Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

These Manchu-Chinese, now in our country, are large and fine-looking, and are said to be fair samples of this people. The complexion is very light yellow; and the expression of the faces most intelligent. The mouth is, perhaps, the most ill-formed feature. Their manners are elegant, and they are said to be scholars in their own country. This naturally brings us to the most striking peculiarity of Chinese government and civilization. It is this-that there is there no aristocracy, no feudal system, as in Japan, but that offices of honor and trust are filled throughout the Empire by men who have distinguished themselves in the schools of the country, and have passed the rigid examination prescribed. We should admit that this is a superior test to that of birth or favoritism, such as prevails in most Christian lands. Once in three years the students gather at Peking from all parts of the Empire to undergo a careful and thorough examination as to their claims for places of honor or profit.

At the last examination some 12,000 students were examined, and as there are but few prizes, we may imagine the fearful anxiety which may have filled their minds. Not until the morning of the day of examination does any examiner know what students he may have put in his hands; thus every care is taken to guard against improper influences. In a great hall the students are assembled. In it are some ten thousand small rooms or cells, each of which is to contain one student. Here for three days and two nights he remains, supplied only with paper, ink, and food, to write out his answers to the questions proposed. He must see no books and must have speech with no man. The examination lasts for nine days, and but twice in that time is the student allowed to go forth from the hall. Then all is ended, and in due time the themes are pronounced upon, and the position of each man becomes, for the time, established. Most of the themes, it is said, pertain to the literature of the past, and to the topics of government.

The philosophy of the sages, as ex

pressed in the "Four Books," is the word of wisdom which commends itself now to the Chinese mind, and has so commended itself for more than two thousand years. It is no subtle, hidden, abstruse mystery, which few can or will understand and accept; but is so simple, so true, so wise, that no earnest and true spirit fails to accept it. Briefly it may be said to consist of rules for the conduct of life, written down by a good and wise teacher; rules based upon a consciousness of right, and a heart in harmony with humanity. The man who first enunciated this philosophy of life to the Chinese was the man we call Confucius (Kung-fu-tze), born 551 B. C., died 479 B. C. He was revered in his own lifetime as a wise man; he is so reverenced now-not as a god. He assumed no divine power, pretended to no supernatural light, but said to men, "Stand by the old truths, the old virtues which have been from the beginning; accept them, follow them!" He did not cry "go forward," but rather, "look backward, to see the divine truths which God made plain to our ancestors, and which he has indeed written in our own hearts."

[blocks in formation]

Leaving Confucius, who belongs to the past, let us try to get a glimpse into the great city of Peking of to-day.

Broad streets, one hundred feet wide, run through the Chinese city at right angles, upon which are the great shops where the principal business is done. The houses are of but one story, built of gray brick; and often plastered and colored. Awnings and booths encroach upon the street, and much space is taken up by piles of goods, so arranged as to attract the eyes of the purchaser. Flags and streamers make all gay; and tall posts and perpendicular signs are covered with extravagant praise of the goods which the merchant desires to sell. These great streets are thronged during the busy hours of morning and evening. They are not paved, and the side-streets are narrow and neglected. Clouds of dust fill the air during a portion of the year, and particularly during

the winter-months, when not a drop of rain falls upon the light alluvial soil. Nor are the streets lighted; for after nightfall few persons go about.

A police, armed with strong whips, endeavors, however, to preserve order and repress thefts. The fat of sheep and the oil of seals suffice for lamps. Fuel is brought from the coal-mines thirty or forty miles, and on the backs of camels. These are most striking and picturesque, as they are seen in long strings of a hundred or more, making their way across the broad plain. Carriages like ours do not exist, but small covered carts, without springs, and drawn by mules, are to be hired in the streets, as are also sedan-chairs. Comparatively few ladies are to be seen in the streets, for it is not "proper" for a lady to be going about alone. The foodshops are, as everywhere, most numerous; but the shops for clothing materials are most elegant and spacious. The materials for clothes are cottons, silk, crape, linen, and woollen. But the woollen goods are mostly of Russian manufacture. The shopkeepers are men. Tailors are men, and they also make the clothes for women-except those made at home.

Rice and tea are the great articles of diet here as in all China; but beef, mutton, pork, and chickens, are considerably used; pork being the principal meat of the lower classes.

Unlike our cities, Peking is rife with rural sounds; for geese, ducks, chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and many kinds of birds, are kept alive and in cages for sale, and their various voices add considerably to the din of a great city.

It is not uncommon to see various avocations carried on in the open street. The barber twangs his tools, and prepares to plat the tails, shave the head, smooth the eyebrows, &c., &c.; a cook under his broad umbrella fries and stews to tickle the taste of some hungry Chinaman; a fortune-teller is ready to tell what he thinks you want to know; a medical man is not above giving you a dose in the street for a quarter of a dollar; an itinerant bookseller will sup

ply you with the "Classics" or with a love-song for a few cash; and here too, as elsewhere, wretched beggars ply their wretched trade, and so wear out their wretched lives.

A very considerable manufacture and trade goes on in lanterns, which are made of every conceivable pattern and price. They are often of the finest silk, and three or four feet high, exquisitely painted, and sometimes ornamented with movable figures. The prices range from two hundred dollars each to a few cents. They are carried in the streets, and they are hung in the doors of houses. About the opening of the New Year (February or January) is held a "Feast of Lanterns," which is one of the gayest and most peculiar of their festivals.

It must be known that all this vast population of a million and a half of human beings live upon the Court of the Emperor. The soil around Peking is a deep alluvial loam, very fertile in itself, but owing to the scarcity of rain much irrigation is required. With all the drawbacks of climate, most excellent vegetables of all kinds are produced in great abundance all round Peking, and farmers raise thirty bushels of wheat to the acre, and other grain in proportion, such as barley, millet, maize, buckwheat, &c.; but a large proportion of the food comes from a distance. Neither is there any commerce, nor are there any but small manufactures. The food and the goods are brought in from the more productive parts of China, and they are paid for by the proceeds of the taxes which centre here.

It is impossible that there should not at times be great suffering among the poor and degraded; after a long and cold winter, it is not uncommon that men perish of want, and now and then the body of one who has perished thus miserably may be seen in the open street. The Government attempts to alleviate this suffering by the issuing of food and clothing; but remembering that opium and samshoo (a kind of rum) vitiate these people too, we find that the recipients of Government aid

do exchange their comforts for the delirium of intoxication, and thus perish. I have been curious to know how far opium-which has been forced upon these people by English commerce-is used in Peking, and find the estimate of some members of the Embassy puts it at one third of the population. There are about one hundred opium-shops in the whole city where a smoke can be had; but its more common use is at home, and in small quantities. Few, they say, use it to excess; but in all cases it is pernicious, and the habit once formed, it is almost impossible to resist it. Intoxicating drinks are made from millet and from rice; but Mr. Secretary Brown states that in the whole period of his stay in Peking, he does not recall a drunken man in the streets; and that brawling and fighting are never witnessed. Tobacco, too, is smoked as with us.

I would like to impress it upon our people, men and women too, that in China, where one may suppose they know something about tea, they drink it very weak-a mere infusion sometimes made in the cup; so that they drink the spirit or soul of the plant, we the dross, or coarser part.

Asking one of the most intelligent of the embassy about the most thriving occupations of Peking, I was told that pawnbroking and banking were among them. Pawnbrokers are rich men ;that does not seem to indicate a good state of society, but the reverse. Bankers may and do issue paper-money, which is in common use, redeemable, of course, in coin or silver. "Cash," the brass-coin of China, is used in small transactions, and Mexican dollars are also acceptable; though most of the silver is used in blocks not coined, and goes by weight.

A large part of the people-more than half, my informant thinks-live in their own houses; but houses may be hired. The rental of an ordinary good house is thirty to forty dollars a year; though some few are worth, perhaps, four or five hundred. The pay of the common laboring man is thirty or forty

cents a day, and the wages of a good cook, man or woman, is some $12 ayear. This is not very luxurious; and as the wages of a good cook in San Francisco is some $300 a-year, we need not wonder if California soon swarms with enterprising Chinese, who in a year or so will return millionaires. But will they be better or happier then than now?

Dress, that most interesting matter, seems not to be regulated by law, but rather by custom. Silk is a favorite wear for men as well as for women; and the fashion of garments changes but little from year to year. The sleeve may be wider or narrower, the skirt longer or shorter, but the violent transformations invented in Paris, do not prevail in Peking. There is no Palais Royal in that city, and women do not astonish the world with clothes in their Bois de Boulogne, as they do in Paris Silk, that most beautiful of fabrics, is an invention of the Chinese, and from them has spread over the world, until now France rivals and excels them in its production.

There are many bookshops in Peking, and many books are sold, mostly the "Classics" of their sages, of course; but books of poetry and novels also arc much sold and read. One of the Embassy gave me these three names as their most distinguished poets-Li-Puh, Too-Foo, Wang-Wee; and when I asked if they wrote of love, he shook his head: "No," he said, " poems about love are not written or read by good people, only by the bad." I gathered that these poets wrote of the moral sentiments, and of rural scenes. No newspapers exist, and the Peking Gazette is only printed to give forth the decrees of the Emperor and the news of the government. But the larger portion of the men are able to read and write, and schools are very common, though they seem not to be a governmental system. Of the thousands of unsuccessful students, many take to teaching as a profession. A schoolroom may be under a shed or an awning, and all the furniture needed is a bench and desk for the scholar and a

seat for the master; a good bamboo stick or whip is indispensable. In one corner of this most primitive schoolhouse will be found a tablet dedicated to Confucius and the god of letters. The ordinary pay is half a dollar to a dollar a-month for each scholar, though in some of the more select schools it is of course higher. The "Book of Rites" contains elaborate and full directions for bringing up and educating children, and great pains seems to be given to these. Nurses and governesses must be "mild, affectionate, cheerful, kind, dignified, reserved, and careful in their conversation." It is quite clear that the kind of nurses we intrust our children to would not do in Peking. Children must attend carefully to good manners; they must be attentive, kind, and respectful to their parents and relatives, and, indeed, to all they come in contact with; must be careful of their persons and clothes, and must reverence Confucius and the higher powers. It is to be feared that many of our children would not be acceptable in China. The great end of education among the ancient Chinese-and it is much so to-day -was not to fill the head, "but to discipline the heart and purify the affections." Our plan is rather the reverse of this. While, therefore, we have worse manners, and ruder natures, we know more, and dare more, and do more; and so we shall master the Chinese as we have the brown-skinned races of America,-whether for their good or our own, remains to be seen.

Much nonsense and many lies have been written about the Chinese, among them one that their etiquette is most elaborate and absurd; that the smallest thing cannot be done without bowings and backings and ridiculous genuflexions. The truth is, that the Chinese are a well-bred and sensible people, and behave as such; that the manners of a Chinese gentleman are much like those of a well-bred man any and everywhere. He is courteous and deferential, of course; and much more general is this kind of man in Peking, it is said, than in New York,-more's the pity. A few

other fables of this sort may be disposed of here. "Rats," we have from childhood read, "are an article of food in China;" they are so in cases of distress and starvation, not otherwise. "Female children are commonly put to death." This is not true anywhere, as a rule; and if true at all, it is only in some out-of-the-way and benighted district. "Worshipping idols prevails in China." This is denied by the Chinese; they say the idol or image is only a reminder of the God or Spirit, just as our cross is a memorial of the Saviour; in that way and in no other. No one believes the image is a god, or can do any work of a god. So much for these libels, or travellers' stories, which no fair-minded travellers now credit.

How do they marry in China? and what is the position of woman? These vital and interesting questions are answered in this way: Matches are made by the parents of the parties, not by the parties themselves. "Making love," as we call it, therefore, is not a fine art in Peking. Children are sometimes betrothed at a very early age. There are cases where brokers or go-betweens are made use of, and marriage is the result. The rule is one wife; and she is the legal wife and presides over the household. But other wives are permitted, which may be termed illegal or lefthanded; these rarely exceed one in number, but sometimes are two or three. It is not highly reputable, and is excused when the first wife proves barren. The great desire of every Chinese is to have children to sweep his grave and venerate his memory. The children of the second wives, however, are legal, and have precisely the same rights as those of the first. These second wives are sometimes bought for money, and are sometimes taken out of the public houses of courtesans ; when their beauty or charms have fascinated a man. The sons who marry bring the wives to the father's house, where they have their own rooms, but make one household. It is understood that women do not quarrel in Peking, but the fact needs verification. Most

women do not read, nor is promiscuous visiting allowed. They go out attended by their sons, or by some male relative. Nor do they go to the theatres with their husbands; but they may and do have special entertainments. Accomplishments, such as dancing and singing, being some of the arts of public women, it is not reputable for ladies to do these things. They use white and red paint on their faces freely, which does not improve them in the eyes of Europeans. These women are said to be amiable, cheerful, and industrious; such virtues their education requires, and such their habits of life seem to produce. These virtues, it is expected, we shall receive in large measure, in return for sewing-machines, india-rubber shoes, and lucifer matches.

Small feet are still the fashion to some extent among the old Chinese of the upper classes; but not at all among the Manchus, who are really the highest race. There is a distinction between the two races, but they are gradually becoming merged into one, and may be expected to lose their identity, now that the outside flood is to flow in upon them. Some book-education is provided for women, and books are prepared for their use, but in the words of Lau-Chau, one of their leading writers, "The education of a woman and that of a man are very dissimilar," &c. Woman's influence is according to her moral character. "First, concerning obedience to her husband and to his parents. If unmarried, she has duties towards her parents, and to the wives of her elder brothers; if a principal wife, a woman must have no jealous feelings; if in straitened circumstances, she must be contented with her lot; if rich and honorable, she must avoid extravagance and haughtiness. These teach her in times of trouble how to maintain her purity, how to give importance to right principles, how to observe widowhood, and how to avenge the murder of a relative. Is she a mother, let her teach her children; is she a stepmother, let her love and cherish her husband's children; is her

rank in life high, let her be condescending to her inferiors; let her wholly discard all sorcerers, superstitious nuns, and witches; in a word, let her adhere to propriety, and avoid vice."

"Rearing the silk-worm and working cloth are the most important of the employments of a female; preparing and serving up the food for the household, and setting in order the sacrifices follow next, each of which must be attended to; after them study and learning can fill up the time."

All of this, it is expected, will be changed with the introduction of occidental civilization, &c., &c. We read, "When the glorious sun of modern civilization, the full effulgence of knowledge, the benignant influences of machinery, shall penetrate China, then its darkness shall vanish, and peace and love shall abound." We read such things as this, and it is even said there are some who believe them. Is it possible?

Asking one of the embassy if he thought our ladies handsome, he replied, "Yes, very handsome; some of them look like Chinese ladies." These, I judged, he considered the beauties. Will our ladies take this as a compliment to themselves? While the women of Peking are in no sense slaves or degraded into mere servants of man, they live comparatively secluded lives, and are not expected to, nor do they, sail out into the open sea of life. It is asserted, however, that there is less dyspepsia in Peking than in New York, and less wretchedness. Conjugal infidelity is rare; for even if there were a will, there is no opportunity.

Vice and crime exist in Peking as with us; perhaps not more, though in the rural districts, if we can believe travellers, there is more outright robbery. The great vice of the people of Peking is the use of opium, which commerce introduced and English guns compelled them to accept, against the decrees of the Emperor. It vitiates character and undermines life. We have no means of knowing whether its use is or is not on the increase;

« IndietroContinua »