Part 11

Solomon came to humorous judgment when two women of First Kings brought their case before him, and Lord Kitchener is credited with a grim humor in dealing with the Arab sheiks who wanted to enlist in the war against Italy. Here is Chinese humor of the same sort. All of the mandarin’s staff at his new station thought they would embarrass him by applying for promotions. Granted with gusto! Every one’s position was advanced one grade, but the salaries were all reduced one grade at the same time owing to retrenchments needed.

A freshman of Queen’s College, writing of the popularity of Sir Matthew Nathan, the indefatigable British governor of Hongkong, who died from exposure in the 1900 typhoon, said: “He is a very common man.” He, however, meant common in the Scriptural sense that the heroic governor’s fame was common to all.

Chinese women are short and soft as compared with the larger and stronger foreign women seen in the treaty ports. A Chinese student satirist, who had served as a house boy in San Francisco, thus described in an essay his former American mistress and her daughters: “The Americaness is open air breather, consequently her meat is harder than Chinese (he meant her muscle). In a dangerous melancholy acting, the young Americaness quickly traps her sorrow husband who comes to pity, but soon runs to grieve in divorce when loving voice of Americaness recovers from coyness. Bud of romance early frosted makes scandal column of paper, which is best advertising much sought and read like dog in manger by all actress without job. Cold ethics of Chinese woman in comparison sprouts not too quick ruin, consequently wears better. Americaness system much exciting is open-air theater for all to laugh and read as run. Americaness never reaches next birthday, consequently always fresh and sweet like comquat in syrup; but American poet says: ‘Beware, some sweets do cloy, but food is good each day.’ I think then China wife is like food, if plain, always satisfying, and fills the bill, as American Zoo keepers say. American man and Chinese man believe womans should go slow; consequently Americaness wear hobble skirt like lasso on ankle, and Chinese woman bind foot. Both mens take no chances, and exchange mutual wink. However, Chinese woman and Americaness woman, is both queenesses of talk--when once begun then heroes run. Talk then is kingdom of womens called Suffragetia, where mans sees finish and casts his weapons in humble dust.”

Describing life among his friends, the bell-boys at the Shanghai hotels who have frequently to answer calls for a B. & S. after a bath, another wit said: “The guests are ringing (wringing) wet in two spellings.”

Was this Oriental a flatterer of womankind, or a droll cynic regarding mankind? The wife of the missionary asked the native pupil to translate our maxim: “Out of sight, out of mind,” and he rendered it into these characters: “Your husband is insane when he is away from you.” Another boy wrote it: “The angels are crazy.”

At the Chinese Club a scholarly Chinese traveler warned me to follow the Royal Hongkong Golf Club’s motto, “Festina lente” (make haste slowly), in dwelling upon the wonderful traits of the Chinese, and he related the following humorous story: “In your country an enthusiastic missionary, daringly stimulated by the applause of his audience, put wonder upon wonder, Pelion on Ossa piled, in describing the vicarious virtues of the Chinese, by saying: ‘Yes, dear children, lives are cheap in China. I knew a man there who made his living by selling himself to the executioners to take the place of those condemned to death.’”

Here is a tale of facetiousness and evasion. A wag, whose appearance was against him, called at a prison, and held this dialogue with the clerk: “Is the mandarin in?” “No.” “Is the deputy in?” “No.” “Is the jailer in?” “No.” “Is the bamboo-wielder in?” “No.” “Oh, say, are the prisoners in, Mr. No-No-No?”

One of the modernized officials labeled his friend’s book of personal press flatteries, “The Pursuit of Egotism.”

The well-known Bankers’ Association of Tokio is called the “Eel Society”. I asked my Chinese friend for his interpretation of this, and he explained: “Because they are as slippery in the grasp of their Diet as is your Money Trust in the hands of Congress.” He further told me that they call the administration papers which say that “everything is lovely and the goose hangs high”, “official frogs”, because they only know one note, and one sets the others going on the same old thing.

Two wags met on the street of the Shansi Bankers’ Guild, Peking. One wore a sour and the other a comical expression. The cynic clenched his fist at the teak-barred windows of one bank, and with a wry face exclaimed, “I don’t know how he’s giving it away, but I do know how he got it.” The other, holding out the hush-money of a silver sycee bar, and pointing to a banker’s residence across the road, answered: “I don’t know how he got it, but I happen to know how he’s giving it away.”

A popular Chinese restaurant bears the legend of “The Quiet Woman”, and the caricature shows a standing woman, whose decapitated head lies at her feet, and wears at last, before her triumphant husband, a defeated expression. The double humor is that henpecked men may safely come to this restaurant, and enjoy that quiet and retirement which home does not afford.

The humorist tells of a stutterer who held up an old friend, and clinging to his pajama-frog (for pajamas are outside and not inside clothes in old-style China), said: “If-f-f-f-f y-y-you h-have an hour I’d l-l-like to h-have a m-m-minute’s c-conversation with you.”

Athletics of all sorts, except Rugby football, are popular at China’s best technical school, Pei Yang University at Tientsin. English is used for all lectures except, of course, Chinese classics. The subject of establishing a debating class or a Rugby football team came up, and a professor who defended the former said that “he preferred a man who could stand on his feet and make his head work to one who could stand on his head and make his feet work”.

A rich brute went to meet his victim whom he had impoverished. He jeered, so as to break his spirit as he had done to his estate: “My! what a come down; what poor clothes.” Quick as a flash from the never-say-die man came the repartee: “Yes, I expected to meet you, but you should see me on ordinary days.”

The practical joker has visited romantic Macao. They tell this story of the Portuguese Sé Mission Cathedral. The Macao women are short, and the fonts of holy water are placed too high on the wall for them to look into. The devil was put into the sacred waters by the bad boy, the devil this time being crabs, which unseen, nipped the fingers of the superstitious women as they searched high up for the soothing blessing.

The naming of the Chinese servants on board ship, in mess, hong, office or godown, has presented many a difficulty, and the civilian is more inconsiderately humorous than the missionary, especially when his help changes often, as is the case in Hongkong. Numbers instead of names are generally used. “Number Two piecee cook” is what you would say if you desired the second cook called. “Number One piecee topside boy” is what your wife would say if she desired the first up-stairs chamber boy called. There are no chambermaids. Where a woman is employed, she serves only as an amah; that is, mother-nurse, or mother-maid. In the irreverent messes and barracks, some of the men name their servants after some personal distinction or appearance, such as “The Tall One”; “One Eye”; “Melica”, because he told you that he had once sailed on a ship for America; “Jesus man”, because he told you he got converted at a mission school and preferred the name; “Governor boy”, because he was once a servant in the governor’s yamen. Sometimes the messes christen their servants according to their favorite political leaders in America or England: “Loosy Velly” is, of course, Roosevelt; “Blyan” is Bryan; “Wheel Sun” is Wilson; “Salls Belly” is Salisbury; “Loy Jo” is Lloyd George, and one boy rejoiced in the name of “Jimmy de Blaney” (Blaine). Hundreds of these silent servants are moving about the dining-room of the palatial Hongkong Club at tiffin (lunch) time, yet you will not hear a footfall, as they wear felt-soled shoes. Perhaps they are as silently giving you and me numbers, instead of names, in Chinese. Indeed, I know they do, and would be ashamed to tell my tourist friends that some of them are soon known as “Wigglety Walk”; “Always Shout”; “Fool Laugh”; “Pig Eye”; “Wine Face”; “Wine Whiskers” (red beard); “Buddha’s Belly” (stout); and when women attract them, “Tea Flower” (pale one); “Buddha’s Mother” (a sweet matron); “Flowery Flag” (American); “British Queen”; “Snow Flower” (Canadian), etc.

Kipling, Archibald Little, Price Collier and others have written that some men sometimes drink hard east of Suez. The writer himself in a former book related the bravery of a famous 11 A. M. Cocktail Brotherhood in the blazing stifling Orient, and two world-known knights of the pen took him to tournament to break a lance because of it. One witty evening an old hand on the club veranda admitted the soft impeachment, and gave himself and some others medals for the dangers he had passed in these words of Cicero in the immortal “Murena” oration: “If Asia does carry with it a suspicion of luxury, surely it is a praise-worthy thing, not never to have seen Asia, but to have lived temperately in Asia.” Ah! we who had weathered many a storm, sighed, and in bravery ordered one more, drinking not to the habit, but to the wit. As Archibald Little, veteran of the East, said, the tea-tasting season was over, and a mile-stone should be set to mark it!

A droll Chinese boy brought his fast running watch to Gaupp’s jewelry store on Queen’s Road, Hongkong. On being asked to explain as best he could what seemed to be the trouble, the Celestial rolled up those expressive eyes of his, which must move the gods, as they always do men, to laughter: “Oh, he too muchee to-mollow (to-morrow); you jerk back to to-day.”

“We have come here to stay,” boasted a corps of the enemy, which took up an advanced position. “Yes, they stayed,” replied doughty General Li Yuen after the battle, and his grim smile explained that they stayed as dead bodies.

Yen Tsz, an eminent premier of the Tsi principality, and a contemporary wit with Confucius, referring to the increase of crime which called for the punishment of the amputation of feet, used this ironical phrase: “False feet are cheaper than shoes these days in our market-place.”

The humor of war is grim. Shortly before Confucius’ day the prince of Tsu State had overcome the army of Tsin State. The dead lay in heaps. The Tsu prince was asked if he would not order a tablet raised over the brave enemy. “Not much,” said he, “I will have a tablet to my own ancestors raised over them, giving thanks that we do the crowing instead of them this time.”

A fireman on the new Canton-Hankau railway made out his report of a regrettable fatality in a collision as follows: “The engineer was died without senses.”

A consolidation of three formerly independent samshu liquor dealers of Canton advertised as follows: “This three rice bier dealers, before separate, is now amalgamated for quite economic, and glad with much public order for oblige soled more cheap to foreign friends.”

On a landing in a curio store, popular with foreigners, was the following sign: “Peoples alighted here go down stairs if curious wishing.”

A penitent convert wrote his mission school teacher as follows: “Many thoughts of unpleasant come into my mind. Many tears drop my spiritual soul not to speak of outside eyes. I break my beautiful promise. I contemps the difficults but was mistake. I was failed that time to finish the very good of God which begunned. Deep repents of my throat is blocked thickly in bearing regrets for everlasting, but I standing for your forgive and excuse of God like poor Peter in three times with handkerchief on shame face and water eyes.”

Just as humorously confused is the attempt of nine-tenths of the foreigners to make themselves understood in Chinese. Sometimes the efforts of our missionaries and translators reach the old book-shops, and are promptly thrown with a smile, which is more humorous than cynical in these days of humor and enlightenment, into the compartment entitled: “Second Hand Religion.”

I asked my Chinese friend why their ideograph for two friends was two pearls, and he explained: “Because each is equally precious, without the possibility or necessity of being exactly alike.” Let this answer for a picture of America and China as the new days dawn on each side of the Pacific. A Tientsin shop seems to have grasped satisfactorily the situation, its sign reading: “All languages spoken: American understood.”

The many thousand ideograms of the Chinese language are memorized, and words are often tabulated for the pupil by rhyme. They have no alphabet and therefore can never use a linotype or typewriter. The Chinese, accordingly, have wonderful memories, but their memory-method sometimes places them in humorous situations. English is now required in nearly all the new Chinese schools, though the Chinese mandarin examiners know little about the language as yet. A confident Chinese candidate appeared before the board of a Kwangtung province school as an applicant for the position of “Professor of English”. “How much English do you know?” profoundly inquired the mandarin from behind his heavy, tortoise-rimmed glasses. The amusing reply was: “Numbers, one to ten; a hundred words beginning with ‘A’, and ten words rhyming with sing.” The Chinese board accepted the Chinese teacher of English for want of a better man. The new Chinese are eminently a business race, and therefore, in their excellent business judgment, the day will come when they will be compelled to throw away their ideographs so as to avail of the business facilities of our alphabet-typewriter and linotype. The present Chinese ideograph case in a printing office has thousands of ideograph types, and it is a sadly humorous sight on a hot day in humid South China to see a Chinese typesetter darting about the room like a dragon-fly, trying to meet the editor’s demand for an “extra.”

The carriages of a funeral procession rolled along the maloo of modernized Shanghai. The mourners in the first carriage played cards and laughed. Every one else in the procession joked and smiled. I asked my Chinese humorist to explain the astonishing incongruity and he replied: “Why shouldn’t everybody be happy when everybody is deeply satisfied? Hop Long’s enemies believe that he has descended below to get at last the many punishments that are coming to him, and Hop Long’s friends just as confidently believe that he has ascended on high to receive his richly merited rewards; therefore, you see, all are joyful.”

The landlord made an agreement with the tenant that when the rice was harvested, he should receive one-third. Harvest was long past in its pale and sickle moon, and the landlord, receiving nothing, accosted the tenant: “Look here, thou Choi, didn’t we make an agreement that I should receive one-third of that rice?” Choi, nothing daunted, replied: “Yes, Laoye, but there was no third; there were only two baskets of rice and they are both mine.”

Two Chinese youths were discussing their ambitions. One said: “When I grow up I want to belong to a theatrical company.” His brother replied: “Humph, not I. I want the theatrical company to belong to me.”

The Chinese do not raise milch cows or goats. The following aged milk joke accordingly has been trotted out before every mess table of Treaty Port China, and been made to blush as a novice for the entertainment of every griffin. It seems that the new China hands insisted on having fresh milk in their tea. For the sake of peace the Number One boy at last procured it. The new hands said: “Of course it’s not like the June grass milk at home, but it will do in a pinch.” The Number One boy smiled blandly. At last the milk ceased and the new hands demanded an explanation, which the Number One boy gave as follows: “No molo milkee; that piecee olo pig have now got litter of lil pigs; that piecee bucket whitewash now makee finish.”

III

INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL CHINA.

The eastern states of America and Great Britain have a new slogan: “Get ready for the Panama Canal.” The western states of America, and indeed all America, should have another slogan: “Get ready for the China trade.” It is not far off; it is already on the horizon, “arising a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand”. It may come with a rush any year and thousands of companies will have their headquarters at New York. There are many things to arrange, internally and externally, in currency, in a tariff of twelve per cent. instead of five per cent., in provincial, inter-provincial and international politics, in loans and finances, in education, in nationalization of trunk railways, in harbor, canal and river conservancy, in reforestation, in patent, copyright and mining laws, in commercial law, in army matters, in a revenue navy, in police, in municipal organization, in hygiene, in paternalization as far as famine, flood and seed grain are concerned, in collection of taxes, in civil service, etc., but none of these difficulties is insuperable. Then comes the great trade.

On my travels and life of three years in China, I have listened, and I have glanced about for signs of the new times; and I shall relate just a few of the indications of progress, indications as different from the old manifestations as day is from night. Three years ago, yes, one year ago, few thought that these things were possible. Twenty recent books and five thousand newspaper articles prophesied that they were not possible. Thirty recent authors and ten thousand newspaper writers were Laodicean in attitude. Alas, ye Manchuized scribes! A few books, a few articles, many missionaries, and the October, 1911, revolution said they were possible, and the fall of Nanking proved it.

Agricultural machinery will before long be required on the great plains of Pechili, Mongolia and the three Manchurian provinces, whence America will draw much grain, meat, oil, lumber and coal. Nail, needle and glass factories are going up on a small scale. China has the iron in the mine, but she will need our machinery. Paper mills are largely increasing, and we need their pulp. Some mills use bamboo, which the Japanese successfully experimented on in Formosa. Factories for making soap, the most glaringly deficient thing in dirty China hitherto, have been erected, even in far western Chingtu City. China, like Japan, has concluded to adopt wool in the northern provinces instead of padded cotton and sheepskin. Woolen mills have been erected at Shanghai, Peking, Lanchow, Hankau, Kalgan, etc., to work up to the vast supplies of Mongolian and Pechili shearings. The old method of making winter clothing was to pad cotton and silk with cotton batting and silk waste, the wearer being transformed into a comical Falstaffian size. Modern tanneries have been erected by Mohammedan Chinese at Hankau, Lanchow, Singan, etc. Hardware and enameled ware factories have been erected at Tientsin, Canton, etc., but China can not for years take care of her needs in hardware. Flour mills abound at Harbin, Shanghai and Hongkong, and will be rapidly extended throughout the north. Cement is being heavily produced, and will increase, great factories now being run at Tongshan in Pechili, Canton and Macao in Kwangtung, and Tayeh in Hupeh provinces. All of these industries will need machinery. Of all municipal improvements, China has needed modern water-works the most. They are now in operation in the cities of Shanghai, Hankau, Tientsin, Canton, Peking, Mukden, Chingtu, Nanking, Hangchow, Chinkiang, Swatow, Tsinan, Newchwang, etc. Electric cars are run at Canton, Shanghai, Peking, Hongkong, Hankau, Tientsin, Tsingtau, etc. Hongkong has a wonderful cable railway up 1,500 feet of mountain, which will be copied at Kiukiang, and other hill resorts from the heat. Telephone service is installed at Hongkong, Canton, Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Chingtu, Wuhu, Hangchow, Ningpo, Nanking, etc. Electric light is furnished at Nanking, Peking, Tientsin, Tsingtau, Hankau, Swatow, Mukden, Newchwang, Shanghai, Hangchow, etc. In little of this have the Americans entered as yet, though they will on a vast scale as American finance and industry extends its agencies. The financing and the contracting often go together, and it is not unknown for the British and Germans to combine, though the British would be glad to join with the Americans, if there were Americans on the ground. Often the suppliers divide on a plant, the British furnishing the engines and boilers, and the Germans the dynamos. Gas works are also being erected, and the incandescent mantle lamps are very popular. As China has untold riches in coal, her development in gas lighting will be extensive. There is a great field for American machinery here. Her pipe foundries will grow, as she has as much iron as coal. For many years, however, her industrial, municipal and railway supplies, and certainly her machinery, must largely come from abroad. It is a great field for the manufacturing nations, and even Austria is entering it with recent success. She has increased the service of the Austrian Lloyd Steamship Company from Trieste, and her manufactures are seen more and more throughout the Far East. Yet Austria is not a nation that can be compared with America, Britain or Germany in potentiality.

Since China has become a purchaser of machinery, she invites the world to advertise in Chinese in her newspapers, and to open agencies in China, where Chinese is read by the compradores at least. She hates concession hunters when they are of the Pizarro and Cortez type, and desires to exploit and profit by her own wealth. I have seen the bitterest complaint in the _Ching Wei Pao_, an able native paper of Tientsin, that too many franchises are given free to foreigners, who pay small wages and take the profits out of the country. Can you blame them for desiring municipal ownership, if they are willing to buy our machinery and hire our instructors?

China is slowly establishing fire departments in its municipal and marine life. I have seen a fire break out on oil boats in the West River of Kwangtung province. Gongs were struck everywhere, and tugs and launches hastened to the scene and with hose poured water upon the blaze.