Chapter 7
The dinner lasted more than three hours, and was composed of I don't know how many courses. I depended upon Vandy to keep count, but he found so much to wonder at that he lost the run when in the teens. From birds'-nest soup, which, by the way, is insipid, to shark's fin and bamboo shoots in rapid succession, we had it all. I thought each course would surely be the last; but finally we did get to sweet dishes, and I knew we were approaching the end. Then came the bowl of rice and tea, which are supposed to be able to neutralize the mess which has gone before. Our host pressed all to drink frequently of a celebrated native wine, the champagne of China, grown in his district, of the quality of which he seemed very proud. Whenever he showed the bottom of his cup, guests were expected to empty and replenish theirs. I did the best I could, both as to tasting the compounds and drinking the wine, but I fear I was voted not a great success in either. The natives were quite hilarious, and smoked at intervals during the feast. They played the ancient game of digits like Romans, and also a Japanese game with the hands and arms, the loser in every case being compelled to drain his cup. When tea was served, the Mandarin, through his interpreter, addressed General Bailey, as the principal dignitary present, thanking him for the great honor conferred upon his humble self by those present having condescended to sit at his table. The general's reply was equally polite and very happy, and appeared to please our host greatly, who then hoped that the illustrious travellers from America would be pleased with China and return safely to their great country from their journey round the world, adding that, having now got the telegraph, America and China and all countries were brought nearer to one another, and would know each other better. I replied that this was happily true, and ventured to express the belief that as we knew each other better we should also like each other more, and that as we, and all modern nations, had learned so much from his country in the past, I hoped that in return we might be able, to some extent at least, to repay that debt by perhaps, showing China some things which she could adopt with advantage. To this sentiment there was a most cordial response.
Before rising from table the photograph of the host was presented to each guest. I requested that his autograph be put upon ours, that we could insert it in our albums among the eminent men we met. He replied that he must then go at the very end, because he had not on his Mandarin hat. But I asked the interpreter to assure him that we in America did not care about the hat; "it was the head that was in it" which had raised him so high. This appeared to please the company inordinately, and we got the autograph, and so ended our first, and, in all probability, our last, Mandarin dinner. Vandy ate and drank of everything offered him, and this morning, when I fully expected him to be as sick as a dog, and with a head like to split, he surprised me by reporting himself as all right, and telling me that in some respects Mandarin cooking beats the world. I should mention that the politeness of our host was overpowering. The first course he served himself to each guest, his servants following him round the table and handing him the dishes ("and I myself shall be your servant, sir, says good Uncle Toby"), and upon entering, as well as upon retiring, he stood in the open court outside of his threshold to welcome and to bid farewell. The shaking of one's own hands instead of grasping those of your friends is soon learned; but what a world of pleasure the Chinaman misses by his mode!
Of course we saw none of the ladies of the household, nor were they inquired for or referred to by any of us. If a Chinese gentleman were asked how many children he had, he would probably not count the girls at all, but at all events he would distinguish thus: two children and a _girl_. When a boy is born the father is overwhelmed with congratulations, presents are sent, and rejoicing takes place. If the little stranger happen to be a girl, the event is hushed up. No reference is ever made to the great misfortune which has befallen the expectant father. Friends are apprised of the result by advertisements carried through the streets. Yellow strips of paper are used if the child is a boy; _any other color_ means a girl. Among the poorer classes girl babies are frequently drowned. Some estimate that in the Shanghai district one-third are so destroyed; the excuse given by the parents is that they cannot afford to rear a girl. Men monopolize most of the occupations here, and a woman can earn little or nothing; besides, a husband for every girl must be provided upon some terms. After a certain age an unmarried woman is regarded as disreputable, entailing something of disgrace upon her family; and so China lacks that most useful, and, as far as my experience goes, most unjustly maligned class--old maids.
A universal sameness prevails in China which soon becomes monotonous. One street looks precisely like another. If a traveller were set down in any city of China, he would be at a loss to tell where he was. It might be Shanghai, Canton, or Peking. There are the same rows of one-story, or, at most, one-and-a-half-story huts, without the slightest attempt at ornament or variety. There are no grand mansions scattered throughout the land, no city halls, colleges or commercial exchanges, as with us, but one dead flat level of low structures wherever you go. Probably the exactions to which wealth is subject here has much to do with this; all are concerned to hide their resources, but I am told the Chinese educated mind has really reached the stage in which ostentatious display is regarded with contempt. It seeks escape from ceremony and show, in sweet simplicity of living, as most truly great men have done and are doing more and more.
Life "_en grand seigneur_" has never been the foible of the rich American, but as the seigneur is a species of recent growth and has not yet had time to blossom into flower and show us just to what his nature turns, we must watch his movements hereafter with interest. So far, he seems endued with quiet tastes, as far as personal parade is concerned. A few have built grand mansions, but still live plainly in the matter of retinue and ceremonial.
Even in England one notes nowadays a general expression of disappointment at the result of living up to one's rank, according to the old standard. It is not altogether from lack of means to maintain great style, although this is the real reason with the majority, perhaps, who have abandoned former habits. Another cause is operating, even with such as are wealthy: the squire or his lordship is not the all in all of his district any more; and he is educated now, in many cases, to enjoy intellectual pleasures, which he finds incompatible with so much society and numerous establishments with their endless staffs of servants to maintain. Many of the stately homes of England, therefore, are for rent, and their owners live more within themselves and in simpler manner than before.
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SHANGHAI, Saturday, December 14.
We leave for Hong Kong, eight hundred miles south, by the mail steamer which sails at daylight. Our usual good fortune attends us. The monsoon blew us to port one night sooner than we expected. A night saved was quite an object, as the Geelong is a small craft, and her rocking means something. Vandy was very ill, but I managed to report regularly at table as usual. We slept on shore Tuesday night, and the morning revealed one of the prettiest places we have ever seen in the East. Hong Kong is an island about twenty, six miles in circumference, situated one mile from the mainland of China, and just at the mouth of the river leading to Canton. There is scarcely an acre of level ground upon it except one little spot which does duty as a race-course, and is not level either by any means. A narrow strip fronting the water is occupied by the city of Victoria, which extends about three miles, but back of this the ground rises rapidly, and houses cluster upon the steep sides of the mountain. Nevertheless, public gardens have been laid out with exquisite taste and skill upon the hillside, and excellent walks reach to the very top of the peak, more than eighteen hundred feet high. So closely does this crag overhang the town below that a stone could be dropped into the settlement from its crest.
It is the thing in Hong Kong to do the Peak, and we did it, but not in a manner very creditable to our staying powers, I fear. The fact is, we had been tossed for sortie days upon a small ship. It was exceedingly warm. I We were very tired (conscience suggested another word for tired); in short, there were a dozen reasons--good, bad, and indifferent--why two strong, lusty fellows should, under the circumstances, be carried up instead of attacking the Peak on foot; and so each of us, in a sedan chair, borne by four strong coolies, managed to get to the top and enjoy the splendid view, coming down in the same novel manner. It was surprising, after we had returned, to find how decided a misunderstanding had arisen between us on the subject. I had not pressed walking up on Vandy's account, while he had only denied himself that wished-for pleasure in deference to my supposed inability. You see, had this point been made clearer before we started, we might have had the walk after all. As it is, the credit of both is fairly maintained, and I do think that neither of us regrets the unfortunate misunderstanding; one gets so lazy in these latitudes!
More than a hundred thousand Chinese have come from the main land to reside in Hong Kong and enjoy the benefits of British rule, and the population, which in 1841 was only five thousand, is now a hundred and forty thousand. So the good work of reforming China goes forward by the surest of all means, good example. It is at such points as Hong Kong--one of the keys of the world--that England does her real work and lifts up mankind.
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THURSDAY, December 19.
We took the steamer for the Paris of the East, far-famed Canton, distant ninety-five miles. The steamer is just an American river boat, and we enjoyed the trip very highly. And here let me note two strange customs which prevail in China. First, your passage money generally embraces all the liquor, beer, or wine you choose to consume on the trip. Such was the case to-day, and passengers were free to call for anything they wished to drink at any time (champagne excepted). The other custom is universal. There is no coin in circulation but silver, and it is so heavy that Europeans have adopted the habit of carrying none, giving for any debt incurred I. O. U.'s, called "chits," which are sent in at the end of each month for payment; a vicious custom, which leads to deplorable excesses, especially in drinking and in gambling. Men drink and gamble more freely when immediate payment is not required, or when the chances of a lucky turn may recoup their losses; besides, many who have no means to pay incur debts. Indeed, so many cases of this kind have happened since "hard times set in" that I am encouraged to hope the end of "chits" approaches. The rule at the clubs now is that no chits can be given beyond a trifling amount each month, and that they must be promptly redeemed. Canton was reached by four in the afternoon, and such a swarm of small boats as surrounded us was never seen elsewhere. When we were a full mile from the wharf I saw the mass begin to stir, and such a stir! and almost all rowed by women, yelling and striving, and dashing one boat against another, in their efforts to be first. One of the most active scrambled up the guards and reached us on the upper deck almost before the boat had stopped, and secured us as her spoil. How she and a young girl handled our trunks, carrying them over intervening boats and then coming back for us, giving us her hand to convey us to her craft! No mistaking her business capacity, nor her ability to cope with the strongest and most active man and capture two passengers to his one. John is no match for a Canton boatwoman on water, whatever he may be on land.
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CANTON, Friday, December 20.
We have just returned from our first stroll through the narrow, crowded alleys of Canton. Pictures and descriptions had prepared us for what we were to see, but, as is usual in the East, we knew nothing until we had seen for ourselves. In most cases the more one reads or hears about a certain locality the more confused he is when he visits it. He was a traveller who first said, "The eye and the ear are close together, but what a distance between hearing and seeing!" This recurs to me constantly. But to revert to Canton. We decided to walk instead of following the custom of Europeans, who generally take sedan chairs and dash through, seeing nothing in detail. We cross the river by one of the innumerable boats rowed by women, and are in the city. For five hours we are guided through streets varying from six to ten feet in width through one continuous mass of Chinamen. As for Chinawomen, they are rarely or never seen. A few men are in silks; numbers of coolies, with loads, are almost naked, but more, of a slightly higher order, are in rags; for the Chinese, unlike their scrupulously clean brethren of Japan, appear to pile on one tattered, greasy cloth rag over another until they are a bundle of filth, against which you fear at every step lest you may be pushed. The shops or booths on each side of the narrow streets are resplendent just now, preparatory to the New-Year celebrations, and those which make temple decorations a specialty are brilliant in the extreme. As every shop, house or boat contains an altar, which, as well as those in the public temples, must be freshly decorated at the beginning of every year, the extent of this trade is surprising, and all that tinsel can do with the most gorgeous coloring imaginable is seen in this branch to perfection. One thing appears very strange: even in the principal streets various manufactures are carried on, the workmen being so close that you can touch them from the pavement with your cane. We saw to-day glass-making in a space not more than fifteen feet square, iron- forging and shaping, cloth-weaving, the making of coffins (such massive affairs these are, too, in China!), of Joss-sticks and Joss-money, firecrackers, and many other articles. The front part of the building is usually occupied by the shop for the sale of the product, the ornamental shrine serving as a kind of screen to shut off the manufacturing department; but by stepping behind you see crowds of almost nude workmen, hard at work, making by hand with the aid of the rudest appliances almost every article known. The wages of a tradesman--a carpenter, for instance--is fifteen cents per day; in addition the master has to give him three times per day his rice, etc., estimated to cost six to eight cents more. The workmen are fed by the employer, and allowed to sleep in and about the premises somewhere or somehow. We saw freely exposed for sale dogs, rats, and mice, all nicely dressed and hanging upon spits to tempt the hungry passers-by, while above a large pot from which the steam was issuing was a card, which, being translated by our guide, read, "A big black cat within; ready soon." The dogs which are eaten are fed especially for the purpose, and are hung up in state with labels setting forth their superior merits. As far as I should have known, they might have passed for delicious young roasting pigs, delicate enough in flavor to have satisfied gentle Elia himself.
Our guide, in answer to numerous questions upon the subject, informed us that some of his countrymen had acquired a taste for dogs, while others had succumbed to the sweeter attractions of cats; others again found rats their favorite morsel, but in all cases these penchants are indulged in on the sly. Upon no account would a Chinaman think of taking either of these peculiar delicacies home, for it appears that mesdames, much to their credit, have serious objections to their use. They draw the line here, and the husband must confine the indulgence of his uncanny longings to restaurants, and say nothing about it, or his lady friends might mark him as one of whom "'twas said he ate strange flesh." Contrary to the statement of travellers, I find this food is not confined to the poorer classes. The price of it is about the same as that of pork, and far beyond that of hare or deer. How strange these people are! The price of a black dog or cat is fully double that of a white one, the superstition being that the former makes blood much faster than the other, while rats are supposed to make the hair grow.
We returned to our hotel in time for luncheon, and in the afternoon called upon Captain Lincoln, the United States Consul, to whom General Bailey had given us letters which secured us a cordial reception. The European settlement at Canton is very pretty, with its broad, well-shaded avenues, exquisite flower-garden, and lawn-tennis and croquet grounds. Its club-house is a gem, comprising a small theatre, billiard-room and bowling- alley--everything complete. The colonel took us for a stroll about the settlement, and pressed us to join a party he was just about taking over the river to visit the best flower-gardens of the city. We could not decline such a treat, and this gave us the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Lincoln, who is so well known in China as to be regarded somewhat in the light of an historical character. Her collection of teapots promises to render her famous. She boasts already of more than two hundred, no two alike in form, and the record grows day by day; and the melancholy feature is that there is no end for the passion save in death, a mania for "a bit of the blue" ranking first in the list of diseases for which materia medico, boasts no antidote.
Almost everything seems to have been tried in China during its thousands of years of national life. We read for instance that in A.D. 841 the emperor, seeing the evils of monasteries and nunneries, suddenly closed them all and sent the inmates back to their families. So far, perhaps, so good; but he also shut up all the temples and told the priests to turn their faces in the direction from which they came. He was far too "thorough," and when the next emperor was so favored by heaven as to become the discoverer of a veritable bone of Buddha and brought it to the capital with many solemn ceremonies, the people were quite ready for the inevitable reaction, and Buddhism was again restored. This is a comparatively modern instance. Away back two hundred and more years B.C., we find the famous builder of the Great Wall attempting an impossible task with no better result. He was a great reformer--indeed the first universal emperor of all existing China, which was consolidated by his genius. The privileged classes, of course, opposed his reforms and gave him much trouble by holding up to the admiration of the people the feudal times of the past, and extolling the heroes of those days to the disadvantage of those of the present. At last the emperor resolved to break with the past altogether, and ordered that all books should be burned except such as referred to his own reign, that all who even spoke of other books should be put to death; that those who spoke of the past as superior to the present should be put to death, and their relatives as well. Soon after this order, more than four hundred who had disobeyed it were ordered to be executed. Even the books of Confucius were not exempt; indeed these were chief offenders, for the sage was remarkable for such worship of the past as has scarcely a precedent in history.
Of course such an order could not be carried out. The condemned books were secreted and all the more venerated from the dangers which surrounded their possession. To-day we are thankful that so many books exist telling truthfully of the past--those good old times which were very bad times indeed. The history of the past should be studied carefully that we may learn not what to copy, but what to avoid. Let all the records be preserved.
I take it that to many blessings for which we have to thank the Heathen Chinee may be added our axiom: "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." The Emperor of China is in theory the most absolute of rulers, and holds in his hands the power of life and death--"whom he wills he slays, and whom he wills he keeps alive." So runs the edict. It is the duty of the subject to render implicit obedience. But here follows another duty no less imperative: He is bound to resist the emperor's authority if he "ceases to be a minister of God for the good of his people." Confucius distinctly teaches "the sacred right of rebellion," and the next highest authority, Mencius, puts it in even stronger terms. This seems a striking anomaly, for the whole theory of government to-day, as thousands of years ago, is the patriarchal one: as the emperor is the Son of Heaven, so his people are the sons of the emperor, and he alone can intercede between his children and heaven. It is his prayers and sacrifices to which supreme importance is attached. Notwithstanding all this, as we have seen, the Chinaman believes it to be his duty to dethrone a bad emperor and even to put him to death. You see, my friends, a Chinese emperor can do wrong, which follows from his having power direct from heaven to do anything; therefore the right to decapitate him upon occasion must be reserved to the people. It is only in England that the doctrine that the king can do no wrong can safely be accepted. It is quite true there, for these Islanders have so managed matters as not to allow that ornamental appendage to do anything beyond opening fancy bazaars or laying foundation stones, where even an hereditary monarch cannot go very far astray.
On the 8th day of the 12th month, in the reign of Man-Ti, A.D. 593, occurred one of the most remarkable events in the history of our race. An edict was issued that the various texts then in circulation should be collected and engraved on wood, to be printed and published. Here began the art of printing, but it was not till a blacksmith named Pe-Ching, three or four hundred years later, invented movable types that the astounding possibilities of the invention were seen. Off hats to the memory of that learned blacksmith! Tall oaks from little acorns grow; but surely never before nor since has the world seen such stupendous results from so small a change as that of substituting little pieces of wood, each with one character upon it, for larger pieces which contained many. That blacksmith has revolutionized the world. I shall never pass one of the craft again without honoring him as distantly related to Pe-Ching by virtue of his calling. Vulcan has done much in the past in his smithy, forging the thunderbolts of war, but put all such weapons together and I will back the movable types of Pe-Ching for victory.
China carries the principle of home rule to a greater extent even than the United States do, for each province not only manages its own local affairs and levies its own taxes, but also supports its only army and navy. This would seem fatal to the organization of solid, vital forces; but as the Chinese have passed farther beyond the barbarous thirst for so-called "glory" (disgrace, rather) than western nations, it is not essential that either army or navy should be efficient. Indeed, the less so the better.