LIFE AMONGST THE UPPER TEN THOUSAND
RECORDING HOSPITALITY SHOWN TO US BY THE OFFICIAL CLASSES
IN the centre of every Chinese city stands the _Yamen_, where resides
the Mandarin, addressed as "Father of the people," before whom their
wrongs must be laid, and who, as direct representative of the central
Government, exercises autocratic power. His word is law, a man must
kneel in his presence when addressing him, and it is a penal offence to
enter his private dwelling-court unsummoned. His term of office is
limited to a few years and a change of official entails the removal of
his whole suite. The new Mandarin will bring with him his secretaries,
underlings, men and women servants, and the prosperity of a city will
largely depend upon the personal attitude of the "Great Man" to matters
of reform.
Our intercourse with the Hwochow _Yamen_ has been frequent, and owing to
the strong attitude taken by the leaders of the Church against
interference in law cases where Christians are concerned, it has been of
a purely social character.
My first visit was in answer to a request from the Mandarin that I would
go to see his wife who was suffering from acute toothache. I was
requested to make preparations for an extraction, and was informed that
if it suited my convenience I should be fetched that same afternoon.
Accordingly, I made ready and in due course the _Yamen_ carriage
arrived, a springless, but elegantly upholstered cart, and accompanied
by a woman servant we started. Ahead of us an outrider, dressed in a
long gown, wore a hat of the inverted bowl shape, decorated with a
spreading scarlet tassel. Behind followed other retainers, and thus
escorted we passed in triumphal procession through the quiet Hwochow
streets. After many bumps and anxious moments as we splashed in and out
of mud-pits, we turned into the wide space which surrounds the outermost
entrance of the _Yamen._ Here crowds of men were reading the latest
proclamation pasted to the walls, whilst others, talking earnestly,
discussed the case tried that very day, of the poor man who in vain
sought redress from the rapacity of his wealthy neighbour. He had knelt,
and laying his forehead to the ground at the feet of the Mandarin
pleaded for justice, but only to find that his condemnation was a
foregone conclusion. All these groups were scattered by the yells of our
outrider and the cracks of our carter's whip, and the sellers of cooked
food gathered their piles of little bowls and swiftly set them out of
harm's way, for the habits of _Yamen_ retainers are well known to the
populace, and there is little satisfaction to be had when complaints are
presented and compensation for destroyed goods is claimed. With
ever-increasing speed and corresponding agony, we were driven up the
steep ascent which leads to the outer courtyard, where after a
preliminary bump down two steps we found ourselves on comparatively
smooth ground, and rolled along a broad, high, paved path leading to the
second great archway where our conveyance came to a standstill, and we
waited whilst our cards were taken and presented to the ladies we had
come to see. Many soldiers were standing about, and various instruments
used in the punishment of prisoners were fastened to the walls as
warning to all who passed that way. A very few minutes and we were
invited to leave our cart and follow the man appointed to conduct us to
the innermost court where the _Tai-tais_[9] lived; slaves attended us on
either side, whilst the retainer went ahead carrying our scarlet cards
breast high before him.
A vista of courtyards opened one from another, and we saw a number of
little ladies in charming, brilliant, butterfly-like garments coming to
meet us with odd, graceful, stilted movements. Everything must from this
point be done according to the strictest etiquette, so the _Tai-tai_ of
least rank came first to meet us, and led us back to where stood the
head wife, in whose presence we respectfully removed our eyeglasses and
made a bow.
There were a large number of women about, for this Mandarin had two
wives besides several daughters-in-law. We were invited to a
reception-room where carpets, felts, tables, and chairs were all scarlet
in colour, and here were served with delicious fragrant tea and small
cakes, in which were mixed rose leaves, nuts, and sugar. All the
preliminary questions required by good manners were first asked--our
respective "venerable ages" and details of our various near
relatives--but soon curiosity overflowed into many inquiries concerning
our "honourable country," and we were helped to more tea and cakes, and
begged to make ourselves at home. We, on our part, led the conversation
back to matters concerned with the object of our residence in this
country, and received from our hostess extravagant compliments upon our
extraordinary ability and learning, the reputation of which, they said,
was well known to the Mandarin.
The object of my visit was then mentioned, and I was asked to see the
tooth, of which, being very loose, I recommended the extraction, and was
able to assure the patient that the pain would not be very great. Many
of the younger women gathered around her, comforting her, and covered
her eyes that she might not see the forceps; they begged her to remember
that the pain would soon be over, and as soon as I could induce her to
open her mouth, I removed the troublesome member. "How wonderful!" they
all exclaimed. "Why, it did not hurt at all!"
After such a surgical triumph, long-neglected and half-forgotten pains
were remembered by the bystanders, and all the ladies on my next visit
came to me with some complaint. We sought to awaken in them the sense of
those far deeper ills which they so little realised, finding once more
that in following the method of Christ a sense of need had been
awakened: "Ye seek Me because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled.
I am the bread of life."
As soon as the operation was over, we suggested that we must be
returning home, but this could not be allowed until we had partaken of
further refreshment, and servants appeared with delicacies--meat balls
in gravy, flavoured as only a Chinese cook can flavour, lotus seeds in
syrup, luscious fruits, sweetmeats, and a drink of apricot kernels,
sweet to excess. The meat balls were daintily wrapped in pastry, and as
she helped me to some of these, the _Tai-tai_ said: "I think you do not
care for pork." I replied that we did not as a rule eat much pork. "I am
so glad," she said: "these are fowl, and therefore you can eat them
without fear." A few days later we heard that the head cook was under
severe punishment and incarcerated in a dungeon, because he had not
taken the trouble to find out what were our special tastes in matters of
the table, and had served pork in place of fowl! Some years later he was
a patient in our Refuge, and told Mr. Wang that he would like to make a
feast for us. We thought this extremely kind of him, considering what he
had suffered on our behalf, and he was asked to our kitchen to prepare
the food, while we invited some friends to share it with us. I think he
was a man of preconceived ideas rather than a genius at making
inquiries, whatever his talent in the culinary art, for he said he knew
foreigners liked sweet things, and he served us twenty or more courses
of the sweetest food it has been my good fortune to eat!
Our visit proved to be the commencement of a most friendly intercourse.
A few days later the outrider, cart, and retainers were at our door
again, this time escorting the ladies who had come to return the call.
They enjoyed the outing considerably, as is easy to see they would, when
one remembers that they had lived three years in Hwochow and had now
crossed the threshold of their home for the first time during that
period. They could have no intercourse at all with the bourgeoisie of
the town, and apart from visitors staying at the _Yamen_, enjoyed no
social life.
In due course we were invited to an "eight times eight" feast,
consisting of elaborate courses, in which the sweet, the fishy, and the
meaty alternated in bewildering miscellany, whilst our vision was
delighted by the elegant dishes, the lovely coral china, the pure form
of the many-branched candlesticks, and, above all, the graceful, gay
little ladies who manipulated the difficult, slippery food with such a
masterly command of their nimble chop-sticks. Here for the first time I
tasted the delicious birds'-nest soup, gelatinous in consistency and
fishy in taste, being, in fact, a mass compounded of seaweed and small
fish into a nest by a sea-bird.
So far all was well, but we came home faced by the difficulty that it
was now our turn to offer a return feast which must be equally elegant.
There was only one cook in the city who was capable of the preparation
of a suitable repast, and he was in their employ, and though some
surprising things are possible in China, we did not see how we could
secure his services to cook a meal for his own mistress. We were,
therefore, thrown back upon our slender resources, and decided that an
English dinner-party was the only possible solution of the problem. Here
at least we were treading upon familiar ground, and were free from the
snares of Chinese etiquette. We need have no fear of giving offence to
our guests by placing the fish upon the table with its head toward that
quarter which would indicate their position to be of military instead of
civil rank, and many other equally subtle and delicate questions would
now have no terrors for us. We felt it incumbent upon us to do all in
our power to please the eye as well as the palate, and while we fully
realised our inability to delight our guests with such beauty as that to
which they were accustomed, we did our best. Salmon is a great asset,
being decorative as well as tasty, and only the hard-pressed know the
many uses of a tin of sardines. Jelly is a certain success, and the last
plum-pudding from home, cut into dice and blazing in a blue flame, looks
mysteriously clever. A bottle of cochineal is worth its weight in gold
on such occasions, and the _piece montee_, which none but an expert
could have recognised as spinach, beetroot, carrot, and yam tinted pink,
would have done no discredit to Benoist. The novelty of handling spoon
and fork, and even so dangerous a weapon as a knife, did much to enhance
the pleasure of the meal.
The conversation was now much more intimate than on the earlier
occasions, and both sides felt free to ask questions on matters which
had excited curiosity. "Does the sun ever shine in your country?" asked
the _Tai-tai_. "I have heard that England is a land of shades." "When I
left my home in Szechwan I was very homesick. Are you?" inquired another
lady, but before I could reply, her companion answered for me: "The
ability of these ladies is so great that they would be incapable of such
feelings." A guest of their own, who had spent much time in Shanghai,
was thoroughly conversant with foreign dress and manners; she described
the former with great originality, but admitted that even she was
baffled by one thing: "The spotted webbing with which foreign ladies
cover their face, is it worn for purposes of concealment or as an aid to
the eyesight?" My answer that it served to keep the hair in place
carried no conviction, for she had already remarked that though combs
are so much in evidence in the foreign woman's coiffure, she seemingly
makes little use of them!
The conversation turned to the subject of a proclamation recently issued
which forbade the binding of children's feet: "Alas, the people of China
are not so easily governed as those of your honourable country,"
lamented the chief _Tai-tai_. "The Mandarin finds it impossible to
enforce this one order, whilst he read in last week's paper that in
England a man is imprisoned for refusing to send his child to school,
for omitting to vaccinate it, and the article even stated that a parent
is punished for refusing to call a doctor to see a sick child, even if
it be a girl; but the newspapers are full of fabulous tales!"
The next few months saw a growing intimacy and a constant exchange of
presents. We were often able to indulge in the famous delicacy of
buried eggs, of which the not unpleasant, slightly ammoniated flavour is
so much appreciated by the Chinese. Once we were faced by a real
difficulty on the occasion of receiving a present of meat, when
conscientious Mr. Fu, fearful lest we should shelter under a liberty of
conscience whereby we would eat and ask no question, hastily came to
warn us that this had been offered to idols before being presented to
us. Under these circumstances we had no option but to crave leave to
refuse a present whereby a brother might have been caused to stumble.
How little we dreamed of the trouble which would so soon break over the
official classes with the overthrow of the Empire, and the establishment
of a Republic. I remember the last visit we paid to those friends, and
our departure from the _Yamen_ in the brilliant moonlight, whilst huge
lanterns lighted our path through the archways and great gateways. As we
left the huge enclosure the guard fired the first night watch. "Except
the Lord keep the city the watchman watcheth but in vain." That night
the Revolution broke out in Hankow, and the next time we saw our
hostesses they were in terrible distress, imploring our permission to
make our house their shelter, should the hatred of the mob break forth
and their residence be rioted. They were in a most defenceless position,
for the Mandarin had taken a journey to Taiyueanfu, and did not return.
He was one of the old school, and faithful to the traditions of the
Manchus whose court he had accompanied to Sianfu in the flight of 1900.
It was still far from certain which party would gain the ascendancy,
and he, as most of his class, wished to refrain from an expression of
opinion until the situation was clearly defined. This, however, was not
allowed, and during the massacres of the Manchus in Taiyueanfu he was
arrested, and made to declare himself.
He held the Hanlin degree, the highest honour to which the Chinese
scholar is admitted, the Emperor himself conducting the examinations.
Faced by his enemies and fearing summary execution, he sheltered himself
behind the age-long reverence for scholarship which exists in China as
in no other country: "Death has no terrors for me," he calmly said,
"but, alas, that such a scholar should be lost to China!" No armed
bodyguard could have afforded him such protection as this transference
of insult from his own person to the learning he represented. No man
present was prepared to strike a blow at the embodiment of the Divine
Right of Scholarship.
He lived to return to Hwochow, where he faced death a second time and
was dragged through the streets by an angry populace, but finally
escaped and with his wives reached a place of safety.
FOOTNOTE:
[9] The polite term for the wife of an official.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1911
"For an event to be great, two things must be
united--the lofty sentiment of those who
accomplish it, and the lofty sentiment of those
who witness it. No event is great in itself, even
though it be the disappearance of whole
constellations, the destruction of several
nations, the establishment of vast empires, or the
prosecution of wars at the cost of enormous
forces: over things of this sort the breath of
history blows as if they were flocks of wool. . . .
Hence the anxiety which every one must feel who,
observing the approach of an event, wonders
whether those about to witness it will be worthy
of it."--F. NIETZSCHE.