will left to build for themselves. From the very foot
of the hills upward rose a steady series of buildings which looked
surprisingly familiar, yet somewhat alien to my expectations. It was
something of a shock to me to find that Hong-Kong was Chinese in name
and character only, while being European-owned and ordered. I felt
fooled. I had gone to see China, but found only another outpost of Great
Britain. My American passport had had most fascinating Chinese
characters on the back of it. But the "Emergency Permit" issued to me in
Sydney, had none. Between British ports one can always expect British
courtesy and that largeness of heart which comes from having taken
pretty nearly all there is worth while in the world without being afraid
of losing it. So I made some hurried mental adjustments as we chugged
our way across, amidst bobbing sampans, and convinced myself that it
might have been worse.
In that great future which will put modern civilization somewhere
half-way between the Stone Age and itself, the stones of Hong-Kong will
give investigators much to think about. Everything in Hong-Kong is
concrete and stone. From the spacious office buildings that stand along
the waterfront, to the palaces upon the peak, stone is the material out
of which everything is built. What achievement! What a monument to
Britain! But as the stones become harder beneath one's feet, one senses
the toil embodied in them. Male and female coolies still trudge over
these stony paths, carrying baskets of gravel, tar, or sand higher and
higher. These structures seemed to me like human bridges which great
leaders of men sometimes lay for their armies to pass over. Where do
they lead to? Perhaps to England's greatness; perhaps to the world's
shame.
At first one is prone to be rigid in one's judgment. There seems too
much evidence of desire to build securely, rather than humanely or
beautifully. The Orient, one hears, builds more daintily, more softly,
more picturesquely; America builds more comfortably and more thoroughly.
One might add, apologetically, that had not the masters driven these
coolies to such stony tasks, the poor creatures would simply have built
another Chinese wall at the behest of one of their own tyrants. Cheap
labor makes pyramids and walls, and palaces on the peaks of Hong-Kong.
But it also makes an unsightly slough of humanity about itself.
Considering how costly pyramids and palaces such as those at Hong-Kong
are, considering the plodding toil it took to build them, for the sake
of humanity it is better that they were built of stone, so that
rebuilding may never be necessary.
Everywhere as we climb we pass rest stations, coolies buying a few
cents' worth of food, coolies carrying cement. While far beneath lies
murky, moldy Hong-Kong with its worm-like streets, its misty harbor
waters, its hundreds of steamers, sail-boats, sampans, piers, and
dry-docks, and all around stand the peaks of earth and the inverted
peaks of air. Returning by another route, down more winding and more
precipitous paths, one passes great concrete reservoirs, tennis-courts,
an incline railway, water-sheds,--and the city again.
2
The days draw on even here, and sunlight is curtained by dim night. The
din of human voices loses its shrill tone of bargaining, the rickshaw
men trot regularly but more slowly. Carriers of sedan-chairs lag beneath
their loads; their steps slow down to a walk. Women by the dozen slip
by, still with their burdens, but their voices have a note of softness,
pleasing sadness. And now comes the time of day when no matter in what
station one's life may be cast, spirit and body shift to better
adjustment. And through the dim blue mist the shuffling of feet is
heard, or the sounding of loose wooden slippers like drops of water in a
well. Whatever revived activities may follow this twilight hour, now,
for the world entire, is rest,--even in toil-worn, grubbing, groveling
China, which seems not to have been born to rest.
"Business" is not yet gone from the streets of Hong-Kong, though it is
now wholly dark. Every one is working as though the day were but just
beginning and it were not Sunday night. It is impossible to select
"important" things from out this heap of human debris. Filth, odors,
activity, jewelry, dirty little heaps and packets of food,--all are
handled over and over again, and each one is content with a lick of the
fingers for the handling. Then when quite worn out one may rest his
bones on the pavement covered with straw or mat, or if more fortunate,
may have a hovel or a house in which to breed. The number of homeless
wretches sleeping on the inclined stone pavements of Hong-Kong was
simply appalling. And Hong-Kong is British made. Hong-Kong was a barren
island twenty-nine miles in area when seventy-five years or so ago
Britain demanded it from China; to-day its population is nearly a tenth
of that of the whole continent of Australia. But what a difference in
the status of that population! Certainly no man who sees the result of
over-population in proportion to a people's industrial ingenuity can
blame Australia for keeping herself under reproductive self-control.
A few of the things one sees as a matter of course in Hong-Kong will
illustrate. As I was coming down Pottinger Street I was horror-struck at
the sight of a small boy on his knees groaning and wailing as though he
were in unendurable agony. I thought at first he was having a fit, but
it became obvious that there was method in his madness. He was repeating
some incantation, bowing his head to the ground, tapping frantically
with a tin can on the stones, and chanting or shrieking out his
blessings or his curses, which ever the case may have been. He was a
blind beggar, and though he must have received more money than many a
coolie does (for even Chinese have coins to give) and in a way certainly
earned it, I could not but smile at his wisdom,--for at its worst it was
no worse than the labor of the coolie. Yet from many passers-by he
evoked only slight amusement.
Upon some steps in an unlighted thoroughfare stood a Chinese haranguing
a crowd. His voice was not unpleasant, his manner was persuasive. But
what to? Had he been urging China to stop breeding, to cease this
worm-like living and reproducing, I should have regarded him as a public
benefactor. For it made me creepy, this proximity to such squirming
numbers.
Beside a dirty wall around the corner was a medicine man selling a
miraculous bundle of herbs. He screeched its powers, gave each a smell,
which each one took since it cost nothing, and then he went into
frightful contortions to demonstrate that which these herbs could allay.
But from the expression on his face it was obvious they could not allay
his disappointment that the purchasers were few.
At an open store was a crowd. I edged my way up to see the excitement.
It was a "doctor's operating-room." Upon a bench sat an old man,
gray-haired and almost toothless. The "doctor" stood astride the
patients' knees and with a steel instrument, somewhat rusty, calmly and
carelessly stirred about in the old man's eyeless socket. All the
sufferer did was to mutter "Ta, ta, ta," pausing slightly between the
ta's, but never stirring. No guarding against infection out on the open,
dusty, dirty thoroughfare.
The crowd looked on without any sign of emotion. A few women sat on a
bench inside, but seemed quite indifferent. There was one exception. A
little mother with a boy of about six contemplated the performance with
a pained expression. Her boy's eyes were crossed and turned upward. He
had to be treated, too.
Finally even these things end. It is nine o'clock. Shops are closing,
the crowds on the streets die down. And for one brief spell the world
will rest.
Here we have four examples of life in China. When we examine them
closely, haphazardly chosen as they have been, there is a strange
uniformity and contradiction in their basic situations. The blind
beggar-boy, the charlatan advocate and medicine man, the careless
surgeon,--at bottom all charlatans, yet all essentially sincere. That
ranting little beggar howled his lying appeals, but at home, no doubt,
were other mouths to be fed for which he--blind head of the family--was
responsible. The herb-specialist seemed, from the tone of his voice,
sincere in the belief in his remedies; the surgeon, certain of his
operation. Yet that is what China is suffering from most, and because of
the faith in their crude panaceas and the conviction that five thousand
years of tradition gives folk, the Rockefeller Foundation will have to
work for many generations before it will make China prophylactic.
3
There was another incident that illustrated, to me at least, China's
ailment. Hong-Kong seemed possessed one night. I thought a riot or a
revolution had broken out, but it was only a house on fire. Thousands of
Chinese scurried about like rats looking for ways of escape. From the
littered roof and balcony of a five-story tenement a flame leaped
skyward as though itself trying to escape from the unpleasant task of
consuming so dirty a structure. The curious collected in hordes from
everywhere.
I made my way into this mass not unaware of being quite alone in the
world. It was interesting to be in this sort of mob. The reason for
China's subjugation showed itself in the ease with which it was
controlled. One single white policeman, running back and forth along the
length of a block, kept the whole mob well along the curb. It was
amazing to watch the crowd retreat at the officer's approach and then
bulge out as soon as he passed by. One young Chinese stood out a little
too far. The officer came up on his rear, yanked him by the ear, and
sent him scurrying back into the mob. They who dared rushed timidly
across the street. I remarked this to the policeman. He was pleased. "If
you want to get closer up, just walk straight ahead," he said. And so I
did, as did other white men who arrived, without being stopped. That was
it: we were quite different; we could go. Later a host of special
police, Chinese and Indian regulars, arrived and relieved this lone
white officer.
This incident seemed to me to symbolize China's present state. No
leader, no cohesion, no common thinking. Had the mob been
resentful,--what then! It was a mob the like of which I had never seen
before. A dull murmur sounded through all the confusion. It seemed to
be of one tone, as though all the notes of the scale were sung at once
and they blended into one another like the colors of the spectrum. The
people seemed wonderfully alert. Their hearing was keen. Two tram-car
conductors conversed forty feet away from each other, with dozens of
yapping Chinese between.
Thus, China enjoys a oneness like that of water. Easily separated,
lightly invaded, rapidly reunited, her masses flow on together when
directed into any channel, and it matters little where or why. And the
white policeman assured me that when the Chinese still wore queues a
policeman raided a den and tied the queues of fifteen Chinese together
and with these as reins drove them to prison.
4
Yet, what nation or race in the world has maintained such indivisibility
against so much separation! Think of what the family is and has been to
China,--its creeds, its government, its entire existence. Yet the family
and concubinage obtain side by side.
There was evidence of this in British Hong-Kong. Upon the street one day
I saw another crowd. It was waiting for the appearance of the Governor
of Canton. When the worthy governor emerged from a very unworthy-looking
building, the crowd cheered and gathered close around the automobile.
A well-dressed young Chinese in European clothes emerged from the hall.
I asked him what was toward, surmising his understanding. He spoke
English fluently and seemed pleased to inform me. So we strolled down
the street together. He was not very hopeful about Chinese democracy as
yet, but believed in it and expressed great admiration for America.
Britain, he said, was not well liked. He spoke of his religion, his
belief in Confucianism. He regretted that Hong-Kong had no temples and
that he and his friends were compelled to meet at the club for prayer.
Yet though he was a Confucianist, he decried the family system. "Chinese
cling too much to family," he said. "One man goes to America, then he
sends for a brother simply because he is a relative. The brother may be
a very bad character, but that doesn't matter. So it is in official
circles in China to-day. Graft goes on, jobs are dispensed to relatives
worthy or unworthy, efficient or inefficient. And the country is getting
deeper and deeper into difficulties."
As though to prove the truth of his assertions, he told me of his own
experiences as a child. "Chinese obey," he said. "My father paid for my
education, therefore my duty toward him should know no bounds." His
father had had ten children, only two of whom survived,--he and an elder
sister. When his father died, he became the head of the family.
Therefore he had to marry, even though then only fifteen years of age.
He had been married for sixteen years. I should never have believed it,
to judge from his appearance. He seemed no more than a student himself,
but he assured me he had five children,--one daughter fifteen years old.
Birth-control! Limitation of offspring! Why bother? If his father could
"raise" a family of ten on "nothing" and then just let them die
off,--why not he? So does duty keep the race alive.
And duty tolerates that which is sapping the very foundation of the
race,--not only the enslavement of the wife in such circumstances, but
the entertainment of the concubine. I saw the way that works.
At the opposite end of the city is the quarter where the concubines
abound. Life there does not begin till eight o'clock in the evening, if
as early. The clanging of cans and the effort at music is terrifying.
Hotels of from four to five stories, with all their balconies
illuminated, gave an effect of festive cheerfulness which the rest of
the city lacked utterly.
[Illustration: IN CHINA DRINKING-WATER, SOAP-SUDS, SOUP AND SEWERS ALL
FIND THEIR SOURCE IN THE SAME STREAM]
[Illustration: SHANGHAI YOUNGSTERS PUTTING THEIR HEADS TOGETHER TO
MAKE US OUT]
[Illustration: THIS OLD WOMAN IS LAYING DOWN THE LAW TO THE WILD YOUNG
THINGS OF CHINA]
[Illustration: CHINA COULD TURN THESE MUD HOUSES INTO PALACES IF SHE
WISHED--SHE IS RICH ENOUGH]
Upon the ground floors, which opened directly upon the street, the
women could be seen dressing for the evening. Nothing in their behavior
or dress would indicate their profession,--so unlike the licensed
districts of Japan. The women never as much as noticed any stranger on
the street. At the appointed time each little woman emerged, dainty,
clean and sober, and passed from her own quarters to the hotels and
restaurants where she was to meet her chartered libertine. Her decorum
approximated saintly modesty, and she moved with a childlike innocence.
There was throughout the district no rowdyism, no disorderliness.
Everything was businesslike and according to regulation. Strange, that
with so much self-control should go so much licentiousness. But it is
part of the mystery of the Orient.
5
Yet, this is no stranger than that with so much of excellence in
Hong-Kong, there should also go the perpetuation of coolieism; to
paraphrase, that with so much dignity and honesty in trade should go so
much inhumanity in the treatment of men. That is the mystery of
Britannia,--and her success. America went into the Orient and
immediately began educating it. In answer to a German criticism of
British educational work in Hong-Kong, the "Japan Chronicle" (British)
says:
Considering how much greater British interests in China have
hitherto been than American, the Americans are far more guilty of
the abominable crime of educating the Chinese than the British,
having spent a great deal of money, and induced young Chinese to
come to America and get Americanized. Most people, including
impartial British subjects, would find fault rather with the narrow
limits of English education in China than with its intentions.
Hongkong has been for many years the center of an enormously
profitable trade, and had things been done with the altruism that
one would like to see in international relations, there would be
ten universities instead of only one and a hundred students sent to
England for college or technical training where only one is sent
to-day.
Hitherto, it has been Britain's success that she has not interfered with
the habits of the races she has ruled. In Hong-Kong she has built a
modern city out of nothing, but has permitted Asiatic defects to find
their place within it.
For instance, there was no sewerage system in Hong-Kong,--a fact than
which no greater criticism could be made of Britain, or of any other
nation pretending to be civilized. In this no question of altruism is
involved, but purely one of self-interest. And if greater concern for
such matters were manifest, doubtless it would work its way back through
concubinage, ancestor worship, charlatanism in public and private life.
Having taken my chances with criticism, I shall risk praise. Englishmen
have never, to my knowledge, been given credit for the possession of
romantic souls; yet nothing but a deep love of romance could be
responsible for the manner in which Britain has preserved Hong-Kong's
Chinese face. Despite the fact that it is entirely Western in its
structure, I never felt the Oriental flavor more in all Japan than I did
at Hong-Kong. The sedan-chairs that take one up the steeps and remind
one of the swells on the China Sea in their motion, the thousands of
rickishaws that roll swiftly, quietly over smoothly paved streets, the
particularly attractive Chinese signs that lure one into dazzling shops
with unmistakable Eastern atmosphere, the money-changers and the markets
dripping with Oriental messes, left an impression on my mind that none
of my later experiences can dispel.