Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

Kang Yü-wei.--_China Mail's_ Interview.--Beheading of Reformers.--Relatives sentenced to Death.--Kang's Indictment of Empress.--Empress's Reprisals.--Emperor's Attempt at Escape...

Drying Prayerbooks Mountain.--Boys' Paradise.--Lolo Women.--Salt-carriers.--Great Rains.--Brick-tea Carriers.--Suspension Bridge.--Granite Mountains.--Tibetan Bridge.--Lamas.--T...

People can hardly fairly discuss the question of missionaries without deciding definitely first of all whether they wish the Chinese to become Christians or not. And as I do not...

Reform Club.--Chinese Ladies' Public Dinner.--High School for Girls.--Chinese Lady Doctors insisting on Religious Liberty.--Reformers' Dinner.--The Emperor at the Head of the Re...

Far more formidable than the soldiery are the literati of China. Soldiering is despised in China; learning is esteemed. The literati also are far more numerous; they arrive in g...

The Emperor at the Temple of Heaven.--Mongol Princes wrestling.--Imperial Porcelain Manufactory.--Imperial Silk Manufactory.--Maids of Honour.--Spring Sacrifices.--Court of Feas...

Of all ways of travel, surely boat-travel is the most luxurious. For one thing, it is accounted roughing it; and that means that there is no bother about toilets: the easiest bo...

The country round Ichang has always some special beauty, and in autumn it is the tints, shown to especial advantage on the tallow-trees. But one day we gathered by the wayside l...

A man once quaintly said to me, "Whenever I want to know what men really are, I consider what they have made of their women." We may also learn something by considering what men...

At Ichang, a thousand miles up the river Yangtse, there is a regiment of soldiers dressed as tigers; but I never could persuade any of the foreign officials to escort me to see...

Even if I had the knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to write exhaustively of Chinese porcelain in one chapter; but a few shreds of information about it may be new to the...

Arrangement of a Chinese House.--Crowd in Streets.--My First Walk in Chungking City.--Presents.--Cats, Rats, and Eggs.--Paying a Call.--Ladies Affectionate.--Shocked at European...

It was very hot in Chungking in 1892--too hot, we feared, for us to bear, worn out as we were by the emotions and excessive heat of the river journey, entered upon too late in t...

To turn to a cheerfuller subject. Although the Roman Catholics, the American Episcopal Church, and some other missionary bodies have in former days thought it wiser to conform t...

As an illustration of the position of Europeans up-country, I will relate very briefly the trivial events of two days. First I must say that nearly every woman in the place was...

The "sights" of Peking have not been on view of late years. It seems a pity, considering how many people have travelled thither hoping to see them. And yet I am not sure that it...

Directly that, leaving behind steamers, railways, _and_ Sundays, you step ashore at Ichang, a thousand miles up the river Yangtse, you find yourself in the land of superstition....

According to Chinese usage or unwritten law, the concubine of an Emperor can never become Empress-Dowager; yet Tze Hsi, the concubine of the Emperor Hien Fêng, and mother of the...

a foreigner in one of our English towns, who turned over and examined all the articles on a stall, then went away without buying anything, as English people do not hesitate to d...

It is very unusual to make the journey from Ichang to Chungking by land; but one year in the spring-time the thought of the dog-roses and the honeysuckle tempted us, as also the...

Everybody Guaranteed by Somebody Else.--Buying back Office.--Family Responsibilities.--Guilds.--All Employés Partners.--Antiquity of Chinese Reforms.--To each Province so many P...

It was in 1888 we first arrived in Peking, and we felt at once convinced that, whatever wonders it might have to offer, nothing--no! nothing could surpass the wonder of the jour...

Before Chinese New Year bargains are to be picked up--in Shanghai lovely embroidered satins, exquisite transparent tortoiseshell boxes, or china of the Ming period. Up-country o...

She was not long out from England, and a _comprador_ order was as yet an unnatural phenomenon to her. She supposed it was something like a cheque upon a bank, or a circular note...

In China a bride usually rides in a richly embroidered red sedan-chair, decorated with flowers, and hired for the occasion. Not long ago in Canton city a man hired a chair to ca...

Missionaries generally say that the Chinese are frightfully immoral. So do the Americans and Australians, excluding them as far as they can from their respective countries. But,...

I have attended an ordination in St. John Lateran's at Rome, of which my principal recollection is how the Italian young men wriggled as they all lay flat upon the marble floor...

Kang Yü-wei.--_China Mail's_ Interview.--Beheading of Reformers.--Relatives sentenced to Death.--Kang's Indictment of Empress.--Empress's Reprisals.--Emperor's Attempt at Escape...

He was only six months old when we first knew him, with long silky ears, and a little head covered with delicate yellow down, undeveloped puppy body, but a grand white chest, an...

Not a Mark of Rank.--Golden Lilies.--Hinds' Feet.--Bandages drawn tighter.--Breaking the Bones.--A Cleft in which to hide Half a Crown.--Mothers sleep with Sticks beside them.--...

It is so much our habit in China to think the Chinese have no sentiment, that I have thought it might be interesting to gather together what indications I have observed during e...

Some extracts from a Chinese father's letters to his son will probably do more to explain what is thought admirable in a Chinese young man than pages of commentary. The son in t...

Arrangement of a Chinese House.--Crowd in Streets.--My First Walk in Chungking City.--Presents.--Cats, Rats, and Eggs.--Paying a Call.--Ladies Affectionate.--Shocked at European...

Not a Mark of Rank.--Golden Lilies.--Hinds' Feet.--Bandages drawn tighter.--Breaking the Bones.--A Cleft in which to hide Half a Crown.--Mothers sleep with Sticks beside them.--...

Everybody guaranteed by Somebody Else.--Buying back Office.--Family Responsibilities.--Guilds.--All Employés Partners.--Antiquity of Chinese Reforms.--To each Province so many P...

Reform Club.--Chinese Ladies' Public Dinner.--High School for Girls.--Chinese Lady Doctors insisting on Religious Liberty.--Reformers' Dinner.--The Emperor at the Head of the Re...

Drying Prayerbooks Mountain.--Boys' Paradise.--Lolo Women.--Salt-carriers.--Great Rains.--Brick-tea Carriers.--Suspension Bridge.--Granite Mountains.--Tibetan Bridge.--Lamas.--T...

The Emperor at the Temple of Heaven.--Mongol Princes wrestling.--Imperial Porcelain Manufactory.--Imperial Silk Manufactory.--Maids of Honour.--Spring Sacrifices.--Court of Feas...

A Concubine no Empress.--Sudden Deaths.--Suspicions.--Prince Chʽün.--Emperor's Education.--His Sadness.--His Features.--Foreign Ministers' Audience.--Another Audience.--Crowding...

Sulphur Bath.--Rowdy Behaviour.--Fight in Boat.--Imprisonment for letting to Foreigners.--Book-keeper in Foreign Employ beaten.--Customs Regulations.--Kimberley Legacy.--Happy C...