The Old World and Its Ways

As if inspired by the numerous and extensive natural waterways, the Chinese people centuries ago connected the great water systems by an immense canal, which with the streams utilized by it, gave water communication between Pekin and Canton. This canal, sometimes known as the Transit river, is nearly twice as long as the Erie canal and is not only the greatest work of its kind in Asia, but at the time of its construction was the greatest in the world.

Before speaking of the people, a word should be said in regard to the great wall. It extends from the ocean westward along the northern boundary of China proper for a distance of about fifteen hundred miles, climbing in its tortuous course hills and mountains, one more than five thousand feet high. It is about twenty-five feet thick at the base and fifteen at the top and varies from fifteen to thirty feet in height. It is made of earth with a shell of stone or large brick to hold the earth in place. The watch towers, built at intervals along the line, add to its imposing appearance and make it an object of historic interest, although a large part of the wall has fallen into decay and in some places only a ridge of dirt remains. This wall was constructed about two hundred years before the Christian era as a protection against the hostile tribes of the north, and for many centuries it answered its purpose, although to-day it only suggests a tremendous waste of labor.

But the great wall, imposing as it is because of its length, is inferior in height, thickness and construction to some of the city walls. The wall of the city of Pekin, for instance, is about sixty feet high and forty feet wide at its base, and is kept in excellent repair. The wall encloses what is known as the Tartar city and is nearly four miles square. Huge watch towers rise above each gate, and to give still greater security, the gates open into an enclosed square. While the walls of the city of Pekin are the most substantial in the empire, the walls of Nanking, the former capital, enclose nearly four times as much ground. There was a double object in making the walls of the city so extensive. First, to provide for future growth; and, second, to enable the people to withstand a longer siege. How well the second purpose was served is shown by the fact that during the Taiping rebellion the city of Nanking was besieged for thirteen years. Just outside the walls of the city may still be seen the earthworks thrown up by the imperial army, which sometimes numbered thirty-five thousand.

But it must not be understood that the capital cities were the only ones protected by walls. On the contrary, all the cities are walled; one sees fifteen or twenty of these walled cities on the railroad from Pekin to Hankow and a number of others on the ride down the river to Shanghai.

The agricultural population, instead of occupying individual farms, as in America, is gathered into little villages, each home being enclosed in its own wall. During the summer the people swarm out from the cities and villages and cultivate their little tracts of land with the most primitive tools, carrying the farm products back to their homes on wheelbarrows or in baskets balanced on poles. In the north of China the camel is used for long distance travel, and in the south we saw the water buffalo drawing the plow, but in China less than anywhere else we have been, has man supplemented his strength by the strength of domestic animals.

In the cities the streets are so narrow that travel by ordinary vehicles is impossible. In Pekin there are a few wide streets leading from the gates through the city, and on these a peculiar heavy-wheeled, springless cart is used, but most of the streets are more like alleys in which two 'rikishas can hardly pass. We did not see a full sized horse in the capital city. Some ponies have been brought down from Manchuria (Manchuria is regarded as the personal property of the imperial family and there is a royal monopoly in ponies) but the most popular saddle animal is the patient donkey. It looks ludicrous to see a fat Chinaman perched upon the rump of one of these tiny beasts, but there seems to be entire harmony between the two and the donkey trudges along with little thought of change.

In Canton the streets are not wide enough for the 'rikisha, and both the pony and the donkey are conspicuous by their absence. The sedan chair, borne by coolies, was the only conveyance we saw in a day's tour of the city, and it required some engineering to make any headway with it when two parties met.

Although the business buildings are seldom more than two stories high (the residences are usually only one story), the streets are so narrow and so filled with signs and advertising banners that the sun can scarcely find its way to the pavement. The stores are narrow little stalls with the entire front open to the street. Often there is a little shrine outside the door where incense is burned, and innumerable gods of wood, brass and stone are to be seen.

While in their style of dress and in their institutions the Chinese are much the same throughout the empire, they differ considerably in size and color according to the latitude, and in features according to race history. In the north the people are lighter and larger than in the south, while the men and women of Manchuria have coarser and stronger faces than the Chinese. The people in the north seem to be more vigorous and warlike and less artistic than the people of the south.

The shaved forehead and the queue were prescribed by the Manchurian rulers two hundred and fifty years ago as a sign of subjection, but they are now a source of pride, and no greater humiliation can be inflicted upon one than to cut off his queue. In the northern provinces the men, women and children wear padded clothes, generally of dark blue cotton. The breeches of the men are tied at the ankles and the long, narrow coat reaches almost to the feet. In China the women also wear trousers, but they are more like the American article and the coat worn by the women is considerably shorter than that worn by the men. China is a great place for furs, and the right to wear sable is conferred as a mark of distinction upon the higher officials.

The Manchu women and the Chinese women differ materially. The Manchus, whose ancestors came from Manchuria, still retain the customs peculiar to their section. The hair is stretched over a broad, winglike frame and three hours are required for its arrangement. Flowers, natural and artificial, and ornaments made of feathers, beads and tinsel are profusely used in hair decoration. The Manchu women, except the widows, employ paint and powder with a boldness which would put to shame the most inveterate user of cosmetics in America. In the painting here there is no suggestion of a delicate glow of health; it is a generous application of bright red in two streaks, running from above the eyes to the corners of the mouth. The rest of the face is whitened with rice powder, which does not harmonize with the yellow skin of the neck.

But if the Manchu women show more vanity in the treatment of the face, they at least do not imitate the Chinese women in the binding of the feet, though by wearing skirts and a shoe resting on a block, shaped like a French heel, the size of the foot is concealed.

Foot-binding is probably the strangest form that human pride has ever taken, and it is hard to believe that Chinese women from time immemorial have endured the agonies of foot-binding and forced it upon their daughters. It is not known certainly how the custom originated. One tradition is that it began with a club-footed queen; another that it was designed to distinguish the upper class women from the coolies; and a third tradition has it that it was a scheme devised by the men for keeping the women at home. But whatever causes may have led to the inauguration of the custom, it has become so firmly established that a prominent Chinaman told me that being opposed to foot-binding, he had, when a young man, tried to find a wife with natural feet but was not able to do so. He has in recent years persuaded his wife to unbind her feet and has kept his daughters from undergoing the ordeal.

The process, as described by a physician and as shown in a photograph and model which I secured, is as follows: At the age of five or six the little girl's feet are tightly bandaged; the second, third, fourth and fifth toes being gradually brought back under the sole of the foot; the heel is then drawn forward under the instep and the natural growth of the foot entirely arrested. The medical missionaries report instances in which the foot has rotted away because of lack of circulation. On one of the boats we met an intelligent Chinese merchant who, after condemning the practice of foot-binding and telling us that, in opposition to his wife's wishes and in opposition to the girl herself, he had saved one daughter from foot-binding, compared this custom to that of lacing, affirming that the latter was much more injurious. He also ventured to suggest that Chinese women do not expose their health and their shoulders in decollete gowns, but perceiving that he had discovered a weak spot in our own social armor, I hurriedly changed the subject. But I must reserve for another article the discussion of other characteristics.

CHAPTER X.

CHINA – AS SHE WAS

PART SECOND.

In the first article on China, reference was made to some of the characteristics of the Chinese, but the subject was not exhausted – in fact, it would require several articles to exhaust this subject, and attention can only be given to those traits or customs which are in most violent contrast with our own.

Chinese society is patriarchal in its organization, the family being the unit and the father the head of the family. The Chinese sages present filial piety and fraternal submission as the root of all benevolent action. The children are subject to the parents as long as the parents live, and the younger sons are subject to the eldest. The four relations which are continually discussed by the philosophers are: First, the relation between the king and his ministers; second, between the father and his sons; third, between the elder brother and the younger brothers; fourth, between the individual and his fellows, but the fourth relation receives the least consideration.

Marriages are arranged by the parents, and the children must be content with the selection made. When the wife is taken to the home of the husband, she becomes a member of his family and subject to her mother-in-law, if the husband's mother is still alive. As other sons are married their wives are brought in and they are expected to live peaceably together – an expectation which is not always fully realized. As law and custom permit the system of concubinage, it is not strange that the home is often the scene of contention rather than the center of felicity.

As the duty of sacrificing to ancestors falls upon the son, the advent of a boy is the signal for rejoicing, while the birth of a girl is not considered a good omen. So unpopular was the female baby that in some provinces many of them were formerly put to death, but child-murder is now on the decrease.

No one can visit China without becoming acquainted with a peculiarly oriental phrase called "losing face." One of the first newspapers that I picked up in China described the attempted suicide of a man who complained that he had "lost his face" because a magistrate refused to commence a prosecution on his complaint. In China there is a constant effort to keep up appearances, and when this is no longer possible, the unfortunate one feels that he can not look anyone else in the face. Chinese life is saturated with this "face" doctrine; it percolates through their disputes and oozes out through the pores of their diplomacy. Justice is of less importance in the deciding of a controversy than the saving of the parties from the loss of "face." There are in each community "peace-talkers" who make a business of so adjusting disputes that neither party will seem to be in the wrong.

In dealing with China this national characteristic must be borne in mind, and it is to be regretted that foreign nations have in their negotiations sometimes imitated China instead of setting her a better example. One constantly meets over here with the theory that the foreigner must conform to the methods of the Orient, but this is always advanced as an excuse for following a bad custom. It is impossible to convince China that our ideal is a better one than hers unless that ideal is embodied in action. When our country admitted that the indemnity collected from Japan after the Shimonoseki affair was excessive, and returned it, she made a deep impression upon the Japanese. It was several times referred to by speakers during our recent visit to Japan as an evidence of our country's desire to do justice to other nations. It was just as honorable for a nation to acknowledge an error as it is for an individual to do so, and our nation has an opportunity to admit another excessive demand and return to China a part of the indemnity collected at the close of the Boxer trouble.

No nation has ever given more emphasis to ceremony than does China. Confucius places propriety among the cardinal virtues, and the doctrine has been elaborated until the whole life is fettered by formality. Each rising generation is drilled in the performance of certain rites required by approved etiquette, and it would be humiliating for one to have to confess that he did not know the proper thing to do and the proper way to do it. Even sincerity is considered much less important, and both Confucius and Mencius set demoralizing examples in placing the latter above the former. In the Analects, an instance is given where one, Joo Pei, wished to see Confucius, but the latter refused to see him "on the ground of being sick." When the bearer of the message had left, Confucius "took his harpsicord, and sang to it, in order that Pei might hear him." It is related of Mencius that he was about to go to court to see the king when he received a message from the king saying that the latter "was wishing to call on Mencius but was detained by a cold." Mencius replied, "Unfortunately, I am unwell and unable to go to court," but the next day he went out and paid a visit of condolence to another family. While he was absent from the house the king's messenger called with a physician, whereupon the representative of Mencius explained that he was sick the day before, but that being a little better he had hastened to court. It was then necessary to send out several men to intercept Mencius and get him to the king's house. All of this subterfuge was resorted to in order to get the king to call upon Mencius first.

The kowtow is still a part of the ceremonial greeting. If two officials are riding and meet, they dismount and bow their heads to the ground. In the schools the students kowtow before a Confucian tablet twice each month. When we visited the government school at Shanghai we noticed mats upon the floor of the otherwise empty assembly hall, and upon inquiry learned that at seven the next morning the students would perform the usual Confucian rites. These consist of a series of kowtows. At a given signal the students kneel on the mats and bow three times toward the tablet, their heads each time touching the floor; they then rise and after a short interval kneel again at a signal and bow three times more. This ceremony is again repeated, making nine bows in all. Then they kneel and bow three times to the professors; after saluting the professors each student bows once to the student next to him and the meeting adjourns. We thought it would be interesting to witness this service in honor of one who has received more formal reverence than any other mortal, and arising before it was light, we made the journey to the college, which is distant an hour's ride from the hotel. When we arrived we found that for some reason which we could not ascertain, the ceremony would not be performed. Whether the postponement was due to objection to the presence of foreigners (visitors had been present on former occasions) or to some other cause, was left in mystery.

Our morning ride, however, answered one purpose; as the road ran some distance by the side of a little stream, it enabled us to see something of houseboat life. Hundreds of little boats line the stream, and in their diminutive mat-covered cabins were housed thousands of natives, many of whom are born, live and die in these unstable homes. As they were preparing the morning meal we had a chance to confirm the stories regarding their want of cleanliness. It was not an uncommon thing to see a woman washing rice in the muddy water and a few feet away, another woman throwing refuse matter into the stream, or a man performing his morning ablutions. At Canton one has a still larger opportunity to observe houseboat life where the Pearl river furnishes the water supply and at the same time an open sewer for a floating population of many thousands.

The contrast between the bath-loving Japanese and the dirty, complacent Chinese laborer is very marked and this contrast is also noticeable in the streets. The sights and smells that greet the senses along the narrow streets of a native city are not soon forgotten by one who travels through China, and one's ideas of modesty, too, are sadly wrenched.

But whatever may be said of the habits of the lower class Chinese, they are an industrious and patient people. After watching them work and observing the conditions under which they live, one can scarcely begrudge them whatever comfort they can find in the dreams of Heaven which they draw from their opium pipes. And speaking of opium, one is restrained from speaking too harshly of the habit by a recollection of the fact that the opium trade was forced upon the "Heathen Chinee" by a great Christian nation.

The Chinese have their amusements, one of which is the theatre. We attended one theatre in Pekin and found the room crowded with men. It was a commodious hall with a gallery, but the stage was not relatively so large as in Japan. The acting reminded us more of the American stage than did the Japanese, but the scenery was exceedingly scanty. The audience expressed itself in approval or disapproval with a good deal of freedom.

We found a sport in China which we have not heard of elsewhere, viz., quail fighting. These little birds are matched against each other as fighting cocks are in the Spanish countries. One American told us of a fight between cockroaches. These combats, as well as those between the quails, give an opportunity for betting – a vice which prevails in the Orient as well as in the Occident.

The Chinese have a bird contest which involves neither cruelty nor bloodshed, although the element of gambling is also present in it. I refer to the singing matches between larks. The Chinese are very fond of birds and one cannot go upon the street without seeing men carrying bird cages. The birds are aired much as pet dogs are exercised in our country. The favorite singing bird is the lark, and these are entered by their owners in contests, considerable sums often being placed upon a bird. The award is made by the birds themselves, one after another confessing defeat until but one songster is left upon his perch. The winner is quite exultant, while the others show as much humiliation as a Chinaman who has "lost his face." The defeated birds will not sing again for months.

In another article I have referred to the superstitions so widespread in China. There is one form of superstition which has interfered with both religion and commerce. The natives have for centuries been the victims of sorcerers and fortune tellers who, professing a knowledge of terrestrial and celestial forces, style themselves "Fungshui" doctors and make a living by selecting lucky burial sites, foretelling the future, etc. There are certain spirits which are supposed to preside over certain places, and any change in the conformation of the ground is thought to anger the spirits. A railroad cut or fill is sometimes objected to for this reason, and a church spire is, in the opinion of the superstitious, liable to endanger the peace and safety of a community. However, commerce is extending in spite of the "spirits" and the Christian religion is gradually making headway against superstition.

At Pekin I attended a morning service at the Methodist church where some six hundred Chinese men and women listened to a sermon in their own language delivered by an American missionary. On Thanksgiving day we ate dinner at the Presbyterian Mission, and during our travels through China met a number of ministers, physicians and teachers. They all testified to the stimulus given to the spread of religion by the fidelity shown by the Chinese Christians during the Boxer troubles. At Nanking we visited a school conducted by the Disciples or Christian Church, and at Shanghai, a school supported by the Episcopalian Church of America. There is also at Shanghai a college, the main purpose of which is to bring the white and yellow races into closer harmony. Prof. Isaac T. Headland of the Methodist University at Pekin has published a volume entitled "Chinese Heroes," in which he gives a number of instances of consecrated devotion on the part of the Chinese to the Christian faith, and why should not China be a promising mission field? Buddhism has here done its perfect work and can not reasonably ask for a further trial; the philosophy of the sages has also been shown impotent for the harmonious development of the three-fold man. China has followed an ideal and followed it with a diligence rarely exhibited, but that ideal has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It is often said in defense of Confucianism that its founder gave to his disciples the golden rule, stated in its negative form, but too little emphasis has been given to the difference between the doctrine of Confucius, "Do not unto others as you would not have others do unto you," and, the doctrine of the Nazarene, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." There is a world of difference between negative harmlessness and positive helpfulness, and Christianity could well afford to rest its case against Confucianism on the comparison of these two doctrines.

In the Analects of Confucius the philosopher is asked, "Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" He was answered, "Is not reciprocity such a word?" Here we have the doctrine of selfishness as plausibly presented as it will ever be again. Life is described as a balancing of favors – a nice calculation of good done and good received. There is no suggestion here of a heart overflowing with love, no intimation of a blessedness to be found in giving.

At another time someone asked Confucius, "What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?" He replied, "With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice and recompense kindness with kindness." In reply to another question, he goes so far as to charge that one "who returns good for evil, is a man that is careful of his person." How different these precepts are from those of the Sermon on the Mount! Christians are accused of failure to live up to the high ideal presented by Jesus, and the accusation is just, and yet, although the Christian nations fall far short of the measure which they themselves recognize, although professing Christians reflect but imperfectly the rays which fall upon them from the Sun of Righteousness, they are leading the world in all that is ennobling and uplifting, and China gives silent recognition to the superiority of the western ideal in every reform which she undertakes.

CHAPTER XI.

EDUCATION, RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Chinese education has been very much overestimated. The literati have boasted of the antiquity of the government and educational system, the invention of the compass, the printing press and of gunpowder, and the western world has been inclined to concede their claims, but these claims will not bear investigation. The government is ancient, but it is also antiquated. The emperor exercises a power as unlimited as that of the czar and is as inaccessible to his subjects. The ruling family seized the throne two and a half centuries ago and has retained power because the people have learned to submit to almost anything. The laws have not only been arbitrary, but they have been cruel; the officials have not only been appointed without consulting the governed, but they have been shamelessly corrupt.

When Confucius and Mencius taught, they complained of the degeneracy of the government, and in more than twenty centuries that have elapsed since those days, there has been no marked improvement. Of course there have been pure and patriotic men in high places occasionally, but the government showed neither perfection then nor improvement afterwards – until within the last few years.

What if the compass was known to the Chinese before it was to Europe? They made little use of it compared with the use to which it was put by the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch and other Europeans.

They invented gunpowder, and yet they equipped their soldiers with bows and arrows down to the present generation.

They invented the printing press, and yet until recently they had scarcely any newspapers and but few books. I shall speak in another article of the improvement in this direction, but as an evidence of the little use made of the printing press even now, I record the fact that in a four days' ride (at present the train runs only in the daytime) from the capital of the empire to Hankow, through a densely populated section, we did not see a man reading a paper or hear the voice of a newsboy.

Equally without justification is the boast of great learning among the people. They have had no educational system and their children have had to rely upon private schools, a few families getting together and hiring a teacher. Even then the main purpose of their higher education was to obtain a government position. As only a very limited number could possibly be selected at the competitive examinations held by the government, there was small incentive to study and the written language, with two hundred and fourteen radicals and twelve hundred different characters, was enough to discourage even the ambitious. A Chinese official informed me that not more than one man in a hundred could write a letter and that not more than one in ten could understand a letter when read to him.

The object of the schools, such as they had, was to cultivate the memory and to teach the pupils to write essays expounding the doctrines of the Chinese sages. All of the schools used the same text book, the primer in universal use having been prepared over eight hundred years ago. Education was limited in the number who received it and limited in the amount provided, and the course of instruction was fossilized. None of the students were taught anything about the outside world and but few of the people were students. It is sufficient evidence of the absolute failure of their educational system to compare this great empire, containing approximately one-fourth of the population of the globe, with even the smaller states of Europe in the production of scientists, scholars and poets. China has had diplomats and astute statesmen, but these have been developed in the school of experience rather than in halls of learning. Considering the educational opportunities furnished, it is astonishing that she has produced any great men at all.

China has her religions and they have doubtless exerted a moulding influence upon the people, but the influence has not been an unmixed good. Take, for instance, ancestor worship; it contains a germ of good, in that it teaches respect and care for parents, but the spirit has been lost in the observance of the letter until the welfare of the living is neglected, that senseless sacrifices may be made to the dead. At Canton we visited a place called "The Place of the Dead." It is connected with a Buddhist temple and is just outside the city wall. There are some four hundred rooms in the group of buildings and nearly every room contains a coffin. Here the well-to-do deposit the body of an ancestor and keep incense burning as long as they can afford to pay for it. Rent must be paid for the rooms; the light must be kept bright; food and drink must be offered to the departed each day and the incense must be paid for. As someone has remarked, it costs more to care for a dead ancestor than a live one. We saw one coffin that had cost three thousand dollars; it had been in the building for sixteen years and had been moved from one apartment to another, a cheaper one being chosen each time as the resources of the family declined. In some cases the families have become so poor that they can neither pay rent nor buy a burying plot.

There is also at Canton an ancestral hall where for a specified sum the name of an ancestor may be inscribed on a little wooden tablet; incense is also burned here, too. Foreign residents relate instances where servants have spent three years' income in burying a parent, the money being borrowed and gradually repaid from the earnings. Besides the first cost of burial, there must be frequent pilgrimages to the grave. It is within the bounds of truth to say that the money expended in elaborate funerals, in sacrifices to the dead, and in periodical pilgrimages to tombs would have gone far toward educating and enlightening each rising generation – and who will say that respect for the dead can better be shown by formal ceremonies than by a proper regard for the welfare of the descendants?

The tombs of the royal family are always objects of interest to the tourist. The most famous of these tombs are north of Pekin and so near to the great wall that they are usually visited at the same time, three or four days being required for the trip. There are other tombs of less renown still nearer to Pekin, while the tomb of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty is just outside the walls of Nanking. Some of these tombs are mere masses of masonry now, but all were once richly carved. The avenues leading up to these tombs are lined with large stone figures of men and animals. These are arranged in pairs, one on each side of the road – two huge warriors, two priests, two elephants standing, two elephants kneeling, two camels standing and two kneeling, two horses standing and two kneeling, and lions, bears and other animals in like positions. These figures are put near the tomb that the ruler may be supplied with the things needful for his happiness in the spirit world. And, speaking of tombs, the worship of ancestors is destined to make China a vast graveyard, if, as now, graves cannot be disturbed. It will be remembered that the Chinese government cautioned the Russians and Japanese not to trespass upon the graveyards at Mukden, where a number of Manchu emperors are buried. The graves of the masses are as securely regarded, although distinguished merely by a mound. In the neighborhood of the large cities the cemeteries cover many square miles, and as they are constantly added to and never diminished, they occupy an ever increasing area. In the agricultural districts the burying grounds are scattered through the fields, each family having its own plot. Sometimes when the family has died out, the mound is neglected and the coffin is exposed. At Shanghai and at Nanking we saw a number of coffins in the fields which had never been covered.

The temples of China are interesting, but are generally in a state of decay. The Confucian temple at Pekin is visited once a year when sacrifices are made to China's supreme sage. The court of the temple is filled with gnarled and knotted cedars of great age, in which a colony of crows was chanting a requiem when we were there. There are also in the court numerous tablets of marble, each resting on the back of a stone turtle and bearing inscriptions; there are other tablets bearing quotations from the writings of Confucius.

At Canton our guide took us to the temple of the five hundred gods. They represent Buddhistic saints, are life size and each has an incense urn before him. One of the gods has a very long arm, he being the one who puts the moon up at nights; another represents a saint who cut open his breast and exposed an image of Buddha to prove his fidelity to the faith.

(Our guide at Canton was Ah Cum, who had conducted travelers through the city for more than forty years and has brought up his sons to the same profession. I mention his name for the benefit of any readers of these lines who may chance to visit, as every tourist should, this most Chinese of Chinese cities.)