THE CITIES Of CHINA
Nowhere is the transitional period through which China is passing more
obvious than in the cities of China; many towns are still completely
Chinese, but as you approach the ports you find more and more Western
development. The contrast between towns is extremely marked. Shanghai
or Tientsin are Western towns and centres of civilisation; the
difference between them and such towns as Hangchow or Ichang is very
great. The true Chinese city is not without its beauty--in fact, in
many ways it is a beautiful and wonderful place. But to appreciate it
eyes only are wanted, and a nose is a misfortune. The streets are
extremely narrow passages, which are bordered on either side by most
attractive shops, particularly in the main street. The stranger longs
to stop and buy things as he goes along, but the difficulty is that it
takes so much time; he must either be prepared to pay twice the value
of the things he wants, or to spend hours in negotiation. There is one
curious exception to this rule; the silk guild at Shanghai does not
allow its members to bargain, and therefore in the silk shop the real
price is told at once.
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The shopkeepers are charming, and there are numbers of
salesmen--salesmen who do not mind taking any amount of trouble to
please. It is delightful, if insidious, to go into those shops; and
one can well believe that if a Chinese silk shop were opened in London,
and silk sold at Chinese prices, the shop would have plenty of
customers. The quality of Chinese silk far exceeds that of the silks
of the West. A Chinese gentleman mentioned as an example of this
superiority that one of his gowns was made of French silk, and that it
was torn and spoilt after two or three years; but that he had had gowns
of Chinese silk for twenty years or more which were quite as good as on
the day he bought them, and that he had only put them on one side
because the fashions in men's garments change in China as they do
elsewhere for ladies. The same gentleman related many interesting
things about the silk trade. The quality of the silk is determined by
the silk guild. This is much more like the guilds in mediæval Europe
than anything that we have nowadays, and that is why China is not
exporting more silk than she is at present. These silk guilds to a
certain extent prevent the Chinese catering for European customers, as
they will not allow or at any rate encourage the production of silks
that would take on the European market. The West has many faults as
well as many virtues, and one of its faults is that it no longer cares
for articles of sterling value, which last long and for which a high
price must be paid, {97} but it delights in attractive articles of poor
quality at a low price. It is to be feared that the West may spoil
some of China's great products as she has spoilt the great arts and
productions of India.
But to return to Chinese streets. Next the silk shop will be the
silver shop. Here again the work is admirable. At such a place as
Kiukiang you can spend an hour or more bargaining, and watching the
wonderful skill of the silversmiths as they turn out beautiful silver
ornaments. It is pleasant to wander along and to look into the shops
and see the strange things that are for sale--fish of many kinds in one
shop, rice and grain in another, strange vegetables, little bits of
pork, flattened ducks; or to glance at the clothes and the coats hung
out, many of them of brilliant colours. The signs over the shops and
the names of the merchants are a feature in themselves, illuminated as
they are in vivid hues of red and gold, in those wonderful characters
so full of mystery to the foreigner.
In a native city up-country the traveller is practically forced to go
through the city in a chair. There are no wheel conveyances except
wheelbarrows, and, except where there are Manchus, horses are quite
unknown. Walking is profoundly unpleasant for a European, for as he
walks along he is constantly jostled by porters carrying loads of goods
on a bamboo across their shoulders; or cries are heard, and a Chinese
Mandarin is carried past shoulder high, leaning forward looking out of
his {98} chair perhaps with a smile, of contempt for the foreigner who
can so demean himself as to go on foot like a common coolie; or perhaps
it is a lady with her chair closely covered in and only a glimpse to be
seen of a rouged and powdered face, for the Chinese women paint to
excess, as part of their ordinary toilette. Next comes the
water-carrier hurrying past with his two buckets of water; or perhaps
it is some malodorous burden which makes a Western long to be deprived
of the sense of smell. But in a chair a ride through a Chinese town is
delightful; the chair-coolies push past foot-passengers who accept
their buffets with the greatest equanimity, and from a comparatively
elevated position the traveller can look down on the crowd.
But when the Chinese city is near a port, all this begins to change.
The chair is replaced by the ricksha, and though in many ways it is
less comfortable than a chair, the ricksha is after all the beginning
of the rule of the West, being a labour-saving machine. One coolie or
two at the most can drag a man quickly and easily where with a chair
three or four bearers would be needed. Outside the old town will be
built the new native town, and the new native town is built on European
lines, with comparatively wide streets. In a treaty port the completed
specimen of the transitional stage through which all China is passing
is to be seen. Shanghai is a most delightful town, although it seems
commonplace to those who live there, but {99} to a stranger it is a
place full of contradictions and eccentricities. The first thing that
strikes one in Shanghai is that none of the natives know any of the
names of the streets. It is true they are written up in large letters
both in English and in Chinese; but as not one of the coolies can read,
they have not the very slightest idea that that is the name of the
street--they call it quite a different name; and as they speak a
different language both to that of the educated Chinaman and to the
Englishman, there is no reason why they should ever learn the names
given by them. The habitual way of directing a ricksha coolie is by a
sort of pantomime, and there is always a great element of uncertainty
as to whether he will get to his destination even with the oldest
resident unless he knows the way himself. I arrived at Tientsin and
tried to go and see Dr. Lavington Hart, whose college is known all over
China, I may say all over the world, but the Chinese porter was quite
unable to make the coolie understand where it was, and so we wandered
about for some time till the coolie got tired and put me down opposite
what fortunately turned out to be the house of a Japanese gentleman. I
entered the house, and was surprised that the Chinese servant who met
me did not altogether seem to expect me; but as he could not speak
English and I could not speak Chinese, it was impossible to inquire if
anything was wrong. I was just wondering why Dr. Hart should live in a
Japanese house, {100} when the door opened and a Japanese gentleman
walked in. Fortunately for me he spoke both Chinese and English well;
so after explanations I was again sent on my road, and found Dr.
Lavington Hart waiting dinner for me, and wondering how I had got lost.
He then told me that I should have asked not for his college but for
the hospital opposite, and that I should have asked not for the street
but for the Chinese name of the doctor of the hospital who had been
dead ten or fifteen years.
There is a moral in all this: it shows the state of confusion that
exists in small as well as in large things. I asked several Englishmen
why they did not accept the native names of the streets; their answer
was that the coolies could not read them; and when I suggested that
common sense would expect that the coolies' names should be taken for
the streets, for after all that is how most of the streets in England
were originally named, the suggestion met with no approval. These
small matters show what a great gulf there is between the thoughts of
the two races. If the coolies had been Italians or Germans or
Russians, their names would have been accepted, or they would have been
compelled to learn the new names.
Another example of the difficulty of carrying on the details of city
life is afforded by a common spectacle at Shanghai. In the crowded
streets you see a little crowd of policemen. The group consists of
three splendid men, typical of three different {101} civilisations.
First there is the English policeman; next to him is a black-bearded
man, bigger than the first, a Sikh, every gesture and action revealing
the martial characteristics of his race; then a Chinaman completes the
group, blue-coated and wearing a queue and a round Chinese hat as a
sign of office. The traveller wonders why this trio is needed till he
sees them in action. A motor car rushes down one road, a ricksha comes
down another, and a Chinese wheelbarrow with six women sitting on it
slowly progresses down a third. All three conveyances are controlled
by Chinamen, and when they meet, all shout and shriek at the top of
their voices; no one keeps the rule of the road, with the probable
result that the wheelbarrow is upset, the ricksha is forced against the
wall, and the motor car pulled up dead. Then the police force comes
into action. The Chinese policeman objurgates vociferously and makes
signals indifferently to everybody; the Sikh policeman at once begins
to thrash the Chinese coolie; meanwhile the English policeman at last
gets the traffic on the right side of the road, quiets his
subordinates, sees justice done, and restores order. Possibly if the
matter had been left to the Chinese policeman, he would have arranged
it in the end; the traffic in Peking was controlled entirely by Chinese
policemen and was fairly well managed.
There is an extraordinary example of the want of consideration for the
feelings of the Chinese to {102} be seen in the public gardens at
Shanghai. There stands a notice which contains, among several
regulations, first, that "no dogs or bicycles shall be admitted";
secondly, that "no Chinese shall be admitted except servants in
attendance on foreigners." Considering that the land is Chinese soil,
one cannot but wonder that any one who had dealings with the Chinese
should allow so ill-mannered a notice to be put up. No Chinese
gentleman would object for a moment if the notice had been to the
effect that unclean persons and beggars should be excluded from the
gardens; but to exclude the cultured Chinese merchant who is every whit
as clean as his Western neighbour, or to exclude the respectable people
of the middle class whose orderly behaviour is beyond suspicion, is as
unreasonable as it is regrettable.
Again, the Shanghai municipality has no Chinese representatives upon
it, though the great bulk of the population is Chinese, with the result
that from time to time they come across Chinese prejudices and quite
unnecessarily irritate the population which they govern. The Chinese
have a principle that a woman shall be publicly punished only for
adultery and open shameless theft; her "face" or dignity must be
preserved; and therefore she should never be made to answer for her
offences in open court, her husband or her father being held
responsible for her behaviour and for her punishment. The right way of
dealing with any woman who is charged with an offence is to do as we do
in England with regard to children, to summon {103} not her but those
responsible for her behaviour. I was assured by a Chinese official
that the trouble which culminated in the Shanghai riots originated from
disregard of this principle. The refusal of the Shanghai municipality
to have Chinese representatives upon it is the more remarkable, as I
was informed at Hong-Kong that they have such representatives, and find
them most useful in assisting in the government of the Chinese. It is
not surprising that Shanghai is a town to which it is diplomatic to
make no reference in conversation with a Chinese gentleman.
There is more to be said for the mistrust of the Chinese Post-office
and for the continuation of the curious system by which each nation has
its own post-office. Nothing is more annoying to the traveller in
Shanghai than the trouble he has to get his letters. If it should so
happen that he has correspondents in many countries, he has to go to
every one of the many post-offices in Shanghai, and they are situated
in different parts of the town and in places very difficult to find.
There is the Imperial Chinese Post-office, to which he first repairs,
and where he will find letters from any correspondent in China; then
with the greatest difficulty he reaches the English Post-office; after
which he remembers that some of his friends may be on a holiday in
France, therefore he must go to the French Post-office, and so on.
When he asks why the Chinese Post-office cannot be trusted, he is told
that the Chinese themselves will not trust their {104} post-office
unless there be a European official in control, and that the old
Chinese system by which letters are forwarded by private companies
still continues in many parts of China, although they possess branches
of the Imperial Chinese Post-office. Still the traveller wearily
thinks at the end of his day's journey that without undue trust in
another nationality, or any loss of national prestige, an International
Post-office might be arranged in a town like Shanghai, with its vast
travelling population.
Shanghai with its mixture of races, with its national antipathies and
jealousies, is indeed one of the most attractive but strangest towns in
the whole world. Every race meets there; and as one wanders down the
Nanking road, one never tires of watching the nationalities which
throng that thoroughfare. There walks a tall bearded Russian, a fat
German, jostling perhaps a tiny Japanese officer, whose whole air shows
that he regards himself as a member of the conquering race that has
checkmated the vast power of Europe; there are sleek Chinese in Western
carriages, and there are thin Americans in Eastern rickshas; the motor
cycle rushes past, nearly colliding with a closely-curtained chair
bearing a Chinese lady of rank, or a splendid Indian in a yellow silk
coat is struck in the face by the hat of a Frenchman, who finds the
pavements of Shanghai too narrow for his sweeping salute; one hears
guttural German alternating with Cockney slang; Parisian toilettes are
seen next half-naked coolies; a couple of sailors on {105} a tandem
cycle almost upset two Japanese beauties as they shuffle along with
their toes turned in; a grey gowned Buddhist priest elbows a bearded
Roman missionary; a Russian shop where patriotism rather than love of
gain induces the owners to conceal the nature of their wares by
employing the Russian alphabet overhead, stands opposite a Japanese
shop which, in not too perfect English, assures the wide world that
their heads can be cut cheaply; an English lady looks askance at the
tightness of her Chinese sister's nether garments, while the Chinese
sister wonders how the white race can tolerate the indecency that
allows a woman to show her shape and wear transparent sleeves.
Yes, Shanghai on a spring afternoon is a most interesting place; and
yet as you turn your eyes to the river and catch sight of the dark grey
warship, you realise that beneath all this peace and busy commerce lies
the fear of the grim realities of war. China may assimilate the
adjuncts of Western life, but she will never welcome the Western. The
racial gulf that divides them is far too deep. It may be temporarily
bridged by the heroism of a missionary; the enthusiasm of Christianity
may make those who embrace it brothers; but the feeling of love will
not extend one inch beyond the influence of religion; and those who
ponder on the future as they watch the many-hued crowd that passes must
grow more and more sure that the future of China lies with the Chinese
alone; and however much as a race they may {106} be willing to learn
from the West, they will as a race be led only by their own people.
The Westerner may be employed; Western teaching may be learnt; Western
garments may be worn; but, as a Chinese professor said, "The wearer
will be a Chinaman all the same."
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