and indeed it is time that the proceedings should be enlivened a
little. The farces are not difficult to follow (though I cannot say
that I understand writers whom I know to be ignorant of Chinese, and
who say that the acting of the Pekingese comedians is so good that
the whole play is quite intelligible; I know I was out of my depth
often enough, in spite of the admirable acting, and of my being able
to understand a great deal of the dialogue). The dialect is the pure
Pekingese vernacular, and the dialogue is spoken with the exception
of a few songs. The women’s parts are played by boys, who imitate to
perfection the mincing gait and affectations of the Chinese women—“the
carriage as graceful as the weeping willow”—sham small feet are
attached to their own boots in order to carry out the illusion, which
is quite perfect. These boys are bought in the south and trained up as
apprentices. They receive no pay from the head of their troupe, but
they earn largish sums by attending the banquets of the Chinese men
about town; when they are not actually playing, they go up into the
private boxes to the richer visitors, whom they amuse with the last
gossip of the green-room.
The farces are too indecent for me to do more than give you a mere
sketch of one. Medea does not stop short of doing anything _coram
populo_, so I give you a sort of Bowdler’s family edition of the plot
of one that I saw.
A young gentleman of great wealth of the name of Wang has been ruined
by a mistress named Yu Tang Chun, who, strange to say, although his
money is all spent, still preserves a hankering for him. He, on the
other hand, finding himself without a penny, is ashamed to go near her,
so he retires to a temple to live by his wits. The scene opens with Yu
Tang Chun bewailing his absence and her solitude in a long recitative
and song (rather pretty for Chinese music). To her enters the low
comedy man—such a good actor, and so full of fun!—who tells her where
her lover is, and all about his deplorable state. She determines to
go and see him, and take him a present of 300 taels (£100) to enable
him to go to Peking and pass his examination. Accordingly, she sets
out, and a table with the five offerings is placed upon the stage to
represent a temple, to which she goes under the pretence of burning
joss stick. As soon as she sees her lover the two set up a wild shriek,
and rush into one another’s arms. Over what follows it is absolutely
necessary to draw a curtain. The play ends by her giving Wang the
money. He starts for Peking, and returns in a second or two, having
passed a brilliant examination and obtained high office. Sometimes,
but rarely, girls are present among the audience, and when this is the
case, it is only fair to say that these pieces—the grossness of which
passes all belief—are not given. On those occasions the playbill is
made up of military and historic dramas, the propriety of which is as
undeniable as their dulness.
The price of admission to the best theatres at Peking is one tiao
(about 8d.) to the pit, something more to the gallery, and a private
box costs twelve tiaos. As the whole thing is, as I said before, a
speculation of the _restaurateur’s_, refreshments are hawked about
during the whole performance. There is a man who carries about a long
pipe (like Herr von Joel with his cigars at Evans’s), who is very
persistent in seeking custom. If it is hot weather the people in the
pit take off their coats and lounge naked to the waist, sitting out the
whole performance from noon till seven P.M., after which they pack up
what remains to them of their fruit and melon seeds, and go off home,
not having had near enough of it.
I have been three or four times, and find that a couple of hours of the
din and smoke are as much as I can stand, besides which I find that
eating po-po out of politeness interferes with one’s dinner.
My time here is drawing very short. When I told my teacher that I was
going away he hummed and hawed, and shifted about uneasily. At last
he summoned up courage and said, “Sir, I have one last favour to ask
of you. The teachers of the West are very cunning in medicine; they
possess many secrets. I have no child, and it is a great sorrow! Bitter
is the life of the man who is childless! In vain have we addressed our
prayers to the goddess Kwan Yin, my wife remains barren. Sir, if you
could give me some drug or some charm to remove this evil, for small
favours one can find thanks, but for so great a favour none!”
Dear to man is the fame for abstruse learning! But I was obliged to
confess myself at fault.
I start for Japan on Monday week, and then good-bye to Peking!
APPENDIX
HOW MANDARINS ARE MADE
The literature of no country is so abundant in noble sentiments as that
of China. Happy, indeed, would be the people who should be governed
according to the precepts of Confucius, of Mencius, and of Lao Tsŭ! The
highest moral and political principles are in every mouth, at the tip
of every pen. From the first day of his entering school the Chinese boy
learns unctuously to recite the most virtuous precepts of the sages,
yet learning is the one road to fortune through robbery, peculation,
and extortion in their most refined shapes. With every rise in rank
the opportunities of robbing the “Hundred Names” and defrauding the
state are multiplied in a ratio increasing like the value of carats
in diamonds: the wealth amassed by some of the great mandarins must
be something fabulous. Take as an instance the war with Japan. The
Chinese soldier, when properly led and fairly treated is an excellent
fighting man. It is difficult to believe that the sons of the braves
who under Tsêng Kwo Fan and San Ko Lin Sin, so stubbornly defended the
bridge against the French and English in 1860, could have been driven
from an impregnable position like Fort Arthur by the Japanese some
thirty years later. But what troops could fight without food, arms,
ammunition? Food, arms, ammunition, and pay had all found their way
into the pockets of the mandarins. Would the brigade of Guards itself
have stood to be mown down without being able to fire an effective shot
in return? I was told on high authority that at the famous naval battle
of the Yalu, which some experts have quoted as an object lesson in the
naval warfare of the future, on the Chinese side only three live shells
were fired, one of which disabled the Japanese flagship, and sent her
steaming away into space. The comparison of the bankers’ books of some
of the great mandarins before and after the war would be an interesting
study.
The mandarins—one is compelled to use the old Portuguese word for want
of a better—are recruited from two classes: the hereditary nobility,
and those who obtain office nominally by examination, but often by
purchase.
The hereditary nobility is composed of the members of the Imperial
family with the five ranks, Kung, Hou, Po, Tsŭ, Nan,—which it has been
the fashion to translate by duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron.
The highest rank in the Imperial family is that of Chin Wang—“related
prince,” or as we should say “Prince of the Blood.” In some cases this
title is continued from generation to generation; in others there is
a sliding scale downward through the ranks of Pei Lo and Pei Tsŭ to
that of Kung or duke, below which members of the Imperial family do not
descend.
In the same way with subjects, the rank of Kung is sometimes
transmitted; in others the son of a Kung becomes a Hou, the son of a
Hou a Po, and so on. The inheritor of a title must be the eldest son
of the one legitimate wife, and not of a secondary wife, for although
polygamy exists in China, there is, except in the case of the Emperor’s
family, only one legitimately married wife, nor in her lifetime can
there be another. The younger sons of nobles, even of the Imperial
family, have no rank either by right or by courtesy; but the latter are
generally raised to rank by being appointed general officers. Patents
of nobility cannot be bought, at any rate not in theory.
The representative of the eldest branch of a family can, in the event
of his being childless, adopt the child of a younger branch, and the
child so adopted inherits the title. It sometimes happens that a
younger brother who has become rich will bribe his eldest brother to
adopt his child to the exclusion of the lawful heir and his issue.
The sovereign is, as with us, the fountain of honour, and it is he who
confers these titles of nobility, which are accompanied by grants of
land. As a general rule the land assigned to a Kung or a Hou would not
exceed a circumference of 100 li = 33 miles, to a Po 70 li, and to the
two lesser ranks 50 li.
Conspicuous among the nobles of China are the Pa Ta Chia, “the Eight
great Families.” These are the descendants of the eight Princes who,
waiving any claim to the throne, followed the reigning dynasty from
Manchuria. Their rank remains unchanged for all generations. The
representative of one of these, the Prince of I, was famous in the
war of 1860. A year later, at the time of the Prince of Kung’s _coup
d’état_, he fell into disgrace, and was “presented with the white
kerchief” (made to commit suicide).
But the Imperial family and the hereditary nobles at Peking, valuable
instruments of obstruction as they doubtless are, form but an
infinitesimal portion of that colossal octopus of fraud and corruption
which strangles the whole vast empire in its tentacles. The myriads of
officials, from the exalted viceroys down to petty bloodsuckers of a
rank about equal to that of a parish beadle, are either drawn from the
so-called graduates of the examination halls, or have obtained their
promotion by purchase—of the latter mode of reaching distinction there
is nothing to be said; it is beautifully simple. But the examination
system is very complicated and deserves some notice.
The following account of how mandarins are made is based upon an
article of mine, for the most part translated from a paper by a native
graduate, and published in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ in 1871:—
At the age of from six to eight years the Chinese boy is removed from
the petting and pampering of the women’s apartments and is sent to
school, where he receives his first lessons in reading and writing
as purely mechanical processes. He is taught to read by droning out
passages from the classics in hideous unison with his schoolmates,
and to write by painting over characters printed on thin whitey-brown
paper. This preliminary process of education lasts for some two
years or more, at the end of which the young student is looked upon
as sufficiently advanced to be instructed in the meaning of what he
reads. The books now put into his hands are, of course, the famous Four
Books and the Five Classics, every passage in which, with its hidden
obscurities and doubtful interpretations, is diligently and painfully
explained to him, until not only the text itself, but also every note
and commentary with which successive ages of scholars have overlaid it,
are familiar in his mouth as household words. Having accomplished this
end the youth is allowed to try a flight upon his own wings, and begins
to write essays and poetry, which, by useful and assiduous reading,
he must model upon the best patterns. “Poetry of the Tang dynasty,
handwriting of the Chin dynasty, essays of the Han dynasty,” says the
proverb; these, with all humility, should the student endeavour to
follow at however great a distance.
As soon as the young man’s compositions begin to take some sort of
shape, and to satisfy the keen criticism of his master, when his
language is neatly fitted to his thoughts, and he does not use so
much as a particle out of its place, he may look forward to preparing
himself to undergo his examination for the degree of Hsin Tsai, or
Bachelor of Arts.
The examiner for this degree is an officer from the Han Lin (lit.
Forest of Pencils), or Imperial Academy of Peking, and is specially
appointed by the Emperor; one examiner is appointed for each province
throughout the country, and he holds his examinations from town to town
in the chief places of the province to which he is accredited.
We will suppose the examination to be taking place at Shun Ti̔en Fu,
the provincial capital of Chih Li (the province in which Peking is
situated). The examiner, having arrived with no small arrogance of
dignity, takes up his abode in the Examination Hall inside the town. On
an appointed day the undergraduate candidates from the various Chou and
Hsien, or lesser towns which are dependent upon Shun Ti̔en Fu, crowd
into the hall, and take their places each according to the township
to which he may belong. As soon as his flock is gathered together, the
examiner gives out two themes selected from the Four Books to serve
as texts for essays, and one subject for an exercise in verse. Each
candidate is expected to produce two essays and one set of twelve
verses in rhyme; but he has plenty of time to perform his task, for the
examination begins at four o’clock in the morning, and the papers are
not given in until between five and seven o’clock in the evening. On
the third day the examination list is given out: the examiner writes
out the names of the successful candidates in order of merit, and gives
it to the overseers of the hall, who, carrying it respectfully on their
heads, go out and paste it on the wall fronting the entrance gate.
Then follows a scene of excitement when the undergraduates besiege
the gate to search for their names on the list. (Oxford over again!)
“Should they have been successful,” says a native account, “they are
now entitled to call themselves Hsin Tsai, and are so delighted that
in their joy everything in heaven and earth seems lovely to them,” and
they look forward to the day when they will receive the much-coveted
official button.[19] The unhappy plucked ones must make the best of
it and try again. Even now the Hsin Tsai’s troubles are not over;
for there is a second examination, in which they are divided into
three classes—the first class being privileged graduates eligible
for honorary degrees entitling the possessors to become candidates
for bettermost civil appointments. There is yet another distinction
open to the privileged bachelors. Once in twelve years the degree of
Pa Kung is given to a representative of each petty township: it is
also conferred on the successful competitor in an examination held of
privileged bachelors, in which case it is awarded to the cleverest,
most respectable, and youngest of his class. When certain official
appointments of an inferior grade are about to be made, the Emperor
summons the bachelors of the grade of Pa Kung to court, where they
are again made to go through an examination, and divided into three
classes. The members of the first class are employed as brass button
mandarins (officials of the seventh, eighth, and ninth classes); those
of the second class are sent to be Chih Hsien, or magistrates of
small towns; while the remainder are only eligible for employment as
assistants in the public examinations.
Such, briefly, are the honours and offices open to a man who has passed
his first examination. The degree of Chü Jên is a much more serious
affair.
This examination takes place in fixed years; and when the appointed
time comes all bachelors ambitious of promotion, together with a class
of graduates called Chien Shêng, who have purchased their degree,
prepare in fear and trembling for the ordeal.
On the 6th day of the 8th month of the year an Imperial decree is
issued, appointing the officials who are to conduct the examination.
There are three chief examiners and eighteen assistant examiners, with
a whole number of subordinates, who search the candidates as they come
in, to see that no books, or memoranda, or other aids to intelligence,
are smuggled in; besides these there is a strong _posse_ of Imperial
informers, who watch all that goes on, and keep up a sort of secret
police in the hall. The whole of the compositions of the masters
expectant are handed over to copyists, who transcribe them, lest the
handwritings of the candidates being recognised by the examiners
there should be any foul play, and the copies so made are compared
with the originals by clerks appointed for the purpose. Besides all
these persons, there are 180 minor officials who superintend all petty
details. The examination is divided into three parts. On the 8th day
of the month the first part begins. The candidates are divided into
four companies, to each of which is assigned a door. At each of the
doors stand two Imperial informers—the one a Manchu, the other a
Chinese—whose duty it is to mark off the names of the candidates, and
to distribute to each a roll of paper, giving the number of the cell
allotted to him, to which he carries his provision of food and bedding,
for he will be locked up in solitary confinement for three days and
nights. In the evening, when the candidates have all been pricked
in, every door is sealed, and all coming in or going out is rendered
impossible.
The exercises set for the first part of the examination consist of
three essays from the Four Books, and one composition in verse. The
first subject is selected, or supposed to be selected, by the Emperor
in person, and the remainder are chosen by the chief examiners. The
_Cycle_, an English newspaper published at Shanghai, once gave the
texts chosen for such exercises at an examination held at Wu Chang.
I. From the _Lun Yu_, the _Analects of Confucius_:—“Tsŭ Yu, being
governor of Wu Ching, the master said to him, ‘Have you got such a
thing as a real Man in the place?’ He answered, ‘Here is Tan Tai Mieh
Ming, who does not in walking side off by a short cut, nor come to my
office except on public business.’”
II. From the _Chung Yung_ of Kung Chi, the grandson of Confucius:—“He
only who is accomplished, learned, profound, and critical, has
wherewith to exercise sound judgment.”
III. From the _Shang Mang_ of Mencius:—“When any one told Tsŭ Lu that
he had a fault he was pleased with him. When Yu heard anybody say a
wise thing he bowed to him.”
Each of these essays was required to contain not less than three
hundred, nor more than eight hundred words.
The theme for the poetical exercise was “An observer of the beauties
of Nature being so absorbed as to forget the march of a whole round of
seasons.”
Such are the proofs of superior wisdom and learning in which if a man
excel he is qualified to rule others! Chinese scholarship is very
difficult of attainment; perhaps if it were impossible the world would
hardly be much the poorer.
When the subjects have been selected and approved by the Emperor, they
are sealed up in a box and given over to the care of a chief eunuch of
the palace, to be handed to the chief examiners, who cause them to be
engraved on wood and printed. On the 10th day of the month the essays
are handed in, and the candidates leave the building.
The officers having received the exercises, examine them carefully to
see whether there be any informality in them: if they should discover
anything like an infringement of prescribed custom the papers are
rejected, the peccant candidate’s name is struck off the list, and
he is incapacitated from taking part in the second examination. If
the papers are in due form they are sent into the copying department,
where they are copied in red ink; thence into the comparing department,
and sealing department, where the mottoes borne by the originals are
pasted on to them. They now find their way into the superintendent’s
office, and he forwards them to the eighteen junior examiners.
With pain and care, measuring every word and weighing to a nicety the
fitness of every particle, these learned men apply themselves to the
criticism of the papers before them. Those that find favour in their
eyes are docketed as good, and given back to the superintendent, who
passes them to the three chiefs. Should they fail to satisfy these they
are thrown into the waste-paper basket, but the candidate still has the
credit of having passed the first test. Should they satisfy the chiefs
they are marked with the character Chung, signifying that they have hit
the mark; but only a limited number of candidates are admitted to the
degree at one examination.
The second examination takes place on the 11th day of the month,
and consists in writing five essays upon texts taken from the Five
Classics; the third test, which is held on the 14th of the month, is
devoted to the propounding of five sets of questions on the subject
of literature, political economy, or general science. According to
the _Cycle_, “the first question asked at Wu Chang was of the nature
of criticism of the classics; the second question was on historical
matters; the third on military colonisation. (The Chinese Government
hoping to save their western provinces by allotting land to soldiers
on the frontier line, requiring them to keep themselves in readiness
for fighting.) The fourth question entered into the various plans
adopted by previous dynasties in the selection of suitable persons to
hold the offices of government. The fifth question referred to the
ancient and modern geography of Ching Chan Fu, the course of the waters
of the Han and the Yangtze, and the history of the Tung Ting Lake.” The
answers to each of the five questions were to contain a minimum of five
hundred words.
It occasionally happens that after the list of successful candidates
has been made up, the work of some new bachelor is recommended to the
notice of the examiners. Should the essays which he sends in show
pre-eminent ability, their fortunate author is rewarded with the degree
of Fu Pang, or assistant master; and if the list of Fu Pang be already
full, then he is appointed Tan Lu, a distinction bringing with it no
advancement in rank in the state, but rendering its possessor eligible
for certain offices.
During the examination at Wu Chang a subordinate official of the
examination hall was convicted of having passed manuscripts to one of
the candidates. The punishment was summary. The official was beheaded,
the candidate banished to the frontiers, and the graduate who wrote the
forged essay was sentenced to be executed when captured. As the writer
of the article in the _Cycle_, from which I have quoted, observes, “It
is interesting to find the Chinese authorities so prompt and just in
punishing the guilty. If some unfortunate foreigner had been murdered
by these precious literati, the governor would have declared it to
be impossible to touch the offenders in the presence of a myriad of
members of their order.” More probably he would either have declared
that he could not find them, or have executed a certain number of
jail-birds as substitutes.
Perhaps the candidate was a foolish candidate, and hush-money was
either wanting or insufficient. But in that case it was as it should
be, for by not bribing he clearly showed his incapacity for holding
high official position. He did not recognise the privileges of the
class which it was his ambition to enter, and he gave the officers of
the hall an opportunity of showing a little cheap zeal in the execution
of their duty, to his great discomfiture.