_UP-COUNTRY SHOPPING AND UP-COUNTRY WAYS._
Buying Curios.--Being stoned.--Chinese New
Year.--Robbers.--Protesting Innocence.--Doing
Penance.--Medicines.
Before Chinese New Year bargains are to be picked up--in Shanghai
lovely embroidered satins, exquisite transparent tortoiseshell boxes,
or china of the Ming period. Up-country our buyings are of a different
order--a tiger-skin thirteen feet from head to tail, with grand
markings, though of course not so thick a fur as is to be had at
Newchwang. Head and tail and claws are all intact; and the man who
brings it exhibits also its terrible jaws, and points to the holes
where the spear entered before the man conquered the tiger. We have
besides stone slabs, with the shells of the orthoceras embedded in
them, sawn asunder and polished for screens or table-tops. What that
most remarkable animal did, with a shell like the horn of an unicorn,
not uncommonly over two feet long, and beautifully convoluted, it is
hard to think. These pagoda-stones, as they are called, arrive in
mass, all to realise money for New Year's debts.
Rocks of various kinds are the special product of the Ichang
district, where we could supply all the rockeries of Shanghai with
disintegrated conglomerate. Only, unfortunately, at this season
fern-stones are not in sufficient beauty to play the part of the Irish
pig, and help to pay the rent. But one day an eagle was shown into the
drawing-room in splendid condition, with grand yellow beak, and
beautiful brown eyes, and neck of blended tints of brown and bronze.
The poor creature's feet were tightly tied together; but even as it
was, we were careful about admiring its beauties too closely. Eight
hundred cash was all that was even asked by its captor, who eventually
is said to have parted with the beautiful bird for five hundred cash,
or one shilling.
A curious little animal with beautiful long-nailed feet and tiny tail,
and a fur so exquisitely thick and soft and feathery one quite longed
for a collar of it, had not such luck as the eagle, and died before
arriving here; but of these various luxuries--for none of these can
quite be reckoned among the necessaries of life--it is a little
difficult to choose on which to spend one's spare cash. The fur-shops
close before the New Year, which is the more to be regretted as they
offer the most fascinating footstool covers--intended for the seats of
roomy Chinese chairs--made out of two heads of what are called
seven-months' tigers, a thick fur of drab colour with an admixture of
rich brown.
[Illustration: PUNCH AND JUDY.
_Lent by Scotch Presbyterian Mission._]
Oranges are what colour the scene,--mandarin oranges, of delicious
flavour and thinnest possible skin; and other oranges, slightly
indented at either end, and of a flavour peculiar to the district, and
highly appreciated. But an attempt to examine the orange-market soon
roused a row, when mud and brickbats flew through the air, so well
hurled by some of the Hunan boatmen as to raise a lump like an egg on
the skull of one of the party before we fairly got away, with our hats
knocked over our eyes, and generally somewhat soiled. This stoning
experience becomes a little monotonous. I have had hot things thrown
at me in Hankow, hot things and stones in Itu, bricks and earth in
Ichang, and since then so many things in so many less well-known
places. There is a certain amount of excitement attached to it at
first; but the most passionate lover of excitement could buy it more
pleasurably otherwise. The people you look at always run away, if you
look firmly enough; but then those from behind come on, and the men on
the outskirts of the throng take the opportunity to throw things under
cover of the others. After all, the shrieking and shouting they keep
up is about the worst part of the proceeding, making one feel like a
mad dog. And to walk through the narrow streets of a Chinese town in
that character is not the pleasantest possible experience. We enjoyed
it to perfection at Itu, where the people consider they have conquered
the English; for a missionary, having taken a house there, was not
only persuaded by the British Consul into giving up the house, the
owner of which had as usual in such cases been thrown into prison, but
had even to pay something himself, instead of having compensation
given to him.
Had it not been for the uproarious chorus of "Slay the foreigner!" the
tune to which we habitually walked about in remote parts of Hupeh
Province, the shops of Itu looked rather inviting. There were
beautiful sheep-skins in great profusion; and even in passing I was
struck by the delicate beauty of some of the fox-skins. Women's
embroidered petticoats were also hanging up for sale; but this was
probably a bad New Year's sign. In one of the temples at Itu report
says there is an inscription in European characters; but the hooting
crowd did not predispose us to research, the less so as over all down
fell the silent snow, in the midst of which stalked the most
formidable beggar I have ever yet seen, stripped to the waist, covered
with skin disease, his face plastered with mud of a livid green hue,
his hair wild, and his eyes fierce and shining.
How comfortable the familiar house-boat looks, after one of these
raids upon the shore, with luncheon on the table, and the armchairs
all equally inviting! But we were stoned at Ichang with no pleasant
house-boat to make tracks to; and, what is worse, one of the party
wounded, which was a bad precedent, to say the least of it. And we
were met by a French gentleman, who said, "I was stoned for a whole
quarter of an hour yesterday." It seemed to him, as it did to us, that
these little breaches of the peace, acquiesced in, might easily lead
to serious consequences. The cry of "Slay the foreigner!" was a
novelty that year. It has become very common since then.
But even without stoning, what a business it is shopping in a Chinese
city! If you go to a shop, and begin looking at things and asking
prices as you might in Europe, all the rabble of the street pours in
after you. You cannot make yourself heard, you cannot breathe, you
cannot see for the crowd, till the poor shopkeeper by his imploring
gestures at last succeeds in making you go away before his shop is
sacked, or at least half the things in it broken. The proper way is
to send to the shop. Then a young shopman comes, very chirpy and
self-satisfied, with a quantity of goods, but very likely nothing that
you quite fancy. Then he asks you to tell him what you want exactly.
Do you want brocade, or--or----Here follow names of silks you never
heard of, and never consciously saw. Do you want to make yourself a
skirt or a jacket? What!--neither! And do you not want a whole piece
of the silk either? He packs up his goods and goes off. Then you
decide to do the next most right thing--are carried to his shop in a
sedan-chair, plumped down at the door of it, and glide into it and
through into the sitting-room behind with wonderful celerity. The
troubled shopkeeper bars one or two gates behind you, and the curious
crowd is shut out. You sit down in peace, among round wooden columns,
upon one of the straight-backed chairs beside a little black table.
All is tranquil. Tea is brought. A pipe is offered. No one is in a
hurry to serve you. And when you begin to explain what you want, they
treat you like a silly sort of crazy creature that must be humoured,
and somehow induced to go away. If, however, you have the good sense
to begin by making one or two somewhat important purchases, everything
and everybody in the shop will be at your service. The Chinese like
buyers. But they object altogether to pricing after the American
fashion.
[Illustration: STONE ANIMALS AT GENERAL'S GRAVE. A PEASANT SEATED ON
ONE WITH STRAW HAT.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
There is not much more to be bought in Chungking than in Ichang; but
there are bed-spreads of deep indigo-blue cotton, with an elaborate
pattern traced out on them in a kind of plaster before they are dyed,
which consequently become whiter each time the cloth is washed, and
which do well for tablecloths. And there are felt rugs, which have
been treated in the same way--the whole pattern traced by hand,
though, and then the rug dipped in a bright scarlet. Even in Chungking
we never can decide whether these rugs look handsome or the reverse.
But in the frontier town of Tibet, in the Roman Catholic Bishop's
palace, I thought one looked magnificent upon the floor. There are
embroideries, of course, to be bought--there are always embroideries
all over China. And there are wonderful straw hats from Chengtu, two
yards in circumference; and with the straw braid so fine in the
centre of the crown, that it has all to be sewn together standing
edgewise, not flat, as is usual with hats.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO FAIRIES' TEMPLE, CHUNGKING.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
But China New Year is the great time in every Chinese city, and this
account of China New Year in Wuchang, the capital of Hupeh Province,
is so much the best I have ever heard, that I must borrow it from the
_North China Daily News_ of February 20th, 1891:
"It requires a good conscience to get any sleep on Old Year Night in a
Chinese city; the whole population watches the Old Year out. Ask them
what they do all the time, they will say they enjoy themselves; again
ask them how, they will tell you that they sit and chat all night
long. No doubt the opium-pipe and game of chance help away the time.
Certainly, firing crackers seems to be a large part of the watch-night
service. From dark to dawn and everywhere they bang, bang, bang on the
startled air of night, being intended as a sort of greeting to the New
Year. All the first half of the night hurry and scurry fill the
streets; the city gates are left open, so that belated creditors may
not be hampered in the collection of their debts. Then towards
midnight the last door is shut, and the last lucky inscription pasted
up. This is a very important phase of the New Year. Every house in the
empire that can afford it buys antithetical inscriptions for the two
lintels of the door, and for the various other places of prominence on
the walls. The vocabulary of polite ornament is ransacked, and the
five happinesses, the points of the compass, rains, snows, winds,
sunshine, country and home, wealth and longevity, are woven into the
garlands of elegant phrases in every possible combination. On the
doors themselves are pasted new pictures of the 'Door-Gods', who once
in the fabled past delivered their monarch from the nightly visits of
wandering bogeys, and whose pictures have been found ever since
sufficient for a similar purpose throughout the empire. Across the
windows are pasted strips of paper--'Chieh, the Supreme Duke, is here;
bad spirits, get you gone,' for Chieh in his day, some two thousand
years ago, gained great power over spirits, and to-day, though they
have wit enough to read characters, they have not wit to know that
they are being taken in, and therefore sneak away abashed when they
find their old controller is within. Over the door-front is fixed a
little mirror, so that any foul fiend who wants to enter, seeing his
own ugly face reflected, will think another is there before him, and
will fear the consequences of poaching. The 'door of wealth' is then
closed, and the transactions of the year are ended. The door will in
due time be opened once more with great ceremony, and with proper
precautions to ensure that wealth shall flow in.
"As the night passes on, the guests refresh themselves with the food
cooked in preparation; for cooking must not go on during the first day
or so of the year. A banquet is prepared, and with the first glimmer
of the dawn the head of the household goes out beneath the sky, and,
spreading a carpet and offering viands, bows down with head to the
ground towards the direction of the spirit of happiness. This spirit
is changeable; he alters his direction every year, and the high
authorities of Peking kindly act as his mouthpiece, giving notice
beforehand to the people in which direction to bow. This year the dawn
of the year saw many a pigtailed head bowed to the south-west; then
followed the worship of ancestors by the whole household; while
crackers and incense completed the welcome. At the same time the high
officials, from the Viceroy downwards, assemble within the red and
yellow walls of the Emperor's Temple. Great heaps of reeds are stacked
through the neglected courts, which have been hastily weeded, and as
the mandarins approach the whole scene is made ruddy with huge
bonfires. The great chair of State--somewhat rickety and of simple
local manufacture--acts as deputy for the Emperor, all the officials
_kʽotow_ in unison, and then for a moment squat in the peculiar
fashion observed in the actual presence of their sovereign. The
temples of Confucius and the god of war are also visited for similar
brief acts of reverence.
"By this time the day has well dawned, and shortly the round of calls
begins. Everybody dons his best attire; and the number of buttons of
gold on the top of juvenile or rarely respectable heads is marvellous.
Most careful must everybody be to utter no word of ill-omen; tiger,
death, devil, etc., etc., are all tabooed. For once in the year the
foreigner may go on the streets with a fair prospect of not being
greeted by the ordinary affectionate terms of abuse; for should any
unfortunate youngster in his wonder call out 'foreign devil,' summary
chastisement is sure to teach him that the luck of the family is not
to be sacrificed even for the pleasure of baiting an outside stranger.
The streets are filled with all the world paying calls; the world's
wife does not venture out these first few days. And the work-worn
city keeps its sabbaths for the whole year all in a fortnight."
[Illustration: PLAY AT A DINNER PARTY IN A GUILDHALL.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
[Illustration: AUDIENCE AT A PLAY IN A GUILDHALL.]
Like our Easter, the Chinese New Year varies; but it generally comes
some time in February.
In a small Chinese town, where there was no buying to be done, one
evening we had the gentleman in charge of the telegraph station to
tea. He brought his operator with him, a most determined young man of
fourteen, who to everything said, "Yes!" Between them they send two
messages a day, morning and evening, "Yes" and "All right," and that
is all they have to do. "And conceive," said the superior, "that I
spent £12 learning English, and therewith bought five thousand words,
and then am set down in a place like this, where there is not even
anything to eat."
On many of the farmsteads round about Ichang may be seen a large
hieroglyph painted in white, the character "Fang," with "Shang" on the
top of it, in a circle. It is always very conspicuously placed, and
signifies, "This household pays its yearly tribute to the robbers, and
must not be molested." The village of Kolopei, just below the Tiger's
Teeth Gorge, is said to consist wholly of the class of whom it may be
said--as was said to me once of the inhabitants of a network of common
lodging-houses not far off Spitalfields, wondering at seeing them
dancing and making merry at two o'clock in the afternoon--"What do the
people here do? Why, they none of them _works_ for their living."
A day or two after a great fire at Ichang a strange sight was to be
seen. A man, who had been accused of helping to steal away some poor
woman's child during the confusion, with a white calico placard pasted
on to his coat behind attesting his innocence, his pigtail hanging
unplaited, and wearing a crown of coarse paper cash, with long
streamers of paper cash hanging from it, was going round from shrine
to shrine, at each protesting his innocence. A man went before him
with a gong, shouting out the whole story. It is to be hoped he was
not one of the eight beheaded next day. What would be thought of eight
executions in one day in Stamford or Teignmouth? But not so long ago
England was equally bloodthirsty. We must remember that.
Another year we saw a similar sight, only much more picturesque. As we
were going up-river, we met a boat coming down, and in the bow of it
there was a man kneeling quite upright, with hands held up as if
imploring. In the great beauty of a still reach in the Gorges it was a
very moving spectacle; but it was only a rough-and-ready way of
punishing a man accused of having tried to steal from his fellows.
I see I have said nothing of medicines. You can buy rhubarb in bulk
quite fresh in Szechuan. It grows chiefly on the Tibetan border. Even
under the Sung Dynasty the Chinese had three hundred and sixty-five
kinds of drugs and one hundred and thirteen kinds of formulæ. But they
use rough decoctions, and make tisanes from their drugs; they never
make extracts, nor use minute and accurate weights to dole them out.
The ancient Chinese used metal models to exhibit man's inner
structure; and everything that is most rare and dear they think must
be useful for a medicine,--snakes, scorpions, the velvet off a deer's
horns, a dead caterpillar with grass growing out of its head, tigers'
bones, beautiful orchids, of which last whole boatloads float down
from Chungking to Ichang. A Chinaman loves medicine; nothing pleases
him better than to take it; and the European is always being asked for
remedies, not so much because he believes foreign remedies to be good,
but because he has found out to his delight and amazement that they
are to be had for nothing. One doctor, delighted at the great
reputation he thought he was acquiring amongst Chinese, was disgusted
to find that as soon as he ceased giving away bottles with his
medicines patients ceased to apply for them. But the benefits of
quinine are so striking, that a Chinaman is ready to ask for this,
even when you put it into his mouth for him. They suffer very much
from fever, poor people! and when one thinks how many years they have
stood the violent changes of their climate without ever a respite, and
how much we ourselves lose our energy when exposed to them, one begins
to feel more tolerance for a Chinaman's apparent inertia. Besides,
what has he to gain by exerting himself? If he become rich, is not the
life of a rich Chinaman so dull that only opium makes it possible to
endure it? Once let Chinamen get a taste of the enjoyment of life, and
they will be a different people. Now they suffer from fever as we do;
they dislike bad smells, too, it seems--for no nation more delights
in sweet-smelling flowers; they get depressed, and hipped as we do;
and they have no light literature, no sports, very little of a
newspaper press, no picture-galleries, no concerts, no bands, no
intercourse with women, except of the baser sort. No wonder they look
dull. And how they love to be amused!