CHINAMEN OF SAN FRANCISCO--THEIR CALLINGS AND CHARACTERISTICS
A Visit to Chinatown--Its Boundaries--A Terra Incognita--Fond of
Mongrels--My Licensed Guide--The Study of the Signs--Men of All
Callings--Picture of the Chinaman--Devoid of Humour--Confucius--Great
Men from Good Mothers--Confucius to Women--Mormonism and
Mohammedanism--How to Regenerate China--Slaves of the Lamp--Chinamen
Impassive--Aroused to Wrath--How They Dress--The Queue--"Pidgin"
English--Payment of Debts--Bankrupt Law--Suicide.
When in the City of the Golden Gate you will not fail to visit the
Chinese Quarter, or "Chinatown," as it is popularly called. Just as in
an Oriental city like Jerusalem or Constantinople you find different
nationalities or races living apart from each other, so here in
San Francisco you have "Little China" in the heart of Anglo-Saxon
civilisation. It is as if you had unfolded to your wondering eyes in a
dream some town from the banks of the Pearl River, the Yangtse-Kiang,
or the Hwangho or. Yellow River; and it seems strange indeed that,
without the trouble or expense and danger of crossing the waters of
the Pacific, you can by a short walk from the midst of the teeming
life of an American City, be ushered into streets that are foreign in
appearance and where scenes that are unfamiliar to the eye attract
your attention on every hand. With the exception of the houses, which,
as a rule, take on a European or an American style of architecture,
you might imagine that you were in Canton or some other Chinese city.
The life is truly Asiatic and Mongolian in its character and in its
display as well as in its customs. The home of the sons of the Flowery
Kingdom in San Francisco is in the north-eastern section of the city,
and may be said to be in one of the best portions of the metropolis
of the West, sheltered as it is from the winds of the Pacific by the
hills which are back of it, and with a commanding view of the Bay and
its islands and the magnificent landscapes to the east, valleys and
hills running up to the heights of the Sierras. The locality is
bounded by Jackson, Pacific, Dupont, Commercial, and Sacramento
streets, and embraces some eight squares; and within this space,
crowded together, are the twenty-five or thirty thousand Chinese who
form a part of the population of the city. There are Chinamen here and
there in other parts of San Francisco, but nearly all live here in
this quarter which we are now approaching. Here there are the homes of
the people who came from the land of Confucius, here the famous shops,
the theatres, the Joss-houses where heathen worship is maintained. As
soon then as you set foot within the area described you feel that you
are in a strictly foreign country; and if this is your first visit,
the place is to you a sort of terra incognita. You will need a guide
to take you through its labyrinths and point out to you its hidden
recesses and explain the strange sights and interpret for you the
language which sounds so oddly to your ears. If you have not some man
to conduct you, a dragoman or courier, you will be likely to make
mistakes as ludicrous as that related of an English woman. Sir Henry
Howarth, the author of the "History of the Mongols," a learned and
laborious work, was out dining one evening. It fell to his lot at his
host's house to escort a lady to the dinner table; and she, having a
confused idea of the great man's theme, surprised him somewhat by the
abrupt question, "I understand, Sir Henry, that you are fond of dogs.
Are you not? I am too." "Dogs, madam? I really must plead guiltless. I
know nothing at all of them!" "Indeed," his fair questioner replied;
"and they told me you had written a famous history of mongrels!" It
is best then always to take a guide, and you will have no trouble in
finding one, who will charge you from two to three dollars an hour. If
you go with a small party, which is best, all can share the expense.
It will take about three hours to explore the town thoroughly and
study the life. The writer went through Chinatown on two evenings
at an interval of a few days, and saw this Asiatic Quarter of San
Francisco to great advantage. The first time was with a licensed guide
of long experience, and the second time it was under the direction
of a police-detective. Some five friends were in the party; and we
started on our tour of exploration about half past nine o'clock at
night. The night is the best time in which to study the life, for then
you can see the Chinese in their houses and at their amusements, as
well as many others who still are at work; for some of the Chinese
artisans toil for sixteen hours a day, and long into the hours of the
night. Here among them are no strikes for fewer hours, but patient
toil, as it were in a treadmill, without a murmur. My licensed
guide was Henry Gehrt, a man about fifty-five years old, of German
parentage. He had been in the business for twenty-seven years, and he
maintained an office on Sacramento Street. His badge was No. 60.
All guides must wear badges according to law. As we went hither and
thither we met occasionally groups of sight-seers, among them some of
our friends, members of the Convention, Bishops, and clerical and lay
deputies, who felt this was a rare opportunity to study heathendom;
and I am sure all went away from this strange spot thanking God for
our noble Anglo-Saxon civilisation, as well as for the knowledge of
His Revelation.
The houses, I observed, are three, and sometimes four stories high,
with balconies and windows, which give them a decidedly Oriental
appearance. On most of them were signs displayed in the Chinese
language. You also see scrolls by the doors of the private houses and
on the shops. The signs are a study in their bright colours and their
mythological and fantastic adornments. Yellow is the predominant
colour, and the dragon is in evidence everywhere. This emblem of the
Celestial Empire is represented in gorgeous array and with a profusion
of ornament. A splendid dragon is the sign and trade mark of "Sing Fat
and Co.," who keep a Chinese and Japanese Bazaar on Dupont Street. On
their card they give this warning, "Beware of firms infringing on our
name;" and it seems as if the dragon on the sign would avenge any
invasion of their rights. The signs are a study, and if you are
ignorant of the language, you ask your learned guide to interpret them
for you. He will tell you that Hop Wo does business here as a grocer,
that Shun Wo is the butcher, that Shan Tong is the tea-merchant, that
Tin Yuk is the apothecary, and that Wo-Ki sells bric-a-brac. Some of
the signs, your guide will tell you, are not the real names of the men
who do business, that they are only mottoes. Wung Wo Shang indicates
to you that perpetual concord begets wealth, Hip Wo speaks to you of
brotherly love and harmony, Tin Yuk means a jewel from Heaven, Wa
Yun is the fountain of flowers, while Man Li suggests thousands of
profits. Other of the signs relate to the muse. They do not at all
reveal the business carried on within. The butcher, for example, has
over his shop such elegant phrases as Great Concord, Constant Faith,
Abounding Virtue. There are many pawn-brokers who ply their vocation
assiduously. They tell you of their honest purpose after this
fashion: "Let each have his due pawn-brokers," and, "Honest profit
pawn-brokers." In the Chinese restaurant, to which we will go later,
you will be edified by such sentiments as these,--The Almond-Flower
Chamber, Chamber of the Odours of Distant Lands, Garden of the Golden
Valley, Fragrant Tea-Chamber. The apothecary induces you to enter his
store with inviting signs of this character: Benevolence and Longevity
Hall, Hall of Everlasting Spring, Hall of Joyful Relief, Hall for
Multiplying Years. Surely if the American druggist would exhibit such
sentences as these over his shop he would never suffer for want of
customers. All are in pursuit of length of years and health; and I
think the Chinese pharmacist shows his great wisdom in offering to all
who are suffering from the ills to which flesh is heir a panacea for
their ailments. It takes the fancy, it is a pleasing conceit for the
mind, and the mere thought that you are entering Longevity Hall gives
you fresh courage!
You will find here in Chinatown men of all callings, the labourer who
is ready to bear any burden you lay on him, the artisan who is skilled
in his work, the grocer, the clothes' dealer, the merchant, the
apothecary, the doctor, the tinsmith, the furniture-maker, the
engraver, the goldsmith, the maker of paper-shrines for idols, the
barber, the clairvoyant, the fortune-teller, and all others of every
calling which is useful and brings profit to him who pursues it. But
we are deeply interested in the men whom we meet. At first view they
all seem to look alike, you can hardly distinguish one from another.
They are a study. Look on their solemn faces, sphinx-like in their
repose and imperturbability. They are a riddle to you. You rarely ever
hear them laugh. They are like a landscape beneath skies which are
wanting in the sparkling sunbeams. They seem to you as if they had
continual sorrow of heart, as if some wrong of past ages had set its
seal on their features. The Chinaman has very little sense of
the ludicrous, and he is lacking in the elements of intellectual
sprightliness and vivacity which lead a Frenchman or an American to
appreciate and enjoy a sally of wit, a bon mot, or a joke. Life indeed
is better, and a man can bear his burdens with more ease if he has a
sense of humour. Some of the great characters in history have often
come out of the depths with triumph by reason of the spirit within
them which could perceive the flash of wit and apply its medicine to
the wounds of the heart. I think it may be said, as a rule, that the
Asiatic has not the power to appreciate wit and humour like the old
Greek or the Teuton or the Celt. He is not wanting in his love of
the beautiful, in his appreciation of poetry, in the vision which
perceives the flowers blooming by the waters in the desert, and in the
hearing which catches the sound of the harmonies of his palm-trees
and lotus flowers, but in the sense or faculty to seize on mirth
and appropriate her to his service in burden-bearing he is sadly
deficient. He is but a child in this respect. While the Chinaman has
inventive faculties and keen intellect and wonderful imitative powers,
yet in other respects he is behind the progressive races of the world.
He has made little advance for thousands of years. His isolation, his
narrow sphere, his simple life, and his religion even, which, while
some of its maxims and tenets are admirable, still is lacking in the
knowledge of the true God and in lofty ideals, have had a marked
effect upon his thoughts and habits and pursuits. His great teacher,
Confucius, who flourished five centuries before the Christian era
and who spoke some sublime truths, was nevertheless ignorant of a
Revelation from heaven and inferior in his grasp of religious truth to
such sages of Greece as Socrates and Plato. In his system also woman
is practically a slave. She is simply the minister of man, and
therefore unable to rear up children, sons who would reflect the
greatness of soul of a noble motherhood. It has often been remarked
that great men have had great mothers. I think experience and
observation will bear out this statement. Glance over the pages of
history, and eminent examples will rise up before the view. Whence
spring the Samuels and the Davids, whence a Leonidas and a Markos
Bozzaris, whence the Scipios and the Gracchi, whence the Augustines
and the Chrysostoms, whence the Alfreds and the Gladstones, whence the
Washingtons and the Lincolns, whence the Seaburys and the Doanes,
and many another? Are they not all hewn from the quarries of a noble
motherhood? Are they not sprung from the fountain of a womanhood whose
living streams are clear as crystal and sweet and refreshing? The
first Chavah, Eve, is rightly styled the mother of all living; and a
generation or race of men to be living, active, noble in achievement,
distinguished in virtues, must issue from a well-spring which
vitalises and beautifies and magnifies the spirit and the intellect,
as Engannim waters her gardens, and Engedi nourishes her acacias
and lotus-plants, and Enshemesh reflects the sun's golden beams the
livelong day. But what, you ask, are the exact teachings of the sage
Confucius, who influences Chinese society even to this day, with
regard to woman? Hear him: "Moreover, that you have not in this life
been born a male is owing to your amount of wickedness, heaped up in
a previous state of existence, having been both deep and weighty; you
would not then desire to adorn virtue, to heap up good actions, and
learn to do well! So that you now have been hopelessly born a female!
And if you do not this second time specially amend your faults,
this amount of wickedness of yours will be getting both deeper and
weightier, so that it is to be feared in the next state of existence,
even if you should wish for a male's body, yet it will be very
difficult to get it." Again another saying of Confucius is: "You must
know that for a woman to be without talent is a virtue on her part."
With such teaching then ever before them, do you wonder that Chinese
women do not excel in virtue, and that they are the mothers of a race
of men who are practically like standing water instead of a flowing
fountain to refresh the waste places of human life? The teachings of
Mormonism and Mohammedanism with regard to woman also degrade her and
rob her of the beautiful crown which her Maker has put upon her head;
and hence it is that such peoples are not virile and progressive like
the nations where woman is looked upon as man's helpmeet, where she
stands upon his right hand as a queen. The Mormons are better in many
respects than their faith; and if the first generation was hardy
and aggressive and brave in subduing the desert and changing Rocky
Mountain wastes into a blooming garden, it was because they had been
trained in the school of Christianity and had imbibed lessons of
wisdom at the fountain of a pure faith and inherited from Christian
fathers and mothers those qualities which are stamped on the soul
through upright living and a creed that is formulated in true
doctrine. But Mormonism is dying out, and woman in Utah is receiving
the rightful place assigned her by her Creator in the work of building
up the race and perpetuating the virtues and forces of a true manhood.
The followers of Mohammed are still numerous and powerful, and the
Religion of the Koran has shown great vitality for centuries. The
nobility of character, however, which has manifested itself in such
lives as that of Saladin the Great is the product of other causes than
the specific teachings and views of Islam respecting domestic life
and the position and office of woman. The destinies of men have been
determined often by their environments. We must also bear in mind that
from time to time, under the sway of the Crescent, different sections
of the civilised world have been brought under the rule of the
Sultans, and all that was good and noble in the lives of peoples newly
incorporated into the faith of the Arabian Prophet has contributed in
no small degree to the strength of a system which has in its own bosom
the seeds of decay and which will ultimately become effete and pass
away. Mohammed Ali, the founder of the present Khedivial house of
Egypt, had in his veins old Macedonian blood, and his views respecting
marriage and domestic life, as well as the traditions of his family
in his old home at Kavala, had much to do with the development of his
character and his brilliant career; and hence neither he nor others
like him in the Turkish Empire can be singled out to prove that
a religion which looks upon woman as an inferior being to man is
excellent in its tendencies and produces a noble fruitage. What
Napoleon once said with respect to France, that she needed good
mothers, is true as regards China. Where woman is held in honour and
where the domestic virtues are woven into a beautiful chaplet of
spring-time blossoms to bedeck her brow, there you will find good and
great men. Our own nation is an example of this. To regenerate
China then, to improve the morals of Chinatown in San Francisco, or
Chinatown in New York where there are between seven and eight thousand
sons and daughters of the Flowery Kingdom, you must create pure homes,
and to do this you must first of all sweeten them with the precepts of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Confucius will fail you. The Son of God
will reform you and save you! Such thoughts and reflections as these
naturally sprang up in my mind in my walks through Chinatown. I saw
its people on every hand. Sometimes they were in twos, again in groups
of a half a dozen or more. They scarcely noticed us as we walked by
them; they showed no curiosity to observe us, but went on their way as
though intent on one object. They moved about like automatons, as if
they were a piece of machinery; and such as were at work in shops
heeded us not even when we stood over them and watched them as they
handled their tools. It was work, work. They were doing their masters'
bidding like the genii of the lamp; and in the glare of the light in
which they wrought on their bench or at their stand the workers in
gold and silver, the makers of ornaments and jewelry, were like
some strange beings from another world. They work to the point of
endurance. They have their amusements, their holidays, as the Chinese
New Year which comes in February, their processions from time to time,
but their great indulgence is in the use of opium. Once or twice
a month the ordinary labourer or workman gives himself up to its
seductive charms, to its power more fatal to his manhood than
intoxicating drinks taken to excess. The Chinaman is so stolid and
impassive that it is hard to arouse his wrath. He will bear insults
without a murmur for a long time, but in the end he will be stung into
madness and he will give force to all his pent up fires of hate
that have slumbered like a volcano. He may wait long without having
punished his oppressor, but he will bide his time. So it was with the
Boxers in China whose story is so painfully fresh in the memories of
the great legations of the world in Pekin.
The men and women of Chinatown dress very nearly like each other;
though you do not meet many women. The Chinaman wears a blouse of blue
cotton material or other cheap, manufactured goods. This is without a
collar, and is usually hooked over the breast. There are no buttons.
Wealthy Chinamen, and there are many such, indulge in richer garments.
As a rule they have adopted the American felt hat of a brownish
colour. The shoe has the invariable wooden sole with uppers of cotton
or some kind of ordinary cloth. The hair is the object of their chief
attention, however, in the making up of their toilet. It is worn in a
queue or pigtail fashion as it is commonly styled. It is their
glory, however, this long, black, glossy braid. It is the Chinaman's
distinguishing badge. It gives him dignity in the presence of his
countrymen. If cut off he feels dishonoured. He can never go back to
the home of his ancestors, but must remain in exile. He wears this
mark of his nationality either hanging down his back or else coiled
about the head. When at work the latter style is preferred, as it is
then out of the way of his movements. Some of the men whom you meet
have fine intellectual heads. The merchants and scholars whom I saw
answer to this description. As a rule they can all read and write.
They have a love of knowledge to a certain point, and a book is prized
by them. The great desire of the Chinamen who reach our shores is to
learn the English language. They know it gives them an advantage. It
is the avenue to success. Sometimes they will become members of an
American Mission or Bible-class in order to learn the language. They
still, however, have their mental reservations with regard to their
native Joss-houses and worship. But they are not singular in this
respect. Mohammedans and Jews in the East allow their children to
attend schools where English is taught, because with the knowledge of
this they can the more readily find employment among tourists and in
places of exchange. This is particularly true in Egypt and in Syria.
But the Chinaman in his attempt to learn the Anglo-Saxon tongue finds
great difficulties. Very many speak only what is called "Pidgin" or
"Pigeon" English, that is Business English. Business on the lips of
the new learner becomes "Pidgin." They like to end a word with ee as
"muchee," and they find it next to impossible to frame the letter R.
For example the word _rice_ becomes _lice_ in a Chinaman's mouth,
and a Christian is a Chlistian, while an American is turned into an
Amelican. Of course this does not apply to the educated Chinaman who
is polished and gifted in speech as is the case with any well-trained
Chinese clergyman or such as minister Wu Ting-Fang in Washington.
All debts among the Chinese are paid once a year, that is when their
New Year comes around in our month of February. There are three ways
in which they may cancel their debts. First, they pay them in money,
if they are able, when accounts are cast up between creditor and
debtor. If in the second place they are unable to pay what they owe
they assign all their goods and effects to their creditors, and then
the debtor gets a clean bill and so starts out anew with a clear
conscience for another year. This in few words is the Chinese
"Bankrupt Law." But, in the third place, if a man has no assets, if he
be entirely impoverished, and cannot pay his debts, he considers it
a matter of honour to kill himself. Death pays all debts for him,
settles all scores, and he is not looked upon with aversion or
execrated. Even Chinese women have resorted to this extreme method of
settling their accounts. But what of their settlement with their Maker
who gave them life, who holds all men responsible for that gift, who
expects us to use the boon aright? A Chinaman does not value life with
the same feeling and estimate as an Anglo-Saxon. Should he fail in any
great purpose, should he meet with defeat in some cherished plan, he
will seek refuge in the bosom of the grave; he will voluntarily return
to his ancestors whom he has worshipped as gods. In the late war
between China and Japan, in which China was vanquished, some of her
generals committed suicide. It presents, alas, a degenerate side of
human nature. It is most pathetic. Better far to live under the smart
of defeat and bear its shame, carry the cross, endure the stings of
conscience, and meet the frowns of the world, than flee from the
path of duty, than dishonour our manhood. The greatest victory is
to conquer one's proud heart, and to suffer, and do God's will. The
teachings of Christ show us the value of life, tell us how to live,
how to die, how to win the divine approbation. To Him we bow and not
to Confucius.