MUSIC, GAMBLING, EATING, THEATRE-GOING
In Chinatown--A Musician's Shop--A Secret Society--Gambling Houses--"The
Heathen Chinee"--Fortune-telling--The Knife in the Fan-Case--A Boarding
House--A Lesson for Landlords--A Kitchen--A Goldsmith's Shop--The
Restaurant--Origin of the Tea-Plant--What a Chinaman Eats--The Tobacco
or Opium Pipe--A Safe with Eight Locks--The Theatre--Women by
Themselves--The Play--The Stage--The Actors--The Orchestra and the
Music--The Audience--A Death on the Stage--The Theatre a Gathering
Place--No Women Actors--A Wise Provision--Temptations--Real Acting--Men
the Same Everywhere.
The reader will now accompany us to a musician's shop in our
wanderings through Chinatown. This is located in a basement and is a
room about fifteen feet wide and some twenty feet deep. This son of
Jubal from the Flowery Kingdom was about fifty-five years old and a
very good-natured man. He received us with a smile, and when he was
requested by the guide to play for us he sat down before an instrument
somewhat like the American piano, called _Yong Chum_. The music was of
a plaintive character, and was lacking in the melody of a Broadwood
or a Steinway. Then he played on another instrument which resembled
a bandore or banjo and was named _Sem Yim_. Afterwards he took up a
Chinese flute and played a tune, which was out of the ordinary and
was withal of a cheerful nature. He then showed us something that was
striking and peculiar--a Chinese fiddle with two strings. The bow
strings were moved beneath the fiddle strings. The music was by no
means such as to charm one, and you could not for a moment imagine
that you were listening to a maestro playing on a Cremona. The
Chinese, while they have a reputation for philosophy after the example
of their great men, like Confucius and Mencius, and while there are
poets of merit among them like Su and Lin, yet can not be said to
excel in musical composition and rendering. The tune with which our
Chinese friend sought to entertain us on his fiddle was, "A Hot Time
in the Old Town To-night." He thought this would be agreeable to our
American ears. Meanwhile I glanced around this music-room and among
other things I saw, and which interested me, were several effigies of
men, characters in Chinese history. Some were no doubt true to life
while others were caricatures of the persons whom they represented. It
might be styled an Eden Musée.
Leaving the musician's, after giving him a suitable fee for
entertaining us, we turned our footsteps towards the _Chee Kung Tong_.
This is a Chinese secret society. The Chinese are wont to associate
themselves together, even if they do not mingle much with men of
other nations. They have their gatherings for social purposes and
for improvement and pastime, and, like the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin
races, they have their mystic signs and passwords. Of course we were
not permitted to enter the _Chee Kung Tong_ Hall, however much we
desired to cross its mysterious threshold. The door was well guarded,
and Chinamen passing in had to give assurance that they were entitled
to the privilege. On the night when the detective from Police
Headquarters accompanied us we made an attempt to enter a Chinese
gambling house. The entrance even to this was well guarded; although
the sentinel unwittingly left the door open for a moment as a Chinaman
was passing in. The detective seeing his opportunity went in boldly
and bade us to follow him. In a few moments all was confusion. We
heard hurrying feet in the adjoining room, and then excited men
appeared at the head of the passage way and waved their arms to and
fro while they talked rapidly in high tones. Outside already some
fifty men had collected together, and these were also talking and
gesticulating wildly. The detective then said to us that it would be
wise to retreat and leave the place lest we might meet with violence.
We did so, but the uproar among the Chinese did not subside for some
time. We pitied the poor sentinel who had allowed us to slip in, for
we knew that he would be severely punished after our departure. The
Chinese are noted for their gambling propensities, and there are
many gambling houses in Chinatown. This vice is one of their great
pastimes, and whenever they are not engaged in business they devote
themselves either to gambling, the amusements of the theatre, the
pleasures of the restaurant, or the seductive charms of the opium
pipe.
Later in my saunterings I went into a kind of restaurant, where I saw
a number of Chinese men and boys playing cards and dominoes and dice.
They went on with the games as if they were oblivious to us. I noticed
there were Chinese coins of small value on the tables, and some of the
players were apparently winning while others were losing. The latter,
however, gave no indication that they were in the least degree
disappointed. Of course, as a rule they play after their own fashion,
having their own games and methods. Minister Wu, of Washington, when
asked recently if he liked our American games, replied that he did
not understand any of them. No doubt this is true of the majority of
Chinamen in the United States. In thinking of the Chinese and gambling
one always recalls Bret Harte's "Plain Language From Truthful James of
Table Mountain," popularly known as "The Heathen Chinee," one of the
best humorous poems in the English language. You can fairly see the
merry eyes of the author of the "Argonauts of '49" dancing with
pleasure as he describes the game of cards between "Truthful James,"
"Bill Nye" and "Ah Sin."
"Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
It was euchre: the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was childlike and bland.
"Yet the cards they were stacked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
"But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made.
Were quite frightful to see--
Till at last he put down the right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
"Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me:
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, 'Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinee cheap labour'--
And he went for that heathen Chinee."
There are all kinds of jugglers in Chinatown and among them are
numerous fortune-tellers. This kind of pastime is as old as the human
race, and you find the man who undertakes to reveal to you the secrets
of the future among all peoples. The Orientals are always ready to
listen to the "neby" or the necromancer or the fakir or the wandering
minstrel, who improvises for you and sings for you the good things
which are in store for you. We see this tendency among our own people
who would have their destiny pointed out by means of a pack of cards,
by the reading of the palm of the hand, in the grounds in the tea-cup,
and by other signs. It was with some interest then that we glanced
at the mystic words and signs which adorned the entrance to Sam Wong
Yung's fortune-teller's place.
Passing on, we next visited a hardware shop, where you could purchase
various kinds of Chinese cutlery. Among other things that attracted my
attention was a simple-looking Chinese fan, apparently folded up. On
examining it I found that inside of the fan-case was a sharp knife or
blade like a wide dagger. This could be carried in an unsuspecting
manner into the midst of a company of men, and in a moment, if you
had in your breast the wicked spirit of revenge, your enemy could be
weltering in his life blood at your feet. It suggested all kinds of
tragedies, and no doubt its invention had behind it some treacherous
impulse. The writer ventured to purchase it, but he hastens to
announce to his friends that his purposes are good and innocent.
Though in the same category as the sword or dagger hidden in a
walking-stick or a concealed weapon, this bloodthirsty knife will
repose harmlessly in its fan-case like a sleeping babe in his cradle.
A Chinese boarding house next claimed our inspection. It was rather a
forbidding place, but no doubt the Chinaman was well content with its
accommodations. It was a long, rambling structure, and it seemed to me
as if I were going through an underground passage in walking from room
to room. The various halls were narrow, indeed so narrow that two
persons meeting in them could not without difficulty pass each other.
The beds, which brought a dollar a month, were one above another in
tiers or recesses in the walls. Generally a curtain of a reddish hue
depended in front of them. They reminded one of the berths in a ship
or of the repositories of the dead in the Roman Catacombs. Two
hundred and twenty-five persons were lodged in this dark, mysterious
labyrinth. In another house there were five hundred and fifty people
lodged in seventy-five rooms. Possibly the owners of tenement houses
in our large cities, who crowd men and women into a narrow space
and through unpitying agents reap a rich harvest regardless of the
sufferings of their fellow-beings, have been taking lessons from the
landlords of Chinatown. I said to myself, as I went to and fro through
these narrow passages, dimly lighted with a lamp, and the lights were
few and far between, if a fire should break out, at midnight, when all
are wrapt in slumber, what a holocaust would be here! And whose would
the sin and the shame be? There are good and ample fire-appliances for
the protection of the city, but the poor Chinamen hemmed in, as in a
dark prison-house, would surely be suffocated by smoke or be consumed
in the flames. When the old theatre was burned down, twenty-five men,
and probably more, perished, although there were means of escape from
this building. I was told that the wood from which the largest hotel
in Chinatown, its Palace hotel so to speak, was constructed in the
early days, was brought around Cape Horn, and cost $350 per thousand
feet. This was before saw-mills were erected in the forests among the
foothills and on the slopes of the Sierras. The kitchen of the big
boarding house was a novelty. It was nothing in any respect like the
well-appointed kitchens of our hotels with their great ranges and open
fire-places where meats may be roasted slowly on the turnspit. On one
side of the kitchen there was a kind of stone-parapet about two feet
and a half high, and on the top of this there were eight fire-places.
As the Chinamen cook their own food there might be as many as eight
men here at one time. I asked the guide if they ever quarreled. His
answer was significant. "No! and it would be difficult to bring eight
men of any other nationality together in such close proximity without
differences arising and contentions taking place; but the Chinamen
never trouble each other." There was only one man cooking at such a
late hour as that in which we visited the kitchen, about half-past ten
o'clock at night. He used charcoal, and as the coals were fanned the
fire looked like that of a forge in a blacksmith's shop.
On our way to the Chinese Restaurant we stepped into a goldsmith's
shop. There were a few customers present, and the proprietor waited
on them with great diligence. At benches like writing desks, on which
were tools of various descriptions, were seated some half a dozen
workmen who were busily engaged. They never looked up while we
stood by and examined their work, which was of a high order. The
filagree-work was beautiful and artistic. There were numerous personal
ornaments, some of solid gold, others plaited. The bracelets which
they were making might fittingly adorn the neck of a queen. I learned
that these skilled men worked sixteen hours a day on moderate wages.
Their work went into first-class Chinese bric-a-brac stores and into
the jewelry stores of the merchants who supply the rich and cultured
with their ornaments.
But it is time that we visit the restaurant. This is located in a
stately building and is one of the first class. It overlooks the old
Plaza, though you enter from the street one block west of the Plaza.
You ascend broad stairs, and then you find yourself in a wide room or
dining hall in two sections. Here are tables round and square, and
here you are waited on by the sons of the Fiery Flying Dragon clad in
well-made tunics, sometimes of silk material. As your eye studies the
figure before you, the dress and the physiognomy, you do not fail to
notice the long pigtail, the Chinaman's glory, as a woman's delight
is her long hair. The tea, which is fragrant, is served to you out
of dainty cups, China cups, an evidence that the tea-drinking of
Americans and Europeans is derived from the Celestial Empire. The
tea-plant is said, by a pretty legend, to have been formed from the
eyelids of Buddha Dharma, which, in his generosity, he cut off for the
benefit of men. If you wish for sweetmeats they will be served in a
most tempting way. You can also have chicken, rice, and vegetables,
and fruits, after the Chinese fashion. You can eat with your fingers
if you like, or use knives and forks, or, if you desire to play the
Chinaman, with the chop-sticks. In Chinatown the men and the women do
not eat together. This is also the custom of China, and hence there is
not what we look upon as an essential element of home-life--father
and mother and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a
pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the
exchange of courtesies. Confucius never talked when he ate, and his
disciples affect his taciturnity at their meals. Though in scholastic
times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept
silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read
for the edification of all. The interchange of thought, however,--the
spoken word one with another, at the family table, is the better way.
Silence may be golden, but speech is more golden if seasoned with
wisdom; and even the pleasant jest and the _bon mot_ have their office
and exercise a salutary influence on character and conduct.
The food of Chinamen generally is very simple. Rice is the staple
article of consumption. They like fruits and use them moderately. They
eat things too, which would be most repulsive to the epicurean taste
of an Anglo-Saxon. Even lizards and rats and young dogs they will
not refuse. But these things are prepared in a manner to tempt the
appetite. After you have partaken of your repast in the Chinese
Restaurant, if you request it, tobacco pipes will be brought in, and
your waiter will fill and light them for you and your friends. You can
even, with a certain degree of caution, indulge in the opium pipe, the
joy of the Chinaman. As you draw on this pipe and take long draughts
you lapse into a strange state, all your ills seem to vanish, and you
become indifferent to the world. The beggar in imagination becomes
a millionaire, and for the time he feels that he is in the midst
of courtly splendours. But, ah! When one awakes from his dream the
pleasures are turned into ashes, and the glory fades as the fires
of the pipe die. _Sic transit gloria mundi_! On the walls of the
restaurant were various Chinese decorations. The inevitable lantern
was in evidence. Here also were tablets with sentences in the language
of the Celestials. But there was one thing that struck me forcibly as
I examined the various objects in the rooms. In the rear half of the
restaurant, on the north side of the room, stood a Chinese safe,
somewhat in fashion like our ordinary American safe. It was not,
however, secured with the combination lock with which we are all
familiar. It shut like a cupboard, and had eight locks on a chain as
it were. Every lock represented a man whose money or whose valuables
were in the safe. Each of the eight men had a key for his own lock,
different from all the other seven. When the safe is to be opened all
the eight men must be present. Is this a comment on the honesty of
the Chinaman? Is this indicative of their lack of confidence in each
other? And yet as a house-servant the Chinaman is trusty and faithful
and honest. He is also silent as to what transpires in his master's
house and at his employer's table. The writer has conversed with
people who have had Chinamen in their service, he has also visited
the homes of gentlemen where only Chinese servants are employed
in domestic work, and all bear testimony to their excellence and
faithfulness and honesty.
No visit to Chinatown would be complete without an inspection of its
theatre and a study of the audience. Here you see the Celestials _en
masse_, you behold them in their amusements. Let us repair then to the
Jackson Street Theatre. The building was once a hotel, now it is
a place of pastime; and singularly under the same roof is a small
Joss-House,--for the Chinaman couples his amusements with his
religion. It rather reminds one of those buildings in Christian lands,
which, while used for religious services, yet have kitchens and places
for theatrical shows and amusements under the same roof. But the play
has already begun. Indeed it began at six o'clock--and it is now
nearly eleven P.M. It will, however, continue till midnight. This is
the rule; for the Chinaman does nothing by halves, and he takes his
amusement in a large quantity at a time. The theatre had galleries on
three sides and these were packed with men and women as well as the
main floor. There were altogether a thousand persons present, and it
was indeed a strange sight to look into their faces, dressed alike as
they were, and all seemingly looking alike. The women were seated in
the west gallery on the right hand of the stage by themselves. This
is an Eastern custom which Asiatic nations generally observe. Even
in their religious assemblies the women sit apart. The custom arose
primarily from the idea that woman is inferior to man. In the Jewish
temple as well as in the synagogue, the sexes were separated. It is so
to-day in most synagogues. Among the Mohammedans, too, woman is ruled
out and is kept apart; and so strong is custom it even affected the
Christian church in Oriental lands in the early days. You see a trace
of it still in the East in church-arrangements.
A Chinese play takes a number of weeks or even months in which to
complete it. It may be founded on domestic life or on some historic
scene. Sometimes the history of a province of the Chinese Empire is
the theme. The plays are mostly comedy. There are no grand tragedies
like those of the old Greek poets. The Chinese have had no such
writers as Sophocles or Euripides, no such creators of plays as
Shakespeare, and they have no such actors as a Garrick or an Irving.
We were invited to seats on the stage--which had no curtains,
everything being done openly. In order to reach the stage the guide
conducted us down the passageway or aisle through the midst of the
audience. Then we ascended a platform at the end of the stage and went
behind it into a long room where the actors were putting on costumes
of a fantastic shape and painting their faces with bright coloured
pigments. Some of them also put on masks that would frighten a person
should he meet the wearers suddenly. The majority of the masks were
caricatures of the human face and were comical in expression. We felt
quite at home on the stage at once; for here, seated on either side
with the actors in the midst of the company, were many of our friends
lay and clerical, men and women, looking on in wonder at the strange
performance. An orchestra of six or seven members was here on the
back part of the stage--and the music! It consisted of the beating of
drums, the sounding of gongs and other outlandish noises. Now and then
above the din you could catch the sound of a clarionet and the feeble
strains of a banjo. It was indeed pandemonium! Yet above all the noise
and confusion you could hear the high pitched voices of the actors
as they shouted and gesticulated. The audience, I noticed, was most
attentive and decorous. They were evidently well pleased with the
play; and what was quite remarkable they seemed to have neither ears
nor eyes for their visitors. Of course they must have seen us, but
with an indifference that almost bordered on contempt they paid no
attention to us.
In the play one of the actors died on the stage, but the death had
nothing of the tragic or heroic in it. After a brief interval he rose
up and walked off amid the merriment of the audience.
Many Chinamen come here to spend their evening. The admission is fifty
cents, which entitles one to a seat. As the play runs through six
hours at a time, they feel that they get the worth of their money.
They meet their friends there also; and although they are not very
demonstrative towards each other, like the warm blooded races of Italy
and Greece and Northern Europe and the United States, yet they are
very happy in the presence of men of their own race and nation. The
theatre is about the only place where they can meet on common ground,
at least in large bodies, and then, as we have already intimated, the
theatre is something more than a place of amusement in their eyes.
Their forefathers liked such plays, and they believe that the spirits
of the dead are in a certain sense present to share in the enjoyments
of men in the body.
Only men and boys act on the Chinese stage. There are no women, though
the female sex is personated. This has its advantages. Woman is kept
out of harm; she is not subject to the indignities and temptations
which beset her among other peoples who employ her services. Of course
there are good and virtuous women on the stage--very many, I trust!
But it will be admitted that the life of an actress is one of trial.
She must of necessity be brought into intercourse with an element
whose moral ideals are not the loftiest, and she must have unusual
strength of character to preserve her integrity. She can do it! I
believe that men and women can resist temptation in all spheres, in
all vocations of life; I have great faith in humanity, especially when
sustained by divine helps; but we must not subject the bow to too much
tension lest it break. The personating of characters which have in
them a spice of wickedness, the taking of the part in a play which
represents the downfall of a virtuous person, the setting forth of the
passions of love and hatred, must in time produce a powerful effect on
the mind of a young woman, and there is danger that the neophyte on
the stage will be contaminated with the base things of life before
strength of character is developed. The Chinese are to be commended in
this respect, whatever their motive in excluding their women from the
stage. The reproduction of Greek plays, in some of our universities,
where only men take the parts, shows what could be done among us on
the stage, and successfully.
The Chinese actors whom I saw, exhibited a great deal of human nature
in their acting. There was the full display of the human passions; and
they entered into their work with zest as if it were real life. Some
of the men in the audience were smoking cigars, others cigarettes. The
Asiatic has a fondness for cigarettes. You see the men of the East
smoking everywhere, whether in Syria, or Egypt, or Nubia, or Arabia.
And is it not true that men are much the same the world over, in their
pastimes and pursuits, their loves and their pleasures?