Part 1
Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
On page 128, the sentence starting "I did not," may be missing words.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
A YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST
A YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST
BY GEORGE HOYT ALLEN
_Author of "It Tickled Him"_
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. S. WELLER
CLINTON, N. Y. TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED 1916
_Copyright, 1914_ BY TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION, INC.
_Copyright, 1915_ BY TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION, INC.
_All rights reserved_ SECOND EDITION
To my Friend J. WHITFIELD HIRST
CONTENTS
PAGE
Author's Preface 1
I. War Hell and Bull Fights 7
II. "Missouri" and His False Teeth 17
III. Wong Lee--The Human Bellows 28
IV. Hawaii--and the Fisherman Who'd Sign the Pledge 33
V. The Umpire Who Got a Job 44
VI. The Japs' Five-Story Skyscraper _and_ a Basement 53
VII. Japanese Girls in American Clothes--They Mar the Landscape 59
VIII. Ceremonious Grandmother--"Missouri" a "Heavenly Twin" 64
IX. Ushi the Rikisha Man 79
X. Missionaries, Tracts, and a Job Worth While 91
XI. Yamamoto and High Cost of Living 99
XII. The Soldier Said Something in Chinese 103
XIII. Ten Thousand Tons on a Wheelbarrow and the Ananias Club 114
XIV. "Missouri" Meets a Missionary 120
XV. A Sto-o-rm at Sea 133
XVI. The Islands "Discovered" by Dewey 138
XVII. White Filipinos, Aguinaldo, and the Busy Moth 147
XVIII. Singapore--The Humorist's Close Call 156
XIX. The Hindu Guide a Saint Would Be 168
XX. Penang--A Bird, the Female of Its Species, and the Mangosteen 172
XXI. Burma and Buddha 176
XXII. Baptists and Buddhism 181
XXIII. The Rangoon Business Man Who Drove His Sermon Home 185
XXIV. The Glass of Ice-Water That Jarred Rangoon 188
XXV. The Calcutta Sacred Bull and His Twisted Tail 194
XXVI. The Guide Who Wouldn't Sit in "Master's" Presence 201
XXVII. Royalty vs. "Two Clucks and a Grunt" 206
XXVIII. One Wink, Sixteen Cents, and Royalty 210
XXIX. The Englishman and Mark Twain's Joke, "That's How They Wash in India" 215
XXX. English as "She Is Spoke" in India 223
XXXI. Five Days' Sail and a Measly Poem 225
XXXII. Beating the Game With One Shirt 240
XXXIII. Through Hell Gate Steerage 257
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most blood-thirsty, cut-throat gang I've ever seen 11
They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than satisfied with one, when I left them to their sport 15
"You see, Mr. Allen, I got those teeth to please my wife" 20
"When I didn't have them in my wife was giving me Hail Columbia" 24
"With a mouthful of victuals I'd find myself chewing those false teeth with my other teeth" 26
"Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so? "No can slmoke stlate loom! "No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?" 29
My great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama Wong would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my state room blown out of the porthole 31
I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian Promotion Society 37
A fellow tied up that way can't come to the Hawaiian Islands to live 39
Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop fish, line and pole right back in the pond 41
You wouldn't expect to find any kickers in the Islands 43
But I'll bet it would make it shy 47
I won't say it would scare a locomotive off the tracks 48
Author's illustration 49
Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see 51
They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days' stay 55
While you're working out the problem your car passes 57
She is a part of the landscape that way. She fits in and makes me glad 62
Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in "Missouri" 65
"Lord, Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the machine stopped 67
We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house telephone 73
That surely was some bow 76
But Ushi's card had pulled a customer 81
"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, Ushi" 87
With reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a whole dollar, and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and carriage hire 88
That missionary seemed to exude tracts--I didn't know one missionary could hold so many 93
Except potato bugs, I always want to poison them 97
He said to have a foreigner as a guest at his humble home would bring around his house such a crowd of curious neighbors 100
I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I think what the soldier said made a hit with him 110
With a mighty bound I landed in that man's arms 112
"Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm looking for. I have a warrant for your arrest" 113
The chance acquaintances would cast significant glances and cough 115
There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow don't particularly interest 121
"Women who are interested in foreign missions and preachers in our town set quite a store by me" 123
"For about a minute, as I looked at what was in front of me, I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds" 126
"Humph!" snorted "Missouri," "he said, 'You've probably gathered your information of the missionary work in the Far East from your bar-room associates'" 129
As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel on a Shanghai wheelbarrow 131
Word has come to me that some of my readers are disappointed that I shied at a description of seasickness, but instead went off on a tangent about false teeth 134
Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea 137
Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered these islands May 1st, 1898 140
I hit a prominent official in Washington for a free pass on a transport to the Philippines 144
You cannot starve these people; they live in a land of perpetual summer 148
There is not another city in Japan, China, or India that can equal it in cleanliness 150
The chief industry of the owners of the shacks is to roost in them out of the sun and rain 152
Ye gods! Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town! 159
I swelled out my chest and swaggered away and thought I was _funny_ 161
The "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place 163
"And dommed if I didn't thank him twice when I should 'ave punched his 'ead" 166
No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one 167
And now there _is_ something to write about--the mangosteen 174
Would be like going to Venice and not having your picture taken with the doves roosting all over you 189
The only thing of note in the whole transaction is the boy's self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty 192
She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's sparkling waves to sail" 195
"Twist his tail," I said, "that will start him" 197
"You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull business around this neck of the woods" 199
Get that? Royalty, don't you know 203
It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but Royalty is expensive anyway 205
"Of course I don't," I came back at him. "You stung me the last trip across India" 208
Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's" baggage into the compartment--no matter how much, put it all in, boxes, bags, bedding, and trunks 212
The town turned out _en masse_ to hear me talk 216
The coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, the aroma floated through the auditorium 218
That old joke about the English being slow is no joke--it's a sad fact 220
And every time the Englishman has explained to me that he wasn't trying to break the stone 221
Home loomed large in my mind--I wanted to go home 226
Just like committing suicide 229
He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself 230
To write that invoice all over again * * * to get out of that was the determining factor 233
With my teeth chattering with valor 235
Anxiously watching specks in the horizon 238
We do, on occasions, don it 241
I've attended twenty-two "he" tea parties on this voyage 245
No hope of being sunk before dinner 247
I turned that shirt around 248
I felt like a thief in that shirt 251
With my jack-knife to rip and some puckering strings I went at it 253
I turned that shirt upside down 254
Also, _I_ finally accepted his apology 255
"You're a third-class passenger on this ship"--and further conversation with me seemed to give him a pain 264
He swore like a pirate 271
"It _is_ hard when they loiter, isn't it?" 274
And "Beef" came in 279
And those pants did look bad. There was no doubt about that 281
"If Mr. Allen says I have insulted women, he's a liar" 284
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
There are so many ways suggested these days by the various periodicals on how to make money at home, it would seem that all ingenuity in that direction must be exhausted; but how to make money abroad seems to me to be almost a virgin field.
New pastures have always interested me, and if I can add to the sum of human happiness by a wise suggestion, and point the way to satisfy an almost universal longing to see the world,--for instance, if I can show how one can make a luxurious world tour and come out ahead of the game while doing it,--I shall be only too glad.
It's no new trick to _beat_ one's way around the world with the hardships attending such an enterprise, but to tell how to do it in ease and luxury surely ought to earn me the gratitude of my fellow-men.
Get a bunch of pencils and some pads of paper and announce to a waiting editorial world that you are about to take a trip around the globe, and that you propose to write some letters of travel and syndicate them. That, for a consideration, you'll let some good papers print 'em.
Don't be modest about naming a good round price for the consideration of letting your papers in. Because you'll need the money.
All editors you'll find are hankering for letters of travel.
Letters of travel are a novelty. The first editor you call on early in the morning, say about ten o'clock (that's early enough to get to work in this new enterprise I'm tipping you off to--gone is grinding toil and worry--let others moil), this first editor of some big daily (big dailies are the easiest)--don't be timid--brace right up to him, and give him your proposition in a nutshell--easy-like--right off the bat.
It will be a pleasure to you to watch him brighten up at your offer.
Managing editors of big dailies are hard-worked men.
Atlas' job (merely physical) is easy compared with the mental strain and worry the managing editor of a big daily paper is subjected to these days.
You'll find him feeling the need of something--it's travel dope.
Don't be too arbitrary with him when he inquires in a tentative, anxious way, as he is about to affix his signature on the dotted line in your contract: "Of course no other paper in our town gets these letters?"
Assure him he will have exclusive use in his town. One paper in a town is enough, if you select the biggest and best one.
If (an almost impossible contingency) there should be any hesitancy on the part of the editor in grabbing your offer, if it seems to you that the price may be giving him pause, don't make the mistake of cutting the price. Tell him you may (don't promise for sure,--it won't be necessary,--a hint will be enough), tell him you may run a little poetry into your letters--that poetry comes easy for you to write--a sort of a fambly gift.
Don't stall, for fear you can't write poetry. You can do it if you think you can. It's dead easy.
Newspapers are just crazy for poetry--so crazy for it that lots of them will buy it when every line don't begin with a capital--where the poet ends a sentence right in the middle of a line, puts a period there, and just to beat the compositor out of a little fat starts a new verse after that period.
Why, they will buy poetry where the reader will get half through the piece before he discovers that it _is_ poetry, and after he has caught the swing he will start at the top and begin over, and go clear to the end every time, and feel good over it.
This is where this kind of poetry differs from patent medicine advertisements.
In the latter, when the poet begins to advise the use of a new brand of pills, when the poet's ulterior motive begins to crop out, you stop reading, get mad, and want to swat the poet.
The paper gets paid for printing the pill poem. It is in cahoots with the poet to put one over on the public, but it pays money for the kind of poetry I have described.
I'm glad I thought to post you about the poetry, because it's just barely possible that the editor may be contemplating a trip himself, in which case his paper won't want your stuff,--_he_ will send in some articles; or that his brother, or his sister, or his cousin, or his aunt, all of them gifted writers, are now on the bounding billows, en route for foreign parts, armed with pencils and pads; or that even now one of the paper's big advertisers is in Europe, and some travel stuff he is writing is just beginning to arrive and space must be found for it somewhere (it's just barely possible, I say barely, that that is one of the editor's problems as you drop in on him at 10 A. M.), so don't forget about the poetry.
This is important, because if you do, in all probability the next issue of that paper will have a scoop in a news story headed:--"Mysterious and Brutal Murder! Unknown Man Found Mutilated Beyond All Possibility of Identification! No Clue to the Perpetrators!"
So, after you've made your offer, and before the editor has time to draw his gun or grab an axe, tell him you can write poetry, which, when set in his paper, will at first sight look just like Johnnie's composition on Spring.
In addition to saving your local paper from publishing a harrowing tale of a mysterious disappearance, you'll land your contract with that hint of some possible poetry. When, I started out to do what I am advising you to do, I made nine towns before I signed up a paper.
There was considerable iron in my soul when I tackled the tenth town, and I had to do something,--so I dropped a hint that I might possibly run in a little poetry. After that it came easy.
With this kindly hint on "How to Make Money Abroad," herein is presented the letters I wrote on my 1914 world tour for a syndicate of papers.
With the kindly aid of the artist to help you over the hard places, "A YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST" for a title (a book must have a title), and good, plain print, the publishers launch this little book.
A YANKEE
IN
THE FAR EAST
I
WAR HELL AND BULL FIGHTS
Up in the interior of our country we don't look upon the Mexican situation with the same passionate interest that they do down here on the border--in El Paso, for instance.
Here is a town of sixty thousand. A magnificent city, with everything that goes to make our modern civilization desirable. A city of sky-scrapers, a million-dollar hotel (the one I'm stopping at), with still others that would do credit to a city twice its size. Splendid stores, residences, and railway station, and forty-five miles of fine macadam streets--a city of gimp, go, and bang--a city to make an American citizen proud of his country.
It costs five cents and ten minutes' time to go from the center of El Paso over to Mexico across the Rio Grande--a muddy, dirty stream that one could wade across--into the city of Juarez--a town of about ten thousand--the quickest change from everything desirable to everything undesirable that I have ever experienced. A fit title to the story would be "From Heaven to Hell." I went to see a bull fight in Juarez, the first and last bull fight I shall ever witness.
I wonder if Sherman ever saw a bull fight; I don't believe he did, or he would have said, "War is the vestibule--the real thing is what is called a bull fight." In my humble opinion the Almighty allowed the devil to institute war among men to give us a warning foretaste of hell. The devil, ambitious to outdo himself, made one more try and invented the bull fight (which is a misnomer--it is not a "fight"), and then the devil said: "I'm through, beat it if you can."
War is a fight--men against men, intellect against intellect. A cock fight is a fight--cock against cock. A dog fight is a fight--dog against dog. A prize fight is a fight--bruiser against bruiser, go to it, and may the best side win.
The devil invented all these, but there was an element of fairness in them. The devil looked upon them and saw the element of fairness. It girded him. He tried once more, invented bull torturing, baited his hook by naming it bull "fighting," and fished for a nation to adopt it. Spain bit, and she and her offspring deserve all they've reaped in consequence--and then some.
For a hellish, damnable, brutalizing institution, I place the torturing of bulls for amusement at the head of the class for the double-distilled quintessence of his Satanic Majesty's final and last effort to put one over on the Angel of Light. The horrors and cruelties practiced since time began have back of them ambition, hate, bigotry, ignorance, or supposed justice; but the bull fight has none of these back of it for an excuse. It's done in the name of sport! for pastime!
Ambition?--"It's a glorious cheat," but posterity may reap the benefit. Hate?--It burns itself out. Bigotry?--Darkness, preceding dawn. Ignorance?--It can be cured. Justice?--Blind but sometimes hits the mark. But the bull fight! Invented for sport, pastime--that which is as necessary to man's development as food. A country that lets its children have the bull fight to play with is on the toboggan slide.
I've seen them chop off human being's heads in China, in the name of justice. It jarred me some. I've seen the awful condition of human life in India. That jarred me more. But yesterday I saw five thousand men, women and children gathered to witness bulls tortured for "fun"!
I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most blood-thirsty, cut-throat gang I've ever seen--and the fact that human beings could be brought to look upon that thing as "sport," "pastime," "pleasure," jarred me most of all--and Juarez is only a little more than a stone's throw from El Paso! El Paso has poignant feelings on the Mexican situation--the nuisance is at her door.
Twenty-five years ago El Paso was a cluster of mud huts. Juarez was a town five hundred years ago, and it's little more than a cluster of mud huts now. Some fair-size two-story brick buildings, but a sorry makeshift of a city, the chief thing in evidence being poverty, vice, and dirt. Its chief pride, and by all odds largest building, is its bull ring--an amphitheater that will seat 10,000, built around an arena. This arena, about 100 feet in diameter, is fenced in with a high-board fence. A gate opens out of the arena, through which first come six gaily-dressed bull baiters on foot, followed by three more riding blindfolded, scarecrow horses, sorry, poor, limping old beasts, which, in man's service have earned a merciful death--their value in the open market would not exceed $2.00 each. Their riders are armed with long-handled spears. They all, on foot and horseback, have official names. I don't know, nor want to know, what their titles are. They are men!--not brutes. It would be an insult to the brutes that go to make up the sketch to call them that. They doff their hats and salaam to the throng, who answer back with lusty cheers.
And now the bull comes from the darkened pen, where he has been kept for twenty-four hours,--a walk of thirty feet through a fenced-in lane. His bovine majesty, a splendid bull, comes walking leisurely along, rejoicing to get into God's sunlight, no thought of malice in his heart. He seems to nod a kindly good-afternoon to the attendants, who drive him towards the gate that opens into the arena. As he is passing through the gate a man perched up out of harm's way jabs a cruel harpoon on the end of a handle decked with gaily colored ribbons between the bull's shoulders.