LION AND DRAGON
IN NORTHERN CHINA
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE HUAN-TS'UI-LOU ON THE CITY WALL OF WEIHAIWEI.
(Showing the interior of the walled city, the island of Liukung and the
Harbour, and the European settlement of Port Edward). ]
LION AND DRAGON
IN NORTHERN CHINA
BY R. F. JOHNSTON, M.A. (OXON.), F.R.G.S.
DISTRICT OFFICER AND MAGISTRATE, WEIHAIWEI
FORMERLY PRIVATE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNOR OF HONGKONG, ETC.
AUTHOR OF "FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY"
WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
1910
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY,
ENGLAND.
TO
SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART
K.C.M.G., COMMISSIONER OF WEIHAIWEI
IN MEMORY OF
TWO MOONLIT NIGHTS AT LUTAO-K'OU
FIVE FROSTY MORNINGS AT PEI-K'OU TEMPLE
AND A HUNDRED BREEZY GALLOPS
OVER THE HILLS AND SANDS OF WEIHAIWEI
PREFACE
The meeting-place of the British Lion and the Chinese Dragon in
northern China consists of the port and Territory of Weihaiwei. It is
therefore with this district, and the history, folk-lore, religious
practices and social customs of its people, that the following pages
are largely occupied. But Weihaiwei is in many respects a true
miniature of China, and a careful study of native life and character,
as they are exhibited in this small district, may perhaps give us a
clearer and truer insight into the life and character of the Chinese
race than we should gain from any superficial survey of China as a
whole. Its present status under the British Crown supplies European
observers with a unique opportunity for the close study of sociological
and other conditions in rural China. If several chapters of this
book seem to be but slightly concerned with the special subject of
Weihaiwei, it is because the chief interest of the place to the student
lies in the fact that it is an epitomised China, and because if we wish
fully to understand even this small fragment of the Empire we must make
many long excursions through the wider fields of Chinese history,
sociology and religion. The photographs (with certain exceptions noted
in each case) have been taken by the author during his residence at
Weihaiwei. From Sir James H. Stewart Lockhart, K.C.M.G., Commissioner
of Weihaiwei, he has received much kind encouragement which he is
glad to take this opportunity of acknowledging; and he is indebted
to Captain A. Hilton-Johnson for certain information regarding the
personnel of the late Chinese Regiment. His thanks are more especially
due to his old friend Mr. D. P. Heatley, Lecturer in History at the
University of Edinburgh, for his generous assistance in superintending
the publication of the book.
R. F. JOHNSTON.
WÊN-CH'ÜAN-T'ANG,
WEIHAIWEI,
_May 1, 1910._
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. WEIHAIWEI AND THE SHANTUNG PROMONTORY 12
III. HISTORY AND LEGEND 34
IV. CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES 57
V. BRITISH RULE 77
VI. LITIGATION 102
VII. VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE 127
VIII. VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS AND FOLK-LORE 155
IX. THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI 195
X. WIDOWS AND CHILDREN 217
XI. FAMILY GRAVEYARDS 254
XII. DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE 276
XIII. CONFUCIANISM--I 300
XIV. CONFUCIANISM--II 328
XV. TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP 351
XVI. THE DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM 385
XVII. RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION IN EAST AND WEST 408
XVIII. THE FUTURE 426
INDEX 451
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VIEW FROM THE HUAN-TS'UI-LOU ON THE CITY WALL OF
WEIHAIWEI _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE MANG-TAO TREE 18
A HALT IN YÜ-CHIA-K'UANG DEFILE 18
THE TEMPLE AT THE SHANTUNG PROMONTORY 22
WEIHAIWEI HARBOUR, LIUKUNGTAO AND CHU-TAO LIGHTHOUSE 26
IMAGES OF "MR. AND MRS. LIU" 28
A VIEW FROM THE WALL OF WEIHAIWEI CITY 30
PART OF WEIHAIWEI CITY WALL 46
THE AUTHOR AND TOMMIE ON THE QUORK'S PEAK 46
THE HARBOUR WITH BRITISH WARSHIPS, FROM LIUKUNGTAO 80
DISTRICT OFFICER'S QUARTERS 100
THE COURT-HOUSE, WÊN-CH'ÜAN-T'ANG 100
"WE ARE THREE" 128
VILLAGE OF T'ANG HO-HSI 128
A TYPICAL THEATRICAL STAGE BELONGING TO A TEMPLE 130
VILLAGE THEATRICALS 130
A DISTRICT HEADMAN AND HIS COMPLIMENTARY TABLET 158
THREE VILLAGE HEADMEN 158
PROTECTIVE CHARMS USED IN WEIHAIWEI 174
FIRST-FULL-MOON STILT-WALKERS 182
"WALKING BOATS" AT THE FIRST-FULL-MOON FESTIVAL 182
MASQUERADERS AT FESTIVAL OF FIRST FULL MOON 184
GROUP OF VILLAGERS WATCHING FIRST-FULL-MOON MASQUERADERS 184
THREE WOMEN AND A HAYRICK 206
THREE GENERATIONS--AT THE VILLAGE GRINDSTONE 206
VILLAGE OF KU-SHAN-HOU, SHOWING HONORARY POLES IN
FRONT OF THE ANCESTRAL TEMPLE 224
MONUMENT TO FAITHFUL WIDOW, KU-SHAN-HOU 224
AN AFTERNOON SIESTA 252
WASHING CLOTHES 252
THE ANCESTRAL GRAVEYARD OF THE CHOU FAMILY 256
A PEDIGREE-SCROLL (CHIA P'U) 264
SPIRIT-TABLETS 278
A PEDIGREE SCROLL (CHIA P'U) 280
A WRECKED JUNK 288
A JUNK ASHORE 288
WEIHAIWEI VILLAGERS 314
SHEN-TZŬ (MULE-LITTER) FORDING A STREAM 314
HILLS NEAR AI-SHAN 330
HILL, WOOD AND STREAM 330
IMAGE OF KUAN TI, WEIHAIWEI 362
THE BUDDHA OF KU SHAN TEMPLE 368
THE CITY-GOD OF WEIHAIWEI 368
SHRINE TO THE GOD OF LITERATURE 372
A T'U TI SHRINE 372
YÜAN DYNASTY GRAVES 376
A T'U TI SHRINE, SHOWING RAG-POLES AND TREE 376
THE HAUNTED TREE OF LIN-CHIA-YÜAN 380
A VILLAGE 382
AT CHANG-CHIA-SHAN 382
AI-SHAN PASS AND TEMPLE 386
SHRINES TO THE MOUNTAIN-SPIRIT AND LUNG WANG 396
WORSHIP AT THE ANCESTRAL TOMBS 396
AT THE VILLAGE OF YÜ-CHIA-K'UANG 398
A MOUNTAIN STREAM AND HAMLET 398
WÊN-CH'ÜAN-T'ANG 400
SHRINE ON SUMMIT OF KU SHAN 414
VILLAGERS AT A TEMPLE DOORWAY 414
TWO BRITISH RULERS ON THE MARCH, WITH MULE-LITTER AND HORSE 434
A ROADSIDE SCENE 434
THE COMMISSIONER OF WEIHAIWEI (SIR J. H. STEWART
LOCKHART, K.C.M.G.), WITH PRIEST AND ATTENDANTS
AT THE TEMPLE OF CH'ÊNG SHAN 440
MAP
WEIHAIWEI _at the end_
LION AND DRAGON IN NORTHERN CHINA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Less than a dozen years have passed since the guns of British warships
first saluted the flag of their country at the Chinese port of
Weihaiwei, yet it is nearly a century since the white ensign was seen
there for the first time. In the summer of 1816 His Britannic Majesty's
frigate _Alceste_, accompanied by the sloop _Lyra_, bound for the
still mysterious and unsurveyed coasts of Korea and the Luchu Islands,
sailed eastwards from the mouth of the Pei-ho along the northern coast
of the province of Shantung, and on the 27th August of that year cast
anchor in the harbour of "Oie-hai-oie." Had the gallant officers
of the _Alceste_ and _Lyra_ been inspired with knowledge of future
political developments, they would doubtless have handed down to us
an interesting account of the place and its inhabitants. All we learn
from Captain Basil Hall's delightful chronicle of the voyage of the
two ships consists of a few details--in the truest sense ephemeral--as
to wind and weather, and a statement that the rocks of the mainland
consist of "yellowish felspar, white quartz, and black mica." The rest
is silence.
From that time until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894
the British public heard little or nothing of Weihaiwei. After the
fall of Port Arthur, during that war, it was China's only remaining
naval base. The struggle that ensued in January 1895, when, with vastly
superior force, the Japanese attacked it by land and sea, forms one
of the few episodes of that war upon which the Chinese can look back
without overwhelming shame. Victory, however, went to those who had the
strongest battalions and the stoutest hearts. The three-weeks siege
ended in the suicide of the brave Chinese Commander-in-Chief, Admiral
Ting, and in the loss to China of her last coast-fortress and the whole
of her fleet. Finally, as a result of the seizure of Port Arthur by
Russia and a subsequent three-cornered agreement between Japan, China
and England, Weihaiwei was leased to Great Britain under the terms of a
Convention signed at Peking in July 1898.
The British robe of empire is a very splendid and wonderfully
variegated garment. It bears the gorgeous scarlets and purples of the
Indies, it shimmers with the diamonds of Africa, it is lustrous with
the whiteness of our Lady of Snows, it is scented with the spices of
Ceylon, it is decked with the pearls and soft fleeces of Australia. But
there is also--pinned to the edge of this magnificent robe--a little
drab-coloured ribbon that is in constant danger of being dragged in the
mud or trodden underfoot, and is frequently the object of disrespectful
gibes. This is Weihaiwei.
Whether the imperial robe would not look more imposing without this
nondescript appendage is a question which may be left to the student
of political fashion-plates: it will concern us hardly at all in the
pages of this book. An English newspaper published in China has dubbed
Weihaiwei the Cinderella of the British Empire, and speculates vaguely
as to where her Fairy Prince is to come from. Alas, the Fairy Godmother
must first do her share in making poor Cinderella beautiful and
presentable before any Fairy Prince can be expected to find in her the
lady of his dreams: and the Godmother has certainly not yet made her
appearance, unless, indeed, the British Colonial Office is presumptuous
enough to put forward a claim (totally unjustifiable) to that position.
By no means do I, in the absence of the Fairy Prince, propose to ride
knight-like into the lists of political controversy wearing the gage
of so forlorn a damsel-in-distress as Weihaiwei. Let me explain,
dropping metaphor, that the following pages will contain but slender
contribution to the vexed questions of the strategic importance of the
port or of its potential value as a depôt of commerce. Are not such
things set down in the books of the official scribes? Nor will they
constitute a guide-book that might help exiled Europeans to decide
upon the merits of Weihaiwei as a resort for white-cheeked children
from Shanghai and Hongkong, or as affording a dumping-ground for
brass-bands and bathing-machines. On these matters, too, information
is not lacking. As for the position of Weihaiwei on the playground
of international politics, it may be that Foreign Ministers have not
yet ceased to regard it as an interesting toy to be played with when
sterner excitements are lacking. But it will be the aim of these
pages to avoid as far as possible any incursion into the realm of
politics: for it is not with Weihaiwei as a diplomatic shuttlecock
that they profess to deal, but with Weihaiwei as the ancestral home of
many thousands of Chinese peasants, who present a stolid and almost
changeless front to all the storms and fluctuations of politics and war.
Books on China have appeared in large numbers during the past few
years, and the production of another seems to demand some kind of
apology. Yet it cannot be said that as a field for the ethnologist,
the historian, the student of comparative religion and of folk-lore,
the sociologist or the moral philosopher, China has been worked out.
The demand for books that profess to deal in a broad and general way
with China and its people as a whole has probably, indeed, been fully
satisfied: but China is too vast a country to be adequately described
by any one writer or group of writers, and the more we know about China
and its people the more strongly we shall feel that future workers
must confine themselves to less ambitious objects of study than the
whole Empire. The pioneer who with his prismatic compass passes rapidly
over half a continent has nearly finished all he can be expected to
do; he must soon give place to the surveyor who with plane-table and
theodolite will content himself with mapping a section of a single
province.
It is a mistake to suppose that any class of European residents in
or visitors to the Far East possesses the means of acquiring sound
knowledge of China and the Chinese. Government officials--whether
Colonial or Consular--are sometimes rather apt to assume that what
they do not know about China is not worth knowing; missionaries show a
similar tendency to believe that an adequate knowledge of the life and
"soul" of the Chinese people is attainable only by themselves; while
journalists and travellers, believing that officials and missionaries
are necessarily one-sided or bigoted, profess to speak with the
authority that comes of breezy open-mindedness and impartiality. The
tendency in future will be for each writer to confine himself to
that aspect of Chinese life with which he is personally familiar, or
that small portion of the Empire that comes within the radius of his
personal experience. If he is a keen observer he will find no lack
of material ready to his hand. Perhaps the richer and more luxuriant
fields of inquiry may be occupied by other zealous workers: then let
him steal quietly into some thorny and stony corner which they have
neglected, some wilderness that no one else cares about, and set to
work with spade and hoe to prepare a little garden for himself. Perhaps
if he is industrious the results may be not wholly disappointing;
and the passer-by who peeps over his hedge to jeer at his folly and
simplicity in cultivating a barren moor may be astonished to find that
the stony soil has after all produced good fruit and beautiful flowers.
In attempting a description of the people of Weihaiwei, their customs
and manners, their religion and superstitions, their folk-lore, their
personal characteristics, their village homes, I have endeavoured to
justify my choice of a field of investigation that has so far been
neglected by serious students of things Chinese. It may be foolish to
hope that this little wilderness will prove to be of the kind that
blossoms like a rose, yet at least I shall escape the charge of having
staked out a valley and a hill and labelled it "China."
Hitherto Weihaiwei has been left in placid enjoyment of its bucolic
repose. The lords of commerce despise it, the traveller dismisses it
in a line, the sinologue knows it not, the ethnologist ignores it,
the historian omits to recognise its existence before the fateful
year 1895, while the local British official, contenting himself
with issuing tiny Blue-book reports which nobody reads, dexterously
strives to convince himself and others that its administrative
problems are sufficiently weighty to justify his existence and his
salary. And yet a few years of residence in this unpampered little
patch of territory--years spent to a great extent without European
companionship, when one must either come to know something of the
inhabitants and their ways or live like a mole--have convinced one
observer, and would doubtless convince many others, that to the
people of Weihaiwei life is as momentous and vivid, as full of joyous
and tragic interest, as it is to the proud people of the West, and
that mankind here is no less worthy the pains of study than mankind
elsewhere.
There is an interesting discovery to be made almost as soon as one
has dipped below the surface of the daily life of the Weihaiwei
villagers, and it affords perhaps ample compensation and consolation
for the apparent narrowness of our field of inquiry. In spite of their
position at one of the extremities of the empire, a position which
would seemingly render them peculiarly receptive to alien ideas from
foreign lands, the people of Weihaiwei remain on the whole steadfastly
loyal to the views of life and conduct which are, or were till
recently, recognised as typically Chinese. Indeed, not only do we find
here most of the religious ideas, superstitious notions and social
practices which are still a living force in more centrally-situated
parts of the Empire, but we may also discover strange instances of the
survival of immemorial rites and quasi-religious usages which are known
to have flourished dim ages ago throughout China, but which in less
conservative districts than Weihaiwei have been gradually eliminated
and forgotten. One example of this is the queer practice of celebrating
marriages between the dead. The reasons for this strange custom must
be dealt with later;[1] here it is only desirable to mention the fact
that in many other parts of China it appears to have been long extinct.
The greatest authority on the religious systems of China, Dr. De Groot,
whose erudite volumes should be in the hands of every serious student
of Chinese rites and ceremonies, came across no case of "dead-marriage"
during his residence in China, and he expressed uncertainty as to
whether this custom was still practised.[2] Another religious rite
which has died out in many other places and yet survives in Weihaiwei,
is that of burying the soul of a dead man (or perhaps it would be more
correct to say one of his souls) without his body.[3] Of such burials,
which must also be dealt with later on, Dr. De Groot, in spite of
all his researches, seems to have come across no instance, though he
confidently expressed the correct belief that somewhere or other they
still took place.[4]
As the people of Weihaiwei are so tenacious of old customs and
traditions, the reader may ask with what feelings they regard the
small foreign community which for the last decade and more has been
dwelling in their midst. Is British authority merely regarded as an
unavoidable evil, something like a drought or bad harvest? Does British
influence have no effect whatever on the evolution of the native
character and modes of thought? The last chapter of this book will be
found to contain some observations on these matters: but in a general
way it may be said that the great mass of the Chinese population
of Weihaiwei has been only very slightly, and perhaps transiently,
affected by foreign influences. The British community is very small,
consisting of a few officials, merchants, and missionaries. With two
or three exceptions all the Europeans reside on the island of Liukung
and in the small British settlement of Port Edward, where the native
population (especially on the island) is to a great extent drawn from
the south-eastern provinces of China and from Japan. The European
residents--other than officials and missionaries--have few or no
dealings with the people except through the medium of their native
clerks and servants. The missionaries, it need hardly be said, do not
interfere, and of course in no circumstances would be permitted to
interfere, with the cherished customs of the people, even those which
are branded as the idolatrous rites of "paganism."
Apart from the missionaries, the officials are the only Europeans who
come in direct contact with the people, and it is, and always has
been, the settled policy of the local Government not only to leave the
people to lead their own lives in their own way, but, when disputes
arise between natives, to adjudicate between them in strict conformity
with their own ancestral usages. In this the local Government is only
acting in obedience to the Order-in-Council under which British rule
in Weihaiwei was inaugurated. "In civil cases between natives," says
the Order, "the Court shall be guided by Chinese or other native
law and custom, so far as any such law or custom is not repugnant
to justice and morality." The treatment accorded to the people of
Weihaiwei in this respect is, indeed, no different from that accorded
to other subject races of the Empire; but whereas, in other colonies
and protectorates, commercial or economic interests or political
considerations have generally made it necessary to introduce a body
of English-made law which to a great extent annuls or transforms the
native traditions and customary law, the circumstances of Weihaiwei
have not yet made it necessary to introduce more than a very slender
body of legislative enactments, hardly any of which run counter to or
modify Chinese theory or local practice.
From the point of view of the European student of Chinese life
and manners the conditions thus existing in Weihaiwei are highly
advantageous. Nowhere else can "Old China" be studied in pleasanter or
more suitable surroundings than here. The theories of "Young China,"
which are destined to improve so much of the bad and to spoil so
much of the good elements in the political and social systems of the
Empire, have not yet had any deeply-marked influence on the minds of
this industrious population of simple-minded farmers. The Government
official in Weihaiwei, whose duties throw him into immediate contact
with the natives, and who in a combined magisterial and executive
capacity is obliged to acquaint himself with the multitudinous details
of their daily life, has a unique opportunity for acquiring an insight
into the actual working of the social machine and the complexities of
Chinese character.
This satisfactory state of things cannot be regarded as permanent,
even if the foreigner himself does not soon become a mere memory. If
Weihaiwei were to undergo development as a commercial or industrial
centre, present conditions would be greatly modified. Not only
would the people themselves pass through a startling change in
manners and disposition--a change more or less rapid and fundamental
according to the manner in which the new conditions affected the
ordinary life of the villagers--but their foreign rulers would, in
a great measure, lose the opportunities which they now possess of
acquiring first-hand knowledge of the people and their ancestral
customs. Government departments and officials would be multiplied
in order to cope with the necessary increase of routine work, the
executive and judicial functions would be carefully separated, and
the individual civil servant would become a mere member or mouthpiece
of a single department, instead of uniting in his own person--as
he does at present--half a dozen different executive functions and
wide discretionary powers with regard to general administration.
Losing thereby a great part of his personal influence and prestige,
he would tend to be regarded more and more as the salaried servant
of the public, less and less as a recognisable representative of the
_fu-mu-kuan_ (the "father-and-mother official") of the time-honoured
administrative system of China. That these results would assuredly be
brought about by any great change in the economic position of Weihaiwei
cannot be doubted, since similar causes have produced such results in
nearly all the foreign and especially the Asiatic possessions of the
British Crown.
But there are other forces at work besides those that may come from
foreign commercial or industrial enterprise, whereby Weihaiwei may
become a far less desirable school than it is at present for the
student of the Chinese social organism. Hitherto Weihaiwei has with
considerable success protected itself behind walls of conservatism
and obedience to tradition against the onslaughts of what a Confucian
archbishop, if such a dignitary existed, might denounce as "Modernism."
But those walls, however substantial they may appear to the casual
eye, are beginning to show signs of decay. There is indeed no part of
China, or perhaps it would be truer to say no section of the Chinese
people, that is totally unaffected at the present day by the modern
spirit of change and reform. It is naturally the most highly educated
of the people who are the most quickly influenced and roused to action,
and the people of Weihaiwei, as it happens, are, with comparatively
few exceptions, almost illiterate. But the spirit of change is "in
the air," and reveals itself in cottage-homes as well as in books and
newspapers and the marketplaces of great cities. Let us hope, for the
good of China, that the stout walls of conservatism both in Weihaiwei
and elsewhere will not be battered down too soon or too suddenly.
One of the gravest dangers overhanging China at the present day is
the threatened triumph of mere theory over the results of accumulated
experience. Multitudes of the ardent young reformers of to-day--not
unlike some of the early dreamers of the French Revolution--are
aiming at the destruction of all the doctrines that have guided the
political and social life of their country for three thousand years,
and hope to build up a strong and progressive China on a foundation of
abstract principles. With the hot-headed enthusiasm of youth they speak
lightly of the impending overthrow, not only of the decaying forces of
Buddhism and Taoism, but also of the great politico-social structure of
Confucianism, heedless of the possibility that these may drag with them
to destruction all that is good and sound in Chinese life and thought.
Buddhism (in its present Chinese form) might, indeed, be extinguished
without much loss to the people; Taoism (such as it is nowadays) might
vanish absolutely and for ever, leaving perhaps no greater sense of
loss than was left by the decay of a belief in witchcraft and alchemy
among ourselves; but Confucianism (or rather the principles and
doctrines which Confucianism connotes, for the system dates from an
age long anterior to that of Confucius) cannot be annihilated without
perhaps irreparable injury to the body-social and body-politic of
China. The collapse of Confucianism would undoubtedly involve, for
example, the partial or total ruin of the Chinese family system and the
cult of ancestors.
With the exception of Roman Catholics and the older generation of
Protestant missionaries with a good many of their successors, who
condemn all Chinese religion as false or "idolatrous," few, if any,
European students of China will be heard to disapprove--whether on
ethical or religious grounds--of that keystone of the Chinese social
edifice known to Europeans as ancestor-worship. To the revolutionary
doctrines of the extreme reformers Weihaiwei and other "backward"
and conservative parts of China are--half unconsciously--opposing a
salutary bulwark. They cannot hope to keep change and reform altogether
at a distance, nor is it at all desirable that they should do so;
indeed, as we have seen, their walls of conservatism are already
beginning to crumble. But if they only succeed in keeping the old
flag flying until the attacking party has been sobered down by time
and experience and has become less anxious to sweep away all the
time-honoured bases of morality and social government, these old
centres of conservatism will have deserved the gratitude of their
country. What indeed could be more fitting than that the Confucian
system should find its strongest support, and perhaps make its last
fight for life, in the very province in which the national sage
lived and taught, and where his body has lain buried for twenty-five
centuries?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See pp. 230 _seq._, 233 _seq._
[2] _The Religious System of China_, vol. ii. p. 806.
[3] See pp. 281 _seq._
[4] _Op. cit._ vol. iii. p. 854.