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AUTHORITATIVE WORKS OF
ARTHUR H. SMITH

 

Chinese CharaCteristics
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FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHINESE VILLAGERS AT HOME.

Village Life in China

A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY

BY
ARTHUR H. SMITH, D. D.

AUTHOR OF
“ Chinese Characteristics ”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

 

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO

Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evangelical Literature

Cepyright. l899
by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

Anthronologv

Add'I
{NWT

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ANTH ROF
LIBRARY

Foreword

THESE chapters are written from the standpoint of one

who, by an extended experience in China, has come to feel
a profound respect for the numerous admirable qualities of the
Chinese, and to entertain for many of them a high personal es-
teem. An unexampled past lies behind this great race, and be-
fore it there may lie a wonderful future. Ere that can be real-
ized, however, there are many disabilities which must be re-
moved. The longer one is acquainted with China, the more
deeply is this necessity felt. Commerce, diplomacy, extension
of political relations, and the growing contact with Occidental
civilization have, all combined, proved totally inadequate to ac-
complish any such reformation as China needs.

The Chinese village is the empire in small, and when that
has been surveyed, we shall be in a better condition to suggest
a remedy for whatever needs amendment. It cannot be too
often reiterated that the variety in unity in China is such, that
afﬁrmations should always be qualiﬁed with the implied limita-
tion that they are true somewhere, although few of them may
hold good everywhere. On the other hand, the unity in
variety is such that a really typical Chinese fact, although of
restricted occurrence, may not on that account be the less val-
uable.

China was never so much in the world’s thought as to-day,
nor is there any apparent likelihood that the position of this
empire will be less conspicuous at the opening of the twentieth
century. Whatever helps to a better understanding of the
Chinese people, is an aid to a comprehension of the Chinese
problem. To that end this volume is intended as a humble
contribution.

'73'7

Acknowledgment.

THE author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to

the Rev. Harlan P. Beach for his invaluable criticisms
and the kindly services rendered in the proof-reading and
piloting of this new voyager through the press.

For the use of original photographs from which engrav-
ings have been made, and are here published for the ﬁrst
time, the author and the publishers desire to acknowledge .
their obligations to Mr. Robert E. Speer, Mr. William Henry
Grant, Albert Peck, M.D., Rev. W. C. Longden, and Miss
I. G. Evans.

Contents

PART I.—THE VILLAGE, ITS INSTITUTIONS,
USAGES, AND PUBLIC CHARACTERS

CHAPTER PAGE
GLOSSARY .................... II

I. THE CHINESEVILLAGE ........... . . . . 15
II. CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
III. VILLAGE NOMENCLATURE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
IV. COUNTRY ROADS ....... . ....... . . . 35
V. THE VILLAGE FERRY ....... . . . . . . . . . 39
VI. VILLAGE WELLS ........ . . . . . . . . . . 44
VII. THE VILLAGE SHOP ........ . . . . . . . . 49
VIII. THE VILLAGE THEATRE .............. 54
IX. VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS . . . . 70

X. CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION—THE VILLAGE HIGH
SCHOOL —— EXAMINATIONS —- RECENT EDUCATIONAL

EDICTS .................... III

XI. VILLAGE TEMPLES AND RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES ..... 136
'XII. COOPERATION IN RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES ...... I4!
XIII. COOPERATION IN MARKETS AND FAIRS . . . ..... I46
XIV. COOPERATIVE LOAN SOCIETIES .......... . . I 52
XV. SOCIETIES FOR WATCHING THE CROPS . . . . . . . . 161
XVI. VILLAGE AND CITY RAIN-MAKING ...... . . . . 169
XVII. THE VILLAGE HUNT .......... . . . . . . I74

XVIII. VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS . . . . . . . .
XIX. NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES . . . . . . . . . . 196
XX. THE VILLAGE BULLY. ..........
XXI. VILLAGE HEADMEN . . . .

PART II.-—VILLAGE FAMILY LIFE

XXII. VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN .......... . . . . 237
XXIII. CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN ..... . . . 258

7

8 CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGI
XXIV. MONO‘I‘ONY AND VACUITY OF VILLAGE LIFE . . . . . '312
XXV. UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF THE CHINESE FAMILY. . . 3x7
XXVI. INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITY , ........ 324

PART III.——REGENERATION OF THE CHINESE
VILLAGE

XXVII. WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY Do FOR CHINA? . . . . . . 34:
INan......................353

List of Illustrations

CHINESE VILLAGERS AT HOME . . . . . Frantispiece.
SOUTHERN VILLAGE SCENE .
. . Facmg page 16
A DETAIL—THE VILLAGE WELL
SAWYERS PREPARING LUMBER } .. u 24
ITINERANT BLACKSMITHS EMPLOYED BY VILLAGERS
THE VILLAGE COBBLER } u u 35
O ‘ O O O
VILLAGE BROOM-MAKER
WAITING FOR THE BOAT} u u 40
I n I O l
CROSSING THE FERRY
STRINGS 0F CHINESE CASH} .. .. 51
I O O I
PREPARING THE STRINGS
THRESHING z, u u 77
AN AFTERNOON SIESTA ' '
THE WORLD‘SOLDEST SACRED MOUNTAIN, T‘AI SHAN } .. I. I“
SCENERY ALONG THE RIVER LIN
GOING To MARKET u u
. . . . I48
CHINESE MARKET SCENE
CROP-WATCHER'S LODGE} u u 162
I O t O
REAPING MILLET

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A BRIDAL PAIR } . .
TEMPORARY FUNERAL PAVILION ' ’ Fm”: 1"”

ENTRANCE TO A YAMEN } u “
CHINESE COURT OF JUSTICE

CHINESE PUNCH AND JUDY } u u
C
THE VILLAGE STORY-TELLER

WOMEN PREPARING FOOD } u “
ON THE WAY To THE FEAST

ONE OF CHINA’S PARASITEs—A BEGGAR } .. ..
ONE OF HER SOURCES OF STRENGTH—A CARPENTER

LITTLE OLD PEOPLE } ' .. ..
GOING To A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

l88

218

344

262

310

342

i Glossary

BOY, a term used by foreigners in China to denote the head-servant, i-
respective of his age.

CASH, Chinese copper coin with a square hole for stringing. The value
of a single cash may be taken as one-thousandth of a Mexican dol-
lar. The cash vary greatly in size. A “string” theoretically con-
sists of a thousand cash, but in many regions has but ﬁve hundred,
The latter variety is at present equal to one-third of a gold dollar.

CATTY, a chinese pound, equal by treaty to one and one-third pounds
avoirdupois.

CHIN-SHIH, “Entered Scholar.” The third literary degree; Doctor in
Literature.

CHOU, a Subprefecture, sometimes with Districts under it, and often
without them.

CHﬁ-JEN, “ Selected man.” The second full literary degree; a Master of
Arts.

COMPOUND, an enclosure or yard, usually containing a number of build-
ings belonging to a single family or establishment.

F ﬁNG-SHUI, literally “ wind and water.” A complicated system of
geomantic superstition, by which the good luck of sites and buildings
is determined.

FU, a Prefecture, governed by a Prefect, with several Districts under it.

HAN—LIN, “ Forest of Pencils.” The last literary degree, entitling to
oﬂ‘ice.

HSIEN, a District or Country, governed by the District Magistrate.

HSIU-TS‘AI, “ Flourishing Talent.” The lowest of the several literary de-
grees; a Bachelor of Arts.

K‘ANG, a raised platform of adobe or of bricks, used as a bed and heated
by means of ﬁnes.

K‘o-‘r‘ou or Korow, the act of prostration and striking the head on the
ground in homage or worship.

LI, a Chinese measure of length, somewhat more than three of which
equal an English mile.

SQUEEZE, a forced contribution exacted by those through whose hands the
money of others passes.

TALL, a weight of money equivalent to a. sixteenth of a Chinese pound; an
ounce.

TAO-"mu, an ofﬁcer of the third rank who is intendant of a circuit.
YA-MEN, the ofﬁce and residence of a. Chinese oﬁieial.

 

PART I

The Village, Its Institutions, Usagcs and Public
Characters

 

I

THE CHINESE VILLAGE

THERE are in India alone over half a million villages.

In all Asia, not improbably, there may be four times
that number. By far the larger part of the most numerous
people on the globe live in villages. The traveller in the
Chinese Empire may start from some seaport, as Tientsin, and
journey for several months together in the same general direc-
tion, before reaching its frontiers on the other side. In the
course of such a tour, he will be impressed as only one who has
ocular evidence can be impressed with the inconceivably great
number of Chinese altogether outside of the great centres of
urban population. Contrary to the current notions of West-
erners, the number of great cities, is not, relatively to the whole
population, anything like so large in China as in Western lands.
Many of the district cities, capitals of divisions analogous to
what we call counties, are merely large villages with a wall and
with government bureaus called yaméns. It is known that in
India three—fourths of the population are rural. In China
there is perhaps no reason for thinking the proportion to be
less.

On such a journey as we have supposed, the traveller unac-
quainted with the Chinese, ﬁnds himself perpetually inquiring
of himself: What are these incomputable millions of human
beings thinking about? What is the quality of the life which
they live? What is its content and its scope ?

Questions like these cannot be answered intelligently without
much explanation. The conditions and environment of
Chinese life are so totally unlike those to which we are accus-

‘5

I6 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

tomed, that it is unsafe to take anything for granted. Amid
certain fundamental unities the life of the Chinese is full of be—
wildering and inexplicable variety. No matter how long one
may have lived in China, there is always just as much as ever
that he never before heard of, but which every one is supposed
to have known by intuition. The oldest resident is a student
like the rest.

This state of things is the inevitable result of the antiquity of
Chinese civilization, as well as of the enormous scale upon
which it has operated to produce its effects. It is a sagacious
remark of Mr. A.‘R. Colquhoun 1. that “ the product resulting
from duration multiplied by numbers must be immense, and if
to this we add a third factor, isolation, we have no right to be
surprised either at the complex character of Chinese civilization,
or at its peculiarly conservative form.” For this reason a con-
nected and orderly account of the phenomena of Chinese life
we believe to be a hopeless impossibility. It would require the
combined information of all the residents of China to make it
complete, to coordinate it would be the work of several life-
times, and the resultant volumes would ﬁll the Bodleian library.
The only practicable way to extend our knowledge of so oceanic
a subject, is to examine in more or less detail such phenomena ‘
as happen to have come within our restricted horizon. No
two persons will have the same horizon, and no horizon will
belt a sphere.

A good way to see what is happening in a building would be
to take its roof off, could that be done without disturbing its
inmates. If we wish to comprehend the Chinese, we must take

1A consideration of the important crisis through which the Chinese
Empire is passing at the close of the century, does not fall within the
scope of a work like the present. All who are interested in that subject
should not omit to read attentively Mr. Colquhoun’s “ China in Trans-
formation,” London and New York, 1898, embodying the matured con-
victions of an accomplished traveller, and an experienced Oriental admin.
istrator, with an exceptional ﬁrst-hand acquaintance with China.

 

 

A DETAIL—THE VILLAGE WELL.

 

THE CHINESE V ILLACE [7

the roof from their homes, in order to learn what is going on
within. This no foreigner can do. But he can imitate the
Chinese who apply a wet ﬁnger to a paper window, so that
when the digit is withdrawn there remains a tiny hole, through
which an observant eye may see at least something. The
heterogeneous, somewhat disconnected, very unequally elab-
orated chapters which comprise this book, have this in com-
mon, that they are all studies of the phenomena seen at a peep-
hole into the actual life of the Chinese people. Any one who
knows enough about the subject to be entitled to have an
opinion, cannot help perceiving how imperfect and inadequate
they are. Yet they represent, nevertheless, realities which have
a human interest of their own.

The traveller in China, constantly surrounded by countless
towns and hamlets, naturally thirsts to know in a general way
the population of the region which he is traversing. Should
he venture, however, to ask any one the number of people in a
city, or the district which it governs, he would get no other in-
formation than that there are “ not a few,” or “ who knows? ”
Almost any intelligent person could tell approximately how
many villages there are in his own county, but as some of them
are large and some small, and as Chinese like other Orientals
care absolutely nothing for statistics and have the crudest no-
tion of what we, mean by an average, one is none the wiser for
their information.

It appears to be well settled that no real dependence can be
placed upon the Chinese ofﬁcial returns, yet that they are the
only basis upon which rational estimates can be based, and
therefore have a certain value. So far as we are aware, efforts
to come at the real population per square mile, have generally
proceeded from such extensive units as provinces, or at least
prefectures, the foundation and superstructure being alike a
mere pagoda of guesses.

Some years ago an effort was made in a certain district to
make a. more exact computation of the population of a very

18 ‘ VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA!

limited area, as a sort of unit of measure. For this purpose a
circle was taken, the radius of which was twenty 11', the foreign
residence being at the centre. A list was drawn up of every
village having received famine relief in the year 1878, so that
it was not difﬁcult to make a proximate guess at the average
number of families. The villages were 150 in number, and
the average size was taken as eighty families, which, reckoning
ﬁve persons to the family, gave a total of 60,000 persons. Al-
lowing six miles to be the equivalent of twenty 12', the popula-
tion of the square mile would be 531, about the same as the
average of the kingdom of Belgium (the most densely popu-
lated country in Europe), which had in 1890 an average of only
5 34 to the square mile.

At a distance of a few miles beyond this circle, there is a
tract called the “ Thirteen Villages,” because that is the num-
ber within a distance of ﬁve 12'! This shows that the partic-
ular region in which this estimate was made, happens to be an
unfavourable one for the purpose, as a considerable part of it
is waste, owing to an old bed of the Yellow River which has
devastated a broad band of land, on which are no villages.
There is also a water—course leading from the Grand Canal to
the sea, and a long depression much below the general average,
thinly occupied by villages, because it is liable to serious inun-
dation.

For these reasons it seemed desirable to make a new count
in a better spot, and for this purpose a district was chosen,
situated about ninety 12' east of the sub-prefecture of Lin
Ch‘ing, to which it belongs. The area taken was only half
the size of the former, and instead of merely estimating the
average population of the villages, the actual number of fami-
lies in each was taken, so far as this number is known to the
natives. The man who prepared the village map of the area
is a native of the central village, and a person of excellent
sense. He put the population in every case somewhat below
the popular estimate so as to be certainly within bounds. The

THE CHINESE VILLAGE A 19

number of persons to a “ family ” was still taken at ﬁve,
though, as he pointed out, this is a totally inadequate allow-
ance. Many “ families ” live and have all things in common,
and are therefore counted as one, although as in the case of
this particular individual, the “family" may consist of some
twenty persons. To the traveller in this region, the villages
appear to be both large and thickly clustered, and the enumer~
ation shows this to be the case. Within a radius of ten [2‘
(three miles) there are sixty-four villages, the smallest having
thirty families and the largest more than 1,000, while the
average is 188 families. The total number of families is 12,-
040, and the total number of persons at ﬁve to the family, is
60,200, or more than double the estimate for the region with
twice the diameter. This gives a population of 2,129 to the
square mile.

So far as appearances go, there are thousands of square miles
in southern and central Chih-li, western and southwestern
Shan-tung, and northern Ho—nan, where the villages are as
thick as in this one tract, the contents of which we are thus
able proximately to compute. But for the plain of North
China as a whole, it is probable that it would be found more
reasonable to estimate 300 persons to the square mile for the
more sparsely settled districts, and from 1,000 to 1,500 for
the more thickly settled regions. In any case a vivid impres-
sion is thus gained of the enormous number of human beings
crowded into these fertile and historic plains, and also of the
almost insuperable difficulties in the way of an exact knowl-
edge of the facts of the true “ census.”

II

CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES

IT is nearly goo years since the great raid of the nephew of

Hung Wu, founder of the Ming Dynasty, from the south-
ern capital of China, to what is now known as Peking, then
called the state of Yen. The celebrated raider is popularly
believed to have destroyed the lives of all those whom he met,
and to have reduced to an uninhabited desert, the whole region
from the Yang-tzﬁ River to Peking. This is described as “ Yen
Wang’s sweeping the North.” After this ambitious youth had
dispossessed his nephew, who was the rightful heir to the
throne, he took the title of Yung Lo, which became a famous
name in Chinese history. To repair the ravages which he had
made, compulsory emigration was established from southern
Shan-hsi and from eastern Shan-tung. Tradition reports that
vast masses of people were collected in the city of Hung-tung
Hsien in southern Shan-hsi, and thence distributed over the
uncultivated wastes made by war. Certain it is that through-
out great regions of the plain of northern China, the inhabi-
tants have no other knowledge of their origin than that they
came from that city.

It is a curious phenomenon that so practical a people as the
Chinese, and one having so instinctive a sense of the points of
the compass that they speak of a pain in “the east side” of
the stomach, are indifferent to regularity of form in their
towns. Every Chinese city seems to lie four square, but per-
haps it is not too much to say that no Chinese city really does
so lie. On the contrary a city wall is always found to have
certain deliberate curves and irregularities which are designed
for geomantic purposes. In other words they bring good luck,

20

CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES 2r

or they keep off bad luck, and are representations of the mys-
terious science of féng—slzuz' or geomancy. It is for this reason
that city gates must either not be opposite one another, or if
they are so, some obstruction must intervene to prevent evil
Spirits from making a clean sweep of everything.

It is customary in Western lands to speak of “ laying out ”
a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an ex-
pression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that
there has been some trace of design in the arrangement of the
parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like
Topsy, “just growed,” how, or why, no one knows or cares.
At some remote and generally unascertainable time in the dim
past some families arrived from somewhere else, camped down,
made themselves a “ local habitation,” (their name they prob-
ably brought with them), and that was the village. It has a
street, and perhaps a network of them, but no two are parallel,
except by accident, and no one of them is straight. The
street is the path which has been found by long experience to
be a necessary factor in promoting communication between the
parts of the village and the outside world. It is not only liable
to take sudden and inexplicable turns, but it varies in width at
different points. Sometimes in a village a quarter of a mile
long, there may not be a single crossroad enabling a vehicle to
get from the front street to the back one, simply because the
town grew up in that way, and no one either could or would
remedy it, even if any one desired it otherwise. At right
angles to the main street or streets, run narrow alleys, upon
which open the yards or courts in which the houses are situ-
ated. Even the buildings which happen to stand contiguous to
the main street offer nothing to the gaze but an expanse of dead
wall. If any doorway opens on the highway, it is protected
from the evil inﬂuences which might else result, by a screen
wall, preventing any observation of what goes on within. A
village is thus a city in miniature, having all the evils of over-
crowding, though it may be situated in the midst of a wide

22 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

and comparatively uninhabited plain. Whether land is dear or
cheap, a village always has the same crowded appearance, and
there is in either case the same indifference to the requirements
of future growth.

The mountains furnish an abundance of stone, from which
dwellings situated in such districts are built—dark, damp, and
unwholesome at all seasons of the year, but especially so in the
time of heavy rains. Even more unpleasant are the cave
dwellings found in the loamy soil of loess regions, lighted only
from the front, and quite free from any form of ventilation, a
luxury for which no provision is made in the construction of a
Chinese dwelling.

By far the most common material of which the Chinese build
their houses is that which happens to be nearest at hand.
Bricks are everywhere made in great quantities, almost always
of the same colour as the clothes of the people, a bluish
gray. This tint is secured by sealing up the brick-kiln per-
fectly tight, when the burning of the bricks is ﬁnished, and
pouring upon the concave top several hundred buckets of
water, which, ﬁltering through the soil of which the top is com—
posed, is instantly converted into steam when it reaches the
bricks, and alters their hue. The scarcity of fuel, and an un-
willingness to employ it where it seems like a waste leads to the
almost universal practice of burning the bricks too little to
make them valuable as a building material. Instead of becom-
ing hard like stones as do foreign bricks, and coated with a
thick glazing, a large percentage of Chinese bricks break
merely by being handled, and when examined, they are found
to be like well-made bread, full of air-holes. Each of these
openings becomes a tube by which the bibulous bricks suck up
moisture from below, to the great detriment of the building of
which they generally form merely the foundations, or perhaps
the facings.

The vast majority of country dwellings are made simply of
the soil, moulded into adobe bricks, dried till they cease to

CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES l3

shrink. The largest of these bricks are two or three inches
thick, and a 'foot wide, and perhaps twenty inches in length,
weighing even when thoroughly dried more than forty pounds.
The cost of making those which are only dried in a mould is
not more-than a cash a piece ; those which are stamped while
in the mould with a heavy stone rammer, are worth three or
four times as much. If experts are employed to do this work,
the outlay is greater as the owner of the earth not only pro-
vides a man to carry the necessary water, but he must furnish
tea and tobacco for the workmen.

The foundations of adobe houses, like those of all others,
must be of brick, and at the height of a foot or two above the
‘ ground will have a layer of reeds or some other substance, de-
signed to prevent the dampness from rising into the walls, which
crumble in such a case like candy houses in a rain. There is
so much soda in the soil of all parts of the Great Plain of
northern China, that unless extreme care is taken the best built
structures will, in a very few years, show signs of decay.

The roof is meant to be supported by posts, no matter of
what material the house is built, and this material is regarded
as only the ﬁlling between them, but in the cheaper houses, the
posts are often omitted to save expense. As a result, in a
rainy year thousands of houses are literally soaked down when-
ever the moisture has sufﬁciently weakened the foundations.
In this way many’persons are killed and many more injured.
In some districts one sees roofs made with the frame resembling
that of a foreign house, but the ordinary form is with king and
queen posts. In either case the timbers running lengthwise of
the building support small purlines upon which rest thin bricks,
or more frequently reeds, mats, or sorghum stalks, over which
is spread the earth which forms the greater part of all roofs.
Their enormous weight when well soaked make them highly
dangerous after the timbers have become old and rotten.
Where the roofs are ﬂat, they serve as depositories for the
crops, and for fuel.

24 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

If the village is situated in a low spot, the precaution is
taken to throw up a mound of earth on which to build. But
whatever the nature of the country, the removal of so much
earth leaves a series of gigantic pits around every village,
which catch the drainage of the surrounding region and the
possession of which is disputed by ducks, geese, pigs and in
summer by small children clad only in the skin garments fur-
nished by nature. '

The abundant moisture is an inducement to the growth of
luxuriant groves of trees, which, seen at a distance, produce a
charming effect. But on a nearer approach it is seen that the
ﬁne old trees are employed exclusively in shading the mud—
holes, while the houses of the village are exposed to the ﬁercest
rays of the summer sun. Trees are indeed to be met with in
the village street, but they are not designed to shade a court-
yard, which is almost invariably utterly destitute of trees of
any sort. Even grapevines which would seem a natural and
beautiful relief from the hideous bareness of the prevalent earth
colour, are, in some regions at least, wholly tabooed. And
why? Because, forsooth, the branches of the grape point
down, while those of other trees point up, hence it would be
“unlucky” to have grapevines, though not at all “ unlucky"
to roast all through the broiling summer for the lack of their
grateful shade.

A man whose grandfather had been rich, and who was dis-
tinguished from his neighbours by owning a two-story dwelling,
informed the writer that he could remember that his grand-
mother, who lived in the rear court, was constantly fretting at
the lofty buildings in front, and at the magniﬁcent elms which
shaded the compound and left no place to dry clothes! In
course of time the family was reduced to poverty, the two—story
building was demolished, and the trees felled, so that the pres-
ent generation, like other families, swelters in a narrow court-
yard, with an unlimited opportunity (very little used) to dry
their clothes. Luxuries which are denied to dwelling-houses,

 

 

 

SAVVYERS PREPARING [J MBER

 

 

 

KSMlTHS EMPLOYED BY VILLAGERS.

PNNERANT BLA(

 

CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES 25

are cheerfully accorded to the gods, who have no clothes to
dry, and a very small temple may have in front of it a grove of
very old trees.

The architecture of the Chinese has been compendiously and
perhaps net inaccurately described as consisting essentially of
two sticks placed upright, with a third laid across them at the
top. The shape of some Chinese roofs, however they may
vary among themselves, suggests the tent as the prime model ;
though, as Dr. Williams and others have remarked, there is no
proof of any connection between the Chinese roof and the tent.
Owing to the national reluctance to erect lofty buildings, almost
all Chinese cities present an appearance of monotonous uni-
formity, greatly in contrast with the views of large cities to be
had in other lands.

If Chinese cities are thus uninviting in their aspect, the
traveller must not expect to ﬁnd anything in the country village
to gratify his aesthetic sense. There is no such word as “ aes-
thetic ” in Chinese, and, if there were, it is not one in which
villagers would take any interest. The houses are generally
built on the north end of the space reserved as a courtyard, so
as to face the South, and if additional structures are needed
they are placed at right angles to the main one, facing east and
west. If the premises are large, the front wall of the yard is
formed by another house, similar to the one in the rear, and
like it having} side buildings. However numerous or however
wealthy the family, this is the normal type of its dwelling. In
cities this type is greatly modiﬁed by the exigencies of the con-
tracted space at disposal, but in the country it rules supreme.

The numerative of Chinese houses is a word which denotes
division, signifying not a room, but rather such a part of a
dwelling as can conveniently be covered by timbers of one
length. As these timbers are seldom very large or very long,
one division of a house will not often exceed ten or twelve feet
in length, by a little less in width from front to back. An or-
dinary house will comprise three of these divisions, though

26 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

there may be but one partition, forming one double and one
single room. There is no ceiling, and the roof, which is usu-
ally not lofty, is in full view. Most doors are made with two
leaves, projections above and below, like pins, serving as the
hinges. There is a movable doorsill, out of which a small hole
is often cut to admit of entrance and exit for the dogs and cats.
Such doors cannot be tightly closed, for the rude workmanship
and the unequal shrinkage of the wood always render it easy to
see through the many cracks.

Almost all parts of the eighteen provinces are very hot in
summer, but it is only in some regions that a back door will be
found opening opposite the front one. The wooden grating,
which does duty as a window, is built into the wall, for security
against thieves, and is often covered, even in the heat of sum-
mer, with oiled paper. Doors do not open directly from dwell-
ing-houses to the street, and if there are any windows on the
street side of the house, they are very small and very high.

Just inside the door is built the adobe support for the cook-
ing-boiler, the latter shaped like a saucer and made very thin
in order to economize fuel to the utmost. In all districts where
provision is to be made for heating the room, it is done by con—
ducting the smoke from this primitive range through a com~
plicated set of ﬂues, under the divan called a k‘ang which
serves as a bed, and which is merely an arrangement of adobe
bricks. If the houses are thatched with straw the opening for
smoke must be near the ground, as a precaution against ﬁre.

On the end of the bang are piled the bed—quilts of the
household and whatever trunks or boxes they may be able to
boast, for this is the only part of the dwelling which is not
likely to be clamp. As the ﬁre is so near to the outer door
where drafts are strong, as the ﬂues are very likely to get out of
order, and as there are no chimneys worthy of the name, it is
inevitable that the smoke should be distributed throughout the
building with the greatest impartiality, often forming a coating
of creosote an inch or more in thickness.

CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES 27

Above the cooking—range is fastened the image of the
kitchen-god, popularly supposed to be a deiﬁcation of Chang
Kung, a worthy who lived in the eighth century of our era, and
was able to live in perfect peace, although nine generations
simultaneously inhabited the same yard.- Even his hundred
dogs were so polite as to wait for another, if any one of them
was late at a meal.

The reigning emperor of the T‘ang Dynasty sent for Chang
Kung, to inquire the secret of such wonderful harmony, and
calling for a pen, he is said to have written the character de-
noting “Forbearance” a great number of times. According
to tradition the picture of this patriarch was placed in every
dwelling as a stimulus to the imitation of his example, a pur-
pose for which it unfortunately proves quite inert.

That the dwellings of the Chinese are cold in winter, hot in
summer, and smoky all the year round is inevitable. Even in
the coldest weather there is no escape from the bitter cold, ex—
cept as it may be got by curling upon the bang. For this rea-
son Chinese women often Speak of the k‘cmg as like an “ own
mother.” A room in which there is none is considered almost
uninhabitable. But from an Occidental point of view they are
models of discomfort. The heat is but slowly diffused, and
during a long night one may be alternately drenched with per-
spiration, and then chilled to the bone as the heat diminishes.
The adobe bricks of which the k‘ang is composed crumble if an
uneven pressure is made upon them, so that one often ﬁnds the
k‘ang: in an inn full of pitfalls. They are always the lodging
places of a multitude of tiny monsters to which the Chinese are
too much accustomed to complain. Even when the adobe
bricks are broken up in the spring to be pulverized as manure
—on account of the creosote—the animal life lodged in the
walls is apparently suﬂicient to restock the universe.

It is not surprising that the title-deeds to land are in course
of years destroyed or lost, for there is in a Chinese house no
proper place in which they may be kept. The only closets are

28 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

made by leaving out a few bricks from the wall. A small
board, resting on two pegs often forms the only book-shelf to
be found in the apartments even of men of letters. Doors are
locked by passing the link of a chain over a staple in the door-
frame above; but Chinese padlocks can generally be picked
with a wire, a chop-stick, or even with a dry weed, and afford
no real protection. Thieves are always provided with an assort-
ment of keys, and often get in by lifting the doors off the pins
which serve as hinges. Nothing is easier than to dig through
adobe walls. In some of the rich villages of Shan-hsi house-
walls are built quite six feet thick to discourage such penetration.

The ﬂoor of all common dwellings is merely the earth, not
smoothed but beaten into ﬁxed inequalities; this we are as-
sured (in reply to a question why smoothness is not cultivated)
is much the best way, as by this means every ﬂuid spilled will
run out of itself! In the corners of the dwelling stand, lie, or
hang, the numerous household articles for which there is no
other place. Jars of grain, agricultural implements, clumsy
looms for weaving cotton, spinning wheels, baskets of all sizes
and shapes, one or two benches, and possibly a chair, all seem
to occupy such space as is to be had, while from the sooty roof
depend all manner of articles, hung up so as to be out of the
way—some of which when wanted must be hooked down with
a pole. The maxim “a place for everything, and everything
in its place ” is inapprOpriate to a Chinese dwelling, where
there is very little place for anything.

The small yard is in as great confusion as the house, and for
the same reason. Dogs, cats, chickens and babies enjoy a
very limited sphere of action, and generally take to the street,
which is but an extension of the court. If the family owns
animals, some place must be found for them in the yard, though
when not in use they spend their time anchored by a very
short rope, attached to pegs sunk deep in the ground, in front
of the owner’s dwelling. Pigs are kept in a kind of well, with
a brick wall to prevent its caving in, and by climbing a very

CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES 29

steep ﬂight of brick stairs they can ascend to a little kennel
provided for them at the edge of their pits—in many regions the
only two-story domiciles to be found !

The Chinese village is always a miniature city, not only by
reason of its internal arrangements—or lack of it—but often
also in the virtue of the fact that it is surrounded by a wall.

Not many years ago several regiments stationed near the Yel-
low River, in Shan-tung, mutinied, killed an ofﬁcer and
marched off to their homes. The intelligence of this event
spread throughout the province, and each region feared to be
visited by the soldiers who were sure to plunder and perhaps to
kill. So great was the panic that cities hundreds of miles from
the seat of the disturbance were packed with a multitude of
farm-carts loaded with villagers who had left their homes and
abandoned their crops at the beginning of the wheat harvest,
trusting to ﬁnd safety within city walls. The losses sustained
in consequence were immense.

Events like this may occur at any time, and the great T‘ai
P‘ing Rebellion of half a century ago, together with its result-
ant disorders, left an inetfaceable impression of the insecurity of
an unwalled village. Although the walls are seldom more than
ﬁfteen or twenty feet in height, whenever a year of bad har-
vests occurs, and bands of plunderers roam about, the use of
even such defences is made obvious. Slight as is their value
against an organized, well-directed attack, experience shows
that they are often sufficient to accomplish the object intended,
by diverting the stream of invaders to other villages where they
meet with no resistance. The least rumour of an uprising in
any quarter is often sufﬁcient to stimulate the villagers to levy
a tax upon the land in order to repair their earthen ramparts,
in which, not without good reason, they place much more de-
pendence than in the cautious and dilatory movements of the
local authorities who are generally in no condition to cope with
an organized and resolute force, especially with those rebels who
have a real grievance.

HI

VILLAGE NOMENCLATURE

THE Chinese is justly termed a poetical language. The
titles of emperors, the names .of men, the signs of
shops, all have some felicitous meaning. It is therefore some-
what of a disappointment to discover that the names of Chinese
villages, unlike those of cities, are not as a rule either poetical
or signiﬁcant. The drafts upon the language by the incessant
multiplication of hamlets are too great to be successfully met.
Nearly all Chinese surnames serve as the designation of vil-
lages, as in other lands the names of families are attached to
the settlements which they make. Sometimes two or more sur-
names are linked together to denote the village, as Chang-
Wang Chuang, the village of the Chang and the Wang fami-
' lies. It often happens that in the changes, wrought by time,
of the families for whom the place was named not a single rep-
resentative remains. In such cases the name may be retained
or it may be altered, though all recollection of the circumstan-
ces of the change may be lost.
The most conspicuous object in a Chinese village is generally
a temple, and this building often gives its name to the hamlet.
Thus the wall surrounding a temple is covered with red plaster,
and the village is dubbed Red Temple. In a few years the
plaster falls off, but the name sticks. Temples are frequently
associated with the families which were prominent in their con-
struction, and the name of the village is very likely to be de-
rived from this source, as Wang Chia Miao, the Temple of the
Wang Family; the Hua Chia Ssﬁ, the monastery of the Hua
Family. If there happen to be two temples of a similar ap-
pearance, the village may get the title of Double Temple, and

30

VILLAGE NOMENCLATURE 3!

in general any peculiarity in ediﬁces of this sort is likely to be
stereotyped in the village name.

The habit of using the names of families and temples to in-
dicate the villages is a fertile source of confusion through the
indeﬁnite multiplication of the same name. There is no postal
system in China compelling each post ofﬁce to have a designa-
tion which shall not be confounded with others in the same
province. Hence the more common names are so exceedingly
common that they lose all value as distinctive designations.
“ Chang, Wang, Li, and Chao,” are the four surnames which
the Chinese regard as the most prevalent, the ﬁrst two of them
far out-distancing all their competitors. The number of places
in a given district bearing the same, or similar names, is past
all ascertaining; as, say eight or ten Wang Family villages, the
Larger Wang Village, the Smaller Wang Village, the Front
Wang Village, the Rear Wang Village, the Wang Village
Under-the-bank, and so forth. Even with this complexity, dis—
tinction would be a much easier matter if the same name were
always used, but anything which has a Wang about it is like to
' be called simply Wang Village, and only on inquiry is it to be
learned which of all these Wangs is the one intended.

A similar ambiguity is introduced along the line of imperial
highways, where the hamlets at which food is sold, and where
accommodations are offered to travellers, are called “ shops,”
taking their distinctive title from the distance to the district
city,—as Five Mile Shop, Ten Mile, Fifteen, Twenty, Thirty,
and Forty Mile Shop. Each district city may have “ shops ”
of this kind on each side of it, and while the one twenty miles
(or 1i) north is Twenty Li Shop, so is the one twenty li south,
to the great confusion of the traveller, who after all is not sure
where he is. In addition to this ambiguity, the Thirty Li Shop
of one city is liable to be confounded with the Thirty Li Shop
of the next city. It is a common circumstance to ﬁnd an in-
signiﬁcant hamlet with a name comprising four or ﬁve charac—
ters, the local pronunciation of which is generally diﬂicult to

32 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

catch, as the words are spoken as one prolonged, many-
syllabled sound. This leads to abbreviations, the same long
title having perhaps two or three different modes of utterance,
to the bewilderment of strangers, and to the intense amusement
of the rustic born on the spot, who cannot conceive what there
can be so hard to understand about a name which is to him as
familiar as his own.

Another source of conf““"m in the nomenclature of Chinese
villages, is the almost universal habit of varying one or more
characters of a name without any apparent reason. The altera-
tion has no connection with euphony, ease of pronunciation,
or with any known cause whatever, but seems to be due to an
irresistible instinct for variety, and to an antipathy to a too
simple uniformity. Thus a village the proper title of which is
the Ancient Monastery of the Li Family, (Li Ku Ssii) is
generally called Li Kuang Ssii; a village known as that of
Benevolence and Virtue (Jen Te Chuang), is ordinarily styled
Jen Wang Chuang. Analogous to this habit, is that of afﬁxing
two entirely distinct names to the same little hamlet, neither
name suggesting the other, and the duplication merely serving
to confound confusion. Thus a village which has a name de-
rived from a temple, like Hsiian Ti Miao (the temple to Hsiian
Ti) is also known as Chang Chuang (the village of the Chang
Family), but as there are many other villages of Chang fami-
lies near by this, one‘will be known by way of distinction, as
the “ Chang Family village which has a temple to Hsiian Ti ” 1
Many persons have occasion to write the names of villages,
who have but the scantiest knowledge of Chinese characters,
and they are as likely to indite a false character having the
same sound as a right one—nay, far more so—and thus it hap-
pens that there is a perpetual uncertainty, never set at rest in
any manner whatsoever, as to what the real name of a place
ought to be, for to all Chinese one name is as good as another,
and in such matters, as in many others, there appears to be no
intuition of right and wrong.

VELAGE NOMENCLATURE _ 33

Chinese villages are only individual Chinese ampliﬁed, and,
like individuals, they are liable to be nicknamed ; and, as often
happens with human beings, the nickname frequently supplants
the original, of which no trace may remain in memory. This
helps to account for the singular appellations of many villages.
A market-town on the highway, the wells of which aﬁ'ord only
brackish water, was called “ Bitter Water Shop,” but as this
name was not pleasing to the ear, it was changed on the tax
lists to “ Sweet Water Shep.” If any one inquires how it is
that the same fountain can send forth at the same time waters
both bitter and sweet, he is answered with conclusive simplicity,
“ Sweet Water Shop is the same as Bitter Water Shop 1 " A
village situated on the edge of a river was named after the two
leading families, but when the river rose to a great height this
name sunk out of sight, and there emerged the title, “ Look at
the Water; ” but even this alteration not being sufﬁcient to sat-
isfy the thirst for variety, the name is written and pronounced as
if it meant, “ Look at the Grave ! ” A hamlet named for the Liu
Family had in it a bully who appeared in a lawsuit with a black
eye, and hence was called the Village of Liu with the Black
Eye. In another instance a town had the name of Dropped
Tooth, merely because the local constable lost a central incisor
(Lao Ya Chen); but in course of time this fact was forgotten,
and the name altered into “ Market-town of the Crows,” (Lao
Kua Chan) which it still retains.

A village in which most of the families joined the Roman
Catholics and pulled down all their temples, gained from this
circumstance the soubriquet of “ No Gods Village " (Wu Shén
Chuang). The following specimens of singular village names
are all taken from an area but a few miles square, and could
doubtless be paralleled in almost any other region. “ The In.»
perial Horse Yard ” (Yii Ma Yuan). This title is said to
have been inherited from the times of the founder of the Sung
Dynasty. It is generally corrupted into “ Sesame Garden,"
(Chih Ma Yiian). “ End of the Cave,” ayillage situated on

34 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

a great plain, with vague traditions of an underground passage.
“ Seeing the Horse ”3 “Horse Words Village,” from a tradi-
tion of a speaking animal; “ Sun Family Bull Village”;
“ Female Dog Village ”3 ‘ ‘Wang Family Great Melon Vil-
lage ”; “ Separating from the King Village”; “ Basket Village
of the Liu Village”; “Tiger-catching Village,” and “Tiger-
striking Fair”; “Duck’s Nest of the Chou Family”; “ Horse
Without a Hoof”; “Village of Chang of the Iron Mouth”;
“ Ts‘ui Family Wild Pheasant Village ”3 “ Wang Family Dog’s
Tooth ”; “ Village of the Benevolent and Loving Magistrate ";
“ Village of the Makers of Fine-tooth Combs,” (Pi-tzi’i-
chiang Chuang), which is now corrupted into “The Village
Where They Wear Pug-noses " l

 

 

 

 

R.

THE VILLAGE COBBLP

 

 

 

MAKER.

VILLAGE BROOM

IV

COUNTRY ROADS

THE contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel

them to do most of their work in the street. Even in
those cities which are provided with but the narrowest passages,
these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the presence of
peripatetic vendors of every article that is sold, and by peripa-
tetic craftsmen, who have no other shop than the street. The
butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, and hundreds of
other workmen as well, have their representatives in perpetual
motion, to the great impediment of travel. The wider the
street, the more the uses to which it can be put, so that travel
in the broad streets of Peking is often as difﬁcult as that in the
narrow alleys of Canton. An “imperial highway” in China
is not one which is kept in order by the emperor, but rather
one which may have to be put in order for the emperor. All
such highways might rather be called low-ways ; for, as they
are never repaired, they soon become incomparably worse than
no road at all.

If this is true of the great lines of travel over the empire, we
must not expect to ﬁnd the village road an illustration of any
doctrine of political economy. Each of them is simply a forced
contribution on the part of the owner of the land to the gen-
eral welfare. It is so much soil on which he is compelled to
pay taxes, and from which he gets no more good than any one
else. Each land-owner will, therefore, throw the road on the
edge of his land, so that he may not be obliged to furnish more
than half the way. But as the pieces of land which he happens
to own may be, and generally are, of miscellaneous lengths, the
road will wind around so as to accommodate the prejudices of

35

- o

36 ' VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the owner in this particular, which explains the fact that in
travelling on village roads it is often necessary to go a great
distance to reach a place not far off.

An ordinary road is only wide enough for one vehicle, but
as it is often necessary for carts to pass one another, this can
only be done by trespassing on the crops. To prevent this the
farmer digs deep ditches along his land, resembling gas-mains.
Each farmer struggles to protect his own land, but when he
drives his own cart, he too becomes a “trespasser” ; thus a
state of chronic and immitigable warfare is established, for
which there is absolutely no remedy. The Occidental plan of
setting apart a strip of land of uniform width, free from taxes
and owned by the state, the grade of which shall be deﬁnite,
is utterly beyond the comprehension of any Chinese. Where
land is valuable and is all private property, road repairs are out
of the question. There is no earth to repair with, and without
repair, the roads soon reach a condition beyond the possibility
of any repairs. Constant travel compresses and hardens the
soil, making it lower than the adjacent ﬁelds; perpetual attri-
tion grinds the earth into banks, which by heavy gales are
blown in the form of thick dust on the ﬁelds.

In the rainy season the ﬁelds are drained into the road,
which at such times is constantly under water. A slight
change of level allows the water to escape into some still lower
road, and thus a current is set up, which becomes ﬁrst a brook,
and then a rushing torrent, constantly wearing out its bed.
This process repeated for decades and for centuries turns the
road into a canal, several feet below the level of the ﬁelds. It
is a proverb that a road 1,000 years old becomes a river,
' just as a daughter-in-law of many years’ standing gradually
“ summers into a mother~in-law.”

By the time the road has sunk to the level of a few feet be-
low the adjacent land, it is liable to be wholly useless as a
thoroughfare. It is a canal, but it can neither be navigated
nor crossed. Intercourse between contiguous villages lying

COUNTRY ROADS ' " 37

along a common “highway,” is often for weeks together en-

tirely interrupted. The water drained from the land often
carries with it large areas of valuable soil, leaving in its
place a yawning chasm. When the water subsides, the
owner of the land sallies out to see what has become of this
section of his farm. It has been dissolved in the canal, but if
the owner cannot ﬁnd that particular earth he can ﬁnd other
earth just as good. Wherever the light soil called loam, or
“loess,” is found, it splits with a vertical cleavage, leaving
high banks on each side of a rent in the earth. To repair
these, the owner takes the soil which he needs from a pit ex-
cavated by the side of the road, or more probably from the
road itself, which may thus in a single season be lowered a foot
or more in depth. All of it is his land, and why should he
not take it P If the public wish to use a road, and do not ﬁnd
this one satisfactory, then let the public go somewhere else.

If a road becomes so bad as to necessitate its abandonment,
a new one must be opened, or some old one adapted to the al-
tered circumstances. The latter is almost sure to be the alter-
native; for who is willing to surrender a part of his scanty
farm, to accommodate so impersonal a being as the public?
In case of ﬂoods, either from heavy rains or a break in some
stream, the only feasible method is thought to be to sit still and
await the gradual retirement of the water. A raised road
through the inundated district, which could be used at all sea-p
sons, is a triple impossibility. The persons whose land must
be disturbed would not suffer it, no one would lift a ﬁnger to
do the work—except those who happened to own land along
the line of the route—and no one, no matter where he lived,
would furnish any of the materials which would be necessary
to render the road permanent.

An illustration of this state of things is found in a small vil-
lage in central Chih-li, where lives an elderly lady, in good
circumstances, a part of whose land is annually subject to ﬂood
from the drainage of the Surrounding region. The evil was so

38 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

serious that it was frequently impossible to haul the crops home
on carts, but they had either to be brought on the backs of
men wading, or, if there were water enough, toilfully dragged
along on stalk rafts. To this comparatively enlightened woman
occurred the idea of having her men and teams dig trenches
along the roadside, raise the road to a level above possible
ﬂooding, and thus remedy the trouble permanently. This she
did wholly at her own expense, the emerging road being a
beneﬁt to the whole country-side. The following winter, dur~
ing which the contagious inﬂuenza was world-prevalent, there
were several cases in the village terminating fatally. After ﬁve -
or six persons had died, the villagers became excited to dis-
cover the latent cause of the calamity, which was traced to the
new highway. Had another death occurred they would have
assembled with spades and reduced it to its previous level, thus
raising a radical barrier against the grippe !

The great lines of Chinese travel might be made permanently
passable, instead of being, as now, interrupted several months
of the year, if the Governor of a Province chose to compel the
several District Magistrates along the line to see that these im-
portant arteries are kept free from standing water, with ditches
in good order at all seasons. But for the village road there is
absolutely no hope until such time as the Chinese villager may
come dimly to the apprehension that what is for the advantage
of one is for the advantage of all, and that wise expenditure is
the truest economy—an idea of which at present he has as little
conception as of the binomial theorem.

V

THE VILLAGE FERRY

IN the northern part of China, although the streams are not

so numerous as at the south, they form more of an obstruc-
tion to travel, on account of the much greater use made of
animals and of wheeled vehicles. The Chinese cart is a pecul-
iarly northern affair, and appears to be of much the same type
as in ancient days. The ordinary passenger cart is dragged
by one animal in the cities, and by two in the country. The
country cart, employed for the hauling of produce and also for
all domestic purposes by the great bulk of the population, is a
machine of untold weight. We once put the wheel of one of
these carts on a platform-scale and ascertained that it weighed '
I77 pounds, and the axle ﬁfty-seven pounds in addition, giving
a total of 411 pounds for this portion of the vehicle. The
shafts are stout as they have need to be, and when the cart up-
sets—a not infrequent occurrence—they pin the shaft animal
to the earth, effectually preventing his running away. Mules,
horses, cows, and donkeys, are all hitched to these farm carts,
each pulling by means of loose ropes anchored to the axle.
To make these beasts pull simultaneously is a task to which
no Occidental would ever aspire, nor would he succeed if
he did aspire. General Wolseley mentions in his volume de-
scribing the campaign in 1860, when the army marched on
Peking, that at Ho Hsi Wu all the Chinese carters deserted,
and the British troops were totally unable to do anything what-
ever with the teams.

Under these conditions of travel, a Chinese ferry is one of
the most characteristic specimens of the national genius with
which we are acquainted. Ferries are numerous, and so are

39

4o VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

carts to be ferried. The interesting thing is to watch the proc-
ess, and it is a spectacle full of delightful surprises.

At a low stage of water the ferry~boat is at the base of a slop-
ing bank, down which in a diagonal line runs the track, never
wide enough for two carts to pass each other. To get one of
these large carts down this steep and shelving incline requires
considerable engineering skill, and here accidents are not in-
frequent. When the edge of the ferry is reached the whole
team must be unhitched, and each animal got on the boat as
best may be. Some animals make no trouble and will give a
mighty bound, landing somewhere or everywhere to the immi-
nent peril of any passengers that may be already on board.
None of the animals have any conﬁdence in the narrow, crooked,
and irregular gang planks which alone are to be found. The
more crooked these planks the better,, for a reason which the
traveller is not long in discovering. The object is by no means
to get the cart and animals on with the minimum of trouble,
but with the maximum of difﬁculty, for this is the way by which
hordes of impecunious rascals get such an exiguous living as
they have. When an animal absolutely refuses to budge—an
occurrence at almost every crossing—its head is bandaged with
somebody’s girdle, and then it is led around and around for a
long time so as to induce it to forget all about the ferryboat.
At last it is led to the edge and urged to jump, which it will
by no means do. Then they twist its tail—unless it happens
to be a mule—put a stick behind it as a lever and get six men
at each end of the stick, while six more tug at a series of ropes
attached to the horns. After a struggle lasting in many cases
half an hour, often after prolonged and cruel beatings, the poor
beasts are all on board, where the more active of them employ
their time in prancing about among and over the human pas-
sengers, to their evident danger.

Sometimes the animals become excited and break away,
plunging over the edge of the ferry, which has no guards of any
kind, and in such cases it is not uncommon for them to be

 

 

WAITING FOR THE BOAT.

 

 

CROSSING THE FERRY.

 

 

THE VILLAGE FERRY 4!

'ﬂoated’ away, or even lost. The writer is cognizant of a case
in which the driver was himself pulled into a swift and swollen
stream while struggling to restrain his mules, and was drowned,
a circumstance which probably caused his “ fare ”—a scholar
on his way to or from a summer examination—endless delay,
as he would be detained at the district yamen for a witness.

But while we have been busy with the animals, we have
neglected the cart, which must be dragged upon the ferryboat
by the strength of a small army of men. There may be only
one man or a man and a boy on a ferry, but to pull a loaded
cart over the rugged edges of the planks, up the steep incline,
requires perhaps ten or ﬁfteen men. This is accomplished by
the process so familiar at Chinese funerals, the wild yelling of
large bands of men as they are directed by the leader.

Every individual who so much as lays a hand upon the cart
must be paid, and the only limit is the number who can cluster
around it. As in all other Chinese affairs there is no regular
tariff of charges, but the rule is that adopted by some Occi-
dental railway managers to “ put on all the traffic will bear.”
Suppose for example that the passenger cart only pays a hundred
cash for its transport across the stream ; this sum must be
divided into three parts, of which the ferry gets but one and
the bands of volunteer pullers and pushers on the two banks
the other two-thirds. In this way it often happens that all that
one of these loaﬁng labourers has to show for his spasmodic toil
may be four cash, or in extreme cases only two, or even one.

On the farther bank the scene just described is reversed, but
occupies a much shorter time, as almost any animal is glad
enough to escape from a ferry. The exit of the carts and ani-
mals is impeded by the struggles of those who want to get a
passage the other way, and who cannot be content to wait till
the boat is unloaded. There is never any superintendent of
the boat, any more than of anything else in China, and all is
left to chance or fate. That people are not killed in the tumul-
tuous crossings is a constant Wonder.

42 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

It is not unnatural for the Occidental whose head is always
full of ideas as to how things pug/z; to be done in the East, to
devise a plan by which all this wild welter should be reduced
to order. He would, to begin with, have a ﬁxed tariff, and he
would have a wide and gently sloping path to the water’s edge.
He would have a broad and smooth gang—plank, over which
both animals and carts could pass with no delay and no incon-
. venience. He would have a separate place for human pas-
sengers and for beasts, and in general shorten the time, diminish
the discomforts and occidentalize the whole proceedings.

Now stop for a moment and reﬂect how any one of these
several “reforms” is to be made a fact accomplished. The
gently sloping banks will wash away with the ﬁrst rise of the
river ; who is to repair them P Not the boatman, for “ it is not
the business of the corn-cutter to pull off the stockings of his
customers.” If the ferry is an “ ofﬁcial” one, that only means
that the local magistrate has a “ squeeze ” on the receipts, not
that there are any corresponding obligations toward facilitating
travel. Who is to provide those wide gang—planks over which
the passage is to be so easy? Not the boatman. Not the pas-
senger, whose only wish is to get safely over for that single
time. Not the swarm of loafers whose interest it is not to have
any gang—planks at all, or as nearly as possible none.

And even if the roads were made, and the gang—planks all
provided by some benevolent despot, it would not be a week
before the planks would be missing, and all things going on as
they have been since the foundation of the Chinese world. The
appointment of inspectors, police, etc. , etc., would do no man—
ner of good, unless it should be to their interest to further the
reform, which would obviously never be the case.

Imagine an Anglo-Indian ofﬁcial, whose knowledge of Ori-
ental races and traits is profound, in charge of the ferries for a
single stretch, say of the Grand Canal. What would he do—
what could he do, even if backed up by a force theoretically
irresistible? Nothing whatever to any lasting or good purpose

THE VILLAGE FERRY 43

until the need of some alteration in their system, or rather lack
of system, forces itself upon the Chinese mind. How long in
the ordinary process of human evolution it would take to bring
this about, it is easy to conjecture. Think for an instant of
the objections which would be made on every hand to the in-
novations. Who are these fellows? What are their motives?
No Chinese can for a moment comprehend such a conception
as is embodied in the phrase Pro 50m) pub/2'50. He never
heard of such a thing, and what is more he never wants to hear
of it.

We have wasted an undue amount of time in crossing a
Chinese river, for it is a typical instance of ﬂagrant abuses
which the Chinese themselves do not mind, which would drive
Occidentals to the verge of insanity—if not over the brink—-
and which it seems easy, but is really impossible to remedy.
Mutatz': mutana’z's, these things are a parable of the empire.
The reform must come. It must be done from within. But
the impulse can come only from without.

VI

VILLAGE WELLS

ON the Great Plain of. North China the wells are generally

shallow, ranging from ten to thirty feet in depth; one
of ﬁfty feet would be unusual, though they are occasionally
much deeper. The well is a very important feature of the outﬁt
of a Chinese village, though never the scene of ablutions as in
India. T 0 save the labour of carrying water, all the animals
are led to the well to drink, and the resultant mud makes the
neighbourhood, especially in winter, very disagreeable. Rarely
have they a cover of any sort, and the opening being level with
. the surface of the ground, it would seem inevitable that ani-
mals, children and blind persons, should be constantly falling
in,—as indeed, occasionally, but seldom happens. Even the
smallest bairns learn to have a wholesome fear of the opening,
and ages of use have accustomed all Chinese to view such
dangers with calm philosophy.

The business of sinking wells is an art by itself, and in re—
gions where they are commonly used for irrigation, the villagers
acquire a great reputation for expertness in the process. A
village which desires a new well sends an invitation to the experts,
and a party of men, numbering perhaps ﬁfteen or twenty, re-
sponds. Though the work is fatiguing, difﬁcult, and often
dangerous, no money payment is generally offered or desired,
but only a feast to all the workers, of the best food to be had.
If the well is to be anything more than a water-pit, it is dug as
deep as can be done'without danger of caving in, and then the
brick lining is let down from above. The basis of this. is a
strong board frame of the exact size of the opening, and wide
enough to place the walling upon. A section of the wall is

44-.

VILLAGE WELLS 45

built upon this base, and the whole is ﬁrmly bound to the base-
board within and without by ropes or reed withes. The lining
then resembles a barrel without the heads, and when completed
is so strong that, though it be subjected to considerable and un-
equal strains, it will neither give nor all apart

Several feet of the lining are lowered into the cavity, and as
the digging proceeds the lining sinks, and the upper wall is
built upon it. If it is desired to strike a permanent spring,
this is accomplished by means of a large bamboo tube to which
an iron-pointed head is ﬁxed. The tube is driven down as far
as it will go, the earth and sand being removed from within,
and when a good supply of water is reached the opening is
bricked up as usual. Such wells are comparatively rare, and
proportionately valuable.

Wherever the soil and water are favourable for market-gardens,
the country—side abounds in irrigation wells, often only six feet
in width, and provided with a double Windlass or sweep. One
may meet the gardeners carrying home the ropes, buckets,'and
the windlass itself, none of which can safely be left out over
night. Village wells are often sunk on ground which is con-
jointly owned by several families. Like everything else Ori-
ental, they furnish frequent occasions now, as in patriarchal
times, for bitter feuds. Whenever one is especially unpopular
in his village, the ﬁrst threat is to cut off his water supply,
though this is not often done.

In some districts quicksands prevent the sinking of any per-
manent wells. The villagers are obliged to be up all night in
order to take their turn at the scanty water supply, and ﬁghts
are not infrequent. In a dry year the suffering is serious. For
evils of this sort tube-wells would seem to provide a remedy,
but thus far there has been great difﬁculty in getting down to
such a depth as to strike good water. The nature of the
trouble was aptly described by a coolie employed by a foreigner
on a work of this kind, who was asked why the pipe was not
driven deeper. He replied that it was, but “the deeper they

46 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

went the more there wasn’t any water " ! It would appear that
in the direction of a good water supply, Western knowledge
might be applied for the beneﬁt of great numbers of Chinese
and on a large scale, or if not on a large scale, then on a small
one.

As an illustration of the process by which this may be done,
an experience of many years ago in a Shan-tung village is
worthy of mention. One of the missionaries had the happi-
ness of welcoming a second son to his household, an event
which seemed to the Chinese of such happy omen that they
were moved to unite in subscribing a ﬁxed sum from each
family in the village, to purchase a silver neck ornament for the
infant. As the suggestion was not absolutely and peremptorily
vetoed, the committee in charge went on and ordered the silver
chain and padlock, after which the delicate question arose by
what means this gift should be acknowledged. After can—
vassing many plans, one was at length hit upon which appeared
to satisfy the requisite conditions, which were in brief that the
thing bestowed should be a distinct beneﬁt to all the people,
and one which they could all appreciate. It was proposed to
put a force-pump in a village well not far from the mission
premises, where much water was daily drawn by a great many
people with a great deal of labour. The force-pump would make
this toil mere child’s play. The plan was so plainly fore-
ordained to success, that one of the missionaries—although
not having the felicity of two sons—was moved to promise also
a stone watering trough, which in Chinese phrase, would be a
“Joy to Ten Thousand Generations.” The village committee
listened gravely to these proposals without manifesting that ex-
hilaration which the obviously successful nature of the inno-
vation seemed to warrant, but promised to consider and report
later. When the next meeting of this committee with the mis-
sionaries took place, the former expressed a wish to ask a few
questions. They pointed out that there were four or ﬁve wells
in the village. “ Was it the intention of the Western foreign

VILLAGE WELLS 47

‘ shepherds ’ to put a ‘ water-sucker’ into each of these wells? ”
No, of course not; it was meant for the one nearest the mis-
sion premises. To this it was replied that the trinket for the
shepherd’s child had been purchased by uniform contributions
from each family in the village. Some of these families lived
on the front street and some on the back one, some at the east
end and some at the west end. “ Would it be consistent with
the ideal impartiality of Christianity to put a ‘ water-sucker '
where it could only beneﬁt a part of those for whom it was
designed ? ”

After an impressive silence the committee remarked that
there was a further question which had occurred to them. This
village, though better off than most of those about, had some
families which owned not a foot of land. These landless per-
sons had to pick up a living as they could. One way was by
carrying and selling water from house to house in buckets.
According to the account of the shepherds the new “water-
sucker” would render it so easy to get water that any one
could do it, and the occupation of drawers of water would be
largely gone. It could not be the intention of the benevolent
shepherds to throw a class of workmen out of work. What
form of industry did the shepherds propose to furnish to the
landless class, to compensate them for the loss of their liveli-
hood? At this point the silence was even more impressive
than before. After another pause the village committee re-
turned to their questions. They said that Western inventions
are very ingenious, but that Chinese villagers “attain unto
stupidity.” As long as the Western shepherds were at hand
to explain and to direct the use of the “water-suckers,” all
would doubtless go well; but they had noticed that Western
inventions sometimes had a way of becoming injured by the
tooth of time, or by bad management. Suppose that some—
thing of this sort took place with the “ water-sucker,” and sup-
pose that no shepherd was at hand to repair or replace it, what
should then be done after the villagers had come to depend

48 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

upon it? This recalled the fact that a force-pump had been
tried several years before in Peking, in the deep wells of that
city, but the ﬁne sand clogged the valves, and it had to be
pulled up again! In view of these various considerations, is
it surprising that the somewhat discouraged shepherds gave up
the plan of interfering with Oriental industries, or that the
obligation to the village was ﬁnally acknowledged by the pay-
ment of a sum of money which they used ostensibly for the re—
pair of the rampart around the village, but which really wen"
nobody knows where or to whom ?

VII

THE VILLAGE SHOP

THE Chinese have always divided themselves into the four

classes of scholars, farmers, workmen, and merchants.
Considering their singular penchant for trade, it is a surprise to
ﬁnd them putting traders at the foot of the list.

If any one has an idea that the life of a Chinese dealer is an
easy one, he has a very inaccurate idea indeed, and the smallest
investigation of any speciﬁc case will be sufﬁcient to disabuse
him of it. Indeed there are not many people in China whose
life is an easy one, certainly not the ofﬁcials and the rich, who
are at once the most envied and the most misunderstood per-
sons in the empire.

In Shan-tung, every village of any size has its little “tsa-
huo-p‘u,” or shop of miscellaneous goods. It is not at all like
a huckster’s shop at home, for the goods kept are not intended
to be disposed of at once. Many of them may remain in stock
for many years, but they will probably all be worked off at last.
Occidentals often suppose that the Chinese live on “ curry and
rice.” Very few people in Shan-tung ever tasted rice in their
lives, but there is generally a small quantity kept at the “ tsa-
huo-p‘u ” in case there should be a call for use at feasts, or for
the sick. There is a good supply of red paper used for cards
of invitation, and white paper for funeral announcements, the
need for which must be met promptly, without waiting for a
trip to a distant market-town. Besides this there is a large
stock of ﬁre-crackers which are wanted whenever there is a.
feast-day, a wedding or a funeral, and also paper money and
other materials for the idolatrous ceremonies which these occa-

49

5° VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

sions involve. There are many other kinds of wares, for there
is almost nothing for which a demand may not be made ; but
the greatest proﬁt is derived from the articles last named.

Let not the reader, inexpert in Chinese affairs, suppose that
the keeper of the “ tsa-huo-p‘u ” sits all day in a chair await-
ing customers, or spends the intervals between their infrequent
arrivals in playing Chinese fox and geese or chess. He does
nothing of the kind. If his shop is a very small one it is not
tended at all, but simply open when occasion serves. If it is a
larger affair, it requires the time of more than one person, not
to tend it but to carry on the rural trade. For the larger part
of the business of the “tsa-huo-p‘u ” is not at home, but at
ﬁve-day markets all about. The proprietors of some shops
take their wares to a fair every day in the month, on the ﬁrst
and sixth to one place, on the second and seventh to another,
on the third and eighth to another, and on the ﬁfth and tenth
to still another, by which time the circle is completed. »

Going to one of these markets is no holiday work. It is
necessary to rise either at daylight or before, select the goods to
be taken, pack them carefully, make an accurate list of them,
and then wheel the barrow to the fair, sometimes Over very bad
roads in very bad weather. Arrived at the market—town there
are no stalls or booths for the dealers to occupy, but each plants
himself in a spot for which he has to pay a small ground-rent
to the owner, who is always on hand to collect this rent. All
day long the barrow must be tended assiduously, bickering
with all sorts and conditions of men and women, and when the
people have begun to scatter, the articles must be packed up
again, and the .barrow wheeled home.

Then comes the wearisome taking account of stock, in re-
gard to which the proprietor is exceedingly particular. In
China nobody trusts anybody else, for the excellent reason that
he is aware that in similar circumstances it might not be safe to
trust himself. Hence the owner of the little shop, or some one
who represents him, looks carefully over the goods brought home

 

 

 

 

STRINGS OF CHINESE CASH.

 

 

 

 

PREPARING THE STRINGS.

THE VILLAGE SHOP 51'

and compares them with the invoice made out in the morning.
This is a check upon the temptation to sell some things without
giving an account of them. The sales which have been made
during the day are for small sums only, and as all the cash has
to be counted and strung on hemp cords so as to make the full
string of 1,000 cash (or 500 in some parts of the country),
this counting and stringing of the money takes a great deal of
time, and is very tiresome work when done by the quantity-
though this remark is applicable to most Chinese occupations
viewed from an Occidental point of View.

The employee of the “ tsa—huo—p‘u ” gets his meals when he
can, which is after he has ﬁnished everything which his em-
ployer wants him to do. It is necessary for him to be a rare
hand if he is to be so useful that he will not be sent away if
business is slack when the year closes, or if the proprietor gets
better service from some one else. The supply of labour of
every description, is so excessive, that it is very hard to get a.
place, and harder still to keep it.

A country villager with whom the writer is well acquainted
had too little land to support his family, so he accepted the
offer of a neighbour to help him with the business which he had
lately undertaken. This consisted of sending four wheel-
barrows daily to different villages to sell meat at the markets.
The men who did this had to rise long before daylight in order
to get the meat ready, that is to cut it from the bones, which
are disposed of at a separate rate. The weight of meat on each
barrow had to be entered and also the weight of the bones.
On the return of the barrows at night it was necessary to weigh
what was left from the sales and compare it with the returns of
cash. This must be gone through with for each barrow. The
assistant to the meat-dealer had to keep in all fourteen dz'ﬂermt
account ﬁooks. “ But,” we said to him, “ after the barrows
are gone, and before they come back, there must be a little in-
terval of comparative peace in which you can do what you
like? ” “Alas, no,” was the reply, “it takes all of that time

52 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

to balance up the fourteen entries of the day before ;” and
judging from what one knows of Chinese bookkeeping the time
allowed would not be at all too much. Entries in Chinese ac-
count-books are not set down in columns, so as to be conveniently
added, but strung along a page like stockings on a clothes-line.
Each entry must be treated by itself on the wan-pan or reckon-
ing-board, and there is no check against errors. Our infor-
mant was so tired of his contract that he seized the occasion of
a funeral in a family with which he was connected, and which
he was in theory bound to attend, to break away and make a
brief call on the foreign friend who had generally been able to
sympathize with certain of his previous woes.

A year later the writer met him again, ascertained that he
had abandoned the intricate bookkeeping which selling meat
appeared to involve, for another kind of account-keeping in a
well-to-do family, where there is a good deal of land and much
resulting activity. He was asked if he had any time to read
his book—of which he seemed to be fond—and he replied
with a decisive negative. Not if he got up early? No, indeed,
he had to begin work the minute he was dressed. Not if he
went to bed a little later P Certainly not ; he had to go to bed.
late as it was—no time then. But he might at least snatch a
little leisure while he was eating. “ Far from it,” was the re-
sponse, “the woman who is at the head of affairs takes that
opportunity to consult about the work.”

In the case of ﬁrms having any considerable business, after
the day's work is all over, the clerks are liable to be required
to spend the evening in untying all the numerous strings of cash
that have come in, with a view to the discovery of any rare coins
that might be sold at a special price. All is ﬁsh that comes to
a Chinese net, and sooner or later there is very little that does
not ﬁnd its way there to the proﬁt of its owner. If the time
should ever come, as come it may, when the far-distant West
comes into close and practical competition with the patient
Chinese for the right to exist, one or the other will be behind'

THE VILLAGE SHOP 53

hand in the race and it is safe to venture the prediction that it
will not be the Chinese !

The village shop keeps different kinds of weighing poles for
buying and for selling, works off all its uncurrent cash and bad
bills on any one upon whom it can impose, and generally
drives a hard bargain with those who deal with it, who
retaliate in kind as opportunity offers. But as elsewhere in this
mixed world, much depends upon the individuality of its head
manager.

VIII
THE VILLAGE THEATRE

THAT the Chinese are extravagantly fond of theatrical rep~

resentations, is well known to all who live in China. The
Chinese trace the origin of the stage to the times of the Em-
peror Ming Huang, of the T‘ang Dynasty (died 762) who,
under an alias, is supposed to be worshipped as the god of play-
actors. It is a popular saying that if the players neglect to do
homage to this patron, they will altogether fail in their repre-
sentations, whatever these may be.

With the history of the Chinese stage, we have in this con—
nection no concern. According to the Chinese themselves, it
has degenerated from its ancient function of a censor in morals,
and has become merely a device for the amusement of the
people. It is a remarkable circumstance that while the Chinese
as a people are extravagantly fond of theatrical exhibitions of
all sorts, the profession of play—actor is one of the few which
debars from the privileges of the literary examinations. The
reason for this anomaly is said to be the degradation of the
theatre by pandering to vitiated or even licentious tastes. To
what extent the plays ordinarily acted are of this sort, it is im-
possible for a foreigner to decide. The truth seems to be that
the general (theoretical) contempt for the stage and its actors
in China, is a product of the moral teachings of Confucianism,
which uncompromisingly condemn the perversion of the right
uses of dramatic representation. But while this (theoretical)
view is the one which is constantly met, it is like many other
Confucian doctrines, chieﬂy remarkable for the unanimity with
which it is disregarded in practice.

In what we have to say of Chinese theatres, we must dis-

54

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 55

claim any knowledge of them at ﬁrst hand, that is to say, by
listening to acted plays. There are several obstacles to the ac-
quisition of such knowledge by this method, even were other
difﬁculties lacking. Most Chinese plays are laid out upon so
extravagant a scale, as regards time, that they may be spread
over many hours, or possibly several days. The most inde-
fatigable European could not listen to the entire performance
of any one of them, without becoming utterly exhausted. The
dialect in which the actors speak is so different from the spoken
language, that it is hard to form an idea of what they are say-
ing. The tone adopted is that shrill falsetto, which is not only
fatiguing to an Occidental hearer, but almost of necessity unin-
telligible.

When to these embarrassments are added the excruciating
music, the discomfort attending the dense crowds, and the uni-
versal confusion which is an invariable concomitant of a Chinese
theatre, it is not strange that these representations have for
Westerners very few attractions, after the ﬁrst glance has satis-
ﬁed curiosity. This indifference on our part is almost unintel-
ligible to the Chinese. That a foreign traveller, who is told of
a theatre in full blast at the town at which he expects to spend
the night, should feel no joy, but should deliberately push on
so as to avoid spending the night at that place—this is to the
Chinese profoundly incomprehensible.

Except in a few large cities, the Chinese have no theatres in
our sense of the term, provided with seats and enclosed by
walls and roof. The stage is a very simple affair, and is en-
tirely open to inspection. Sometimes it is built like a temple
with an open front. But by far the larger part of the rural rep-
resentations of theatrical companies take place on a tem-
porary scaffolding which is put up for the purpose the night
before the plays begin, and is taken down the moment the last
play closes. The players resemble their ancient Grecian proto-
types in that they are a migratory band, going wherever they
are able to ﬁnd an engagement.

56 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

The stage equipments, like the stage itself, are of the simplest
order, the spectator being required to supply by his imagination
most of those adjuncts in the way of scenery, which in our
days, are carried to such perfection in the theatres of the West.
There is no division of a play into separate acts or scenes, and
what cannot be inferred from the dress, or the pantomime
of the actors, they must expressly tell to the audience, as for
example who they are, what they have been doing, and the
like. The orchestra is an indispensable accompaniment of a
theatrical representation, and not only bursts into every in—
terval of the acting, but also clangs with ferocity at such stir-
ring scenes as a battle attack, or to add energy to any ordinary
event.

Apropos of this resemblance between the. Greek stage and
the Chinese, which must have struck many observers, Mr. H.
E. Krehbiel (in an article published in the Century for January,
1891) has declared that “ the Chinese drama is today in
principle a lyric drama, as much so as the Greek tragedy was.
The moments of intense feeling are accentuated, not merely by
accompanying music, as in our melodrama, but by the actor
breaking out into song. The crudeness and impotency of the
song in our ears has nothing to do with the argument. It is a
matter of heredity in taste.”

The village theatrical company owes its existence to some
rich man, who selects this as a form of investment. As all the
available land in the greater portion of China is wholly out of
the market, it is not easy for one who has more money than he
can conveniently use to decide what to do with it. If he should
go into the theatrical business, it is not necessarily with the ex-
pectation that the money will yield him a large return, but in
order to provide a popular amusement for a great number of
people, and at the same time receive a larger or smaller interest
on the amount invested. '

The person whose capital is used in the costumes, which are
the main part of the outﬁt of a Chinese theatre, is called the

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 57

"Master of the chest.” The whole outﬁt may be leased of
him by an association of persons, who pay a ﬁxed sum for the
use of the costumes, which must be kept in good condition. In
a ﬁrst-class theatre, these costumes are very costly, and include
what are called “dragon robes,” and “python robes,” each
with double sets of inner garments, of ﬁne quality, and hand-
somely embroidered. Of these there are at least two suits, ﬁve
suits of armour, and numberless other articles of clothing, such
as trousers, skirts, boots, buskins, etc. Another “ chest ” con-
tains the accoutrements of the players, as swords, spears, and
the like, made of gilded wood.

The value of all these various equipments, in a well~furnished
theatre, is said to be fully $5,000, and in those of the cheaper
sorts, two-thirds or half as much. Each of the three “chests ”
in which the stage accoutrements are stored, is in charge of
three men, who are responsible for the security and the care of
the contents of the cases.

The players are divided into classes which are called by dif-
ferent names, the members of each class receiving pay accord—
ing to the dignity of their position. There are, for example,
two individuals, one civil and one military, who represent high-
class historical characters, like Chiang T‘ai—kung, etc. These
actors are called lao-s/zéﬂg. Another class styled Int-sizing,
represent personages like W’en Wang, or Chao K‘uang-yin. A
third class are assigned to characters like Lii Pu, etc., and
these players are called lzsz'ao-slzéng. In addition to these are
persons of less importance, who represent ladies, ofﬁcials'
wives, young girls, or others. After these come what may be
called clowns, who are termed “ ﬂowery-faced," (bud-lien)
subdivided into ﬁrst, second and third. These represent the
bad characters, such as Chou Wang, Ts‘ao Ts‘ao, and the like,
down to the lowest class who take the most despised and hate-
ful parts of all. In addition to these main characters, there is
a considerable force detailed as soldiers, servants, messengers,
or to personify boatmen, innkeepers, and the like. The rear

58 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

is brought up with a large staff of cooks, water-carriers, etc.,
whose duty it is to provide for the material comfort of the
players in their vagrant life.

Aside from the regular theatrical companies one frequently
meets with companies of amateurs who have inherited the art
of giving performances on a small scale called “ a little theatre.”
They are young farmers who delight in the change and excite-
ment of stage life, and who after the crops are harvested are
open to engagements until the spring work begins. There may
be only ﬁfteen or twenty in the band, but the terms are low,
and the food furnished them much better than they would have
had at home, and when the season is over they may be able to
divide a snug little sum to each performer.

The manager, or lessee of the theatrical equipment, is called
a (hang-pan, and engages the players for a term of about ten
months, beginning early in the spring, and ending before the
close of the year. The whole company may number between
ﬁfty and a hundred men, and the best actors may be engaged
for sums ranging from the equivalent of a hundred dollars for
the most skilled, down to a few tens of dollars for the inferior
actors, their food in each case being furnished. It is thus easy
to see that the expense of maintaining a theatre is a vast drain
upon the resources of the lessee, and presupposes a constant
succession of proﬁtable engagements, which is a presupposition
not infrequently at a great remove from the facts of ex-
perience.

The lessee of the theatre supplies himself with the material
for the development of actors, by taking children on contract,
or apprenticeship, for a ﬁxed period (often three years) accord-
ing to a written agreement. At the end of their apprenticeship,
these pupils are at liberty to engage in any company which they
may elect, for whatever they can get, but during their term of
indenture, their time belongs to the man who has leased them
of their parents. The motive for such a contract on the part
of the parents, is to secure a. support for the children. Some'

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 59

times children run away from home and make engagements on
their own account, attracted by the supposed freedom of the
player’s life.

The amount which each child receives during the time of his
apprenticeship, is the merest pittance, and it is said that in
three months at most he can learn all that it is necessary for
him to know. A large part of his duties will be to strut about
on the stage, and mouth more or less unintelligible sentences in
a grandiloquent tone. If the number of plays in which he ap-
pears is large, the tax upon the memory may be considerable,
but Chinese children can learn by rote with amazing facility,
and constant practice must in a short time ﬁx in his memory
everything which the young actor requires to remember.

From an Occidental point of view, it would be hard to ima-
gine anything more remote from a life of pleasure, than the
constant locomotion, routine drudgery, uncertain and inade-
quate remuneration of the average Chinese actor. We have
never met one who did not admit that it was a bad life. A
leading Japanese actor is quoted as saying that the popular
notions in regard to the theatre of that country—which is prob-
ably in many respects analogous to that of China—are as dif-
ferent from the reality, as clouds from mud. “ The hardships
endured are as the suffering of Hades, and the world is not
beneﬁted a fraction by the actors’ exertion, so they are not
useful to society. It is a life to fear and to dread.” There
are probably very few Chinese actors who have progressed so
far as to entertain, even for a moment, the thought whether
their work is a good or an evil to “ society.”

It is not uncommon to hear of an exceptionally intelligent
District Magistrate who issues proclamations strictly forbidding
theatrical performances within his jurisdiction, cxhorting the
people to save their funds to buy grain and relieve the poor, or
to set up public schools. But the only way to enforce these
sensible orders of an unusually paternal ofﬁcial, is for him to
make constant personal inspection, and see that his commands

60 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

are heeded. Otherwise, a sum of money judiciously spent at
the yamén, will buy complete immunity from punishment.
Free schools and charity are too tame for the taste of the peo-
ple, who demand something “ hot—and-bustling,” which a the-
atrical performance most decidedly is.

It is one of the contradictions which abound in the Chinese
social life, that while play-actors are theoretically held in very
light esteem, the representation of a play is considered as a
great honour to the person on whose behalf it is furnished. In-
stances have occurred in China, in which such a representation
has been offered by the Chinese to foreigners, as an expression
of gratitude for help received in time of famine. The motives
in such cases, however were probably very mixed, being com-
posed largely of a desire on the part of the proposers to gratify
their own tastes, while at the same time paying off in a public
manner a technical debt of gratitude.

To suggest under such circumstances that the money which
would have been absorbed in the expenses of the theatre,
should rather be appropriated to the purposes of some public
beneﬁt, such as a free-school, would not commend itself to one
Chinese in a thousand. Only a limited number of scholars
could receive the beneﬁt of a free-school, whereas a theatre is
emphatically for everybody. Moreover, a theatre is demon-
strative and obtrusively thrusts itself upon the attention of the
general public in a manner which to the Oriental is exceedingly
precious, while to set up a free—school would be “to wear a
ﬁne garment in the dark,” when no one would know the dif-
ference.

The occasion for the performance of a play is sometimes a
vow, which may have been made by an individual in time of
sickness, the theatricals to be the expression of gratitude for re-
covery. In the case of an entire village, it is often the return-
ing of thanks to some divinity for a good harvest, or for a
timely rain. A quarrel between individuals is frequently com-
posed by the adjudication of “peace-talkers ” that one of the

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 61

parties shall give a theatrical exhibition by way of a ﬁne, in the
beneﬁts of which the whole community may thus partake. In
view of the well—known propensities of the Chinese, it is not
strange that this method of adjusting disputes is very popular.
We have known it to be adopted by a District Magistrate in
settling a lawsuit between two villages, and such cases are prob-
ably not uncommon.

Sometimes there is no better reason for holding a theatre
than that a sum of public money has accumulated, which there
is no other way to spend. A foreigner could easily propose
ﬁfty purposes to which the funds could be appropriated to
much better advantage, but to the Chinese these suggestions
always appear untimely, not to say preposterous.

When it has been determined to engage a theatre, the first
step is to draw up a written agreement with the manager, speci-
fying the price. This will vary from a sum equivalent to
twenty-ﬁve dollars, upto several hundred dollars. The former
amount is, indeed, a bottom price, and would be offered only
to a very inferior company, which might be forced to accept it,
or even a less sum, as better in a slack season than no engage-
ment at all. During the time of the year, on the contrary, in
which the demand for theatricals is at the maximum, a com-
pany may have offers from several villages at once. Rather
than lose the double proﬁt to be made, the troupe is often di-
vided, and a number of amateurs engaged to take the vacant
places, thus enabling the company to be in two places at the
same date.

It is a common proverb that the country villager who wit-
nesses a theatre, sees only a great hubbub, a generalisation
strictly within the truth. It is upon this ignorance of the
villager that the theatrical manager presumes when he furnishes
an inferior representation, instead of the one for which his con-
tract calls. But if the villager ascertains the fraud, consisting
either in deﬁciency of players or inferior acting, he rises in
democratic majesty, and “ ﬁnes ” the company an extra day or

62 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

two, or even three days, of playing as a penalty, and from this
decision it would be vain to appeal.

The individual who communicates with the Village which
hires the theatrical company, and who receives the money, is
called the program bearer (“pan-tan ti”). The scorn in
which theatrical folk are supposed to be held, appears to be re-
served for this one individual alone. He makes arrangements
for the conveyance of all the trunks containing the equipment
from the previous place of playing, to the next one, and espe-
cially for the transportation of the staging.

In inland regions, where it is necessary to use animals, it re-
quires a great many carts to move about so much lumber, which
must be done with great expedition in order not to waste a day,
at a time when engagements are numerous ; and, even to a Chi-
nese, time is precious, because the food and pay of so many
persons have to be taken into the account. The carts for this
hauling are provided by the village which is to enjoy the ex-

hibition, being often selected by lot. Sometimes, however, a
small tax is levied on all the land in the village, and the carts
are hired.

The day previous to a theatre in any village is a busy one.
Great quantities of mats are provided, and in a short time
some barren spot on the outskirts of the hamlet begins to as—
sume the appearance of an impromptu settlement; for aside
from the theatre itself, great numbers of small mat-sheds are put
up to be used for cook—shops, tea~shops, gambling-booths, and the
like. During the day, even if the village is but a small one,
the appearance is that of the scene of a very large fair.

In the larger towns, where fairs are held at more or less
regular intervals, it is usual, as already mentioned, to begin
them with a theatrical exhibition, on the ﬁrst day of which
hardly any business will be done, the attendants being mainly
occupied in gazing at or listening to the play. In such cases
the attendants can frequently be safely estimated at more
than 10,000 persons. In large fairs there is generally a per-

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 63

formance every day as long as the fair holds, an arrangement
which is found to be very remunerative from a ﬁnancial point
of view in attracting attendance, and therefore customers.

From a social point of view, the most interesting aspect of
Chinese village theatricals is the impression which is produced
upon the people as a whole. This impression may be feebly
likened to that which is made upon children in Western lands,
by the immediate imminence of Christmas, or in the United
States by the advent of a Fourth of July. To theatrical holi-
days in China every other mundane interest must give way.

As soon as it is certain that a particular village is to have a
theatre, the whole surrounding country is thrown into a quiver
of excitement. Visits by young married women to their moth-
ers’ homes, always occasions to both mothers and daughters
of special importance, are for a long time beforehand arranged
with sole reference to the coming great event. All the schools
in all the neighbouring villages expect at such times a holiday*~
during the whole continuance of the theatricals. Should the
teacher be so obstinate as to refuse it (which would never be
the case, as he himself wishes to see the play) that circum-
stance would make no difference, for he would ﬁnd himself
Wholly deserted by all his pupils.

It is not only brides who take advantage of this occasion to
visit their relatives, but in general it may be said that when a
village gives a theatrical representation, it must count upon
being visited, during the continuance of the same, by every
man, woman and child, who is related to any inhabitant of the
village and who can possibly be present. Every Chinese family
has a perfect swarm of relatives of all degrees, and the time
of a theatrical performance is an excellent opportunity to look
in upon one’s friends. Whether these friends and relatives
have been invited or not, will make no difference. In the case
of ordinary villagers, the visitors would come even if they knew
for certain that they'were not wanted.

It has frequently been remarked that hospitality as such can-

64 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

not be said to be a characteristic Chinese virtue, although there
is at all times such a parade of it. But whatever one’s feelings
may be, it is necessary to keep up the pretence of overﬂowing
hospitality, so that whoever comes to the yard must be pressed
'to stay to a meal and to spend the night, however anxious the
host may be to get rid of him. On ordinary occasions, guests
will not stay without such an amount of urging as may sufﬁce
to show that the invitation is (land ﬁde, but during the contin-
uance of a theatre it often makes very little difference how
lacking the host may be in cordiality, the guests will probably
decide to stay, as the play must I}: seen.

It is by no means an uncommon thing to ﬁnd that in a vil-
lage which has engaged a theatrical troupe, every family is
overrun with such visitors, to such a degree that there is not
space enough for them to lie down at night, so that they are
forced to spend it in sitting up and talking, which may be easily
conceived to be an excellent preparation for the fatiguing duties
of the morrow. As a theatre seldom lasts less than three days,
and sometimes more than four, it can be imagined what a tax
is laid upon the village which is overrun. When it is consid-
ered that every married woman who returns to her home, as
well as every woman who visits any relative, always brings all
of her young children, and that the latter consider it their
privilege to scramble for all that they can get of whatever is
to be had in the way of food, it is obvious that the poor house-
keeper is subjected to a tremendous strain, to which the severest
exigencies of Western life afford very few analogies.

The cost of feeding such an army of visitors is a very serious
one, and to the thrifty Chinese it seems hard that fuel which
would ordinarily last his family for six months, must be burnt
up in a week, to “ roast ” water, and cook food for people whom
he never invited, and most of whom he never wished to see.
It is a moderate estimate that the expense of entertainment is
ten times the cost of the theatre itself, realizing the familiar
saying that it is not the horse which costs but the saddle.

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 65

The vast horde of persons who are attracted to the village
which has a theatre, has among its numbers many disreputable
characters, against whom it is necessary for the villagers to be
constantly upon their guard. For this reason, as well as on ac-
count of the necessity for being on hand to took after the
swarms of guests, the people of the village have little or no
opportunity to see the play themselves. Guests and thieves
occupy all their time 1 Eternal vigilance is the price at which
one’s property is to be protected, and the more one has to lose,
the less he will be able to enjoy himself, until the danger is
over. It is a common observation that, after a theatrical per-
formance, there is not likely to be a single chicken left in a
village. To prevent them from being stolen by the expert
chicken-thieves, the villagers must dispose of their fowls in
advance.

Such being the conditions under which the Chinese village
theatre is held, it is surprising that so great a number of theat-
rical troupes contrive to make a living—such as it is—out of
so precarious an occupation, which is likely to fail altogether
during years of famine or ﬂood (never few in number), and
also during the whole of each period of imperial mourning,
when actors are often reduced to extreme misery. One reason
for their passionate attachment to the theatre, must be found in
the fact that for the Chinese people there are very few
available amusements, and for the mass of the country people
there is literally nothing to which they can look forward as a
public recreation, except a few feast days (often only two or
three in the year), the large fairs with accompanyingtheatric-
3.15, or theatricals without fairs.

It is evident that a form of exhibition which is so much
valued by the Chinese, may become an important agency in in-
ﬂaming the minds of the people. This is at times undoubtedly
the case. Many instances have come to the knowledge of
foreigners, in which theatricals representing the Tientsin mas-
sacre or some similar event, have been acted in the interior of

66 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

China. In some cases this is doubtless done with the conniv-
ance of the magistrates, and it is easy to see that the effect
upon the minds of the people must be very unfavourable, if it
is held to be desirable to maintain among the Chinese respect
for foreigners.

In China, as in other lands, it is easy for theatrical represenJ
tations to deal with current events which have a general interest.
In a certain case of warfare involving two different Counties, as
to the right to make a bank to prevent inundation, several lives
were lost and a formidable lawsuit resulted. The occurrences
were of such a dramatic character that they were woven into a
play, which was very popular at a little distance from the scene
of the original occurrence.

The representation of historical events, by Chinese theatres,
may be said to be one of the greatest obstacles to the acquisi-
tion of historical knowledge by the people. Few persons read
histories, while every one hears plays, and While the history is
forgotten because it is dull, the play is remembered because it
is amusing. Theatricals, it is scarcely necessary to remark, do
not deal with historical events from the standpoint of accuracy,
but from that of adaptation to dramatic effect. The result is
the greatest confusion in the minds of the common people, both
as to what has really happened in the past, and as to when it
took place, and for all practical purposes, fact and ﬁction are
indistinguishable.

Among the most popular Chinese plays, are those which deal
with everyday life, in its practical forms. Cheap and badly
printed books, in the forms of tracts, containing the substance.
of these plays, are everywhere sold in great numbers, and aid
in familiarizing the people with the plots.

Our notice of the Chinese drama may fitly conclude with a
synopsis of one of these librettos, which contains a play of
general celebrity, to which references are constantly made in
popular speech. It is said to have been composed by a native
of Shan-hsi, and is designed as a satire upon the condition of

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 67

society in which, as so often in China at the present day,
it is almost impossible for a teacher, theoretically the most
honoured of beings, to keep himself from starvation.

It is a current proverb that in the province of Shan-tung, the
number of those who wish to teach school is in excess of those
who can read! The scene of this play is therefore appropri-
ately laid in the land of the sages Confucius and Mencius, and
in a district within the jurisdiction of the capital, Chi-nan Fu.

The characters are only two in number, a teacher called Ho
Hsien-sheng who is out of employment, and reduced to ex-
treme distress, and a patron named Li, who wishes to engage a
master for his boys, aged nine and eleven. The teacher’s re-
marks are mixed with extensive quotations from the Classics, as
is the manner of Chinese schoolmasters, who wish to convey
an impression of their great learning. He afﬁrms that his suc-
cess in instruction is such that he will guarantee that his pupils
shall reach the ﬁrst degree of lzsz'u-tr‘az', or Bachelor, in three
years, the second of 552272971, or Master, in six, and attain to
the eminence of chin-312171, or Doctor, in twelve.

The teacher begins by a poetical lament that he had lost his
place as a teacher, and that a scholar so situated is far worse off
than a handicraftsman, who, he says, has always enough to eat.
After this, the teacher comes on the stage, crying out like a
peddler, “ Teach School 1 Teach School ! ” Upon this Li
comes forward, suggests that a man who offers to teach prob-
ably knows at least how [to read, and explains that he feels the
need of some one in the family who can decipher the tax bills,
etc., but that he really cannot afford the expense of a teacher
for his children. , '

He explains that his boys are dull, that the food of the
teacher—the bill of fare of which he details—will be poor and
coarse. There will be only two meals a day, to save expense,
and at night there will be no ﬁre. The coverlet is a torn dog~
skin, no mat on the bed, only a little straw, and no pillow.
The salary is to be but 8,000 cash a year, but this is subject to

68 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

a discount, 800 counting for 1,000. The teacher is never to
leave the schoolyard while school is in session.

The school will be held in a temple, hitherto occupied by
nuns. These will be removed to a side room, and the teacher
will be required to strike the bell, sweep out the building, and
perform the other necessary services on the ﬁrst and ﬁfteenth
of each month, and these duties must be executed with punc-
tilious care. He is also cautioned not to allow his morals to be
contaminated by the nuns whose reputation is so proverbially
bad. None of his salary will be paid in advance, and a pro
rata deduction will be made for every day of absence. During
the summer rains the teacher must carry the children to school
upon his back, that they may not spoil their clothes and make
their mother trouble. Whenever school has been dismissed,
the teacher is to carry water, work on the threshing ﬂoor, take
care of the children, grind in the mill, and do all and every-
thing which may be required of him. To all the foregoing
conditions, the teacher cheerfully assents, and declares himself
ready to sign an agreement upon these terms for the period of
ten years 1

Perhaps the most instructive aspect of Chinese theatricals, is
that which takes account of them as indicts to the theory of
life which they best express, a theory in which most Chinese are
ﬁrm, albeit unconscious, believers. It is a popular saying that
“ The whole world is only a stageplay ; why then should men
take life as real?” It is in strict accordance with this View,
that the Chinese frequently appear as if psychologically
incapable of discriminating between practical realities which are
known to be such, and theoretical “realities " which, if mat-
ters are pushed to extremities, are admit-ted to be ﬁctitious.

The spectacular theory of life is never for a moment lost
sight of in China, and it demands a tribute which is freely, un-
consciously, continually, and universally paid. It is upon this
theory that a large proportion of Chinese revelling is based, the
real meaning being, “ You have Wronged me, but I am not

THE VILLAGE THEATRE 69

afraid of you, and I call upon all men to witness that I defy
you.” It is this theory upon which are grounded nine-tenths
of the acts which the Chinese describe as being done “ to save
face,” that is, to put the actor right with the spectators, and to
prove to them that he is able to play his part and that he knows
well what that part is. Never, surely, was it more true of any
land than of China, that

“ All the world’s a stage,
And. all the men and women merely players."

IX

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS

THE prominent place given to education in China renders

the Chinese village school an object of more than com-
mon interest, for it is here that by far the greater number of
the educated men of the empire receive their ﬁrst intellectual
training. While the schools of one district may be a little bet-
ter or worse than those of another, there is probably no country
in the world where there is so much uniformity in the stand-
ards of instruction, and in all its details, as in China.

There are in the Chinese Classics several passages which
throw an interesting light upon the views which have been
handed down from antiquity in regard to the education of chil-
dren. One of these is found in the writings of Mencius. Upon
one occasion he was asked why the superior man does not
teach his own son. To this Mencius replied that the circum-
stances of the case forbid it. The teacher should inculcate
what is correct. When he does so, and his lessons are not
practiced, he follows it up by being angry. Thus he is alienated
from his son who complains to himself that his father teaches
one thing and practices another. As a result the estrangement
becomes mutual and deepens. Between father and son, said
Mencius, there should be no repr0ving admonitions to what is
good, because these lead to such alienations The ancients, he
declared, exchanged sons, and one taught the son of another.

Another signiﬁcant passage is found in the Confucian Ana-
lects, and is as follows, quoting, as before, Dr. Legge’s transla-
tion, “Ch‘en K‘ang asked Po Yii, the son of Confucius, say-
ing, ‘ Have you heard any lessons from your father, different

70

l

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 71

from what we have all heard P ' Po Yﬁ replied, ‘ No ; he was
once standing alone when I hurriedly passed below the hall, and
he said to me, “ Have you learned the Odes P ” on my replying,
“ not yet," he added, “ If you do not learn the Odes, you will
not be ﬁt to converse with.” I retired and studied the Odes.
Another day he was in the same way standing alone, when I
hastily passed below the hall, and he said to me, “ Have you
learned the Rules of Propriety P ” on my replying, “ not yet,” he
added, “ If you do not learn the Rules of Propriety, your char-
acter cannot be established.” I then retired and studied the
Rules of Propriety. I have heard only these two things from
him.’ Ch‘én K‘ang retired, delighted, saying, ‘ I asked
about one thing, and I have got three things. I have heard
about the Odes, I have heard about the Rules of Propriety, and
I have heard that the superior man maintains a distant reserve
toward his son.’ "

Confucius was a master who felt himself to be in possession
of great truths of which his age was in deep need, and he of-
fered his instructions to rich and poor alike, upon the sole con-
dition of receptivity. “ I do not open up the truth,” he said,
“ to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any
one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have pre-
sented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from
it learn the other three, I do not repeat the lesson.” For aught
that appears, the son of Confucius was wholly dependent for
whatever he knew or received, upon his father. According to
Confucius, an acquaintance with the Odes, and with the Rules
of Propriety, form a very considerable part of the equipment of
a scholar. They embrace such subjects as could be compre-
hended and assimilated, one would suppose, only by the as-
sistance of a competent teacher. That in the education of his
own son, Confucius should have contented himself with a
casual question, and a single hint, as to the pursuit of those
branches which were in his eyes of preeminent importance, is a
circumstance so singular that if it were not handed down upon

72 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the same authority as the other facts in the life of the sage, we
might be disposed to doubt its credibility.

The theory upon which the master acted is happily epito—
mized by Chen K‘ang—“ distant reserve.” Even to his own
son the superior man is a higher grade of being, whose slightest
word contains fruitful seeds of instruction. He expects his
pupil to act upon a hint as if it were the formal announcement
of a law of nature. He is the sun around whom his planets re-
volve, in orbits proportioned to the force of the central attrac-
tion—an attraction which varies with the capacity to be at-
tracted. Yet in every case there is a point beyond which no
pupil can go, he must .not come too near his sun.

According to Occidental thought, the ideal of teaching is
exempliﬁed in the methods of such educators as Dr. Arnold,
of Rugby, whose stimulating inﬂuence was felt over an entire
generation. Upon the plan of Confucius it is difﬁcult to see,
not how he could have won the love of his pupils—which was
probably remote from his thought and from theirs—but how he
could have permanently impressed himself upon any except the
very apt. Few are the pupils, we may be sure, who after a
chance question and a remark will retire and study unaided a
branch of learning which, they are told, will :nable them to
converse, or to “ establish ” their characters.

Contrast with this method of Confucius that of James Mill,
as detailed in the autobiography of his son, John Stuart Mill.
Here was a father, not a professional philosopher, but a man of
business, who amid the composition of historical and other
works, found time to superintend the education of his son from
the days of earliest infancy until mature manhood, not in the
ancient language only, but in history, philosophy, political
economy, composition, and even in elocution, and all with
comprehensiveness of plan, a labourious and unwearying persist-
ence in teaching principles and not rules, combined with scru-
pulous ﬁdelity in minutest details. By this patient assiduity and
his father’s skillful direction, Mill was given a start over his

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 73

contemporaries, as he himself remarks, of at least a quarter of
a century, and became one of the most remarkably educated
men of whom we have any record. One could wish that to
his “imaginary conversations of literary men and statesmen,”
Walter Savage Landor had added a chapter giving a dia-
logue between Confucius and James Mill, “ on distant reserve
as a factor in the education of sons.” -

It is far from being the fact that every Chinese village has its
school, but it is doubtless true that every village would like to
have one, for there is everywhere the most profound reverence
for “instruction.” The reasons given for the absence of a
school are always that the village is too poor, or too small, or
both.

In China every educated man is a potential schoolmaster,
and most of those who have the opportunity to do so take a
school.) It is one of the allegorical sayings of the ﬂowery land
that “in the ink-slab ﬁelds there are no bad crops,” which
signiﬁes that literature is a vocation standing upon a ﬁrmer
basis than any other. This is the theory. As a matter of fact
the Chinese teacher is often barely able to keep soul and body
together, and is frequently obliged to borrow garments in which
to appear before his patrons. His learning may have ﬁtted
him to teach a school, or it may not. It has completely unﬁtted
him to do anything else. It is therefore a period of great anx-
iety to the would-be pedagogue when the school cards are in
preparation.

“ When the ground is clean, and the threshing-ﬂoor bare,
The teacher’s heart is ﬁlled with care,”

says the proverb, and another adage is current, to the effect
that if one has a few bags of grain on hand, he is not obliged to
be king over children.

To the enormous oversupply of school—teachers, it is clue that
one of the most honourable of callings is at the same time one

7'4 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

of the most ill-paid. Teachers of real ability, or who have in‘
some way secured a great reputation, are able to command sal-
aries in proportion ; but the country schoolmaster, who can
compete for a situation within a very small area only, is often
remunerated with but a mere pittance—an allowance of grain
supposed to be adequate for his food, a supply of dried stalks
for fuel, and a sum in money, frequently not exceeding ten
Mexican dollars for the year. It is not very uncommon to
meet teachers who have but one or two pupils, and who receive
for their services little or nothing more than their food. To
the natural inquiry whether it was worth his while to teach for
such a slender compensation, a schoolmaster of this class re-
plied, that it was better than staying at home with nothing to
eat. It is a current saying that the rich never teach school,
and the poor never attend one—though to this there are excep-
tions. It is a strange fact that one occasionally meets school-
masters who have never studied anything beyond the Four
Books, and who therefore know nothing of the Five Classics, an
outﬁt comparable to that of a Western teacher who should only
have perused his arithmetic as far as simple division!

The proposition to have a school is made by the parents of
the children, and when it is ascertained that a sufﬁcient num-
ber of names can be secured, these are entered on a red card,
called a school list (ham-tam). This is generally prepared by
the time of the winter solstice (December zlst), though some-
times the matter is left in abeyance until the very end of the
year, some six weeks later. On the other hand, in some regions,
it is customary to have the school card ready by the 15th of the
eighth moon, some time in August or September. The choice
of a teacher, like many other things Chinese, is very much a
matter of chance. It seems to be rather uncommon that a
scholar should teach in his own village, though this does often
happen. The reason generally given for this is that it is incon-
venient for the pupils to be too near an ex-preceptor who may
make demands upon them in later years. Sometimes the same

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SO-IOLARS 75

teacher is engaged for a long series of years, while in other
places there is an annual change. ‘

Once the pupil’s name has been regularly entered upon the
school list, he must pay the tuition agreed upon, whether he
ever attends the school or not, no matter what the reason for
his absence.

Should serious illness prevent the teacher from beginning his
duties at all, the engagement is cancelled; but if he enters
upon them, and is then disabled, the full tuition is exacted
from every scholar, just as if the engagement had been com-
pleted.

The wish of the school patron is to get as much work as he
can out of the teacher for the money paid him. The endeav-
our of the teacher is to get as much money as he can, and to
do as little work as he must. For this reason he is always glad
to have the names added after the school list has been made
out, because that will increase his receipts. The patrons fre-
quently object to this, because they think their own children
will be neglected, and unless all the patrons consent the addi-
tion cannot be made. They also d'islike to have the teacher
bring a son or a nephew with him, lest the slender salary should
be insufﬁcient for the food of both. In that event the master
might abandon the school before the year is over, as sometimes
occurs, but such teachers ﬁnd it difﬁcult to secure another
school the following year.

The schoolhouse is an unoccupied room in a private house,
an ancestral, or other temple, or any other available place bor-
rowed for the purpose. Renting a place for a school seems to
be almost or quite unknown. The teacher does his own cook-
ing, or if he is unequal to this task, he is assisted by one of his
pupils, perhaps his own son, whom he often brings with him,
albeit, as already mentioned, there is classical authority against
having a son taught by a father.

The furniture required for each pupil is provided by his
parents, and consists simply of a table and a stool or bench.

76 VILLAGE LIFE IN mm)

The four “ precious articles” required in literature are the ink-
slab with a little well to hold the water required to rub up the
ink, the ink-cake, the brush for writing, and paper.

The Chinese school year is coincident with the calendar
year, though the school does not begin until after the middle
of the ﬁrst moon, some time in February. There is a vacation
at the wheat harvest in June, and another and longer one at
the autumnal harvest in September and October. The school
is furthermore dismissed ten or twenty days before the new
year.

Should the master not have been reéngaged he is likely to
do very little teaching during the last moon of the year, as he
is much more interested in arranging for the future than in
piecing out the almost dead present. The attendance of the
scholars, too, is in any case irregular and capricious, amply
justifying the saying: '

“ Once entered at the twelfth month’s door,
The teacher rules his boys no more.”

Chinese education is based upon the wisdom of the ancients,
and of those ancients Confucius is held to be the chief. It is
natural, therefore, that upon the beginning of a school there
should be special respect paid to the Great Sage who is re-
garded as the patron of learning. Usages vary so much that
no generalizations are ever safe in China, but it is a singular
fact that instead of the altar, incense, candles, and formal
prayers to Confucius, which in some parts of the empire are in
use at the beginning of a year’s school, in the province of Con-
fucius himself the ceremonies are for the most part much
simpler. At the feast to the teacher by the patrons, the scholars
are introduced and make two obeisances, one meant for Con-
fucius, and the other for the present preceptor. In this case
there is not only no image of the Sage, but no written charac-
ter to represent him. And even this modest ceremony is far
from universal; A teacher of twenty-ﬁve or thirty years’ ex-

 

 

 

 

THRESHING.

 

 

 

AN AFTERNOON SIESTA.

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 77

perience declared that he had never seen this performed but
once.

The scholars in a Chinese school are expected to be on hand
at an early hour, and by sunrise they are, perhaps, howling
vigourously away. When it is time for the morning meal they
return to their homes, and as soon as it is ﬁnished, again return.
About noon they are released for dinner, after which they go
back as before to school. If the weather is hot, every one else
-—men, women, and children—is indulging in the afternoon
siesta, but the scholars are in their places as usual, although
they may he suffered to doze at their desks as well as they can,
for half the rest of the day. In this way the discipline of the
school is supposed to be maintained, and some allowance made
at the same time for poor human nature. Were they allowed
to take a regular nap at home, the teacher fears with excellent
reason that he would see no more of them for the day.

If Chinese pupils are to be pitied in the dog-days, the same
is even more true of the dead of winter, when the thermometer
hovers between the freezing-point and zero. The village school
will very likely have either no ﬁre at all, or only such as is
made by a pile of kindling or a bundle of stalks lit on the earth
floor, modifying the temperature but for a few moments, and
ﬁlling the room with acrid smoke for an hour. Even should
there be a little brazier with a rudimentary charcoal ﬁre, it is
next to useless, and is mainly for the behoof of the master.
The pupils will be found (if they can afford such luxuries) en-
veloped in long winter hoods, sitting all day in a state of semi—
congelation.

They generally do not leave the schoolhouse until it is too
dark to distinguish one character from another. When at
length the scholars are released, it is not for a healthful walk,
much less for a romp, but to return to their homes in an orderly
and becoming manner, like so many grown Confucianists. In
some schools the scholars are expected to come back in the
evening to their tasks, as if the long and wearisome day were

1

78 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

not suﬂicient for them, and this is, perhaps, universally the
case in the advanced schools where composition is studied.

According to the Chinese theory, the employment of teacher
is the most honourable possible. Confucius and Mencius, the
great sages of antiquity, were only teachers. To invite a
teacher, is compared to the investiture of a general by the
emperor with supreme command. In consequence of this
theory, springing directly from the exalted respect for learning
entertained by the Chinese, a master is allowed almost un-
limited control. According to a current proverb, the relation
of teacher and pupil resembles that of father and son, but the
simile of a general would be a more correct expression of a
teacher's powers. He is able to declare a sort of martial law,
and to punish with the greatest rigour.

One of the earliest lines in the Trimetrical Classic declares
that “to rear without instruction, is a father’s fault”; “to
teach without severity, shows a teacher’s indolence.” It is
common for boys to run away, sometimes to great distances, be-
cause they have been punished at school. The writer was told
by a man in middle life that when he was a lad he had been
beaten by a preceptor of the same surname, because that teacher
had himself been beaten as a child by the pupil’s grandfather,
the grudge being thus carried on to the third generation l The
ferule always lies upon the teacher’s desk, and serves also as a
tally. Whenever a scholar goes out, he takes this with him,
and is supposed to be inﬂuenced by the legend upon one side,
“go out reverentially,” and upon the other, “enter respect-V
fully.” Two pupils are not allowed to go out at the same
time.

The most ﬂagrant offence which a pupil can commit is the
persistent failure to learn his task within the allotted time. ‘F or
this misdemeanour he is constantly punished, and often to the
extent of hundreds of blows. Considering how little correc-
tion is ever administered to Chinese children at home, and how
slight are the attempts at anything resembling family govern-

 

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 79

ment, it is surprising to What extreme lengths teachers are
allowed to carry discipline. Bad scholars, and stupid ones—
for a stupid scholar is always considered as a bad one—are not
infrequently punished every day, and are sometimes covered
with the marks of their beatings, to an extent which suggests
rather a runaway slave than a scholar. As the pupil dodges
about, with the hope of escaping some of the blows, he is not
unlikely to receive them upon his head, even if they were not
intended for it. In a case of this sort, a pupil was so much
injured as to be thrown into ﬁts, and such instances can scarcely
be uncommon. As a general thing, no further notice appears
to be taken of the matter by the parent than to see the master
and ascertain the special occasion of his severity. The family
of the pupil is naturally anxious that the pupil shall come to
something, and is ready to assume as an axiomatic truth that
the only road to any form of success in life is by the acquisi-
tion of an education. This can be accomplished only by the
aid of the teacher, and therefore the rules laid down by him
are to be implicitly followed, at whatever expense to the feelings
of either father or son.

In one case within the writer’s knowledge, a father was de-
termined that his son should obtain sufﬁcient education to ﬁt
him to take charge of a small business. The son, on the other
hand, was resolved to return to his fork and manure basket, and
the teacher was invited to further the plans of the boy’s father.
When the time came to begin his education at school, the lad
absolutely declined to go, and like most Chinese parents in
similar circumstances, the father was perfectly unable to force
him to do what he did not wish to do. The only available
plan was to have the boy tied hand and foot, placed in a basket
slung to a pole, and carried by two men, like a pig. In this
condition he was deposited at the schoolhouse, where he was
chained to two chairs, and not allowed to leave the building.
He was set the usual task in the Trimetrical Classic, to which,
however, he paid no attention whatever, although beaten as

80 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

often as the teacher could spare the time. The boy not only
did not study, but he employed all his strength in wailing over
his hard lot. This state of things continued for several days,
at the end of Which time it was apparent, even to the boy’s
father, that, as the proverb says: “ You cannot help a dead
dog over a wall ; ” and the lad was henceforth suffered to
betake himself to those agricultural operations for which alone
he was ﬁtted.

Different teachers of course differ greatly in their use of pun-
ishment, but whatever the nature of the severities employed, a
genuine Confucianist would much rather increase the rigour of
discipline than relax it. To his mind the method which he
employs appears ,to be the only one which is ﬁtted to accomplish
the end in view. The course of study, the method of study,
and the capacity of the pupil, are all ﬁxed quantities ; the only
variable one is the amount of diligence which the scholar can
be persuaded or driven to put forth. Hence the ideal Chinese
teacher is sometimes a perfect literary Pharaoh.

When the little pupil at the age of perhaps seven or eight
takes his seat in the school for the ﬁrst time, neither the sound
nor the meaning of a single character is known to him. The
teacher reads over the line, and the lad repeats the sounds, con-
stantly corrected until he can pronounce them properly. He
thus learns to associate a particular sound with a certain shape.
A line or two is assigned to each scholar, and after the pro-
nunciation of the characters has been ascertained, his “ study ”
consists in bellowing the words in as high a key as possible.
Every Chinese regards this shouting as an indispensable part
of the child’s education. If he is not shouting how can the
teacher be sure that he is studying P and as studying and shout-
ing are the same thing, when he is shouting there is nothing
more to be desired. Moreover, by this means the master, who
is supposed to keep track of the babel of sound, is instantly
able to detect any mispronunciation and correct it in the bud.
When the scholar can repeat the whole of his task without

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 3

missing a single character, his lesson is “ learned,” and he then
stands with his back to the teacher—to make sure that he does
not see the book—and recites, or “ backs,” it at railway
speed.

Every educator is aware of the extreme difﬁculty or prevent-
ing children from reading the English language with an un-
natural tone. To prevent the formation of a vicious habit of
this sort is as difficult as to prevent the growth of weeds, and
to eradicate such habits once formed is often next to impossible.
In the case of Chinese pupils, these vices in their most extreme
form are well-nigh inevitable. The attention of the scholar is
ﬁxed exclusively upon two things,—the repetition of the char-
acters in the same order as they occur in the book, and the rep-
etition of them at the highest attainable rate of speed. Sense
and expression are not merely ignored, for the words represent
ideas which have never once dawned upon the Chinese pupil’s
mind. His sole thought is to make a recitation. If he is
really master of the passage which he recites, he falls at once
into a loud hum, like that of a peg-top or a buzz, like that of a
circular saw, and to extract either from the buzz or from the
hum any sound as of human speech—no matter how familiar
the auditor may be with the passage recited—is extremely difﬁ-
cult and frequently impossible.

But if the passage has been only imperfectly committed, and
the pupil is brought to a standstill for the lack of characters to
repeat, he does not pause to collect his thoughts, for he has no
thoughts to collect—has in fact no thoughts to speak of. What
he has, is a dim recollection of certain sounds, and in order
to recall those which he has forgotten, he keeps on repeating
the last word, or phrase, or sentence, or page, until association
regains the missing link. Then he plunges forward again, as
before.

Let us suppose, for example, that the words to be recited, are
the following, from the Confucian Analects, relating to the
habits of the master: “ He did not partake of wine and dried

82 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

meat bought in the market. He was never without ginger
when he ate. He did not eat much.” The young scholar,
whose acquaintance with this chapter is imperfect, nevertheless
dashes on somewhat as follows: “ He did not partake—he did
not partake—partake—partake—partake—partake of wine and
dried meat bought in—bought in——bought in the market—
market—the market—the market. He was never without gin—
ger—when—ginger—when-ginger—when he ate-he ate~he ate-
he-ate-ate-he did not eat-eat-eat-eat-eat without ginger when he
ate-he did not eat-did not eat much." _

This is the method of all Chinese instruction. The con-
sequence of so much roaring on the part of the scholars is that
every Chinese school seems to an inexperienced foreigner like a
bedlam. No foreign child could learn, and no foreign teacher
could teach, amid such a babel of sound, in which it is impossible
for the instructor to know whether the pupils are repeating the
sounds which are given to them, or not. As the effect of the
unnatural and irrational strain of such incessant screaming upon
their voices, it is not uncommon to ﬁnd Chinese scholars who
are so hoarse that they cannot pronounce a loud word.

The ﬁrst little book which the scholar has put into his hands,
is probably the “ Trimetrical Classic,” (already mentioned) so
called from its arrangement in double lines of three characters
above and three below, to a total number of more than 1,000.
It was composed eight centuries and a half ago by a preceptor
for his private school, and perhaps there are few compositions
which have ever been so thoroughly ground into the mem-
ory of so many millions of the human race as this. Yet
of the inconceivable myriads who have studied it, few have had
the smallest idea by whom it has written, or when. Dr. Wil-
liams has called attention to the remarkable fact that the very
opening sentence of this initial text-book in Chinese education,
contains one of the most disputed doctrines in the ancient
heathen world: “ Men at their birth, are by nature radically
good 3 in their natures they approximate, but in practice differ

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 8.3

’

widely.’ After two lines showing the modifying effects of in-
struction, and the importance of attention, the mother of
Mencius is cited as an expert in object lessons for her famous
son. The student is next reminded that “ just was the life of
Tou, of Yen 3 ﬁve sons he reared, all famous men.”

The author then reverts to his main theme, and devotes
several strenuous sentences to emphasizing the necessity for in-
struction in youth, “since gems unwrought can never be use-
ful, and untaught persons will never know the proprieties.”
After a further citation of wonderful examples in Chinese his-
tory, accompanied with due moralizing, there follow more
than sixty lines of a characteristically Chinese mosaic. The
little pupil is enlightened on the progressive nature of numbers ;
the designations of the heavenly bodies , the “ three relations ”
between prince and minister, father and son, man and wife;
the four seasons; the four directions; the ﬁve elements; the
ﬁve cardinal virtues ; the six kinds of grain ; the six domestic
animals ; the seven passions ; the eight kinds of music ; the
nine degrees of relationship and the ten moral duties.

Having swallowed this formidable list of categories, the
scholar is treated to a general summary of the classical books
which he is to study as he advances. When he has mastered
all the works adjudged “ Classic,” he is told that he must go on
to those of philosophers and sages, as in the bill of particulars
contained in the Trimetrical Classic. His special attention is
invited to history, which suggests a catalogue of the numerous
Chinese dynastic periods with the names, or rather the styles,
of a few of the important founders of dynasties. The list is
brought down to the ﬁrst emperor of the present dynasty, where
it abruptly stops at the year 1644. A pupil who wishes to
know the titles of the later emperors of the Ch‘ing Dynasty can
be accommodated when the same shall have been overthrown,
and therefore has become a suitable object of historical study.
The pupil is urged to ponder these records of history till he
understands things ancient and modern as if they were before

84 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA]

his eyes, and to make them his morning study and his evening
task.

The concluding section contains more of human interest
than any of the preceding parts, since we are told that the great
Confucius once learned something from a mere child ; that the
ancient students had no books, but copied their lessons on
reeds and slips of bamboo; that to vanquish the body they
hung themselves by the hair from a beam, or drove an awl into
the thigh ; that one read {by the light of glow-worms, and that
another tied his book to a cow’s horn. Among the prodigies
of diligence were two, who, “though girls, were intelligent and
well informed.” The closing lines strive to stimulate the am-
bition of the beginner, not only by the tales of antiquity, but
by the faithfulness of the dog at night, and the diligence of the
silk-worm and the bee. “ If men neglect to learn, they are in-
ferior to insects.” But “ he who learns in youth, and acts when
of mature age, extends his inﬂuence to the prince, beneﬁts the
people, makes his name renowned, renders illustrious his
parents, reﬂects glory upon his ancestors and enriches his pos-
terity.” If every Chinese lad does not eventually become a
prodigy of learning, it is certainly not the fault of the author of
this remarkable compendium, the incalculable inﬂuence of
which must be the justiﬁcation of so extended a synopsis.

Another little book, to which the Chinese pupil is early intro-
duced, is the list of Chinese surnames, more than 400 in num-
ber, and all to be learned by a dead lift of memory. The
characters are arranged in quartettes, and when a Chinese
tells another his own surname, it is common to repeat all four,
whereupon his auditor recalls which of the several names
having the same sound it may be. In some parts of the em«
pire the “ Thousand Character Classic ” follows the Tri-
metrical Classic, while in other parts its use seems to be quite
unknown. It comprises, as the name implies, a thousand char-
acters, not one of which is repeated. It is common to use
these characters instead of ordinal numbers to designate seats

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 85

in the examination halls, so that it is desirable that scholars
should be familiar with the book.

After the scholar has mastered the smaller ones, he passes on
to the “Four Books,” the Confucian Analects, the Great
Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the works of
Mencius. The order in which these books are taken up varies
in different places, but, as already observed, the method of
study is as nearly as possible invariable. Book after book is
stored away in the abdomen (in which the intellectual faculties
are supposed to be situated), and if the pupil is furnished with
the clew of half a sentence, he can unravel from memory, as
required, yards, rods, furlongs or miles of learning.

After the Four Books, follow in varying order the Poetical
Classic, the Book of History, the Book of Changes, and the
historical work of Confucius, known as the Spring and Au-
tumn Annals. To commit to memory all these volumes, must
in any case be the labour of many years. Usage varies in dif-
ferent localities, but it is very common to ﬁnd scholars who
have memorized the whole of the Four Books, and perhaps two
of the later Classics—the Odes and the History—before they
have heard any explanations even of the Trimetrical Classic,
with which their education began. During all these years, the
pupil has been in a condition of mental daze, which is denoted
by a Chinese character, the component parts of which signify a
pig in the weeds (m’éng). His entrance upon study is called
“lifting the darkness” (ch‘i meng), and to teach the beginner
is to “instruct darkness.” These expressive phrases corre-
spond to a ﬁxed reality. Of those who have committed to
memory all the books named, some of the brightest have no
doubt picked up here and there, and as it were by accident, an
idea.

Thoughtful Chinese teachers, familiar with the capacity of
their pupils, estimate that the most intelligent among them can
not be expected to understand a hundredth part of what they
have memorized. The great majority of them have about as

86 - VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

accurate a conception of the territory traversed, as a boy might
entertain of a mountainous district through which he had been
compelled to run barefooted and blindfolded in a dense fog,
chased for vast distances by a man cracking over his head a
long ox-whip. How very little many scholars do grasp of the
real meaning, even after explanations which the teacher regards
as abundantly full, is demonstrated by a test to which here and
there a master subjects his scholars, that of requiring them to
write down a passage. The result is frequently the notation of
so many false characters as to render it evident, not only that
the explanations have not been apprehended, but that notwith-
standing such a multitude of perusals, the text itself has been
taken only into the ear as so many sounds, and has not entered
the mind at all.

The system of explanations adopted by Chinese teachers, as
a rule, is almost the exact opposite of that which, to an Occi-
dental, would seem rational. “ In speech,” said Confucius,
“ one should be intelligible, and that is the end of it.” The
Confucian teacher, however, is often very far indeed from feel-
ing that it is necessary to be intelligible—that is to say, to make
it absolutely certain that his pupils have fully comprehended
his meaning. He is very apt to deliver his explanations—when
a sufﬁcient number of years has elapsed to make it seem worth
while to begin them at all—ex callzea’ra, and in a stately, formal
manner, his attention being much more ﬁxed upon the exhibi-
tion of his own skill in displaying his own knowledge, than
upon imparting that knowledge to his scholars. It is common
to hear it said of a teacher who has attained distinction, that
when he opens his mouth to explain the Classics, “ every sen-
tence is ﬁt for an examination essay.” This is considered to
be the acme of praise. Sentences which are suited to be con-
stituent parts of examination essays, are not, it is superfluous to
remark, particularly adapted to the comprehension of young
schoolboys, who know nothing about examination essays, the
style’of which is utterly beyond their powers.

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 87

The commentary upon the Classics written by Chu Hsi, in the
twelfth century, A. D., has come to have an authority second only
to that of the text itself. That no Chinese school—teacher leads
his pupils to question for an instant whether the explanation is
accurate and adequate, is a matter of course. The whole
object of a. teacher’s work is to ﬁt his pupils to compete at the
examinations, and to prepare essays which shall win the ap-
proval of the examiners, thus leading to the rank of literary
graduate. This result would be possible only to those who ac-
cept the orthodox interpretation of the Classics, and hence it is
easy to see that Chinese schools are not likely to become nur-
series of heresy. The very idea of discussing with his pupils
either text or commentary, does not so much as enter the mind
of a Chinese schoolmaster. He could not do so if he would,
and he would not if he could.

The task of learning to write Chinese characters is a very
serious one, in comparison with which it is scarcely unfair to
characterize the mastery of the art of writing any European
language, as a mere pastime. The correct notation of char-
acters is, moreover, not less important than the correct recog-
nition of them, for success in some of the examinations is made
to depend as much upon caligraphy as upon style.

The characters which the teacher selects for the writing ex-
ercises of his pupils, have no relation, strange as it may seem,
to anything which he is studying. These characters may at
ﬁrst be taken from little books of rhymes arranged for the pur-
pose, containing characters at once simple and common.

The next step is to change to books containing selections
from the T‘ang Dynasty poets, an appreciation of which in-
volves acquaintance with tones and rhyme, of which the pupil,
as yet, knows nothing. The characters which he now learns to
write he has very likely never seen before, and they do not at
all assist his other studies. The only item of which notice is
taken, is whether the characters are well or ill-formed. Review
there is none.

88 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

The reason for choosing T‘ang Dynasty poetry for writing
lessons, instead of characters or sentences which are a part of
the current lesson, is that it is customary to use the poetry, and
is not customary to use anything else, and that to do so would
expose himself to ridicule. Besides this, poetry makes com-
plete sense by itself (if the pupil could only comprehend it)
while isolated characters do not. The consequence of this
method of instruction is that hundreds of thousands of pupils
leave school knowing very little about characters, and much of
what they do know is wrong. The method of teaching char-
acters explains in part what seems at ﬁrst almost unaccountable,
that so few ordinary persons know characters accurately. It is
an inevitable incident of the system, that to write some of the
commonest characters, referring to objects used in daily life, is
quite beyond the power of a man who has been for years at
school, for he has never seen them either written or printed.
Thus in taking an inventory of household property, there is not
one chance in ten that the characters will be written correctly,
for they do not occur in the Classics, nor in Tang Dynasty
poetry. Not only so, but it is altogether probable that an
average graduate of the village school cannot indite a common
letter, or set down a page of any miscellaneous characters,
without writing something wrong.

If the teacher is a man of any reputation, he has a multitude
of acquaintances, fellow students, any of whom may happen to
call upon him at the schoolhouse, where he lives. Chinese
etiquette requires that certain attentions should be paid to
visitors of this sort, and while it is perfectly understood that
school routine ought not to be broken in upon by unnecessary
interruptions, as a matter of fact in most schools these inter-
ruptions are a serious nuisance, to which the teacher often can-
not and oftener will not put a stop.

The system here described, by which the whole time of the
master is supposed to be devoted to instructing his pupils,
makes no allowances for any absences whatever. Yet there are

VILLAGE SG-IOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 89

few human beings blessed with such perfect health, and having
such an entire freedom from all relations to the external world,
as to be able to conduct a school of this kind month after
month, with no interruptions.

It frequently happens that the teacher is himself one of the
literary army who attends the examinations in hope of a degree.
If this is the case, his absences for this purpose will often prove
a serious interruption to the routine of the school. Some pa-
trons appear to consider that this disadvantage is balanced by
the glory which would accrue to their school in case its master
were to take his degree while in their service. Moreover, aside
from the regular vacations at the feast times and harvests, every
teacher is sure to be called home from time to time by some
emergency in his own family, or in his village, or among his
numerous friends. Under these circumstances he provides a
substitute if he happens to ﬁnd it convenient to do so. Such
are nicknamed “ remote-cousin—preceptors ” (ru-paz' [do-51227;),
and are not likely to be treated with much respect. When the
teacher is absent for a day, instead of dismissing the school,
he perhaps leaves it theoretically in the charge of one of the
older scholars. The inevitable consequence is, that at such
times the work of the school is reduced not merely to zero, but
to forty degrees below zero. The scholars simply bar the front
door, and amuse themselves in using the teacher’s ferule for a
bat, and the Trimetrical Classic, or the Confucian Analects, for
a ball. The demoralization attending such lawlessness is
evidently most injurious to the efﬁciency of the school.

The irregularities of the master’s attendance are more than
matched by those of his scholars. The pressure of domestic
duties is such that many poorer families on one pretence or
another are constantly taking their children out of school.
To-day the pupil must rake up fuel, next week he must lead
the animal that draws the seed drill, a month later he is taken
for two or three days to visit some relatives. Not long after
there is in the village, or perhaps in some neighbouring vil-

90 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

lage, a theatrical entertainment, but in either case the whole
school expects a vacation to go and see the sport. As al-
ready remarked when describing theatricals, if this vacation
were denied they would take it themselves. Besides interrup-
tions of this sort, there are the spring and autumn harvests,
when the school is dismissed for two months and perhaps for
three, and the New Year vacation, which lasts from the mid-
dle of the twelfth moon to the latter part of the ﬁrst moon.
But, extensive as are these .intermissions of study, the dog-days
are not among them, and the poor pupils go droning on
through all the heat of summer.

As the Chinese child has no Saturdays, no Sundays, no re-
cesses, no variety of study, and no promotion from grade to
grade, nor from one school to another, it is probable that he
has enough schooling such as it is. As every scholar is a class
by himself, the absence of one does not interfere with the study
of another. Even if two lads happen to be reciting in the
same place, they have no more connection with each other than
any other two pupils. Of such a thing as classiﬁcation the
teacher has never heard, and the irregular attendance of the
scholars would, he tells you, prevent it, even were it otherwise
possible. Owing to the time required to hear so many recita-
tions, an ordinary school does not contain more than eight or
ten pupils, and twenty are regarded as beyond one teacher’s
capacity.

There is very little which is really intellectual in any part of
the early schooling of an ordinary Chinese boy. As a rule, the
teacher does not concern himself with his pupils further than to
drag them over a speciﬁed course, or at least to attempt to do
so. The parents of the lad are equally indifferent, or even
more so. If the father himself can read, he remembers that he
learned to do so by a long and thorny road, and he thinks it
proper that his son should traverse it likewise. If the father
can not read, he at least recognizes the fact that he knows
nothing at all about the matter, and that it is not-his business

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 9!

to interfere. The teacher is hired to teach—let him do it. As
for visiting the school to see what progress his son is making,
he never heard of such a thing, and he would not do it if he
had heard of it. The teacher would say in his manner if not
in his words, “ What Makes: have you here 2 ”

A sufﬁcient reason for spending all his time in the school-
room is the fact that it is practically impossible for a Chinese
child to do any studying amid the distractions of a Chinese
household. Even for adult scholars it is almost always difﬁcult
to do so. At his home the pupil has no mental stimulus of any
sort, no books, magazines or papers, and even if he had them,
his barren studies at school would not have ﬁtted him to com
prehend such literature.

The object of Chinese education is to pump up the wisdom
of the ancients into the minds of the moderns. In order to do
this, however, it is necessary to keep the stream in a constant
ﬂow, at whatever cost, else much of the preceding labour is lost.
According to Chinese theory, or practice, a school which should
only be in session for six months of the year, would be a gross
absurdity. The moment a child fails to attend school, he is
supposed (and with reason) to become “ wild.”

The territory to be traversed is so vast that the most unre~
mitting diligence is absolutely indispensable. This continues
true, however advanced the pupil may be 3 as witness the pop-
ular saying, “Ten years a graduate (without studying), and
one is a nobody.” The same saying is current in regard to
the second degree, and with not less reason.

The necessity of conﬁning one’s attention to study alone,
leads to the selection of one or more of the sons of a family as
the recipient of an education. The one who is chosen is '
clothed in the best style which his family circumstances will
allow, his little cue neatly tied with a red string, and he is pro-
vided, as we have seen, with a copy of the Hundred Surnames and
of the Trimetrical Classic. This young Confucian-ist is the bud
and prototype of the adult scholar. His twin brother, who has

9: VILLAGE LH’E IN G-IINA

not been chosen to this high calling, roams about the village all
summer in the costume of the garden of Eden, gathering fuel,
swimming in the village mud-hole, busy when he must be busy,
idle when he can be idle. He may be incomparably more use-
ful to his family than the other, but so far as education goes
he is only a “wild ” lad.

If the student is quick and bright, and gives good promise
of distinguishing himself, he stands an excellent chance of
being spoiled by thoughtless praises. “ That boy,” remarks a
bystander to a stranger, and in the lad’s hearing, “is only
thirteen years old, but he has read all the Four Books, and all
of the Book of Poetry, etc. By the time he is twenty, he is
sure to become a graduate.” When questioned as to his at-
tainments, the lad replies without any of that pertness and for-
wardness which too often characterize Western youth, but, as
he has been taught to do, in a bashful and modest manner, and,
in a way to Win at once the good opinion of the stranger. His‘
manner leaves nothing to be desired, but in reality he is the
victim of the most dangerous of all ﬂatteries, the inferiority of
what is around him. In order to hold his relative position, it
is necessary, as already pointed out, to bestow the most un—
wearied attention on his books. His brothers are all day in the
ﬁelds, or learning a trade, or are assistants to some one en—
gaged in business, as the case may be, but he is doing nothing,
absolutely and literally nothing, but study.

So much conﬁnement, and such close application from the
very earliest years, can scarcely fail to show their effects in his
physical constitution. His brother hoes the ground, bare-
headed throughout the blistering heats of July, but such ex-
posure to the sun would soon give him the headache. His
brother works with more or less energy all day long (with in-
termittent sequence), but were he compelled to do the same
the result would not improbably be that he would soon begin
to spit blood. That he is physically by no means so strong as
he once was, is undeniable. He has very little opportunity to

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 93

learn anything of practical affairs, and still less disposition.
The fact that a student has no time to devote to ordinary af-
fairs is not so much the reason of his ignorance, as is the fact that
for him to do common things is not respectable. Among the
four classes of mankind, scholars rank ﬁrst, farmers, labourers,
and merchants being at a great remove.

The two things that a pupil is sure to learn in a Chinese
school are obedience, and the habit of concentrating his atten-
tion upon whatever he is reading, to the entire disregard of
surrounding distractions. So far as they go these are valuable
acquirements, although they can scarcely be termed an educa-
tion.

Every pupil is naturally anxious to get into the class of
scholars, and this he does as soon as he gives all his time to
study ; for whether he is a real scholar or not, he plainly be-
longs to neither of the other classes. We are told in the Con-
fucian Analects that the master said, “ The accomplished
scholar is not a utensil.” The commentators tell us that this
means that whereas a utensil can only be put to one use, the
accomplished scholar can be used in all varieties of ways, ad
omm'a paratus, as Dr. Legge paraphrases it. This expression
is sometimes quoted in banter, as if in excuse for the general
incapacity of the Chinese literary man—Ire is not a utensil.
The scholar, even the village scholar, not only does not plow
and reap, but he does not in any way assist those who perform
these necessary acts. He does not harness an animal, nor feed
him, nor drive a cart, nor light a ﬁre, nor bring water—in
short, so far as physical exertion goes, he does as nearly as pos-
sible nothing at all. “ The scholar is not a utensil,” he seems
to be thinking all day long, and every day of his life, until one
wishes that at times he would be a utensil, that he might some—
times be of use. He will not even move a bench, nor make
any motion that looks like labour. Almost the only exception
to this general incapacity, is an exception for which we should
hardly be prepared ; it is a knowledge, in many cases of the art

94 VILLAGE LIFE IN U-IINA

of cooking, in so far as it is necessary for the practice of the
scholar, who often teaches in a village other than his home,
where he generally lives by himself in the schoolhouse.

We have already alluded to the great oversupply of teachers
of schools. Many of them, owing to their lack of adaptation
to their environment, are chronically on the verge of starvation.
It is a venerable maxim that poverty and pride go side by side, ~
and nowhere does this saying ﬁnd more forcible exempliﬁcation
than in the case of a poor Chinese scholar. He has nothing, he
can do nothing, and in most cases he is unwilling to do any-
thing. In short, viewed from the standpoint of political econ-
omy, he is good for nothing.

One specimen of this class the writer once saw, who had
been set at work by a benevolent foreigner molding coal balls,
an employment which doubtless appeared to him and to the
spectators as the substantial equivalent of the chain-gang, and
yet, to the surprise of his employer, he accepted it rather than
starve. A certain scholar of this description was so poor that
he was obliged to send his family back to her mother’s house,
to save them from starvation. The wife, being a skillful needle-
woman, was employed at good wages in a foreign family, but
when her husband heard of it he was very angry, not because
he was unwilling to have her associate with foreigners, who he
was kind enough to say were very respectable, but because it
was very unsuitable that she, the wife of a scholar, should
work for hire ! The wife had the sense and spirit to reply
that, if these were his views, it might be well for him to pro-
vide his family with something to eat, to which he replied with
the characteristic and ultimate argument for refractory wives,
namely, a sound beating !

When one of these helpless and impecunious scholars calls
upon a foreigner whom he has met only once, or perhaps never
even seen, he will not iimprobably begin by quoting a wilder—
ness of classical learning to display his great—albeit unrecog-
nized—abilities. He tells you that among the ﬁve relations of

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 95

prince and minister, husband and wife, father and son,
brother to brother, and friend to friend, his relationship to you
is of the latter type. That it would do violence to his concep—
tion of the duties of this relation, if he did not let you know
of his exigencies. He shows you his thin trousers and other
garments concealed under his scholar’s long gown, and frankly
volunteers that any contribution, large or small, prompted by
such friendship as ours to him will be most acceptable.

While the conditions of the life of the village scholar are
thus unfavourable for his success in earning a living, they are
not more favourable to his own intellectual development. The
chief, if not the exclusive sources of his mental alimentation
have been the Chinese Classics. These are in many respects
remarkable products of the human mind. Their negative ex-
cellencies, in the absence of anything calculated to corrupt the
morals, are great. To the lofty standard of morality which
they ﬁx, may be ascribed in great measure their unbounded
and perennial inﬂuence, an inﬂuence which has no doubt
powerfully tended to the preservation of the empire. Apart
from the incalculable inﬂuence which they have exerted on the
countless millions of China for many ages, there are many pas-
sages which in and of themselves are remarkable.

But taken as a whole, the most friendly critic ﬁnds it impos-
sible to avoid the conviction, which forces itself upon him at
every page, that regarded as the sole text-books for a great
nation they are fatally defective. They are too desultory, and
too limited in their range. Epigrammatic moral maxims,
scraps of biography, nodules of a, sort of political economy,
bits of ,history, rules of etiquette, and a great variety of other
subjects, are commingled without plan, symmetry, or progress
of thought. The chief defects, as already suggested, are the
triviality of many of the subjects, the limitation in range, and
the inadequacy of treatment. When the Confucian Analects
are compared, for example, with the Memorabilia of Xene—
phon, when the Doctrine of the Mean is‘placed by the side of

96 VILLAGE LIFE IN G-IINA

the writings of Aristotle and Plato, and the bald notation of -
the Spring and Autumn Annals by the side of the history of
Thucydides, when the Book of Odes is contrasted with the
Iliad, the Odyssey, or even the fEneid, it is impossible not to
marvel at the measure of success which has attended the use of
such materials in China.

Considering what, in spite of their defects, the Classics have
done for China, it is not surprising that they have come to be
regarded with a bibliolatry to which the history of mankind
affords few parallels. It is extremely difﬁcult for us to compre-
hend the effect of a narrow range of studies on the mind, be-
cause our experience furnishes no instance to which the case of
the Chinese can be compared. Let us for a moment imagine a
Western scholar, who had enjoyed a profound mathematical
education, and no other education whatever. Every one would
consider such a mind ill-balanced. Yet much of the ill effect
of such a narrow education would be counteracted. Mathe-
matical certainty is infallible certainty; mathematics leads up
to astronomy, and a thorough acquaintance with astronomy is
of itself a liberal education. Besides this, no man in Western
lands can fail to come into vital contact with other minds.
And there is what Goethe called the Zeit-geist, or Spirit of the
Age, which exerts a powerful inﬂuence upon him. But in
China, a man who is educated in a 'narrow line, is likely,
though by no means certain, to remain narrow, and there is no
Chinese Zeit—geist, or if there is, like other ghosts, it seldom in-
terposes in human affairs.

The average Chinese scholar is at a great disadvantage in the
lack of the apparatus for study. In a Western land, any man
with the slightest claim to be called a scholar, would be able to
answer in a short time, a vast range of questions, with intelli-
gent accuracy. This he would do, not so much by means of
his own miscellaneous information, as by his books of refer-
ence. The various theories as to the location of the Garden
of Eden, the dimensions of the Great Pyramid, the prob-

VILLAGE SCHOOLS‘ AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 97

able authorship of the Junius Letters, the highest latitude
reached in polar exploration, the names of the generals who
conducted the fourth Peloponnesian war—all these, and thou-
sands of similar matters, could be at once elucidated by means
of a dictionary of antiquities, a manual of ancient or modern
history, a biographical dictionary, and an encyclopedia. To
the ordinary Chinese scholar, such helps as these are entirely
wanting. He owns very few books 3 for in the country where
printing was invented, books are the luxury of the rich.

The standard dictionary of Chinese, is that compiled two
centuries ago in the K‘ang Hsi period, and is alleged to con-
tain 44,449 characters, but of these an immense number are
obsolete and synonomous, and only serve the purpose of be-
wildering the student. Within the past two generations the
Chinese language has undergone a remarkable development,
owing to the contact of China with her neighbours. All the
modern sciences have obtruded themselves, but there is no in-
terest in the coordination of these new increments to their lan-
guage on the part of Chinese scholars, to whom K‘ang Hsi’s
lexicon is amply sufﬁcient.

In order to attain success in Chinese composition, it is neces-
sary to be acquainted with the force of every character, as a
means to which, access to this standard dictionary, would seem
to be indispensable. Yet, though invaluable, it is not in the
possession of one scholar in ﬁfty. Its place is generally taken
by a small compendium, analogous to what we should call a
pocket-manual, in which the characters are arranged according
to the sound, and not according to the radicals, as in K‘ang
Hsi.

Pupils are seldom taught the 214 radicals,,and many per-
sons who have spent years at school have no idea how to use
K‘ang Hsi’s dictionary, when it is put into their hands.
Within a circle of eight or ten villages, there may be only a
single copy, and if it is necessary to obtain more accurate in-
formation than is to be had- in the pocket-dictionary, the in-

98 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

quirer must go to the village where there is a copy of K‘ang
Hsi, and “borrow light ” there.

But such an extreme measure is seldom considered necessary.
The incessant study of the Classics has made all the characters
in them familiar. Those who write essays can compose them
with the aid of these characters only, and as for miscellaneous
characters—that is, those not found in the Classics—why should
one care for them 2 A good edition of K‘ang Hsi, with clear
type and no false characters, might cost, if new, as much as
the village schoolmaster would receive for his whole year’s
work.

At examinations below that for the second degree, a knowl-
edge of history is said to be as superﬂuous as an acquaintance
with the dictionary. Nine out of ten candidates at the lower
examinations know little of the history of China, except what
they have learned from the Trimetrical Classic, or picked up
from the classics. The perusal of compendiums of history,
even if such are available, is the employment of leisure, and
the composition of essays as a business once entered upon,
there is no leisure.

One occasionally meets a teacher who has made a specialty
of history, but these men are rare. Historical allusions often
lie aﬂoat in the minds of Chinese scholars, like snatches of
poetry, the origin and connection of which are unknown.
Many scholars who have the knack of picking up and appro-
priating such spiculae of knowledge, acquire the art of dex-
trously weaving them into examination essays and owe their
success to this circumstance alone, whereas if they were ex-
amined upon the historical connection of the incidents which
they have thus cited, they would be unable to reply. But as
long as the use of such allusions in essays is felicitous, no ques-
tions are asked, and the desired end is attained. “The Cat
that catches the Rat is a good Ca ,” says the adage, and it is
no matter if the Cat is blind, and the Rat is a dead one !

The Peking Gazelle occasionally contains memorialsfrom oﬂi«

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 99

cers. asking that certain sums be set apart for the maintenance
of airlibrary in some central city, to aid poor students in the
prosecution of their studies. If there were libraries on a large
scale in every district city, they would be valuable and much-
needed helps. But so far as appears, for all practical purposes,
they scarcely exist at all.

The Chinese method of writing history, is what Sydney Smith
called the antediluvian, that, namely, in which the writer pro-
ceeds upon the hypothesis that the life of the reader is to be as
long as that of Methuselah. Projected upon this tremendous
plan, the standard histories are not only libraries in size, but
are enormously expensive in price. In a certain District (or
County) it is a well—known fact that there is only one such his-
tory, which belongs to a wealthy family, and which one could
no more “borrow,” than he could borrow the family grave-
yard, and which even if it could be borrowed would pr0ve to
be a wilderness of learning. It is indeed a proverb, that “ He
that would know things ancient and modern, must peruse ﬁve
cartloads of books.”

But even after this labour, his range of learning, gauged by
Occidental standards, would be found singularly inadequate.
According to Chinese ideas, the history of the reigning dy-
nasty is not a proper object of knowledge, and histories gener-
ally end at the close of the Ming Dynasty, about 250 years
ago. If any one has a curiosity to learn of what has happened
since that time, he can be gratiﬁed by waiting a few decades
or centuries, when the dynasty shall have changed, and the
records of the Great Pure Dynasty can be impartially written.
Imagine a History of England which should call a halt at the
House of Hanover!

The result of the various causes here indicated, combined
with the grave defects in the system of education, is that mul—
titudes of Chinese scholars know next to nothing about matters
directly in the line of their studies, and in regard to which we
should consider ignorance positively disgraceful. A venerable

roo VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

teacher remarked to the writer with a charming na'iveté that he
had never understood the allusions in the Trimetrical Classic
(which stands at the very threshold of Chinese study), until at
the age of sixty he had an opportunity to read a Universal
History, prepared by a missionary, in which for the ﬁrst time
Chinese history was made accessible to him.

The encyclopedias and works of reference, which the Chinese
have compiled in overwhelming abundance, are as useless to
the common scholar as the hieroglyphics of Egypt. He never
saw these works, and he has never heard of them. The infor-
mation condensed into a small volume like Mayers’ Chinese
Reader’s Manual, could not be drawn from a whole platoon of
ordinary scholars. Knowledge of this sort the scholar must
pick up as he goes along, remembering everything that he reads
or hears ; and much of it will be derived from cheap little
books, badly printed, and full of false characters, prepared on
no assignable plan, and covering no deﬁnite ground.

The cost of Chinese books being practically prohibitory to
teachers who are poor, they are sometimes driven to copy them,
as was the habit of the monks in the middle ages. The writer
is well acquainted with a schoolmaster who spent the spare time
of several years in copying a work in eight octavo volumes, in-
volving the notation of somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000
characters, to the great injury of his health and of his eye-
sight.

The whole plan of Chinese study has been aptly called intel—
lectual infanticide. The outcome of it is that it is quite pos-
sible that the village scholar who has the entire Classics at his
tongue’s end, who has been examined before the Literary Chan-
cellor more times than he can remember, may not know fact
from ﬁction, nor history from mythology. He is, perhaps, not
certain whether a particular historical character lived in the
Han Dynasty or in the Ming Dynasty, though the discrepancy
involves a matter f 1,000 or 1,200 years. He does not pro-
fess to be positi " hether a given name represents a real per-

VILLAGE SU-IOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 10!

son, or whether it may not perhaps have been merely one of
the dramatis personae of a theatrical play.

He cannot name the governors or governors-general of three
out of the eighteen provinces, nor does he know the capitals
of a third of those provinces. It is enough for him that any
particular place in China, the location of which he is ignorant
of, is “ south-side.” He never studied any geography ancient
or modern, he never saw an ancient atlas nor a modern map of
China—never in fact heard of one.

An acquaintance of the writer’s, who was a pupil in a mis—
sion school, sent to a reading man of his village a copy of a
Universal Geography in the Mandarin Colloquial, the explana-
tions of which would seem to render mistake as to its purport
almost impossible. Yet the recipient of the work, after pro-
tracted study of it, could make nothing whatever of the vol-
ume, and called to his aid two friends, one of whom was a
literary graduate, and all three of them puzzled over the maps
and text for three days, at the end of which time they all gave
the matter up as an insoluble riddle, and determined in des-
pair to await the return of the donor of the book, to explain
what it was about ! ‘ '

This trait of intellectual obtuseness, is far enough from being
exceptional in Chinese scholars. With a certain class of them,
a class easily recognized, it is the rule, and it is a natural out-
come of the mode and process of their education. Although
the education of a Chinese scholar is almost exclusively de-
voted to acquiring facility of composition, it is composition of
one variety only, the examination essay. Outside of examina-
tion halls, however, the examination essay, even in China, plays
a comparatively small part, and a person whose sole forte is the
production of such essays often shows to very little advantage
in any other line of business. He cannot write a letter without
allowing the “seven empty particles” to tyrannize over his
pen. He employs a variety of set forms, such as that he has
received your epistle and respectfully bathed himself before he

102 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

ventured to open it (a very exaggerated instance of hyperbole),
but he very likely neglects to inform you from what place he is
writing and if he is reporting, for example, a lawsuit, he prob-
ably omits altogether several items of vital importance to a.
correct comprehension of the case. In a majority of instances
he is miserably poor, often has no employment whatever, and
no prospect of obtaining any. If he becomes acquainted with
a foreigner, you are aware, before he has made three calls, that.
he is in quest of a situation. You inquire what he can do,
and with a pathetic simplicity he assures you that he [an do
some things, and is really not a useless person. He can in-
deed, write from a copy, or from dictation if an eye be con-
stantly kept upon him to prevent the notation of wrong char-
acters. But it will not be surprising if his employer ﬁnds that
at whatever task he is set, he either does it ill, or cannot do it
at all.

There are several criticisms which the average Occidental is
sure to make on the average Chinese schoolmaster. He always
lacks initiative and will seldom do anything without explicit
directions. He is also painfully deﬁcient in ﬁnality, especi-
ally in the statement of his own affairs, often consuming an
hour wheeling in concentric circles about a point to which he
should have come in three minutes—that is, bad he been con—
structed intellectually as most Westerners are. Yet he has un-
doubted intellectual abilities, not frequently surprising one by
the keenness and justice of his criticisms and comments. But
his mind has been trained for one line of work, and often for
that alone. Every one knows that the minds of the Chinese are
not by nature analytic; neither are they synthetic. They may
suppose themselves to have the clearest perception of the way
in which a statement ought to be made, but a whole platoon of
teachers will not seldom spend several days in working over
and over an epitome of some matter of business which happens
to be somewhat complicated, and after all with results unsatis-
factory to themselves, and still more so to the Occidental who

VILLAGE SO-IOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 103

fails to understand why it could not have been ﬁnished in two
hours. The same phenomenon is often witnessed in their
efforts to assimilate unfamiliar works which are no! geographical.
If a reading man is invited to peruse one and make an abstract
of it, he generally declines, remarking that he does not know
how, a proposition which he can speedily prove with a certainty
equal to any demonstration in Euclid.

The inborn conservatism of the Chinese race is exhibited in
the average literary man, whatever the degree of his attain-
ments. To change his accustomed way of doing anything is to
give his intellectual faculties a wrench akin to physical disloca-
tion of a hip-bone. Chinese writing is in perpendicular
columns, and if horizontal reads from right to left—the reverse
of English. A fossilized Chinese whom the writer set to not-
ing down sentences in a ruled foreign blank-book could not be
induced to follow the lines as directed, but wished to make
columns to which he was used. When the foreign way was in-
sisted upon, he simply turned the book partly around and
wrote on the lines perpendicularly as before! He would not
be a party to violent rearrangement of the ancient symbols of
thought. Such a man’s mind resembles an obsolete high bicycle
—very good if one but knows how to work it, but not quite safe
for any others. There is another similarity likewise in the cir-
cumstance that many Chinese who have some degree of scholar-
ship are not expecting to employ their intellectual faculties ex-
cept when they happen to be called for. One is often told by
Chinese who have gone from home for some considerable time,
that he cannot read something which has been offered to him,
as he has left his glasses at home, not supposing that he should
have any use for them. A greater intellectual contrast be-
tween the East and the West it might not be easy to name. ‘5'

To almost all Chinese the form of a written character ap-
pears to be of indeﬁnitely greater importance than its meaning.
Those who are learning to read, or who can read only imper-
fectly, are generally so completely absorbed in the mere enun-

104 VILLAGE LIFE IN GUN/l

ciation of a character, that they will not and probably Cannot pay
the smallest attention to any explanation as to its purport, the
consideration of which appears to be regarded as of no con-
sequence whatever, if not an interruption. But the scholar and
the new beginner have this admirable talent in common, that
they are almost always able completely to abstract themselves
from their surroundings, disregarding all distractions. This
valuable faculty, as already remarked and a phenomenally de—
veloped verbal memory are perhaps the most enviable results
of the educational process which we are describing. As an
excellent example, however, of the degree to which verbal
memory extinguishes the judgment, may be mentioned a coun-
try schoolmaster (a literary graduate) whom the writer inter-
viewed in a dispensary waiting-room as to the respective deserts
of Chou, the tyrant whose crimes put an end to the Ancient
Shang Dynasty, and Pi Kan, a relative whom Chou ordered
disemboweled in mere wantonness in order to see if a Sage
really has seven openings in his heart. The teacher recollected
the incident perfectly, and cited a passage from the Classics
referring to it, but declined to express any judgment on the
merits of these men as he had forgotten what “ the small char-
acters ” (the commentary) said about them!

We have already adverted to some of the principal defects in
the routine of Chinese schools, but there is another which
should not be omitted. There is scarcely a man, woman or
child in China, who will not spend a considerable fraction of
life in handling brass cash, in larger or smaller quantities. It
is a matter of great importance to each individual, to be able
to reckon, if not rapidly, at least correctly, so as to save
trouble, and what is to them of far more importance, money.
It seems almost incredible that for instruction in this most neces-
sary of arts, there is no provision whatever. To add, to sub-
tract, to divide, to multiply, to know what to do with decimal
fractions, these are daily necessities of every one in China, and
yet these are things that no one teaches. Such processes, like

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 105

the art of bookkeeping in Western lands ﬁfty years ago, must
be learned by practical experience in shops and places of busi-
ness. The village schoolmaster not only does not teach the use
of the abacus, or reckoning board, but it is by no means cer-
tain that he understands it himself. Imagine a place in Eng-
land or in the United States where the schoolboy is taught
nothing of the rules of arithmetic at school, and where he is
obliged, if he desires such knowledge, to learn the simple rules
of addition, etc., from one person, those for compound num-
bers from another person, not improbably in a distant village,
the measurement of land from yet a third individual, no one of
them being able to give him all the help he requires.

The Chinese reckoning board is no doubt a very ingenious
contrivance for facilitating computation, but it is nevertheless a
very clumsy one. It has the fatal defect of leaving no trace of
the processes through which the results have been reached, so
that if any mistake occurs, it is necessary to repeat them all, on
the reiterative principle of the House that Jack Built, until the
answer is, or is supposed to be correct. That all the compli—
cated accounts of a great commercial people like the Chinese,
should be settled only through such a medium, seems indeed
singular. An expert arrives at his conclusions with surprising
celerity, but even those who are familar with ordinary reckon-
ing, become puzzled the moment that a problem is presented
to them beyond the scope of the ordinary rules. If one adult
receives a pound of grain every ten days, and a child half as
much, what amount should be allotted to 227 adults and I43
children, for a month and a half? Over a problem as simple
as this, we have seen a group of Chinese, some of whom had
pretensions to classical scholarship, wrestle for half an hour,
and after all no two of them reached the same conclusion. In-
deed the greater their learning, the less ﬁtted do the Chinese
seem to be, in a mathematical way, to struggle with their en-
vironment.

The object of the teacher is to compel his pupils, ﬁrst to

106 IILLAGE LIFE IN G-IINA

Rememl secondly, to Remember, thirdly and evermore to
Remember. For every scholar, as we have seen, is theoretically
a candidate for the district examinations, where he must write
upon themes selected from any one of a great variety of
books. He must, therefore, be prepared to recall at a
moment’s notice, not only the passage itself, but also its con-
nections, and the explanations of the commentary, as a prereq-
uisite for even attempting an essay.

Under the conditions of the civil service examinations, as
they have been conducted for many hundred years, a system of
school instruction like the one here described, or which shall at
least produce the same results, is an imperative necessity in
China. A reform cannot begin anywhere until a reform begins
everywhere. The excellence of the present system is often as-
sumed and in proof, the great number of distinguished schol~
ars which it produces, is adduced. But, on the other hand, it
is absolutely necessary to take into account the innumerable
multitudes who derive little or no beneﬁt from their schooling.
Nothing is more common than to meet men who, although
they have spent from one to ten years at school, when asked if
they can read, reply with literal truth that their knowledge of
characters has been “ laid aside ’ ’—in other words they have for-
gotten almost everything that they once knew, and are now be-
come “ staring blind men,” an expression which is a synonym
for one who cannot read.

It is a most signiﬁcant fact that the Chinese themselves rec-
ognize the truth that their school system tends to benumb the
mental faculties, turning the teachers into machines, and the
pupils into parrots. On the supposition that all the scholars
were to continue their studies, and were eventually to be
examined for a degree, it might be difﬁcult to suggest any sys-
tem which would take the place cf the one now in use, in which
a most capacious memory is a principal condition of success.

In the Village School, however, it is within bounds to esti-
mate that not one in twenty of the scholars—and more prob-

VILLAGE SCHOOLS' AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS [07

ably, not three in a hundred—have any reasonable prospect of ,
carrying their studies to anything like this point. The practi-
cal result, therefore, is to compel at least ninety-seven scholars
to pursue a certain routine, simply because it is the only known
method by which three other scholars can compete for a de-
gree. In other words, nineteen pupils are compelled to wear a
heavy cast-iron yoke, in order to keep company with a twen-
tieth, who is trying to get used to it as a step towards obtaining
a future name ! If this inconvenient inequality is pointed out
to teachers or to patrons, and if they are asked whether it
would not be better to adopt, for the nineteen who will never
go to the examinations, a system which involves less memorizing,
and a wider range of learning in the brief time which is all
that most of the pupils can spend at school, they reply, with
perfect truth, that so far as they are aware there is no other
system; that even if the patrons desired to make the experi—
ment (which would never be the case), they could ﬁnd no
teacher to conduct it ; and that even if a teacher should wish
to institute such a reform (which would never happen), he
would ﬁnd no one to employ him.

The extreme difﬁculty which men of some education often
ﬁnd in keeping from starvation, gives rise to a class of persons
known as Strolling Scholars, (yu lm'ao), who travel about the
country vending paper, pictures, lithographs of tablets, pens and
ink. These individuals are not to be confounded with travelling
pedlars, who, though they deal in the same articles, make no
pretension to learning, and generally convey their goods on a
wheelbarrow, whereas the Strolling Scholar cannot manage
anything larger than a pack.

When a Strolling Scholar reaches a schoolhouse, he enters,
lowers his bundle, and makes a profound bow to the teacher,
who (though much displeased at his appearance) must return
the courtesy. If there are large pupils, the stranger bows to
them and addresses them as his Younger Brothers. The teacher
then makes some inquiries as to his name, etc. If he turns out

108 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

to be a mere pretender, without real scholarship, the teacher
drops the conversation, and very likely leaves the schoolroom.
This is a tacit signal to the larger scholars to get rid of the
visitor. They place a few cash on the table, perhaps not more
than ﬁve, or even three, which the Strolling Scholar picks up,
and with a bow departs. If he sells anything, his proﬁts are of
the most moderate description—perhaps three cash on each
pen, and two cash on each cake of ink. With a view to this
'class of demands, a small fund is sometimes kept on hand by
the larger scholars, who compel the younger ones to contribute
to it.

If, however, the Strolling Scholar is a scholar in fact, as well
as in name, so that his attainments become apparent, the teacher
is obliged to treat him with much greater civility. Some of
these roving pundits make a specialty of historical anecdotes,
and miscellaneous knowledge, and in a general conversation
with the teacher, the latter, who has not improbably conﬁned
himself to the beaten routine of classical study, is at a disad-
vantage. In this case, other scholars of the village are perhaps
invited in to talk with the stranger, who may be requested to
write a pair of scrolls, and asked to take a meal with the
teacher, a small present in money being made to him on his
departure.

It is related that a Strolling Scholar of this sort, being present
when a teacher was explaining the Classics, deliberately took
off his shoes and stockings in presence of the whole school.
Being reproved by the teacher for this breach of propriety, he
replied that his dirty stockings had as good an “odour ” as '
the teacher’s classical explanations. To this the teacher
naturally replied by a challenge to the stranger to explain the
Classics himself, that they might learn from him. The Stroll-
ing Scholar, who was a person of considerable ability, had been
waiting for just such an opportunity, and taking up the explana-
tion, went on with it in such an elegant style, “ every sentence
being like an examination essay,” that the teacher was amazed

VILLAGE SCHOOLS AND TRAVELLING SCHOLARS 109

and ashamed, and entertained him handsomely. If a teacher
were to treat with disrespect one whose scholarship was
obviously superior to his own, he would expose himself to dis-
respect in turn, and might be disgraced before his own pupils,
an occurrence which he is very anxious to avoid.

In China the relation between teacher and pupil is far more
intimate than in Western lands. One is supposed to be under
a great weight of obligation to the master who has enlightened
his darkness, and if this master should be at any time in need
of assistance, it is thought to~be no more than the duty of the
pupil to aﬂ'ord it. This view of the case is obviously one which
it is for the interest of teachers to perpetuate, and the result
of the theory and of the attendant practice is that there are
many decayed teachers roving about, living on the precarious
generosity of their former pupils.

X

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION—THE VILLAGE HIGH SCHOOL—
EXAMINATIONS—RECENT EDUCATIONAL EDICTS

WHEN it is deﬁnitely decided that a pupil is to study for

the examinations, he enters a high school, which differs
in many respects from the ones which he has hitherto attended.
The teacher must be a man of more than average attainments, or
he can neither gain nor hold such a place. His salary is much
greater than that given by the ordinary school. The pupils are
much harder worked, being compelled to spend almost all their
waking hours in the study of model examination essays. These
are to be committed to memory by the score and even by. the
hundred, as a result of which process the mind of the student
gradually becomes so saturated with the materials of which
they are composed, that he will always be able to take advan~
tage of the accumulations of his patient memorizing in weaving
his own compositions in the examination hall.

During the preceding years of study he has already com-
mitted to memory the most important parts of the literature of
his native land. He is now intimately familiar with the ortho-
dox explanations of the same. He has been gradually but
thoroughly inducted into the mystery of tones and rhymes, the
art of constructing poetry, and the weaving of antithetical
couplets, beginning with the announcement that the heaven is
high, balanced by the proposition that the earth is thick, and
proceeding to the intricate and well-nigh inscrutable laws by
which relation and correlation, thesis and antithesis are g0v-
emed. He has now to learn by carefully graded stages the art

of employing all his preceding learning in the production of the
no

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION In

essay, which will hereafter constitute the warp and the woof of
his intellectual fabric. In future he will eat, drink, write, talk,
and sleep essays, essays, essays.

Measured by Chinese standards, the construction of a perfect
essay is one of the noblest achievements of which the human
mind is capable. The man who knows all that has been pre-
served of the wisdom of the ancients, and who can at a mo-
ment’s notice dash off essays of a symmetrical construction,
lofty in sentiment, elevated in style, and displaying a wide ac-
quaintance not only with the theme, but also with cognate sub-
jects, such a man is ﬁt not only to stand before kings, but before
the very Son of Heaven himself.

A high ofﬁcial called a provincial Literary Chancellor,
(sz'ao Yz'iarz), is despatched from Peking to the provinces, to
hold periodical examinations once in three or twice in ﬁve
years. Upon the occasion of an emperor’s ascending the
throne, his marriage, the birth of an heir, etc., there are extra
examinations bestowed as a favour (én k‘o). When the village
scholar is able to produce an essay, and to write a poem that
will pass the scrutiny of this formidable Literary Chancellor, he
may hope to become a hsiu—ts‘ai or graduate. In order to ﬁt
him for this ordeal, which is regarded by outsiders with awe,
and is anticipated by the young candidate himself with mingled
hope and terror, it is necessary that he should run the gauntlet
of a long series of preliminary test examinations.

Some months before the visit of the Chancellor is to take
place, of which notice is communicated to the Governor of the
Province, and from him to the District Magistrates, prepara-
tions are made by the latter ofﬁcer for the ﬁrst examination,
which is held before him, and in.the District city. It is part
of the duty of some of the numerous staff of this ofﬁcial to
disseminate the notice of such an impending examination. In
any Western country, this would be accomplished by the inser-
tion of a brief advertisement in the ofﬁcial newspaper of the
District, or County. In China, where there are no newspapers,

112 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the message must be orally delivered. The high schools in
which pupils are trained with special reference to such exami-
nations, are visited, and the day of the examination notiﬁed.
Literary graduates within the district, who must be examined
with reference to passing a higher grade, are also informed of
the date. A small sum, the equivalent of ﬁfteen or twenty
cents, is expected by the yamen messengers as a solace for the
“bitterness ” which they have suffered in distributing the
notices. Notwithstanding this clumsy method of circulating
the notiﬁcations, it is rare that any one concerned fails to re-
ceive the message.

Those who intend to be examined, make their way to the
city, a day or two in advance of the time ﬁxed, that they may
rent quarters for the half month which they will be obliged to
spend there. If the student chance to have friends in the city,
he may avoid the expense of rentinga place, and if his home
should be near the city, he may be able to return thither at in—
tervals, and thus lessen the expenditure ; for all these triﬂes are
important to the poor scholar, who has abundant need of
money. As many scholars combine to rent one room or one
house, the cost to each is not great, perhaps the equivalent of
one or two dollars. Each candidate must furnish himself with
provisions for half a month. In some district cities there
are special examination buildings, capable by crowding, of
seating 600 or 800 persons. In other cities, where these build-
ings have either never been built, or have been allowed to go to
ruin, the examination is conducted in the Confucian temple, or
at the yamén of the District Magistrate.

On the ﬁrst day of the examination, two themes/are given
out at daylight, by which time every candidate must be in the
place "assigned him, and from there he must not stir. The
themes are each taken from the Four Books, and the essay is
not expected to exceed 600 characters. By nine or ten o’clock
the stamp of the examiner is afﬁxed to the last character writ-
ten in the essay, preventing further additions if it should not be

 

CHINESE HIGHER EDUC4 TION I I3

ﬁnished, and the essays are gathered up. About eleven o’clock,
the third theme is given out. This is an exercise in poetry,
the subject of which may be taken from the Book of Odes, or
from some standard poet. The poem is to be composed of not
more than sixty characters, ﬁve in each line. A rapid writer
and composer, may be able to hand in his paper by three or '
four in the afternoon, and many others will require much
longer. The limit of time may be ﬁxed at midnight, or pos—
sibly at daylight the next morning. The physical condition of
a scholar who has been pinned to his seat for four and twenty
hours, struggling to produce an essay and poem which shall be
regarded by the severest critic as ideal, can be but faintly im-
agined by the Occidental reader.

The next two days being devoted to the inspection of the
wilderness of essays and poems, the product of this ﬁrst trial,
the unhappy competitors have leisure for much needed rest and
sleep. On the morning of the fourth day, the “boards are
hung,” that is, the list of those whose essays have passed, is
exposed. If the whole number of candidates should be 500——
an extremely moderate estimate for a reasonably populous dis-
trict—the proportion of those whose hopes are at once wrecked
may be half. Only those whose names are posted after the
ﬁrst trial can enter the succeeding one. If the subordinates of
the magistrate perceive that a great many names are thrown
out, they may come kneeling before the magistrate, knocking
their heads, and begging that he will kindly allow a few more
names to pass. If he happens to be in good humour at the
moment, he may grant their request, which is not in the smar-
est degree prompted by any interest in the affairs of the disap-
pointed candidates, but on the important principle, that the
fewer the sheep, the smaller will be the crop of wool.

The only fee required for the examination is that paid for
registration, which amounts to about twenty cents. Not the
name of the candidate only, but those of his father and grand-
father are to be recorded, to make it sure that no one legally

n4 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

disqualiﬁed is admitted. The paper upon which the examina-
tion essays and poems are written is of a special kind, sold only
at the yamén, and at a cost for each examination equivalent to
about ten cents, or ﬁfty-cents for the whole ﬁve examinations,
but the candidate must pay three-ﬁfths of this amount for the
ﬁrst supply, whether he is admitted to a further examination or
not. If he is, he becomes entitled to a rebate of this amount
on his subsequent purchases.

On the ﬁfth or sixth day, those who have been selected from
the whole number examined, again ﬁle into the examination
hall, and are seated according to their newly-acquired rank for
the second test. Three themes are again propounded, the ﬁrst
from the Four Books, the second from one of the Five Classics,
the third a poetical one, in a manner similar to the ﬁrst exami-
nation. A day or two is allowed for the inspection of these
essays, when the boards are again hung, and the result is to
drop out perhaps one—half of the competitors.

At the third examination the themes, which are given out
somewhat later than in the previous trials, are two in number,
one from the Four Books, the other poetical. About noon of
this day, the magistrate has a meal of vermicelli, rice, etc.,
sent to the candidates. By four in the afternoon the hall is
empty. After the interval of another day the boards are again
hung, indicating that all but perhaps ﬁfty are excluded from
further competition.

The fourth examination begins at a later hour than the third,
and while the number of the themes may be larger than before
——all of them from the Four Books—time is not allowed for the
completion of any of them. In addition to the classical
themes, a philosophical one may be given. Besides this, there
are poetical themes, to be treated in a way different from those
in the preceding examinations, and much more difﬁcult, as the
lines of poetry are subject also to the rules governing the com-
position of antithetical couplets.

The metre, whether ﬁve characters to a line, or seven, (the

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION I 15

only varieties to choose from), is left to the option of the can-
didate, who, if he be a ﬁne scholar and a rapid penman, may
treat the same theme in both ways. A meal is served as at the
preceding trial, and by ﬁve or six o’clock, the hall is empty.
After the interval of another day, the fourth board is hung, and
the number who have survived this examination is found to be
a small one—perhaps twenty or thirty.

A day later the ﬁnal examination occurs. The theme is from
the Four Books, and may be treated fully or partially according
to the examiner's orders at the moment. A poem is required
in the ﬁve-character metre, and also a transcript of some sec-
tion of the “Sacred Edicts” of the Emperor Yung Cheng.
The design of the latter is to furnish a specimen of the candi-
date’s handwriting, in case it should be afterward needed for
comparison. A meal is furnished as before, and by the middle
of the afternoon the hall is cleared. The next day the board
is again hung, announcing the names who have ﬁnally passed.
The number is a ﬁxed one, and it is relatively lowest where the
population is most dense. In two contiguous districts, for ex-
ample, which furnish on an average 500 or 600 candidates, the
number of those who can pass is limited, in the one case to
twenty and in the other to seventeen. In another district
where there are often 2,000 candidates, only thirty can pass.
It thus appears that the chances of success for the average can—
didate, are extremely tenuous.

Every candidate for a degree, is required to have a “ surety."
These are selected from graduates of former years, who have
advanced one step beyond that of hsiu-ts‘ai, to that of ling-
sheng hsiu-ts‘ai. The total number of sureties is not neces-
sarily large, perhaps four from each district, and many of them
may be totally unacquainted with the persons for whom they
become thus responsible. The nature of this responsibility is
twofold, ﬁrst to guarantee that the persons who enter under a
particular name, really bear that name, and second that during
the examination they will not violate any of the established

I16 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

rules. If a false name is shown to have been entered, or if a
violation of the rules occurs, the ling-shéng would be held re-
sponsible, and would be likely to lose his own rank as a grad-
uate. Each candidate is required to furnish not only a surety,
but also an alternate surety, and in consideration of a present
of from ten cents to ﬁve or six dollars, the ling-shéngs are quite
willing to guarantee as many candidates as apply. They must
be paid in advance, or they will prevent the candidate from
entering the examination hall.

The preliminary examinations in the District city, having
been thus completed, are followed about a month later by simi-
lar ones in the Prefectural city, before the Prefect, (chih-fu).
Here are gathered candidates from all the districts within the
jurisdiction of the Fu city, districts ranging in number accord-
ing to density of population, from two or three, to twelve or
more. Those who have failed to pass the District examinations
are not on that account disqualiﬁed from appearing at the Pre-
fectural examinations, which, like the former, are intended to
act as a process of sifting, in preparation for the ﬁnal and de-
cisive trial before the Literary Chancellor. The details of the
Prefectural examinations are similar to those already described,
and the time required is about the same. The number of can-
didates in a thickly—settled Prefecture, will often amount to
more than 10,000. As no ordinary examination building will
accommodate so many at once, they are examined in relays.
The examinations are conducted by the Prefect, but it by no
means follows that those who have been ﬁrst in the District ex-
aminations will be so now. The order changes, indeed, from
day to day, but those who are constantly toward the head of
the list, are regarded as certain to pass the Chancellor’s exam-

' ination.

The writer is acquainted with a man who at his examination
for the ﬁrst degree, stood last in a list of seventeen, at the trial
next before the ﬁnal one. But in that test he was dropped
one number, missing his degree by this narrow margin. His

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION :17

grief and rage were so excessive as to unbalance his mind, and
for the greater part of his life he has been a heavy burden on
his wife, doing absolutely nothing either for her support or for
his own. ,
Those who have already attained the degree of hsiu-ts‘ai, are
exanined by themselves for promotion. The expense of ob-
taining sureties is conﬁned to the last two sets of examinations.
The ﬁnal trial before the Literary Chancellor is conducted with
far greater care and caution than the preliminary ones before
the local ofﬁcials. The candidates having been duly guaran-
teed and entered, are assigned to seats, distinguished by the
characters in the Millenary Classic, which as already mentioned,
affords a convenient system of notation, being familiar, and
having no repeated characters. The students are closely
packed together, ﬁfteen or twenty at each table. The ﬁrst
table is termed “ Heaven ” after the ﬁrst character in the Mil-
lenary Classic, and its occupants are denoted as “ heaven one,”
“ heaven two,” etc. Each candidate notes his designation; for
in the ﬁnal lists of those who have passed, no names are used, but
only the description of the seat as above described. Every
student is carefully searched as he enters the hall, to ascertain
whether he has about him any books or papers which might aid
him in his task. The examination begins at an extremely
early hour, the theme being given out by sunrise. This theme
is written on a large wooden tablet, and is carried about to all
parts of the room, that each candidate may see it distinctly.
It is also read out, in a loud voice. By nine or ten o’clock an-
other subject is announced from the Four Books and a poetical
theme in ﬁve-metre rhythm. A rapid writer and composer
might ﬁnish his work by one or two o'clock in the afternoon.
As in other examinations, those who have completed their tasks
are allowed to leave the hall at ﬁxed times, and in detachments.
By ﬁve or six P. M. the time is up, and the fatal stamp is
afﬁxed to the last character, whatever the stage of the composi-
tion. During the whole of this examination, no one is allowed

118 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

on any pretext whatever to move from his position. If one
should be taken deathly sick, he reports to the superintendent
of his section, and requests permission to be taken out, but in
this case he cannot return. A student who should merely rise
in his seat and look around, would be beaten a hundred blows
on his hand, like a schoolboy (as indeed he is supposed to be),
would be compelled to kneel during the whole of the examina—
tion, and at the close would be ejected in disgrace, losing the
opportunity for examination until another year.

Some years ago the examination hall of the city of Chi-nan
Fu, the capital of Shan-tung, was in a very bad condition.
The Chancellor held the summer examinations at that city, be-
cause the situation is near to hills, and to water, and thus was
supposed to be a little cooler than others. At one of these ex-
aminations, a violent rain came on, and the roof of the build-
ing leaked like a sieve. Many of the poor candidates were
wet to the skin, their essays and poems being likewise in soak,
yet there they were obliged to remain, riveted to their seats.
The unhealthy season caused much sickness, and many of the
candidates suffered severely, seven or eight dying of cholera
while the examinations were in progress. That this is not an
exceptional state of things, is evident from the fact that it has
since been repeated. In the autumn examinations for 1888, at
this same place, it was reported that over one hundred persons
died in the quarters, either of cholera or of some epidemic
closely resembling it. Of these, some were servants, some
copyists, some students, and a few officials. On the same oc-
casion one of the main examination buildings fell in, as a result
of which several persons were said to have been killed. The
utterly demoralizing effect of such occurrences is obvious.

On the second or third day after the examinations the boards
are hung, and the number of those successful appears. Yet to
make the choice doubly sure, and to guard against fraud and
accidents, still another examination is added, which is ﬁnal and
decisive. In addition to the twenty or thirty who have passed,

d-IINESE HIGHER EDUCATION "9

half as many more names are taken of those next highest,
making perhaps thirty or forty candidates, between whom the
ﬁnal choice will lie. At this examination a theme from the
Four Books is again announced, on which only a fragment, the
beginning, middle or end of an essay, is to be produced, under
the immediate eye of the Chancellor himself. The number of
those examined being so limited, it is easy to supervise them
strictly, and changes in the previous order are sure to occur.

When the results of this examination are posted, the persons
who have ﬁnally passed, and whose talents are deﬁnitely ad-
judged to be “ﬂourishing,” are for the ﬁrst time known.
Those who have failed at any stage of the trial may return to
their homes, but those who have “entered school " must re-
main at the Prefectural city, to escort the Chancellor upon his
way to the next city where he is to hold examinations.

The expenses of the Chancellor’s examination, to those who
fail to pass, are the same as those of the preceding ones. But
for those who have “entered ” there are other and most mis-
cellaneous expenses, illustrating the Chinese aphorism that it is
the sick man who must furnish the perspiration. The fee to
the ling-shéng who is surety, has been already mentioned.
There are also other fees or gratuities, the amount of which
will depend upon the circumstances of the student, but all of
which must be paid. The underlings who transact the busi-
ness of the examination receive presents to the amount of sev~
eral dollars, the “board-hangers” must be rewarded with, a
few hundred cash, etc., etc.

As soon as the candidate is known to have “ entered,” a
strip of red paper is prepared, announcing this fact, and a
messenger is posted off to the graduate’s home. For this
service, a fee of several thousand cash is expected. Large
proclamations, called “Joyful Announcements,” are prepared
by establishments where characters are cut on blocks, and sold
to successful competitors, at the rate of three or four cents
apiece. A poor scholar may not be able to afford these luxur-

120 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

ies, but those who can afford it buy great numbers of them,
sending them in every direction to friends and relatives, who
take care to have them properly posted. On receipt of these
notiﬁcations, it is customary for the friends of the fortunate
family to pay a visit of congratulation, at which they must be
handsomely entertained at a feast. Each one brings with him
a present in money, varying according to his circumstances,
and his relations to the family of the graduate. If the new-
made Bachelor has a wide circle of relatives and friends, espe-
cially if some of them happen to be occupying ofﬁcial positions,
he will not improbably receive enough in gifts of this sort, to
reimburse himself for the costs attending his examinations, and
in exceptional instances, his congratulatory presents may greatly
exceed the total of his expenses.

The style of these notices is the same, a blank being left for
the name and rank of the graduate which is inserted in writ-
ing. It is a very common practice in some regions to an-
nounce that the person concerned, “ entered as ﬁrst on the list,”
though as a matter of fact he may have been one of the last.
This is considered a very easy and desirable way to get a name,
though no one is deceived by the fraud, for when a dead wall
is covered by scores of these announcements, each recording
the entry of some one as the “ ﬁrst name,” it is obvious that
the phrase is merely employed for display.

It would naturally be supposed that the result of competition
so severe and so protracted as that for the degree of hsiu-ts‘ai,
would be certiﬁed in the most careful manner, such as by a di-
ploma bearing the seal of the Chancellor. There is, however,
nothing of the kind. The essays of the successful candidates
are supposed to be forwarded to the Board of Rites in Peking,
where it is to be hoped they eventually grow mouldy and dis—
appear, else the capital might be buried beneath the enormous
mass. But the individual whose talent is at last ﬂourishing,
has of that fact no tangible evidence whatever. When it be-
comes desirable to investigate the claim of a hsiu-ts‘ai, he is

.. aniA-nmgm

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION m

asked in what year he graduated, the name of the examiner,
the several themes propounded, etc. It will be difﬁcult to
manufacture plausible replies, which will not give some clew to
their falsity. In one case of this sort within the writer’s knowl-
edge, a man who had been examined, but who did not pass, on
being questioned gave the name, the subjects, etc., which be-
longed to his own brother, who really was a graduate. The
man himself, as afterward appeared, was in prison at the very
time when he professed to have graduated.

This absence of credentials fora degree so much coveted,
makes it easy for scholars of shrewdness, and real ability, to
pass themselves off in districts remote from their own, as hav-
ing attained to a rank which they have not in reality reached.

A graduate is allowed to wear a plain brass button on his
cap, which he prefers to the pewter one given him on gradur
ating. In case of violations of law, the Magistrate of the
District in which the offender lives, may have his button taken
away, and the graduate reduced to the level of any other per-
son. As long, however, as he continues to be a graduate, he
cannot be beaten like other Chinese, except on the palm of the
hand. If a Magistrate were to violate the rights of any grad?
uate, the act would raise a tornado about his head, before
which he would be glad to retreat, for the whole body of
graduates would rise like a swarm of hornets to resent the
insult.

The ﬁnancial exigencies of the past generation or two have
led to the open sale of literary degrees, a practice resorted to
on a great scale by the Chinese Government, whenever there is
any unusual pressure for funds, such as the repair of the disas-
ters caused by the change in the Yellow River. It is often
quite possible to buy the degree of hsiu—ts‘ai, for about $100,
and the purchaser is provided with a certiﬁcate, being in this
respect on a better footing than the graduate. But subscrip—
tion degrees are regarded with merited contempt, and their sale
great as it has been, does not appear to have seriously affected

122 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the regular examinations, by diminishing the number of con-
testants.

There are other methods than purchase of a degree, by which
the candidate for literary honours, whose means admit of it,
may try to weight the wheel of fortune in his favour. There are
three common ways of providing oneself with examination es-
says without undergoing the labour of composing them. Of
these the ﬁrst is known as the “ box plan,” (hrz'ang-tzzi), and it
is not so much cramming, as padding. The Four Books and
Five Classics seem at ﬁrst sight to afford an almost unbounded
ﬁeld for subjects of essays, and as the Chancellor does not an-
nounce his themes until he enters the hall, it is hopeless to at-
tempt to ascertain them in advance. But the shrewd Celestial
has an empirical, if not a scientiﬁc acquaintance with the doc-
trine of chances and of averages. He knows that in the course
of years, the same themes recur, and that essays which were
composed long before he was born are just as good in the pres-
ent year as they ever were. The “ padding ” method consists
in lining one’s clothing with an immense number of essays,
the characters of which are of that minute kind known as “ﬂy-
eye," scarcely legible without a magnifying glass. Upon this
scale, it is easy to reduce an essay with 300 characters to a
compass of extreme insigniﬁcance, and a moderately “ padded ”
scholar might be provided with 8,000 or 10,000 such essays.
Sometimes they are concealed in the baskets in which the stu-
dents bring their provisions to the hall. By dint of a complete
index, the student who is padded, can readily ascertain whether
he is provided with an essay upon the passage desired, and
though the Withdrawal of an essay from a pack might seem a
more difﬁcult feat, it is easily done by the judicious expendi-
ture of a fee to the guards both at the door and within the hall.
A variation of the padding method is to have essays written all
over the lining of the inner jackets, which are made of white
silk for this purpose.

A second and very common way of obtaining essays without

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION ”3

writing them, is by purchase. In furtherance of this plan,
there is a. special system of machinery, which (with appropri-
ate ﬁnancial lubrication) may be easily set in motion.

The purchase of an essay is one of those acts which in China
can by no possibility be concealed. “ There is no hedge that
excludes the wind,” and the close proximity of so many wit-
nesses would, in any case, render the transaction in a manner a
public one. Why then do not those scholars who are honestly
toiling for a degree, agree to expose the frauds by which every
one of them is so seriously wronged? It is not, indeed, an
unknown circumstance for a scholar to cry out, so as to attract
the attention of the examiners, when he witnesses the transfer
of essays, but it is not apparently a common act. The custom
of selling essays, like other abuses in China, is too universal
and too ancient to be broken up, without the steady coopera-
tion of many forces, for which it is hopeless to look. The
Chinese dread to give offence by any such burst of indignation
as would be, for an Occidental, irrepressible. And so things
go on in the old way. As to the morality of the affair, if the
consideration of it ever occurs to any one, it is hard to make
that appear culpable in a poor scholar, which is legitimate for
the emperor.

The proportion of students who obtain their degrees unfairly
must be large, but there is no means of ascertaining the facts,
even approximately. No two examinations are alike, and in all
of them much depends upon the temper and vigilance of the
presiding ofﬁcer. In one district in which the writer lived,
there was an examination in which so many persons obtained
their degrees by fraud, that even the patience of the most pa-
tient of peoples was exhausted. Some defeated candidate
wrote a complaint of the wrong, and tossed it into the exami-
nation hall where it was brought to the attention of the Chancel-
lor, who had all the successful candidates examined on their es-
says, an examination which eleven out of ﬁfteen were unable to
pass, having bought their essays, and the result was their sum-

i24 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

mary disgrace. Since this occurrence, much greater care has
been exercised at this particular examination than was formerly
the rule. In another district a candidate known to the writer
succeeded in passing the ﬁrst of the two examinations before
the Chancellor, but the second was too much for him. His
essay and poem were adjudged bad, and he was beaten a hun-
dred blows on the hand. It was then the custom to publish the
names of those who passed the best examination on the ﬁrst
trial before the Chancellor, as already having attained a de-
gree. This notice had already been sent to the home of the
candidate, who now had the exquisite mortiﬁcation of having
his name erased, when the prize was already within his grasp.
The subordinates in the yamén of the Chancellor kneeled to his
Excellency, and implored him to overlook the amazing stupid-
ity of this candidate, which the great man was kind enough to
do, and thus a degree was wrested even from fate itself.

At all varieties of examinations, there are present many per-
sons who act as essay brokers and as middle-men between those
who have essays to sell, and those who wish to buy. It is sup—
posed that both the seller of the essay and the purchaser will
be among those examined, but the practical difﬁculty arises
from the uncertainty whether their respective seats in the hall,
which cannot be known in advance, will be within reach of each
other. As any two persons are very liable to be so far apart
that communication will be impossible, it is usual for the essay
broker to introduce a number of essay vendors to each intend-
ing purchaser, so that the chances of effecting a transfer be-
tween any two of them may be increased. To bind the bar-
gain, before the essay is composed, a brief but explicit contract
is signed by the purchaser in the hall. The terms are arranged
on a sliding scale, called “ ﬁrst two and after two,” “ ﬁrst ﬁve
and after ﬁve,” etc. This signiﬁes that it is agreed that the
person who furnishes the essay shall receive in any event a ﬁrst
payment of 20,000 cash, or 50,000 cash, as the case may be,
and should the purchaser win a degree, there is to be an after

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION :25

payment of 200,000 cash, or 500,000 cash, according to the
terms. These payments are enforced by the brokers, who must
be well acquainted with the ﬁnancial circumstances of the sev-
eral parties. These obligations, like gambling debts, cannot
of course be legally prosecuted, but the Chinese have in all
such cases simple ways of enforcing payment, such as raising
a disturbance in an annoying and public way.

The reputation of having bought an examination essay is not
one which any candidate wishes to have made public authentic-
ally, however notorious the fact may be, but the reputation of
having bought an essay and of having declined payment, would
be intolerable. Some essay vendors frequent examinations for
a long series of years, with no view to obtaining a degree for
themselves, but in order to reap more substantial beneﬁts from
their scholarship than a degree is likely to confer. If they have
once taken a degree themselves, they can only carry on this
trade by assuming the name of some candidate, to whom a fee
must be paid for the privilege of personating him. Graduates
of the rank of Selected Men also carry on this business, some-
times in a double way, taking a degree for the person whom
they personate, and also having leisure to write essays for sale,
after their own are ﬁnished, thus killing two birds with one
stone. In either case, it is necessary to bribe the ling-shéng
who is the guarantee of the identity of the undergraduate.

The third method of obtaining the essays of other persons, is
called “ transmission ” (ch‘uan ti). This can only be ac-
complished by the cooperation of the inspectors (hsﬁn ch‘ang)
who, like all other mortals, are supposed to be perfectly open to
considerations of temporal advantage, if only arguments of
sufﬁcient strength are employed. As soon as the Chancellor’s
theme is announced, it is copied, and at a preconcerted signal
thrown over the wall of the examination premises to persons
waiting for it. Several scholars outside may have been previ-
ously engaged to write essays for different persons within the
hall. When the essays are ﬁnished they are carefully done up,

126 VIiLAGE LIFE IN G-IINA

and at a signal, such as a call for a dog or for a cat, are thrown
over the wall to the watchman, who has been previously paid
to receive them. The inspector, also liberally fed, ascertains
from a private mark on each essay, for whom it is intended,
and while pacing back and forth through the hall, contrives to
deliver them, without being seen by the Chancellor. In one
case, six persons were known to have received their degrees,
on the merits of essays which were brought into the hall after
being thrown over the wall in a single bundle. Sometimes
essays are concealed in the body of a harmless-looking bread-
cake, which is tossed carelessly from one candidate to another
when the lunches are eaten, with the connivance, no doubt, of
the inspectors. The District Magistrates sometimes post the
Secretaries at the corners of the examination hall, where it is
easy to see all that goes on. But much more often, it is prob-
able, that the Magistrate takes little interest in such details.

In some examinations, the Chancellors are very strict, and
forbid any of the watchmen to enter the hall at all, which, of
course, checkmates the plan last described. Such instances are
much more than offset by others, in which the Chancellor does
not remain through the examination himself, but entrusts the
conduct of affairs to his Secretaries. These functionaries are
then at liberty to furnish essays to candidates who can afford to
pay the heavy price necessary. In such cases, while ostensibly
examining the essays, the Secretaries ﬁnd it easy to throw one
of their own under a stool, or in some place from which it may
be readily captured by the purchaser.

In a case reported in the Peking Gazette some years since, a
bold vendor of essays succeeded in getting his paper conveyed
to the individual for whom it was intended, by hooking it on
the garments of the venerable Chancellor himself, who thus un-
consciously became the bearer of the very documents which he
was endeavouring to suppress! The candidates at the Chan-
cellor’s examination are generally seated in such proximity, that
including those on each side, most of the students are within

O'IINESE HIGHER EDUCATION :27

easy reach of ten or ﬁfteen other persons. This renders the
transfer of papers an easy matter. In the second of these
trials, when the number is reduced to a mere handful, the stu-
dents are often seated just as compactly as before.

A scholar with whom the writer is acquainted, once found
himself near a poor fellow, who was utterly at a loss how to
treat the theme from Mencius, “ Like climbing a tree to catch
a ﬁsh.” A verbal arrangement was hastily made for the pur-
chase of an essay, but the usual written agreement was omitted.
The essay was indited in the lawless style of chirography known
as the “grass character,” and handed to the purchaser to be
copied. Here an untoward accident occurred, for the man
who bought the essay mistook two characters, when he copied
out the paper, for two others which they much resembled, thus
ruining the chances of success. The poor scholar begged off
from the amount which he had agreed to‘ pay, (which was
about ten dollars) on the plea of poverty. The angry essay—
seller then raised a kind of mob of students, went to the lodg-
ings of his debtor and made an uproar, the result of which was
to extract from the latter about a dollar and a half, which was
all that could be got ! The preceptor of the man who sold the
essay, who was himself one of the candidates at this examina-
tion, claimed, with many others, that the essay which was sold,
as represented by the author, must certainly have resulted in a
degree for the poor scholar if he had not blundered in inditing
false characters.

Should an examiner overlook a wrong character, and the
fact be afterward made public, he might be degraded for his
carelessness. A case of this sort was reported a few years ago
in the Peking Gazette. At the triennial examination for the
Han-lin, in the year 1871, after the essays had been submitted
to the Han-lin examiners, the nine most meritorious ones were
selected, and were sent in to the Empress Dowager—the Em-
peror being under age—t0 have the award formally conﬁrmed.
The work of greatest merit was placed uppermost, but the old

128 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

lady, who had an imperial will of her own, was anxious to
thwart the decision of the learned pundits; and, as chance
would have it, the sunlight fell upon the chosen manuscript,
and she discovered a ﬂaw, a thinness in the paper, indicating a
place in the composition where one character had been erased
and another substituted. The Empress rated the examiners
for allowing such “slovenly work” to pass, and proclaimed
another man, whose name was Hsiang, as victor. This indi-
vidual hailed from the province of Kuang-tung—a province
which had produced a Senior Wrangler but once in 250 years.
On his return to his native province the successful scholar was
received by the local authorities with the highest possible
honours. All the families owning his surname who could
afford to do so paid enormous sums to be permitted to come
and worship at his ancestral hall, for by this means they estab-
lished a pseudo claim to relationship, and were allowed to place
tablets over the entrances of their own halls inscribed with the
title Chuang Yiian, or Senior Wrangler. The superstitious
Cantonese believed that the sunbeam which revealed the fatal
ﬂaw was a messenger sent from heaven !

The fact that a man has taken the degree of hsiu-ts‘ai, does
not release him from the necessity of studying. On the con-
trary, this is called “ entering school,” and the graduate is re-
quired to present himself at each triennial examination, to com-
pete for the next step in the scale of honours, that of ling-
shéng hsiu-ts‘ai. The number of graduates who can attain
the rank of ling~sheng in any one year is limited. In a district
which graduates seventeen hsiu-ts‘ai, there may be but one or
two ling-sheng graduates passed at a time. There are, how-
ever, extra examinations, as already explained, in case of the
accession of an Emperor, etc., and when a vacancy in the ﬁxed
number takes place through death, an additional candidate is
allowed to pass to ﬁll the place. A hsiu-ts‘ai is not allowed to
decline the examination merely on account of the impi‘obability
of his passing it 5 on the contrary, every graduate is required

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION [29

to compete as often as examinations occur. This is the
theory, but as a matter of fact, the payment of about a dollar
and a half to the underlings of the Superintendent of Instruc-
tion for the District will enable the candidate to have an entry
opposite his name, signifying that he is “ incapacitated by ill-
ness,” or is “not at home.” But after the graduate has been
examined ten times, and has persistently failed to show any
capacity for further advance, he is excused from examination
thereafter, and his name is dropped. At these examinations the
candidates are divided into four classes according to the re-
spective merits of their essays. If any candidate fails to get
into the ﬁrst three classes, he is regarded as having forfeited his
title to the grade of hsiu-ts‘ai, and he loses his rank as such,
unless the Chancellor can be prevailed upon to excuse his
“ rotten scholarship," and give the unfortunate student another
trial. Hence the proverb, “The hsiu-ts‘ai dreads the fourth
class." The ling-shéng is entitled to a small allowance of
about $10 a year, from the Government, to assist him in the
prosecution of his studies, though the amount can hardly be re-
garded as proportioned to the difﬁculty of attaining the rank
which alone is entitled to receive this meagre help.

The ling—sheng graduates are required to compete at the
triennial examinations, for the next step, which is that of kung-
shéng. Only one candidate can enter this rank at one examin-
ation unless there should be a special vacancy.

There are ﬁve varieties of kung—shéng, according to the time
at which and the conditions under which they have graduated.
These scholars do not, like the ling-shéng, act as bondsmen for
undergraduates, nor do they like them, have an allowance.
They are permitted to wear a semi-ofﬁcial robe, and are ad-
dressed by a title of respect, but in a pecuniary point of view
their honours are empty ones, unless they secure the place of
Superintendent of Instruction, which must, however, be in
some district other than their own. The kung-shéng and the
hsiu-ts‘ai are at opposite ends of one division of the long edu-

I30 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

cational road. The former is regarded as a schoolboy, and
the latter is for the ﬁrst time a man, and need be examined no
more, unless he chooses to compete for the rank of Selected
Man, (chii-jén) an examination which has intricacies and perils
of its own. “ The hsiu-ts‘ai,” says the proverb, “ must have
talent, but the chii-jén must have fate,” that is, no amount of
talent, by itself, will sufﬁce to win this higher rank, unless the
fates are on one’s side, a proposition which we are prepared to
believe, from what has already been seen of the lower grades
of scholarship.

At any part of the long process which we have described, it
is possible to become a candidate for honours above, by pur—
chasing those below. A man of real talent, studiously inclined,
might for example buy the rank of ling—shéng, and then with a
preceptor of his own, and great diligence, become a kung-
sheng, a chii-jén, and perhaps at last an ofﬁcial, skipping all the
tedious lower steps. The taint of having climbed over the
wall, instead of entering by the straight and narrow way,
would doubtless cling to him forever, but this circumstance
would probably not interfere with his equanimity, so long as it
did not diminish his proﬁts. As a matter of experience, how-
ever, it is probable that it would be more worth while to buy an
ofﬁce outright, rather than to enter the ﬁeld, by the circuitous
route of a combination of purchase and examinations.

Whether to be examined or not is not always optional in
China. A father was determined that his son should study for
a degree, which the son was very unwilling to do, yielding how-
ever to compulsion. He was so successful that at the age of
nineteen he became a Bachelor, only to ﬁnd that his father’s
ambition was far from satisﬁed, and that he now required him
to go on and work for the next degree of Selected Man. Per-
ceiving that there was no hope of escaping this discouraging
task, the youth hung himself, and was examined no more!

The ofﬁce of Superintendent of Instruction, is considered a
very desirable one, since the duties are light, and the income

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION 13!

considerable. This income arises partly from a large tract of
land set apart for the support of the two Superintendents,
partly from “ presents ” of grain exacted twice a year after the
manner of Buddhist priests, and partly from fees which every
graduate is required to pay, varying as all such Chinese pay-
ments do, according to the circumstances of the individual.
The Superintendent is careful to inquire privately into the
means at the disposal of each graduate, and ﬁxes his tax ac-
cordingly. From his decision there is no appeal. If the pay—
ment is resisted as excessive, the Superintendent, who is theo~
retically his preceptor, will have the hsiu-ts‘ai beaten on the
hands, and probably double the amount of the assessment. If
any of the graduates in a district are accused of a crime, they
are reported to the District Magistrate, who turns them over to
the Superintendent of Instruction, for an inquiry. The Super-
intendent and the Magistrate together, could secure the dis-
grace of a graduate, as already explained.

The Government desires to encourage learning as much as
possible, and to this end there are in many cities, what may be
termed Government high-schools or colleges, where preceptors
of special ability are appointed to explain the Classics, and to
hold frequent examinations, similar to those in the regular
course, as described. The funds for the support of such insti—
tutions, are sometimes derived from the voluntary subscriptions
of wealthy persons, who have been rewarded by the gift of an
honourary title, or perhaps from a tax on a cattle fair, etc.
Where the arrangement is carried out in good faith, it has
worked well, but in two districts known to the writer, the whole
plan has been brought into discredit of late years, on account
of the promotion to ofﬁce of District Magistrates who have
bought their way upward, and who have no learning of their
own. In such cases, the management of the examination is
probably left to a Secretary, who disposes of it as quickly and
with as little trouble to himself as possible. The themes for
the essays are given out, and prizes promised for the best, but

132 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

instead of remaining to superintend the competition, the Secre-
tary goes about his business, leaving the scholars who wish to
compete to go to their homes, and write their essays there, or
to have others do it for them, as they prefer. In some in
stances, the same man registers under a variety of names, and
writes competitive essays for them all, or he perhaps writes his
essays and sells them to others, and when they are handed in,
no questions are asked. It would be easy to stop abuses of this
sort, if it were the concern or the interest of any one to do so,
but it is not, and so they continue. A school-teacher with
whom the writer is acquainted, happening to have a school near
the district city, made it a constant practice for many years, to
attend examinations of this sort. He was examined about a
hundred times, and on four occasions received a prize, once a
sum in money equivalent to about seventy-ﬁve cents, and three
other times a sum equal to about half—a-dollar !

It is a constant wonder to Occidentals, by what motives the
Chinese are impelled, in their irrepressible thirst for literary
degrees, even under all the drawbacks and disadvantages, some
of which have been described. These motives, like all others
in human experience are mixed, but at the base of them all, is
a desire for fame and for power. In China the power is in the
hands of the learned and of the rich. Wealth is harder to ac-
quire than learning, and incomparably more difﬁcult to keep.
The immemorial traditions of the empire are all in favour of
the man who is willing to submit to the toils that he may win
the rewards of the scholar.

Every village as already explained, has its headmen. Among
them the literary graduate, provided he is also a practical man,
will inevitably take the lead. He will often come into relations
with the District Magistrate, which makes him a marked man
among his fellows. He will be constantly called upon to assist
in the settlement of disputes, and every such occasion will
aﬂ'ord opportunities for the privilege, so dear to the Chinese, of
enjoying a feast at the expense of his neighbours, besides put-

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION :33

ting them under an obligation to him for his trouble. At the
weddings and funerals within the large circle of his acquaint-
ance he will be a frequent guest, and always in the place of
honour due to his literary degree. This is especially the case in
funeral ceremonies of those who are buried with the most elab-
orate ritual. On these occasions the ancestral tablet of the
deceased is to be written, and as an important part of the ex-
ercises a red dot over one character signifying King is to be
placed, thus changing it into the symbol denoting Lord. It is
not uncommon to have the performances connected with such
funerals extended over several days, each furnishing three ex-
cellent feasts, as well as abundant supplies of Opium for those
who wish to smoke. In a country like China the participation
in revels such as these approach more nearly to paradisaic bliss
than anything of which the Chinese mind can conceive.
Every scholar is desirous of getting into such relations with his
environment that honours of this sort come to him as a matter of
course. If he happens to be very poor, they furnish a not un-
important part of his support, as well as of his happiness.

The village graduate who knows how to help in lawsuits by
preparing complaints, and by assisting in the intricate proceed-
ings ensuing at each stage is often able by means of the prestige
thus gained, to get his living at the expense of others more
ignorant. No country offers a better ﬁeld for such an enter-
prise than China. Unbounded respect for learning coexists
with unbounded ignorance, and the experienced literary man
knows how to turn each of these elements to the very best ac-
count. In all lands and in all ages, the man who is possessed
with what is vulgarly termed the “ gift of the gab,” is able to
make his own way, and in China he carries everything before
him.

The range of territory which any aspirant for literary honours
in China must expect to traverse, is, as we have seen, conti.
nental. In order to have any hope of success, he must be ac-
quainted with every square inch of it, and must be prepared to

134 VILLAGE LIFE IN O'IINA

sink an artesian well from any given point to any given depth.
To the uneducated peasant, whose whole being is impregnated
with a blind respect for learning, amounting at times to a kind
of idolatry, such knowledge as this seems an almost supernat—
ural acquirement, and inspires all the reverence of which he is
capable. The thought of the estimate in which they will be
held for the whole term of their lives, is thus a powerful stim-
ulus to scholars of ambition, even under the greatest discour-
agements. —

There could scarcely be a better exempliﬁcation of what the
Chinese saying calls “ superiority to those below, and inferiority
to those above,” than the position of the hsiu—ts‘ai. While he
is looked upon by the vulgar herd in the light we have de-
scribed, by the educated classes above him he is regarded, as
we have so often termed him, as a schoolboy who is not yet
even in school. The popular dictum avers that though the
whole body of hsiu-ts‘ai should attempt to start a rebellion, and
should be left undisturbed in the effort for three years, the re-
sult would be failure, albeit this proverb ﬁnds no support in the
history of the great rebellion, which originated with a discon-
tented undergraduate who was exasperated at his repeated fail—
ures to get his talent recognized. Literary examinations, as we
have abundantly seen, are like the game of backgammon, an
equal mixture of skill and luck, but the young graduate easily
comes to regard the luck as due to the skill, and thus becomes
ﬁlled to the full of that intellectual pride which is one of the
greatest barriers to the national progress of China.

Differing by millenniums from the system just described is that
recently decreed after successful agitation by a few reformers.
During the summer of 1898 His Majesty Kuang Hsii, Emperor
of China, issued several Edicts which abolished the “ eight-
legged examination essay ” as an avenue to the attainment of
literary degrees, and introduced in their place what was termed
Practical Chinese Literature, and Western Learning, which were
to be combined in Provincial and County Academies. Exist-

CHINESE HIGHER EDUCATION I35

ing institutions were to be remodelled after a more or less deﬁ-
nite pattern set in Peking. All except ofﬁcial temples (that is,
those where offerings or services were required from the Magis-
trates) were to be surrendered as seats of the New Learning.
Reports were demanded from Provincial Governors as to the
present status of these temples, and the future prospects for in-
come from them.

These Edicts potentially revolutionized the intellectual life of
China. They were received very differently in different parts
of the empire, but there is no reason to doubt that they would
have been widely welcomed by an influential minority of the
literati of China, who had in various ways come to realize the
futility of the present instruction for the needs of to-day. The
immediate effect was to bring Western Learning into universal
demand. Scholars who had never deigned to recognize the ex-
istence of foreigners, were now glad to become their pupils and
purchasers of their text-books on a large scale. For a few
weeks examination themes were strongly tinctured with Western
topics, and those who were able to show any familiarity with
those branches of learning were almost sure of a degree. Cor-
rect answers to simple mathematical, geographical, or astro-
nomical questions are said to have rendered success certain,
and it is even alleged that a candidate in one place took his
honours by writing out and commenting upon the Ten Com-
mandments, which he represented as The Western Code of
Laws.

Toward the close of September, 1898, the Empress Dow-
ager seized the reins, suppressed her nephew, and nearly all re-
forms, educational and political, were extinguished. A new
Imperial University in Peking survived the storm, but almost
all of the extended and beneﬁcent program of His Majesty was
relegated to the Greek Kalends. It is only a question of time
when the pendulum shall swing back, but every well-wisher of
China hopes that it may not be delayed until the national ex-
istence of the Chinese shall have been lost.

XI

VILLAGE TEMPLES AND RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES

THE process by which the inconceivably great numbers of

Chinese temples came. to be is not without an interest of
its own. When a few individuals wish to build a temple, they
call the headmen of the village, in whose charge by long cus-
tom are all the public matters of the town, and the enterprise is
put in their care. It is usual to make an assessment on the
land for funds; this is not necessarily a ﬁxed sum for each
acre, but is more likely to be graded according to the amount
of land each owns, the poor being perhaps altogether exempt,
or very lightly taxed, and the rich paying much more heavily.
When the money is all collected by the managers, the building
begins under their direction. If the temple is to be a large
one, costing several hundred taels, in addition to this preliminary
tax, a subscription book is opened, and sent to all the neigh-
bouring villages, and sometimes to all within a wide radius, the
begging being often done by some priest of persuasive powers,
dragging a chain, or having his cheeks pierced with spikes, or in
some way bearing the appearance of fulﬁlling a vow. The only
motive to these outside contributions is the strong impetus to
the “ practice of virtue,” which exists among the Chinese, and
which can be played upon to almost any extent. Lists of con—
tributions are kept in the larger temples, and the donors are
expected to receive the worth of their money, through seeing
their names posted in a conspicuous place, as subscribers of a
certain sum. In some regions it is customary to set down the
amount given as much larger than it really is, by a ﬁction
equally agreeable to all concerned. Thus the donor of 2 50
cash sees his name “graded as the subscriber of 1,000 cash, and

I36

VILLAGE TEMPLES AND RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES 137

so throughout. These subscriptions to temples are in reality a
loan to be repaid whenever the village subscribing ﬁnds itself in
need of similar help, and the obligation will not be forgotten by
the donors.

It is seldom safe to generalize in regard to anything in China,
but if there is one thing in regard to WI ich a generalization
would seem to be more safe than another, it would be the uni-
versality of temples in every village throughout the empire.
Yet it is an undoubted fact that there are, even in China, great
numbers of villages which have no temple at all. This is true
of all those which are inhabited exclusively by Mohammedans,
who never take any part in the construction of such ediﬁces,
a peculiarity which is now well known and respected though at
the ﬁrst appearance of these strangers, it caused them many
bitter struggles to establish their right to a monotheistic faith.

The most ordinary explanation of a comparatively rare phe-
nomenon of a village without a temple, is that the hamlet is a
small one and cannot afford the expense. Sometimes it may
have been due to the fact that there was no person of sufﬁcient
intelligence in the village to take the initial steps, and as one
generation is much inﬂuenced by what was done and what was
not done in the generations that have passed, ﬁve hundred
years may elapse without the building of a temple, simply be-
cause a temple was not built ﬁve hundred years ago. In the
very unusual cases where a village is without one, it is not be-
cause they have no use for the gods ; for in such instances the
villagers frequently go to the temples of the next village and
“ borrow their light,” just as a poor peasant who cannot
afford to keep an animal to do his plowing may get the loan of
a donkey in planting time, from a neighbour who is better off.

The two temples which are most likely to be found, though
all others be wanting, are those of the local god, and of the god
of war. The latter has been made much of by the present
dynasty, and greatly promoted in the pantheon. The former is
regarded as a kind of constable in the next world, and he is to

x38 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

be informed promptly on the death of an adult, that he may re-
port to the city god (“ Ch‘éng Huang,”) who in turn reports
to Yen Wang, the Chinese Pluto.

In case a village has no temple to the T‘u-ti, or local god,
news of the death is conveyed to him by wailing at the crossing
of two streets, where he is supposed to be in ambush.

Tens of thousands of villages are content with these two tem-
ples, which are regarded as almost indispensable. If the village
is a large one, divided into several sections transacting their pub—
lic business independently of one another, there may be several
temples to the same divinity. It is a common saying, illustrative
of Chinese notions on this topic, that the local god at one end
of the village has nothing to do with the affairs of the other end
of the village.

When the temple has been built, if the managers have been
prudent, they are not unlikely to have collected much more
than they will use in the building. This surplus is used partly
in giving a theatrical exhibition, to which all donors are invited
—which is the only public way in which their virtue can be ac-
knowledged—but mainly in the purchase of land, the income
of which shall support the temple priest. In this way, a temple
once built is in a manner endowed, and becomes self-support-
ing. The managers select some one of the donors, and appoint
him a sort of president of the board of trustees, (called a slum
rim, or “ master of virtue ”), and he is the person with whom
the managers take account for the rentland use of the land.
Sometimes a public school is supported from the income of the
land, and sometimes this income is all gambled away by vicious
priests, who have devices of their own to get control of the
property to the exclusion of the .villagers. When temples get
out of repair, which, owing to their defective construction, is
constantly the case, they must be rebuilt by a process similar to
that by which they were originally constructed; for in China
there are as truly successive crops of temples as of turnips.

There is no limit to the number of temples which a single

VILLAGE TEMPLES AND RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES I39

village may be persuaded into building. Some villages of three
hundred families have one to every ten families, but this must
be an exceptional ratio. It is a common saying among the
Chinese that the more temples a village has, the poorer it is,
and also the worse its morals. But, on the other hand, the
writer has heard of one village which has none at all, but which
has acquired the nickname of “ Ma Family Thief Village.” It
seems reasonable to infer from the observed facts that, when
they have fallen into comparative desuetude, temples are almost
inert, so far as, influence goes. But when ﬁlled with indolent
and vicious priests, as is too often the case, they are baneful to
the morals of any community. In the rural districts, it is com-
paratively rare to ﬁnd resident priests, for the reason that they
cannot live from the scanty revenue, and a year of famine will
starve them out of large districts.

Temples that are a little distance from a village are a favourite
resort of thieves, as a convenient place to divide their booty,
and also are resting-places for beggars. To prevent this mis-
use, it is common to see the door entirely bricked up, or per-
haps a small opening may be left for the divinity to breathe
through !

The erection of a temple is but the beginning of an inter-
minable series of expenses; for, if there is a priest, he must be
paid for each separate service rendered, and will besides de-
mand a tax in grain of every villager after the wheat and au-
tumn harvests—exactions which often become burdensome in
the extreme. In addition to this, minor repairs keep up an un-
ceasing ﬂow of money. If there is an annual chanting of
sacred books (called ta dude), this is also a heavy expense.

Temples which are not much used are convenient receptacles
for cofﬁns, which have been prepared in the Chinese style be-
fore they are needed, and also for the images of animals, made
of reeds and paper, which are designed to be burnt at funer-
als that they may be thus transported to the spirit world. If
the temple has a farm attached, the divinities are quite likely

I40 VILLAGE LIFE IN G-IINA

to be obscured, in the autumn, by the crops which are hung up
to dry all about and even over them 3 for storage space under a
roof is one of the commodities most rare in the village.

The temples most popular in one region may be precisely
those which are rarely seen in another, but next to those already
named perhaps the most frequently honoured divinities are the
Goddess of Mercy (Kucm Yin P‘u 54), some variety of the
manifold goddess known as “ Mother ” (M'ang M'ang), and
Buddha. What is called the “ Hall of the Three Religions ”
(Sam Clzz‘ao T ‘ang), is one of the instructive relics of a time
when the common proposition that the “ three religions are
really one " was not so implicitly received as now. In the Hall
of the Three Religions, Confucius, Lao-tzﬁ (the founder of
Taoism, or Rationalism), and Buddha, all stand together on one
platform ; but Buddha, the foreigner, is generally placed in the
middle as the post of honour, showing that even to the Chinese
the native forms of faith have seemed to be lacking in some-
thing which Buddhism attempts to supply. This place has not
been obtained, however, without a long struggle.

Another form of genial compromise of rival claims, is what
is called “ The Temple of All the gods ” (C/z‘z'icm s/zén miao),
in which a great variety of deities are represented on a wall,
but with no clear precedence of honour. Temples to the god
of Literature, (I/Vérz Clz‘cmg), are built by subscriptions of the
local scholars, or by taxes imposed by the District Magistrate.
It is impossible to arrive at any exact conclusions on the sub—
ject, but it is probable that the actual cost of the temples, in
almost any region in China, would be found to form a heavy
percentage of the income of the people in the district.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WORLD'S ULDES'I‘ SACRED MOUNTAIN, T‘Al SHAN. SCENERY ALONG THE RIVER LIN.

XII
COOPERATION IN RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES

THE genius of the Chinese for combination is nowhere

more conspicuous than in their societies which have a
religious Object. Widely as they differ in the special purposes
to which they are devoted, they all appear to share certain
characteristics, which are generally four in number—the con-
tribution of small sums at deﬁnite intervals by many persons ;
the superintendence of the ﬁnances by a very small number of
the contributors ; the loan of the contributions at a high rate
of interest, which is again perpetually loaned and re-loaned so
as to accumulate compound interest in a short time and in large
amounts ; and lastly, the employment of the accumulations in
the religious observance for which the society was instituted,
accompanied by a certain amount of feasting participated in by
the contributors.

A typical example of the numerous societies organized for re-
ligious purposes may be found in one of those which have for
their object a pilgrimage to some of the ﬁve sacred mountains
of China. The most famous and most frequented of them all
is the Great Mountain (T‘ai Shan) in Shan—tung, which in the
second month of the Chinese year is crowded with pilgrims
from distant parts of the empire. For those who live at any
considerable distance from this seat of worship, which accord-
ing to Dr. Williamson is the most ancient historical mountain
in the world, the expense Of travel to visit the place is an ob-
stacle of a serious character. To surmount this diﬂiculty, so-
cieties are organized which levy a tax upon each member, of
(say) one hundred cash a month. If there are ﬁfty members
this would result in the collection of 5 ,ooo cash as a ﬁrst pay~

I41

x42 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

ment. The managers who have organized the society, pro-
ceed to loan this amount to some one who is willing to pay for
its use not less than two or three per cent. a month, Such
loans are generally for short periods, and to those who are in
the pressing need of ﬁnancial help. When the time has ex-
pired, and principal and interest is collected, it is again loaned
out, thus securing a very rapid accumulation of capital. Suc-
cessive loans at a high rate of interest for short periods, are re-
peatedly effected during the three years, which are generally
the limit of the period of accumulation. It constantly hap-
pens that those who have in extreme distress borrowed such
funds, ﬁnd themselves unable to repay the loan when it is
called in, and as benevolence to the unfortunate forms no part
of the “ virtue practice ” of those who organize these societies,
the defaulters are then obliged to pull down their houses or to
sell part of their farms to satisfy the claims of the “ Mountain
Society.” Even thus it is not always easy to raise the sum re—
quired, and in cases of this sort, the unfortunate debtor may
even be driven to commit suicide.

“ Mountain Societies ” are of two sorts, the “ Travelling,"
(lzsz'ng-slzan had), and the “ Stationary,” (Ira—ska” Md). The
former lays plans for a visit to the sacred mountain, and for the
offering of a certain amount of worship at the various temples
there to be found. The latter is a device for accomplishing
the principal results of the society, without the trouble and ex-
pense of an actual visit to a distant and more or less inaccess-
ible mountain peak. The recent repeated outbreaks of the
Yellow River which must be crossed by many of the pilgrims
to the Great Mountain, have tended greatly to diminish the
number of “ Travelling Societies,” and to increase the number
of the stationary variety.

When the three years of accumulation have expired, the
managers call in all the money, and give notice to the mem-
bers who hold a feast. It is then determined at what date a
theatrical exhibition shall be given, which is paid for by the ac~

.coépERATION IN RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES :43

cumulation of the assessments and the interest. If the mem—
bers are natives of several different villages, a site may be
chosen for the theatricals convenient for them all, but without
being actually in any one of them. At other times the place is
ﬁxed by lot.

During the performance of the theatricals, generally three
days or four, the members of the society are present, and’ may
be said to be their own guests and their own hosts. For the
essential part of the ceremony is the eating, without which
nothing in China can make the smallest progress. The mem-
bers frequently treat themselves to three excellent feasts each
day, and in the intervals of eating and witnessing theatricals,
they ﬁnd time to do more or less worshipping of an image of
the mountain goddess (T‘az’ Slum mlmg—m'rmg) at a paper
“ mountain,” which by a simple ﬁction is held to be, for all
intents and purposes, the real Great Mountain. While there
does not appear to be any deeply-seated conviction that there is
greater merit in actually going to the real mountain than in
worshipping at its paper representative at home, this almost in-
evitable feeling certainly does exist, and it expresses itself for—
cibly in nicknaming the stationary kind “ squatting and fatten-
ing societies ” (tun—pizza lzuz’). But while the Chinese are
keenly alive to the inConsistencies and absurdities of their prac-
tices and professions, they are still more sensible of the delights
of compliance with such customs as they happen to possess,
without a too close scrutiny of “severe realities.” The reli-
gious societies of the Chinese, faulty as they are from Whatever
point of view, do at least satisfy many social instincts of the
people, and are the media by which an inconceivable amount
of wealth is annually much worse than wasted. It is a noto-
rious fact, that some of those which have the largest revenues
and. expenditures, are intimately connected with gambling prac-
tices. -

Many large fairs, especially those held in the spring, which is
a time of comparative leisure, are attended by thousands of

I44 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

persons whose real motive is to gamble with a freedom and on
a scale impossible at home. In some towns where such fairs
are held, the principal income of the inhabitants is derived
from the rent of their houses to those who attend the fair, and
no rents are so large as those received from persons whose oc—
cupation is mainly gambling. These are not necessarily pro-
fessional gamblers, however, but simply country people who
embrace this special opportunity to indulge their taste for risk-
ing their hard-earned money. In all such cases it is necessary
to spend a certain sum upon the underlings of the nearest ya-
mén, in order to secure immunity from arrest, but the proﬁts to
the keeper of the establishment (who generally does not gam-
ble himself) are so great, that he can well afford all it costs.
It is probably a safe estimate that as much money changes
hands at some of the large fairs in the payment of gambling
debts, as in the course of all the ordinary business arising from
the trade with the tens of thousands of customers. In many
places both men and women meet in the same apartments to
gamble (a thing which would scarcely ever be tolerated at other
times), and the passion is so consuming that even the clothes
of the players are staked, the women making their appearance
clad in several sets of trousers for this express purpose !

The routine acts of devotion to whatever god or goddess may
be the object of worship are hurried through with, and both
men and women spend the rest of their time struggling to con-
quer fate at the gaming-table. It is not without a certain pro-
priety, therefore, that such fairs are styled “ gambling fairs.”

The “ travelling ” like the “ sitting ” society gathers in its
money at the end of three years, and those who can arrange to
do so, accompany the expedition which sets out soon after New
Year for the Great Mountain. The expenses at the inns, as
well as those of the carts employed, are defrayed from the com-
mon fund, but whatever purchases each member wishes to
make must be paid for with his own money. On reaching
their destination, another in the long series of feasts is held, an

C05PERATION IN REUGIOUS OBSERVANCES I45

immense quantity of mock money is purchased and sent on in
advance of the party, who are sure to ﬁnd the six hundred
steps of the sacred mount, (popularly supposed to be “ forty
Ii” from the base to the summit), a weariness to the ﬂesh. At
whatever point the mock money is burnt, a ﬂag is ‘raised to
denote that this end has been accomplished. By the time the
party of pilgrims have reached this spot, they are informed
that the paper has already been consumed long ago, the wily
priests taking care that much the larger portion is not wasted
by being burnt, but only laid aside to be sold again to other
conﬁding pilgrims.

If any contributor to the travelling society, or to any other
of a like nature, should be unable to attend the procession to
the mountain, or to go to the temple where worship is to be
offered, his contribution is returned to him intact, but the in-
terest he is supposed to devote to the virtuous object of the
society, for he never sees any of it.

The countless secret sects of China, are all of them examples
of the Chinese talent for cooperation in the alleged “ practice
of virtue.” The general plan of procedure does not differ ex-
ternally from that of a religious denomination in any Western
land, except that there is an element of cloudiness about the
basis upon which the whole superstructure rests, and great
secrecy in the actual assembling at night. Masters and pupils,
each in a graduated series, manuscript books containing doc-
trines, hymns which are recited or even composed to order,
prayers, offerings, and ascetic Observances are traits which
many of these sects share in common with other forms of reli-
gion elsewhere. They have also deﬁnite assessments upon the
members at ﬁxed times without which, for lack of a motive
power, no such society would long hold together.

XIII

COOPERATION IN MARKETS AND FAIRS

IN many parts of China the farmer comes much nearer to in-

dependence as regards producing what he needs, than any
class of persons in Western lands. This is especially the case
where cotton is raised, and where each family tries to make its
own clothing from its own crops. But even with the minute
and indefatigable industry of the Chinese, this ideal can be
only imperfectly reached. No poor family has land enough to
raise all that it requires, and every family not poor has a multi-
tude of wants which must of necessity be supplied from with-
out. Besides this, in any district most families have very little
reserve capital, and must depend upon meeting their wants as
they arise, by the use of such means as can be secured from
day to day. The same comparative poverty makes it necessary
for a considerable part of the population to dispose of some
portion of its surplus products at frequent intervals, so as to
turn it into the means of subsistence. The combined effect of
these various causes is to make the Chinese dependent upon
local markets to an extent which is not true of inhabitants of
Occidental countries.

The establishment of any market, and even the mere exist-
ence of the class of buyers and of sellers, doubtless involves a
certain amount of cooperation. But Chinese markets while not
differing materially from those to be found in other lands, ex-
hibit a higher degree of cooperation than any others of which
we know. This cooperation is exhibited in the selection both
of the places and of the times at which the markets shall be
held. The density of population varies greatly in different
provinces, but there are vast tracts in which villages are to be

146

COéPERATlON IN WRKETS AND FAIRS I47

met at distances varying from a quarter of a mile to two or
three miles, and many of these villages contain hundreds, and
some of them thousands of families.

At intervals of varying frequency, we hear of towns of still
larger size than these called c/zérz-tz'm, or market towns, and in
them there is sure to be a regular fair. But fairs are not con-
ﬁned to the c/zén-tz'm, or the needs of the people would by no
means be met. Many of the inferior villages also have a regu-
lar market, frequented by the neighbouring population, in a
circle of greater or smaller radius according to circumstances.
As a rule a village seems to be proud of its fair, and the natives
of such a place are no doubt saved a vast amount of travel for
the number of people who do not attend a fair is small.

We have met with one case of a village which once had a
market, and gave it up in favour of another village, for the
reason that the collection of such a miscellaneous assemblage
was not for the advantage of the children and youth.

The market is under the supervision of headmen of the
town, and some markets are called “ ofﬁcial,” because the
headmen have communicated with the local magistrate, and
have secured the issuing of a proclamation ﬁxing the regula-
tions under which business shall be transacted. This makes it
easier to get redress for wrongs which may be committed by
bad characters who abound at village markets in the direct ratio
of the number of people assembled. Many of the larger
markets bring together several thousand people, sometimes ex-
ceeding ten thousand in number, and among so many there are
certain to be numerous gamblers, sharpers, thieves, and pick-
pockets, against whom it behoves every one to be upon his
guard. It occasionally happens that a feud arises between two
sets of villages, as for example over an embankment which one
of them makes to restrain the summer ﬂoods, which would thus
be turned toward the territory of the other villages. In such
cases it is not uncommon for the parties to the quarrel to refuse
to attend each other’s markets, and in that case new ones will

I48 VILLAGE LIFE IN GIINA

be set up, with no reference to the needs of the territory, but
with the sole purpose of breaking off all relations between
neighbours.

In regions where animals are employed for farm-work, all the
larger markets have attached to them “ live-stock fairs,” at
which multitudes of beasts are constantly changing hands. It
is common to ﬁnd these live-stock fairs under a sort of ofﬁcial
patronage, according to which the managers are allowed to
levy a tax of perhaps one per cent. on the sales. Of this sum
perhaps ten per cent. is required by the local Commissioner of
Education (hsz'ao-Zz’) for the purpose of supporting his establish-
ment. The rest will be under the control of the village head-
men, perhaps for the nominal purpose of paying the expenses
of a free school, the funds for which not improbably ﬁnd their
way largely or wholly into the private treasuries of those who
manage the public affairs of the village.

The times at which village markets are held vary greatly.
In large cities there is a market every day, but in country
places this would involve a waste of time. Sometimes the
market takes place every other day, and sometimes on every
day the numeral of which is a multiple of three. A more
common arrangement however seems to be that which is based
upon the division of the lunar month into thirty days. In this
case “ one market ” signiﬁes the space of ﬁve days, or the in-
terval between two successive markets. It is in the establish-
ment of these markets that cooperation is best illustrated. If a
market is held every ﬁve days, it Will occur six times every
moon, for if the month happens to be a “small” one of
twenty-nine days, the market that belongs on the thirtieth is
held on the following day, which is the ﬁrst of the next month.
The various markets will be designated by the days on which
they occur, as “ One—Six,” meaning the market which is held
every ﬁrst, sixth, eleventh, sixteenth, twenty-ﬁrst, and twenty-
sixth day of the moon. In like manner “ Four—Nine,” de-
notes the market attended on the fourth, ninth, fourteenth,

 

 

CHINESE MARKET SCENE.

 

mdPERATION IN MARKETS AND FAIRS 149

nineteenth, twenty-fourth, twenty-ninth days, similarly with the
rest. Every village will probably have a market within reach
every day in the month, that is to say, every day in the year.
In one direction for example is to be found a “ One—Six "
market, in another “ Two-Seven,” in still others a “ Three-
Eight," a ” Four-Nine,” and a “Five-Ten.” Some of these
will be small markets, and some much larger, but the largest
one will be attended by customers, especially wholesale dealers
in cotton, cloth, etc. , from great distances. The Chinese make
nothing of walking to a market three, eight, or even ten miles
away; for it is not a market only, but a kind of general ex-
change, where it is proverbially likely that any one will meet
any one else.

Every village being thus surrounded with a ring of markets,
each of these is also a cog in a wheel, playing into other wheels
on each side of it. All those who attend a large market come
to have a wide acquaintance with persons for great distances on
each side of them, and the needs of all persons both buyers and
sellers are adequately met. -

The word which we have translated “ market " (clzz') denotes
merely a gathering, and another character, (lad) is reserved
for an assemblage of a much larger character, which is properly
a fair. The number of persons who attend these fairs frequently
rises to between ten and twenty thousand, giving a stranger the
impression that the entire population of several counties must
have been turned loose at once. Fairs are to be found in the
largest Chinese cities, as well as in towns of every grade down
even to small hamlets, though the proportion of towns and
villages which support a fair is always a small one. It appears
to be a general truth that by far the larger part of these large
fairs owe their existence to the managers of some temple. The
end in view is the accumulation of a revenue for the use of the
temple, which is accomplished by levying certain taxes upon
the trafﬁc, and by the collection of a ground-rent. The latter
is also a feature of the village market, the proprietor of each

150 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

bit of ground appearing at each market to collect of the persons
who have occupied his land, either a ﬁxed amount, or a per-
centage upon their sale or supposed sales.

In the larger centres of population, it is common to ﬁnd fairs
held for a month or more at a time, and in some places there
are several of these fairs every year, forming the centres of ac-
tivity around which all the life of the place revolves. In such
places the inhabitants make a good profit by renting buildings
to the multitudes who come from a distance to sell and to buy,
and where this is the case, when the fair is not in operation the
city frequently appears to be nearly extinct. But trade no
sooner begins, than countless thousands throng the lately almost
deserted streets.

In order to make a fair a success, it is necessary that the
managers should be men of enterprise and of sufﬁcient business
ability to deal with the many difﬁculties which are likely to
arise. They exercise a certain supervision over everything, and
are technically responsible for what goes wrong, though this
responsibility they frequently evade. In order to attract a large
attendance, it is generally necessary for fairs which are to last
four days, to begin with a theatrical representation, which con-
tinues till the close. Sometimes, however, the players fail to
appear, and in that case the whole fair may come to nothing.
These large fairs are attended by merchants representing cities
many hundred miles distant, and dealing in every article which
is likely to attract customers. ,

As the means of transportation are very inadequate and loco-
motion is always slow and difﬁcult, the merchants who go
about from one fair to another for many months of the year,
lead a life, or rather an existence, which is far from enviable.
The half-month holiday with which the Chinese year begins is
no sooner over than the large fairs begin also, and they con-
tinue with intermissions throughout the rest of the year. There
is a brief interval for the wheat harvest, an event of the great-
est importance to every class of the population, and the rainy

COGPERATION IN MARKETS AND FAIRS 15:

season generally causes another interruption, often so serious a
one as to upset all plans for two months or more.

The principal cooperative element in fairs lies in so arranging
them as to dovetail into one another with least loss of time to
the travelling merchants. The success generally attained is
offset by many conspicuous failures, due to the Chinese thirst
for gaining advantage over rivals, irrespective of the interests of
others, which in matters involving cooperation, often results in
disappointment. Thus, it is not uncommon to ﬁnd that while
the posters announcing a fair have been put up all through the
country-side for an entire month, no one can tell when it is
really to begin. That the day for beginning is “ ﬁxed” is a
point of no consequence whatever, for with the exception of
eclipses nothing in China is so “ ﬁxed ” that it is not subject
to alteration, and this exception may be thought to be due to
the circumstance that eclipses are not under the supervision of
the Chinese. We have known repeated instances in which
persons who wished to attend a large fair, the date of which
has been “ﬁxed ” for generations, have travelled many miles
at great inconvenience, once and again, only to ﬁnd that it was
delayed owing to the fact that nobody had come, every one
being apparently engaged in waiting for every one else. But
infelicities like this are universal and constant in China, where
punctuality is “ a lost art.”

XIV

COOPERATIVE LOAN SOCIETIES

AMONG the most characteristic examples of Chinese capac-

ity for combination, are Loan Societies, which seem
everywhere to abound. 'The object of these organizations is
the same as that of similar associations elsewhere, but it may be
doubted whether the Chinese methods of procedure are not
unique. As in everything else Chinese, with a general simi-
larity, there is such divergence in detail, that it is sometimes
very difﬁcult for natives of one district, even to comprehend
the rules of the Loan Societies of other and perhaps adjoining
counties.

The reasons for the extensive organization of these societies,
are those to which attention has been repeatedly called. Every
Chinese has constant occasion to use money in sums which it is
very difﬁcult for him to command. The rate of interest is
always so high, that a man who is compelled to borrow a con-
siderable amount, upon which he must pay interest at two and
a half, three, or even four per cent. a month, will not improb-
ably be swamped by the endeavour to keep up with his cred-
itors, a fact of which everyday experience furnishes countless
examples. By distributing the payments over a long period,
and by the introduction of an element of friendship into a
merely commercial transaction, the Chinese is able to achieve
the happy result of uniting business with pleasure. Of the
measure of success attained we may be better able to judge,
after an examination of the processes pursued.

The simplest of the many plans by which mutual loans are
effected, is the contribution Of a deﬁnite sum by each of the mem-
bers of the society in rotation to some other one of their number.

1 52

COOPERATIVE LOAN SOCIETIES 153

"When all the rest have paid their assessment to the last man on
the list, each one will have received back all that he put in and
no more. The association is called in some places the “ Club
of the Seven Worthies " (Clz‘z' lzsz'm huz’). The technical name'
for any association of the kind in which cooperation is most con-
spicuous, is 5/12. The man who is in need of money (S/zE-c/m)
invites certain of his friends to cooperate with him, and in
turn to invite some of their friends to do the same. When the
requisite number has been secured, the members (Sizé—yu), as-
semble and ﬁx the order in which each shall have the use of
the common fund. This would probably be decided by lot.
Unless the amount in question is a very triﬂing one, every
meeting of the members for business purposes will be accom-
panied with a feast attended by all the partners, and paid for
either by the one for whose beneﬁt the association was organ-
ized, or by the person whose turn it is to use the common fund.

At the ﬁrst feast, given by the organizer of the association,
each of the members attends provided with the sum agreed
upon, let us suppose 10,000 cash, which is paid over to the
headman, 60,000 cash in all, to be used by him, for a certain
ﬁxed period, say a year. The next year, the feast is given by
the person who drew the second lot ; the headman puts 10,000
cash into the treasury, and each of ﬁve other members the same
sum, all of which is paid over to number three, who in like
manner employs it for a year, when in the same way the fourth
takes his turn. At the end of six years each of the seven
members will have had a turn, each will have received 60,000
cash without interest, and each will have paid out 60,000 cash
for which he has likewise received no interest. Each one will
have been accommodated with the handling of a larger sum
than he could have otherwise obtained, at the end each one has
lost nothing in money, but has had six more or less excellent
feasts, a matter from a Chinese point of view of some practical
importance, however lightly it might be esteemed by a West-
emer.

154 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

It would seem that the simple form of cooperative borrow-
ing here described, is by no means so common as some of the
various societies in which interest is paid, and it is not perhaps
surprising that this should be the case. The Chinese are so
much in the habit of paying an extortionate sum for the use of
the money of others, that it doubtless appears to the average
borrower that if he has exacted a high interest, he has made a
better bargain than if he had received no interest at all, al-
though he must eventually pay out just as much interest as he
receives, and is demonstrably no better off at the ﬁnal pay-
ment than if he had borrowed and lent, disregarding interest
altogether. ‘ '

The methods of societies which exact interest for loans, differ
greatly in every detail, and there is evidently no limit to the
variations which local custom may adopt in any particular dis-
trict. In some regions the ordinary number of members ap-
pears to be sixteen as in the case just supposed. In others, the
number rises to thirty or even more. Sometimes the meetings
are held annually, in other districts the usual rule is semi-
annual meetings, in the second and eighth moons. In societies
where the rate of interest is ﬁxed, the only thing to be decided
by lot, or by throwing dice, will be the order in which the
members draw out the common fund. This may not improb-
ably be determined at the ﬁrst meeting, each member taking
his turn in accordance with the excellence or otherwise of his
throws with the dice. But if, as often happens, the interest is
left open to competition, this competition may take place by a
kind of auction, each one announcing orally what he is willing
to pay for the use of the capital for one term, the highest bid-
der taking the precedence, but no member ever has a second
turn. If the oral method of competition is not used, a still
better plan may be adopted. This consists of prepared slips,
like ballots, noting an offer of interest, deposited by each mem-
ber in a box, the highest bidder getting the precedence, and in
case of like amounts offered by different bidders a second bal-

oodpERA TIVE LOAN SOCIETIES x 5 5

lot to decide who will add the most to his previous offer. It is
easy to see that in this way, the interest to be paid might not
be the same for any two loans, in which case there would seem
to be inevitable some complexity in the accounts. But for the
most part, the Chinese appear to take involved computations of
this nature with surprising facility, especially considering the
limited practice in mathematics which most of them have en-
joyed.

For the sake of greater simplicity, we will take a case in
which the interest for each period is assumed to be one-ﬁfth of
the principal, in which the number of members is ten, besides
the organizer of the society, and in which the amount loaned
by each member is 10,000 cash. It is also assumed that in
this case the headman for whose beneﬁt the lending was begun,
does not repay the loan in money, but only in spreading at
each meeting a feast of specially good quality. The interest
is of the nature of a “bank discount,” and is therefore col-
lected in advance, the only certain way, it may be remarked,
to collect it at all. Each man, it will be observed, with the
exception of the ﬁrst, actually receives only 8,000 cash, but re-
pays to each one who follows him in drawing, a full 10,000.
The result will be best seen in a tabulated form, as follows :

(The headman makes the feast only, but does not repay the
loan.) '

The headman receives from each member 10,000 cash (ten
strings) 10 X 10 = 100.

Number 2 receives 9 X 8 = 72
“ 3 “ 8X8=64+10=74
“ 4 “ 7X8=56+2o=76
“ 5 “ 6X8=48+3o=78
“ 6 “ 5X8=4o+40=70
“ 7 “ 4X8=32+50=82
“ 8 “ 3X8=24+6o=84
“ 9 “ 2X8=I6+7o=86
“ 10 “ 1X8=8+80=88
“ 11 “ 9 X10: - 90

156 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

In the following modiﬁcation of the plan of loan, the head-
man pays back his loan, like the other members, and also pro.
vides each feast, which is regarded as his interest.

Headman receives IO X 10 strings = 100

Number 2 “ 9X 8:72 +Io=82
“ 3 “ 8X8=64+2o=84
u 4 H 7X8=56+30=86
“ 5 u 6X8=48+40=88
“ 6 “ 5X8=4o+5o=9o
“ 7 “7 4X8_——_32+6o_—_—_92
“ 8 “ 3X8=24+7o:—§.94
“ 9 “ 2X8=I6+80=96
“ Io “ 1X8: 8+9o=98
“ II “ Io><ro= too

In these examples it will be observed that the earlier each
member draws his money, the less he gets on his investment.
In the case last supposed, the ﬁnal recipient, who has no inter-
est to pay, but who receives interest from all but the headman,
gets back all his money in a lump, with interest upon it. As
already remarked, for the sake of simplicity we have disre-
garded the actual time for which the money is loaned, and for
convenience have assumed a rate of interest which would prob-
ably be below the real one. It is evident that so far as ﬁnancial
considerations go, taken by themselves, it is for the advantage
of the partners to come as late in the drawing as possible. But
it is far from being the case that ﬁnancial considerations are the
only matters to be taken into account. The man who needs
money, and who can never be sure of getting as much as he
needs upon any better terms than these, will gladly take it as
soon as he can get it, arranging the wedding for which he per-
haps wishes to employ it, to suit the time of the loan.

Like other human contrivances, Chinese loan societies are to
be judged by their results. The practical operation of these
organizations often presents an instructive view of many aspects
of Chinese life. The man for whose beneﬁt the society is got

(JodPERATll/E LOAN SOCIETIES :57 ,

together does not ﬁnd that others are hungering and thirsting
to do him a good turn, unless they clearly see their way to re-
cover what they put in, with liberal interest. It is therefore
often necessary to use a great deal of persuasion, to induce one
to join, and especially to persuade him to bring in others. No
one is willing to enter into a society of this kind unless it is
reasonably certain that every member will meet every assess-
ment, for if any individual fails to pay, everything is at a dead-
lock. To guard against this, it is customary to have security,
or bondsmen, in some instances the headman acting as bail for
all the rest. In case of failure on the part of any member to
meet his payment, the headman is then required to pay the
amount lacking, and this he is of course very unwilling to do,
however freely he has engaged to do so. Troubles of this na-
ture lead to many ﬁghts, and if this extreme measure is not re-
sorted to, it is not at all unlikely that the person technically
responsible will try the familiar method of begging off, striving
to induce a creditor to accept a k‘o—t‘ou in place of cash. If
sufﬁcient pressure can be brought to bear in favour of any de-
faulting member, this plan may succeed in its object, as well as
in breaking up the loan society.

Where the number is enlarged to more than a score, as in
some districts, the probability that some one will fail to meet
his obligations is greatly increased. It is also a fatal objection
to these long loans, that before the whole term of years elapses,
it is morally certain that something will occur to disturb the
very unstable ﬁnancial equilibrium of the members. For in-
stance, the T‘ai-p‘ing rebellion, with its long train of sorrows,
and the continual famines and ﬂoods of later years in Northern
China, have tended to bring loan societies into discredit, be-
cause experience has shown that thousands of persons have put
into them what could never be recovered. It is the almost
unanimous testimony of the Chinese whom the writer has con—
sulted on the subject, that in these days such societies fail to
accomplish their uses, and are little better than a fraud.

158 VILLAGE LIFE IN GilNA

Whether a man loses by them, or not, will depend, however,
mainly on his own skill in keeping out of those which are un-
safe, regardless of the pressure which may be brought to bear
upon him. Some men will tell you that they have been part-
ners several times and have never lost their capital, or only lost
it once, while others have a totally different account to give.

A Chinese whose easy-going disposition made him a valuable
neighbour to those who wished to borrow without being at the
inconvenience of repaying, stated that he had been six times a
member of a loan society, and while once the capital had been
doubled by a fortunate speculation, on each of the ﬁve other
occasions he had lost all, or nearly all, put in. That such ex-
periences are far from being uncommon, is testiﬁed by a cur-
rent adage, to the effect that if a man has been in a loan soci-
ety with another three separate times, if he has not been
cheated, he has at least been robbed !

After the foregoing account of Cooperative Loan Societies
was written, a suit was reported in the Hong Kong papers, which
well serves to illustrate the legal difﬁculties which seem to puzzle
not only the lawyers, but apparently the Judges also, for the case
which was ﬁrst heard in July, came on for another bearing upon
appeal the next January, and was not decided until the follow-
ing March. There were four plaintiffs and four defendants. It

ppeared that twelve men decided to form a Money Loan Asso—
ciation, one of them being trustee, and taking up the subscrip-
tions. Each member undertook to pay $50 per month, by
which a sum of $600 would be made up. Each month the
members were to meet at a dinner, paid for by each of the
members in turn, and at these dinners tenders were received
for the fund of $600, the member offering the highest interest
getting the “ pool,” less the amount of interest. After the
association had run for eight months, the headman or trustee
failed in business, disappeared, and the association came to an
end.

The four persons who had paid money into the association

cod/JERATIVE LOAN SOCIETIES V 159

for eight months, and who had received no beneﬁt, sued the
other four members who had ceased to pay their subscriptions
after the failure in business of the trustee. The defence was
that the only person responsible was this trustee, and that all
the sums claimed had been paid to him by the defendants.
The Acting Chief Justice, who heard the case, was of the
opinion that the subscriptions not paid were due, and that the
trustee had no authority from the other members to receive be-
forehand any contributions, and the Justice accordingly gave
judgment for the plaintiffs.

The case was appealed, and counsel stated upon its coming
up that it was appealed on a question of law. He related the
circumstances of the case, and maintained that there was
no contract between either of the plaintiffs and the four defend—
ants jointly or severally, that they would pay a sum of $200.
The only contract proved and shown, was a contract that each
of the members would contribute to a common fund which he
might not get in the ﬁrst instance, but which he was certain to
get some time. He therefore submitted that there was no con-
tract at common law on which this action could be maintained,
and that there was absolutely no means of deciding the issues
in such a case.

To this statement, the opposing counsel replied by admitting
that there was a certain amount of difﬁculty in working out the
scheme as a whole, yet unless their Lordships held that these
men were liable in this case, the prosecutors were practically
deprived of any remedy at all. He submitted that this was
against the whole intention of the association, which‘was in a
certain sense for proﬁt, for the mutual help of its members, and
the common good of all. To hold that no action was main-
tainable individually, would be holding out a premium for dis-
honesty, because the man who got the ﬁrst payment would then
leave the Colony.

At this point the Justice remarked that this was what very
often happened. In delivering his opinion, the Justice said

160 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

that he thought the case was a claim for money lent, but it had
been treated as a claim for the return of $50 from each of the
defendants in respect of a money loan association. At the
trial the defendants had denied that they had made any con-
tract with the plaintiffs, and referred to the fact that certain
meetings of the association had been held, and that the other
meetings had not been regularly called in accordance with the
articles of association. That being so, he held that there
was no contract between _ the various members of the associa-
tion, which would enable one member to sue another, and
therefore he decided in favour of the appellants.

The Puisne Judge said that the contract entered into, was
either one between the defendants and one of the plaintiffs, or
else it was a mutual contract between the defendants, and the
other members of the association. In the ﬁrst case the plain-
tiffs could not recover, and if it was a mutual contract between
all the members of the association, there ought to be a suit in
equity to ascertain what were the various rights of the parties,
and all the members of the association must be parties to that
action. And so he also gave judgment in favour of the ap-
pellants, with costs. ‘The money which had been paid into
court, pending the appeal, would be paid out.

Whoever takes the trouble to follow these arguments, and the
facts upon which they rest, ought to be convinced of several
propositions : that it is very easy to make arrangements to pay
out money to Chinese; that it is very easy not to get that
money back again ; that when there is a hitch in the intricate
business of adjustment, it is not unlikely to take all the lawyers
and Judges of a Crown Colony nine months to ﬁnd out the
law and equity, and that when the case has been decided it is
diﬂicult for an ordinary mortal to judge whether the decision
was right or wrong I

XV

SOCIETIES FOR WATCHING THE CROPS

IN a country where the poor are in such a majority as in

China, and where the ﬁelds are altogether open, it is de-
sirable if not necessary to have some plan by which property so
unprotected can be effectively watched. In every orchard, as
soon as the fruit begins to show the smallest sign of ripeness,
the owner keeps some of his family on guard day and night, un-
til the last apricot, plum or pear is removed from the trees.
The darker and the more rainy the night, the more is vigilance
required, so that a family with a bearing orchard is under the
most absolute bondage to this property for a part of every year.
During the months of July and August the ﬁelds are dotted
with little booths some of them overrun with climbing vines,
and each of these frail tenements is never for a moment de-
serted until the crops have all been removed. In some regions
the traveller will observe these huts built upon a lofty staging
so as to command a wide view, and they are often put up even
in ﬁelds of sorghum, which would not seem likely to be
stolen. But the lofty growth of this stalwart plant is itself a
perfect protection to a thief, so that it is much more difﬁcult
to watch than crops far less elevated from the ground. Grow-
ing to an altitude of from ten to ﬁfteen feet, it completely ob-
scures the horizon, and practically obliterates all landmarks.
So far as knowing where one goes, a traveller might as well be
plunged into an African jungle. Even the natives of a region
sometimes get lost within a few [z' of their own village on a
cloudy day. The autumn crops of Shan-tung consist of the
innumerable kinds of millet, sorghum, (which, though called
“tall millet,” has no afﬁnity with real millet 3) beans; Indian

161

162 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

corn, or maize; peanuts; melons and squashes ; sweet-potatoes
and other vegetables (the others mostly in small patches);
hemp; sesame ; and especially cotton. There are many other
items, but these are the chief.

Of all these diverse sorts of produce, there are hardly more
than two which do not cause the owners anxiety, lest they be
stolen from the ﬁeld. The heads of sorghum and of millet are
easily clipped off. Nothing is easier than rapidly to despoil a
ﬁeld of corn, or to dig sweet-potatoes. The latter, indeed, are
not safe from the village dogs, which have learned by ages of
experience that raw vegetable food is much better than no food
at all. What requires the most unceasing vigilance, however,
are the melon patches and the orchards. Of watermelons,
especially, the Chinese are inordinately fond. Every ﬁeld is
ﬁtted with a “lodge in a garden of cucumbers,” and there is
some one watching day and night. The same is true of the
“fruit rows,” familiarly called hang-27.27. Birds, insects, and
man are the immitigable foes of him who has apples, pears,
peaches, plums, cherries, apricots and grapes. If the orchard
is of any size, there may be collusion between the thieves, who
appear at both ends at once. Both sets cannot be pursued.
The crows and the blue-jays are the worst bird robbers, but
they can be scared off, especially with a gun. The human pil-
ferers are not to be so easily dealt with. The farmer’s hope is
that seeing that some one is on guard they will go elsewhere,
and steal from those not on guard. Heme everyboaﬁz is obliged
to slam’ guard over everything.

Where the population is densest, the extent to which this
must be carried passes belief. In such regions about dusk an
exodus sets forth from a village like that in the early morning
to go to the ﬁelds to work. By every path the men, women,
and even children stream forth. Light wooden beds, covered
with a layer of the stiff sorghum stalk, are kept out in the ﬁelds
for constant use. A few sorghum stalks are twisted together at
the top, and a piece of old matting tacked on the sunny side,

 

 

 

 

 

REAPING MILLET.

 

SOCIETIES FOR WATCHING THE CROPS I63

and under such a wretched shelter sits a toothless old woman
all day and all night with alternations.

Very few farmers have their land all in one plot. A farm of
not more than eighty Chinese acres may consist of from ﬁve to
ﬁfteen pieces lying on different sides of the village. And how
do you contrive to “ watch all these all night ” P you inquire.
“ Oh we have to go from one to the other,” you are told. In
the case of cotton, the temptation to pick that of others is ab-
solutely irresistible. The watchman sees some one at the end
of the ﬁeld meandering slowly along with a basket on his arm,
picking cotton as he goes. The watchman yells, “ Who are
you? ” and the ﬁgure moves along a little faster, but does not
stop picking. If he disappears into the patch of some one else,
that is success. But should the watchman become angry, as he
certainly will, and should he pursue, as he is likely to do, and
should he overtake, as is possible, then the trouble begins.
Should the thief not get away in the scufﬂe, he ought to be
taken before the village headmen and dealt with. If from an-
other village, he probably will be tied up in the village temple,
possibly beaten, and subsequently released upon payment of a
ﬁne. But the real difﬁculty is that many of the thieves are
from the same village as the owners of the land the products of
which they are appropriating. Not improbably they are
“ cousins " of the farmer himself. Perhaps they are his
“ uncles ” or even his “ grandfathers.” If so, that compli-
cates matters very much. Chinese ideas of mmm and tuum
are to our thought laxity itself under the most favourable con-
ditions. But these conditions are the most unfavourable. The
unity of the family is as that of a compound individual.

It is to afford some relief from these almost insupportable
evils that societies for watching the crops have originated.
They are by no means of universal occurrence, but like most
other Chinese institutions, are to be met with in some districts,
while others immediately adjoining may be wholly unacquainted
with their working. We have known a District Magistrate in

164 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

trying a case in which one of the defendants was a professional
watcher of the crops, to be completely mystiﬁed by the term
“ crop—watcher ” which had to be explained to him, as if to a
foreigner, although he was himself a native of an adjacent
province. ’

The villages which have entered into some one of the associ-
ations for the protection of their crops, generally proclaim this
fact by painting or whitewashing upon the side of some con-
spicuous temple four characters (Kung k‘cm z' 15%,) signifying
that the ﬁelds are looked after in common. This proposition
embodies a meaning which varies in different places. Some-
times it denotes that a certain number of persons are on guard
each night, in which case the number (or some number which
purports to be the real one) will perhaps be found posted on a
temple wall with a view to striking awe into intending depre-
dators (in case they should be persons of education), by show-
ing how numerous are the chances of detection.

When a ﬁxed number of persons is employed, the expense is
shared by the village, being in fact a tax upon the land, paid
in the direct ratio of the amount of land which each one owns.
In other cases the arrangement for guarding standing crops is
entered into by a single village, or more probably by a consid-
erable number of contiguous villages. The details are agreed
upon at a meeeting called for the purpose in some temple con-
venient to all the villages, and the meeting is attended by rep-
resentatives of each village interested. At this meeting are
settled the steps to be taken in case of the arrest of offenders.
This 'is a matter of supreme importance, being in fact the pivot
upon which the whole machinery turns. If there is weakness
here, the whole machine Will be a failure.

it must be borne in mind that the reason for the organization
of such a society as this is the fact that so many poor people
everywhere exist, whose only resource is to steal. In the con-
sultations preliminary to the organization of a crop-protecting
league, the poor people of the various villages concerned have

SOCIETIES FOR WATCHING THE CROPS 165

no voice, but they must be considered, for they will contrive to
make themselves felt in many disagreeable ways. It will be
agreed that any person owning land in any village belonging to
the league is bound to seize and report any person whatever
whom he may ﬁnd stealing the crops of any person in any of
these villages. But as this is the weakest point of all such
agreements among the Chinese, it is further provided that if
any person ﬁnds some one stealing and fails to seize and re-
port the offender, and if the fact of this omission is ascer-
tained, the person guilty of such omission shall be held to be
himself guilty of the theft, and shall be ﬁned as if he were the
thief.

To provide an adequate tribunal to take cognizance of cases
of this sort, the representatives of the several villages concerned,
in public assembly nominate certain headmen from each vil-
lage, who constitute a court before which offenders are to be
brought, and by which ﬁnes are to be ﬁxed. When a thief is
captured he is brought to the village, and the men appointed
for the purpose are summoned, who hear the report of the cap-
tors, and decide upon the ﬁne. In cases of special importance
the village gong may be beaten, so as to collect the headmen
with the greater celerity. Much will depend upon what kind
of a man the culprit is, and upon the status of the family to
which the culprit belongs may be. There are some well-to-do
people who are not above stealing the crops of others, and such
persons are certain to be subjected to a heavy ﬁne by way of “ ex-
emplary damages.” The select-men who manage these cases
have no regular way of punishing offenders but by the inﬂiction
of a ﬁne, though culprits are undoubtedly sometimes tied up
and beaten by exasperated neighbours, as the writer at one time
happened to see for himself. But such cases must be relatively
rare. The ﬁnes imposed must be paid immediately, and should
this be refused or delayed, the penalty ,would be an accusation
at the yamén of the District Magistrate, which being backed by
all the principal men of “the village, or of a group of villages,

I66 VILLAGE LEE IN CHINA

would be certain to issue in the punishment of the prisoner, as
the Magistrate would be sure to assume that a prosecution of
this nature was well grounded. The poorest man would have
reason to dread being locked up in a cangue for a month or
two at the busy time of harvest, when it is especially important
for him to be at liberty.

The coloured resident of Georgia who complained that a
black man had no chance in that State, being obliged “ to
work hard all day and steal all night in order to make an hon-
est living,” represented a class to be found in all parts of China,
and a class which must be taken into account. Wherever ar-
rangements are made for the protection of the crops from
thieves, it is a necessary adjunct of the rules that the owners of
the ﬁelds must follow the judicious plan of Boaz of ancient
Bethlehem, who ordered his reapers not to be too careful to
gather closely, that the gleaners might not glean in vain.
Matters of this sort, even to the length of the stubble which
shall be left in the ﬁelds, are not infrequently the subject of
agreement and of regulation, for they are matters of large im-
portance to many poor people.

In districts where the kao-[z'ang (or sorghum) plant is culti-
vated it is common to strip off some of the lower leaves with
a view, as one is told, to allowing the stalks “ to breathe ” more
freely that the grain may ripen better. Where this practice
prevails, the day on which the stripping of the leaves shall be-
gin is sometimes strictly regulated by agreement, and no per-
son, rich or poor, is allowed to anticipate the day. But on
that day any one is at liberty to strip leaves from the ﬁelds of
any one else, provided he does not go above the stipulated
height on each plant. These leaves are much prized as food
for animals. The day before the stripping of kao—[z‘ang leaves
is to begin, warning is sounded on the village gong, and the
next day all the people make this their main business.

Far more important than leaf»stripping is the regulation of
the gleaning of cotton. In many parts of China, the cotton

SOCIETIES FOR WATCHING THE CROPS I67

crop is the most valuable product of the soil, and it enjoys the
distinction of being perhaps the only article raised in the em-
pire which is to every man, woman and child an absolute
necessity. As soon as the cotton-picking season sets in, women
and children in the regions where this is the staple crop are ab«
sorbed in this fatiguing labour to the exclusion of almost every-
thing else. With the ﬁrst frost falls, the best of the season has
passed, though the cotton balls continue to open for along time
afterward. It is considered to be the prerogative of the poor
people to pick cotton wherever they can ﬁnd it after a certain
(or rather a very uncertain) date, and the determination of this
date is settled in some districts by a proclamation of the Magis-
trate himself, for no lesser authority would be heeded. But in
other regions this affair, like most others, is altogether relegated
to local agreement, either of a single village, or a group of vil-
lages with each other. The day upon which it ﬁrst becomes
lawful to pick indiscriminately in any cotton ﬁeld, a joyful one
for the poor, is called “ relaxation of punishment,” because the
ﬁnes are no longer to be enforced. At this time swarms of peo-
ple are to be seen streaming to the ﬁelds, and many people go
great distances from home, because the picking there is better.
An acquaintance of the writer remarked that his wife had been
gone from home for more than ten days gleaning in some region
where the crops were better than nearer home, sleeping mean-
time in any doorway or cart-house from which she was not
driven away.

It sometimes happens that the rich people attempt to exclude
the poor from the large estates belonging to the former, but
this is seldom successful, and can never be good policy. The
writer once saw a dispute between the owner of a large cotton-
ﬁeld and many hundred poor women and children who were
about to precipitate themselves upon the remnants of the crop.
Even while the debate as to the proprieties of the case was in
progress, a very large number of the poor people who cared
much more for the cotton than for the proprieties, pressed on

168 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

to gather what they might, leaving others to settle the question
of abstract right as pleased themselves.

Reference has been repeatedly made to the ﬁnes imposed for
a violation of the village laws or agreements, and it was re-
marked that the crucial point of the protection of crops, is found
here. It is customary to employ the ﬁnes collected from such
offenders for the purpose of hiring a theatrical company, which
always proves to be a very expensive method of enjoying a sur-
plus of money, since the incidental expenses of a theatrical rep-
resentation, especially in the entertainment of guests, are often
ten times greater than the sum paid to the players.

Spending the night in the ﬁelds during the harvest season,
when the ground is generally saturated with moisture, con-
stantly induces malaria, rheumatism and pneumonia, as well as
many other ailments. But the necessity is imperative, and all
risks must be disregarded, or there would be nothing to eat for
a year. The quarrels which inevitably arise from crop pilfer—
ing and the other concomitants of an autumn harvest, give rise
to serious feuds, as well as to devastating lawsuits, the money
cost of which may be a thousand times the value of the prop-
erty in question. But under such conditions every Chinese
crop is gathered in year by year, and such have apparently
been perpetuated from the earliest dawn of Chinese history.

XVI
VILLAGE AND CITY RAIN-MAKING

T is one of the eccentricities of the Chinese, that although
they have developed elaborate philosophies, none of them
have led them to conﬁdence in the uniformity of nature.
Polytheism has no basis for such a view. Thus it comes about
that in an empire which is one of the most conspicuous ex-
amples of homogeneity the world has ever seen, neither the
people nor their rulers have any ﬁxed opinions as to the causes
upon which the rain-fall depends. In the province of Shan-
tung a great variety of beings real and imaginary are wor-
shipped to cause the fall of water to adjust itself to the needs of
the farmers. Among the divinities thus honoured are the God-
dess of Mercy who in the south of China is generally regarded
as male ; the God of War ; the Dragon God, or Lung Wang ;
and a Tai Wang, which is popularly supposed to be incarnated
in a serpent, frequently a water-snake, but in default of that a
common garter-snake will do just as well. Whenever one of
these Tai Wangs is discovered, it is common to notify the near-
est local ofﬁcial, and it is expected that he will go and worship
it. Many years ago Li Hung Chang performed this service at
Tientsin, where there is a very large temple to Tai Wang.

As if these incongruous adjuvants of nature were not enough,
there are some who worship Yii Huang Shang Ti, or Pearly
Emperor Supreme Ruler, and still others think they have war-
rant in offering sacriﬁce and worship to “ Sun Ta Sheng,” who
is nothing more than an imaginary character in the novel
known as “ Travels to the West.” Sun was originally a mon-
key hatched by a process of evolution out of a stone, but his
exploits are so many and so striking that the popular mind has

569

I7° VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

settled on him as a suitable being to superintend the rain-fall.
Yet his worship is apparently limited, and like that of all the
divinities mentioned extremely irregular. The same village
that worships the God of War now, may worship the Goddess
of Mercy next time, perhaps on the principle of judicious ro-
tation.

Besides all these, there is another and quite a different plan
in extensive use. In the ancient but now ruined city of Han
Tan Hsien, (in Western Chih-li) there is a temple on the
premises of which there is. a famous well, in which are a vast
number of iron tablets. Whenever there is a scarcity of rain, it'
is almost always a last resort, after the District Magistrate has
made the rounds of all the temples in and about his city, to
post off an ofﬁcial messenger to Han Tan Hsien—a journey
of several days—to get an iron tablet out of the well. The
messenger takes an iron tablet from the city whence he starts on
which is inscribed the date of the journey, and the name of the
District which makes the petition, and on his arrival repairs to
the Taoist temple, where for a certain sum he is provided with
another iron tablet taken from the well, into which the tablet
now brought is thrown.

On his return journey the messenger is supposed to eat
nothing but bran, and to travel at the top of his speed day and
night. His arrival is anxiously awaited. And now emerges a
characteristic Chinese performance. The counties through
which his route lies are not unlikely just as much in need of
rain as the one which sends the messenger : the people of these
districts not infrequently waylay the messenger temporarily, and
“ borrow” his tablet, which is thus “invited ” to the Other
district, and the rain-fall will take place there, instead of in the
one to which it ought to belong.

At ﬁrst glance it certainly appears singular that so practical a
people as the Chinese can put the least faith in mummeries of
this sort, but the truth seems to be that very little actual faith is
exercised, these performances only taking place in default pf an

VILLAGE AND CITY RAIN-MAMNG x7!

acquaintance with the laws which govern the meteorology of
the empire. Besides this, the months in which the most resort
is had to such performances are the ﬁfth and the sixth, and
these are the ones in which the rain-fall is due. As a limit of
some ten days is generally set for the efﬁcacy of these petitions,
it is extremely likely that the term will be coincident with a fall
of rain, which fall will be credited to the petition 3 whereas the
failure of the petition is set down to some wholly different
reason.

An incident which occurred in one of the western counties
of Shan-tung makes plain even to the most obtuse Chinese in-
tellect the inconveniences of a wrong theory of the universe.
A party of villagers with ﬂags and a drum were on their way
to a temple to pray for rain. They met a man leading a horse,
on which was seated a married woman returning from one
of the customary visits to her mother’s family. She had a
child in her arms, and the hired labourer leading the horse had
on a wide straw hat. Now it is one of the eccentricities of the
inaccurate views of those who pray for rain to non-existent
monkeys and to garter-snakes, that they also entertain miscon-
ceptions as to the causes which hinder rain. Foreigners carry-
ing umbrellas have been mobbed as the efﬁcient cause of drought.
The water-spouts of a new consulate in a treaty-port have been
complained of as drawing off the moisture that was meant for
the whole province. So in this case the big straw-hat of the
rustic was resented as “ contra-indicated ”—as the physicians
say—by the rain—prayers. The peasant was roared at, and a
long pike-staff was thrust into his hat which was thrown from
his head upon the horse, which being frightened pulled away
and plunged ahead. The woman could not keep her seat, ﬁrst
dropping her child which was dashed to the ground and killed.
The woman’s foot caught in a stirrup and she was dragged for
a long distance and when the horse was at length stopped she
too was dead. She was pregnant, so that in one moment three
lives had been sacriﬁced. The hired man ran on a little way

172 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

to the woman’s home, told his story, and as the men of the
family happened to be at home, they all seized whatever imple-
ments they could ﬁnd and ran after the rain-prayers, with whom
they fought a ﬁerce battle killing four or ﬁve of them outright.
The case went into the District yamen, and what became of it
then, we do not know.

Among the other eccentricities of rain-producing, is the bor-
rowing of a god from one village for use in another. If he suc—
ceeds in getting rain he is taken back in honour; otherwise he
is not unlikely to be left where he happened to be deposited
when worshipped, the villagers—like a set of commissioners for
educational examination—being solely inﬂuenced by “ results.”
In other instances if the god does not show signs of apprecia-
tion of the need of rain, he may be taken out into the hot sun
and left there to broil, as a hint to wake up and do his duty.
A bunch of willows is thrust into his hand, because the willow
is sensitive to the smallest moisture. It is a common saying in
China that “ when the Floods wash away the temple of Lung
Wang (the Dragon King) it is a case of not knowing one’s own
folks.” Yet this is what constantly happens.

It is more than forty years since the Yellow River changed
its course to its present one, taking the bed of a small stream
known as the Clear River and bringing with the turbid torrent
devastation and utter ruin. During more than an entire
generation Central Shan-tung has been cursed with “ China’s
Sorrow,” and even when the course was altered again in 1887,
the Government spent. fabulous sums, and at last brought the
stream back again into its former bed—a feat which few
foreigners who saw the new channel thought it possible to ex-
ecute. '

The next year the region was visited by a corps of Dutch
engineers, who made an elaborate survey and published an ex-
haustive report, to which the Chinese Government paid no at—
tention whatever. The plea at that time was lack of money,
but the funds could have been had if the execution of the work

VILLAGE AND CITY RAIN-MAMNG :73

had been put into foreign hands, than whom no more com-
petent ones than the Dutch could have been found. But at the
time when the Director General of the Yellow River—a title
the humour of which is lost on the Chinese—memorialized the
Throne on the necessity of employing foreign science for this
otherwise hopeless task, his proposal was rebuked by the Em-
press Dowager as “ premature and ostentatious ! ”

According to Chinese ideas the “ Three Harmonies ” are
“Heaven, Earth, and Man." All three of them are at present
out of sorts with each other. What is imperatively needed is a
reconciliation, but this can never be had until the Chinese
come to a more accurate appreciation of the limits of the
powers of each of ' the triad. A new set of men would soon
make a new earth, and then the heavens would be found to be
well enough as they are. In the course of ten years enough
water falls for the use of all, and not too much to be managed.
But man must learn how to control it, and until he does so,
“ Heaven, earth and man " will never be in right relations.

XVII'

THE VILLAGE HUNT

THERE are parts of the wide province of Shan-tung, in

which there are great sheets of clear and deep water
much frequented by water-fowl, especially in the autumn and
in the winter. In any Western land these districts would be
the paradise of hunters, but here the ducks and the geese go
their several ways in “ peace and tranquillity along the Whole
road,” undisturbed by the gun of the sportsman or the pot-
hunter. This is due to an old-time custom of the yamen in the
.Prefectural city contiguous to the largest marshes, of levying a
squeeze on the results of the gunner’s toil, a squeeze so com-
prehensive and virtually prohibitory in its action that water-
fowl are practically out of the market altogether.

There is a record in the life of Dr. Medhurst, one of the
pioneer missionaries in China, and father of Sir Walter Med-
hurst, sometime Her Majesty’s Consul-General in Shanghai, of
a trip which he and a companion made north from Shanghai
along the coasts of Shan-tung. Their plan was to debark from
the ﬁshing junk in which they had taken passage, cut across
from one headland to another and then rejoin their vessel to re-
peat the same process farther on. In this way they succeeded
in penetrating to a few ﬁshing villages and had conversation
with a handful of people all along shore. With charming
frankness the historian of this pioneer tour mentions that they
nowhere saw any wild animals. We can readily believe him, for
even at this advanced stage of extended exploration,the only wild
animal that the most experienced traveller is likely to see is the
hare, albeit there are sundry others such as wwsels, a kind of

I74

THE I/ILLAGE HUNT r7 5

ground-fox, and the like, which do not obtrude themselves to
any extent in public.

It is said that in the little kingdom of Denmark the citizens
have a winter sport which consists in a general and organized
hunt for hares on the part of all the male population of a very
extended territory, starting from a given point and working in
a deﬁnite direction, under precise and carefully observed rules.
At the close of the hunt there is a great feast to which all are
welcomed, and the whole performance is one to which there is
much anxious looking forward on the part of the young and
vigorous country-folk. It is strange to meet with a custom of
the same kind in China, but there is an ancient district in
Shan-tung, known as P‘ing-yiien, or Level-plains, where the
Danish custom ﬂourishes in full force, but minus the very im-
portant concluding feast. For where is the Chinese who would
have the courage or indeed the means to welcome the countless
swarms of his country—side to enjoy the pleasure of eating at
somebody else’s expense ?

The whole arrangement of this combination hunt is in the
hands of a few impecunious fellows who have the right of
“ protecting ” merchants at the great fairs from imposition by
other rascals, by means of levying a prophylactic black—mail of
their own on a certain day at the principal market of the region.
A man who has no single spear of hair on his head passes up
and down the crowded lanes of the market, and calls out that
on such and such a day there will be an attack by all the peo-
ple of the “north district ” on the hares. This notice is re-
peated with varied iteration, until the word is comprehended by
all those within hearing, each one goes home and tells the rest
of the village, and on the set day all are ready for the fray.
The reason for having the notice circulated by a bald man ex-
clusively is the eminently Chinese one that in the Mandarin
dialect the word for Bald—T‘u—and that for Hare are iden-
tical in sound. This circumstance once led to a very singular
error on the part of a bright little child of certain foreigners

176 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

living in Shan-tung. One of the employees of the establish-
ment had been off somewhere on a donkey, and'while he was
leading it homeward the beast broke away and galloped off. A
lad who was cutting grass in the neighbourhood saw the ﬂeeing
animal, rushed out and caught it, holding it till the rider came
up. On their reaching home the dramatic story was told in
the hearing of the lad, and the capture of the donkey was ac-
credited to a little “T‘u-tzfi ” or “ Bald-boy.” The foreign
child heard the thrilling narrative which he duly retailed at the
parental dinner-table, only’he translated the name “ T‘u-tzii " as
Hare, the only kind of t‘u-tzii of which he had ever heard !

On the day appointed for the hare-hunt, almost the whole
population of the district to be beaten up turn out to help in
the sport. They often stand as thick together as soldiers in
ranks. The frightened hares go from one side to the other of
the wide—spreading ring, but as every one of the human assail-
ants has a stick and many of them have two, the chances of
escape for the hare are reduced below zero. It is a law of the
game that whoever succeeds in seizing a hare must hold it aloft,
and in a loud tone cry out, “I raise it ” (chﬁ), after which it
is his, and no one can take it from him lawfully. Nevertheless,
Chinese human nature is much like the article in other parts of
the world, and the results are apt to be serious quarrels, ﬁghts,
broken heads and limbs and perhaps lawsuits. But with that
practical talent for which Chinese ofﬁcials are distinguished,
the Magistrates refuse to hear any case arising from these con-
ditions, so that it is necessary to have them settled, as by far
the majority of all Chinese law cases are, out of court by
“ peace-talkers. ’ ’

How eaSy it is for quarrels to arise even among a most peace-
able people like the Chinese, with or without a hare-hunt, is i1-
lustrated by an incident which occurred some years since, many
of the actors in which are well known to the writer.

A few villagers were returning late on a moonlight night i
from a funeral in another village. Nearing their own hamlet,

THE VILLAGE HUNT :77

they came on two young fellows chopping down small trees of
the kind called date (a jujube or rhamnus). They were getting
ready clubs for the combined hare-hunt next day. On being
hailed, the youths, who were trespassing on the territory of
their neighbouring village, ﬂed to their home pursued by the
others. The latter returned to their own village and maliciously
spread the report that the young men had been cutting pine
trees from the clan graveyard. Although it was late at night
a posse was soon raised to go to the other village (about a mile
off ) and demand satisfaction. The village was asleep, but
some headmen were at last aroused who begged their visitors
to postpone the matter till daylight, when the case would be
looked into and the culprits punished, and any required satis-
faction given.

To the reasonable request, only reviling was retorted, and
the band returned to their own village ﬁlled with fury. A gong
was beaten, every man in the village aroused and every male
of ﬁt age forced to accompany the mob armed with clubs,
poles, etc., to attack the other village. The latter happened to
have a mud wall and gates kept closed at night. So large a
band made a great noise, and soon roused their antagonists by
their abusive language. The village elders struggled to keep
the gates closed, but they were overborne by the hot blood of
the youth, who were resolved, since they must have it, to give
their assailants all the satisfaction they wanted. The gates
once opened, a furious battle ensued, and the women who clam-
bered to the ﬂat-house tops and struggled to see what was going
on heard only the dull whacks of heavy blows. Several men
were knocked senseless, and on the cry that they had been
killed, the battle was renewed until the attacked were driven
inside their village, each side having several men wounded,
some of them severely. One old man had his skull beaten in
with a carrying-pole and was born home unconscious, in which
condition he remained for a week or two.

The next morning the attacking village went out and chopped

I78 - VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

down three little pine-trees growing in their own cemetery (as
“ proof ” of the injury done by the other party), and proceeded
to the District city to enter a complaint. The other village of
course did the same. The ﬁrst village took with them the old
man, unconscious, and apparently in a moribund condition.
Each party had to arrange its yamén expenses before a step
could be taken, and as the case was a serious one, these were
heavy. The Magistrate dared not decide either way until it
was seen whether the wounded recovered. An epileptic, half-
witted boy captured by one side, who avowed his responsibility
for the trouble (perhaps scared nearly to death) was cruelly
beaten till he was half dead for so doing. The matter dragged
on for a long time, and at length was decided on no principle
either of law or of equity—as is the case with so many suits—-
each side settling its own debts, and neither side winning. The
village attacked had squandered at the yamén 3oo strings of
cash, and the attacking party 500! The old man at last re-
covered, and peace reigned in Warsaw and its suburbs.

Now what was the motive for all this? Was there a feud be-
tween these villages? By no means, but exceptional amity,
six or eight families being connected by marriage. Was there
any special provocation P None Whatever ; all comprehensible
motives led to a continuance of peace, but war and bloodshed
followed just the same. Much may be accounted for by
Chinese passion, but how can passion be suddenly made out of
nothing P It is the current fashion to explain all phenomena,
celestial and terrestrial, in terms of the development theory.
Given heredity, education and environment and you have the
man, and society. But it is questionable whether this classiﬁ-
cation is as exhaustive as it seems. At times another factor ap-
pears to be required. It is what Edgar Poe called the Imp of
the Perverse.

XVIII

VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS

HE Chinese share with the rest of the human race a desire

to make a marriage ceremony an occasion of joy. One

of the most frequent periphrases for a wedding, is the expression

“joyful event." It is in China preéminently true that the

highest forms of “joy,” ﬁnd expression in eating. While

marriage feasts are no doubt to be found in all lands at all

times, they are especially Oriental, and are characteristic of the
Chinese.

Owing to the extent and the intricate ramiﬁcations of Chinese
relationships, the number of persons who must be invited to a
wedding is very large. In some regions it is customary for
women only to contribute a “ share ” (fé7z-tzz2) to a wedding,
while the men give a present at that part of the ceremony when
the bridegroom salutes the guests in turn with a prostration.
As the name of each guest is called to be thus honoured, he
hands over the amount of his offering. But in other places
men and women contribute in the same way. Of two things,
however, one may be conﬁdent; that nearly all those invited
will be present either in person or by a representative ; and that
nearly every woman will be accompanied by children, who con-.
tribute nothing to the revenues, but add enormously to the
expenses.

Marriage customs in China certainly vary widely, but of such
a thing as being present at “the ceremony,” but not at “the
wedding breakfast,” we have never heard. Indeed, it can
scarcely be said that, in our sense of the word, there is any
“ ceremony.” Whatever may be added or subtracted from the
performances, the essence of a Chinese wedding seems to con-

I79

:80 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

sist in the arrival of the bride at her future home. The “ feast ”
is the main feature of the occasion. Sometimes the relatives
are not invited at all upon the wedding day, but at a subse-
quent one; yet it is not the less true that when the guests do
come, the “ feast ” is the centre and soul of the occasion.

If there is anything which the Chinese have reduced to an
exact science, it is the business of eating. The sign of real
friendship is to invite a man to a meal, and it is a proverbial
saying that he who comes bearing a vessel of wine on his
shoulder and leading a sheep, is the truly hospitable man, for
he shows by his acts that his invitation is a real one. The
great mass of the Chinese spend their days in a condition which
is very remote from afﬂuence, but the expenses of weddings and
funerals in the mere matter of eating, are such as must, from
the extent of such expenses and the frequency of the occasions
upon which they are required, reduce any but a very aﬂluent
family to utter poverty.

Under the pressure of these inexorable circumstances, the
Chinese have long ago hit upon an application of the share
principle, by means of which wedding and funeral feasts be-
come quite practicable, which would otherwise remain an utter
impossibility. It can seldom be known with certainty how
many guests will attend a wedding, or funeral, but the provision
must be made upon the basis of the largest number likely to
appear. Each guest, or rather each family, is not only ex-
pected, but by a rigid code of social etiquette required, as
already mentioned, to contribute to the expenses of the occa-
sion by a “share.” This will sometimes be in food, but the
general practice is to bring money, according to a scale which
is perfectly understood by every one. The amount varies
greatly in different places, from a triﬂing sum of the value of
about ﬁve or six cents up to a quarter of a dollar or more, ac-
cording to the degree of intimacy between the persons,,and the
ability of the guests to contribute. In some parts of China,
the ordinary amount taken to such a feast seems to be twice as

t

VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS 18:

great as in others. Sometimes the standard is so well under-
stood, that the phrase “ a share” has a local meaning as deﬁ-
nite as if, for example, the sum of 250 cash were expressly
named. .

In some places while the rate of “ a share ” for a funeral is
250 cash, that for a wedding is just double. This is because
the food at a funeral is “plain” (w), while that for the wed-
ding is of meat (Izmz) and much more expensive. It is not
uncommon to ﬁnd that “a share" for a person who comes
from another city or district is two or three times that of a na-
tive of the place where the feast is given. To give only the same
as a native would do would be considered for the person from
a distance as a loss of “face ” !

It is a characteristic example of Chinese procedure that the
sums contributed upon occasions of this sort are in reality sel-
dom what they profess to be. i If local custom considers ninety-
eight or ninety-six cash as a hundred, the temptation to put in
a less number as a contribution is generally too strong to be rev
sisted ; the more so as in the confusion of receiving the numer-
ous amounts, it is generally difﬁcult to tell which particular
string of cash was sent in by which persons, although the
amounts are all entered in an “ account,” to be presently
noticed.

Those householders who are very anxious to keep exact track
of the relative honesty of the respective contributors, sometimes
do so by having ready a long cord to which each successive
sum of cash is tied by its string, after the sum is entered on the
account. When the proceedings are ended, it will then be
possible for the master of the house to go over the multitudinous
strings of cash, ascertaining how much each one is short, and
tracing it to its donor by its place on the cord, corresponding
to the order of entry in the account-book. But this plan is not
regarded with favour by the guests, and is not generally
adopted, because it makes so much trouble. The advantage
of it is that it enables the householder to pay off the debt to

182 , VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the family which gave short cash, at exactly the same rate,
whenever they invite him to a wedding or a funeral. In some
places it is well understood that though each guest contributes
“a share” of 250 cash, it will take ﬁve “shares" to make
1,000, since every “ hundred cash ” is in reality only eighty.

It is the duty of the committee which looks after the
ﬁnances, to take charge of all sums which may be brought by
the guests, and to keep a record of the amount paid by each.
This is a matter of great importance, as every such contribution
occupies the double position of a repayment of some similar
gift to the family of the giver, by the family which now re-
ceives the gift, and also of a precursor of similar return gifts in
time to come. The amount which is sent by each person will
depend upon the relations existing between the families, and
especially upon the amount received by them on some former
similar occasion. To disregard the unwritten code which de-
mands from guests proportional contributions, is regarded as a
grave offence against decorum, because of its serious conse-
quences to the family concerned, in diminishing their receipts.

To attend a feast, but not to bring any contribution, either in
money or in kind, seems to be practically unknown, though it
constantly happens that the quantity of food which on certain
occasions may be substituted for money, is less than half of
what is eaten by the donor. This is especially the case when
the giver is a woman, who, as already mentioned, is likely to
bring one or more voracious children, who must be paciﬁed by
food at every stage of the performances, their capacities being
apparently absolutely unlimited.

In cities and large towns, the business of managing a wed—
ding or a funeral feast, is conducted much as it would be in
any country of the West. A food shop contracts to deliver so
many bowls of food of a deﬁnite quality and at a ﬁxed price.
Provision is also made for additional supplies should the num-
ber of guests be unexpectedly great. But if the feast is to be
on a large scale, it is not unlikely that the cooking will be done

VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS 183

on the premises by the professional caterers. It is usual to
speak of an affair of this sort as embracing so many “feasts,"
a “feast ” denoting not a single individual, as might be sup-
posed, but the number who can sit at one table. This number,
like everything Chinese, varies in different places. Sometimes
it is eight, and the phrase, “ eight fairy table ” is the common
designation of the articles of furniture required for the pur-
pose.

In other regions, while all the tables are of the same size and
shape as these, one side is left open for convenience in passing
the food, and a “ feast ” psigniﬁes six persons only. When the
feasts are provided by contract, the establishment also furnishes
waiters, who convey the food to the guests, and to these waiters
a small gratuity is given at the close.

The number of families who are within reach of facilities
such as these, is but a small proportion of those who are
obliged to arrange for feasts at weddings and funerals. For
those to whom no such resource is open, there is no other way
but to put the matter into the hands of certain experts, of great
experience in such matters—a class of persons to be found
everywhere. Every village or group of villages can furnish a
professional cook, who devotes much of his time to the conduct

' of affairs of this sort. If he is a man of wide reputation, and
employed by rich families, he will have a number of assistants
who work under his direction, all of whom at the close of the
feast will be rewarded with suitable gratuities.

The staff of persons into whose hands the business of arrang-
ing for a feast is committed, is divided into three departments
or committees, the Stewards (chi/zfang), the Culinary Depart-
ment (c/z‘ufang), and Finance Department (changfang).
Each of them is a check upon the other two, although in the
smaller and less expensive affairs all three will naturally run to-
gether and be merged in a single head. The Stewards pur-
chase such supplies as are supposed to be necessary, embracing
the best which the local market affords.

I84 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

In the northern part of China, the two items which prove
the most expensive are Wheaten bread-cakes (man—ﬂow) and
wine. If the accommodation of the dwelling admit of it, the
articles which have been bought for the feast are placed in a
separate apartment, under the exclusive charge of one of the
stewards, by whose order alone can anything be paid out to
the kitchen, on demand of the head cook. But in practice it
is found that at this point there is always a serious leak, for
many of the relatives and neighbours of the family which is to
have the feast, will send over their children to the storeroom
to “ borrow” a few bread-cakes, or a few cups of wine. For
a steward to refuse (as a foreigner would be likely to do), is to
incur the ill-will of the family which wishes to “ borrow,” and
the only advantage to the steward would be that he would be
reviled, which no Chinese relishes. As a matter of practice
therefore, it is customary to “give to him that asketh,” and
from him that would “ borrow ” not to turn away, even though,
as the old English saying runs, “ Broad thongs are cut out of
other people’s leather.”

It not infrequently happens that the stewards who are in
charge of the entertainment are smokers of opium, in which
case the expenses are sure to be much heavier than otherwise.
It has also come to be a custom in some regions, to furnish
opium to the guests at weddings, and this may become an item
of a very elastic nature. Besides this, a man who smokes
opium is naturally incapacitated from taking even ordinary care
of the stores under his charge. If he is himself a smoker, and
if opium is one of the articles provided for the occasion, it will
not be strange if all his opium—smoking comrades embrace the
opportunity to visit him, when they must be invited to take a
pipe—of course at the expense of the master of ceremonies.

The disappearance of wine and bread-cakes, on occasions of
this sort, even before a single bowl of food has been set before
a guest, suggests the evaporation of water on a hot summer
day. It was reported to the writer, that on the occasion of a

VILLAGE WEDDING‘ AND FUNERALS 185

funeral in a neighbour’s family, about sixty catties of wine van-
ished, without leaving behind any trace of its devious course.

The reason for such occurrences, which are of universal
notoriety, is not that the stewards are not able to do that which
they are set to do, nor is the explanation necessarily to be found
in their indifference to the interests of the host. The real seat of
the difﬁculty is, that every family sufﬁciently well-to-do to have
a large feast is surrounded with a swarm of poor relatives, who
have no other opportunities than these to make their connection
of any service to themselves, and who on such occasions are
determined not to be ignored. A poor family of the same sur-
name as the host will stand at the door of the mansion where a
great feast is in preparation, with bowls in hand, demanding
that a share of the good things in course of being served shall
be apportioned to them. Even if the master of the house
should absolutely refuse his consent, and if the stewards should
follow his directions and give nothing, it would be of no avail,
for the poor family would raise such an uproar as practically to
prevent further proceedings, and all the guests would take the
part of the poor relatives, exhorting the host to give them what
they asked.

The habit of levying tribute upon those who happen to be in
a position to pay it, is, as already remarked, deeply rooted in
Chinese life. To what this practice leads, may be seen in the
extreme cases of which one now and then hears, such as the
following, detailed to the writer by the principal sufferer. A
man had a dispute with one of his uncles about a tree, the value
of which did not amount to more than a dollar. As he was a
person without force of character, and unable to get his rights,
he was obliged to “ eat loss.” This enraged his wife to such
an extent that she hung herself. It was now open to her hus-
band to bring a suit at law, accusing the other party of “ har-
rying to death” (pi 5:22) the deceased wife. Perhaps this would
have been the best plan for the injured husband, but “ peace-
talkers ” persuaded him “3 compromise the matter for a money

I86 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHIN/I

payment. The other party had a powerful advocate in a rela-
tive who was a notorious blackleg, expert in lawsuits, and who
freely gave his advice. Even under these advantages, the mid-
dlemen into whose hands the matter was put, decided that the
uncle should pay 30,000 cash to the family of the woman, as
a contribution to the funeral, which was done.

It is not usual to make much parade over the funerals of sui-
cides, unless the sum to be expended is exacted from those who
are supposed to have impelled to the suicide. In this instance,
half the amount paid would have been amply sufﬁcient for the
funeral and for all its expenses. The “ family friends ” of the
husband, uncles, cousins, nephews, etc. , took charge of the
proceedings, which they contrived to drag out for more than a
week, and when the funeral was over, the husband, whose
crops had been that year totally destroyed by ﬂoods, ascertained
. that these “ family friends ” had not only made away with the
30,000 cash awarded as a ﬁne, but that he was saddled with a ,
debt of immediate urgency amounting to 20,000 more for
bread—cakes and wine, which had been consumed (as alleged)
by the “family friends” during the protracted negotiations.
No clear accounts of the expenditure were to be had, and the
only thing of which the poor husband was sure, was that he
was practically ruined by his “ family friends.”

It is always taken for granted by the Chinese, that any family
rich enough to spend a large amount of money on the funeral
of a parent, will be mercilessly pillaged on that particular occa-
sion. The reason for this is that, at such a time, the master of
the house is (theoretically) overcome by grief, and ordinary
propriety requires that he himself should take no part in the
management of affairs, but should give his exclusive attention
to the mourning rites. Even though he clearly perceives that
everything is going wrong, he must act as if he were blind and
deaf, and also dumb. Long practice has made the Chinese
very expert in such an accomplishment, which, it is needless to
say, for an Occidental would be difﬁcult, not to say impossible.

VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS 187

If the householder is a man for any reason generally unpopular,
his disadvantages will be greatly increased, as is illustrated by
the following case, narrated to the writer by a man who lived
within two miles of the village in which the event occurred.

A wealthy man lost his father, and made preparations for an
expensive funeral. He took a hundred strings of cash in a
large farm-cart, and went to a market to buy swine to be
slaughtered for the feast. On the way he was waylaid by a
party of his own relatives, and robbed of all the money, in
such a way as to render recovery of it hopeless. Having after-
ward bought four swine and an ox (a most generous provision
for the feast), the arrangements were put into the hands of
managers (ﬂung—Ii) as usual. These persons found themselves
wholly unable to restrain the raids made upon the stores by
“ friends,” neighbours and others, and the night before the
funeral was to occur, thieves broke into the storeroom and
carried off every scrap of meat, leaving nothing whatever for
the feast. The managers were frightened and ran away. The
feast was of necessity had with nothing but vegetables and was
of a sort to bring the householder into disgrace. As a result
he was afraid to try to have any more funerals, and there are
at present on his premises two unburied cofﬁns awaiting sepul-
ture, perhaps by the next generation.

As soon as the “ shares ” have all been sent in and reckoned
up, it is known how much the host is out of pocket by the af-
fair, and this information is so far from being private that it is
sometimes at once announced to the guests, and if the amount
is a large one the host gets credit for doing business on an ex-
tensive scale, regardless of expense. This gives him a certain
amount of honour among his neighbours, and honour of a kind
which is particularly prized. Among poor families, where
“face” is of much less consequence than cash, it is not un-
common to ﬁnd the feasts on a scale of such extreme economy
that the cost is very triﬂing, although the “shares” are as
great as at much better entertainments. It occasionally hap-

I88 VILLAGE LIFE IN GUN/1

pens that a family is able to reduce the expenses so that the
contributions are large enough to cover them, and even to leave
a margin. A man who has carried through an enterprise of
this sort is regarded as worthy of a certain admiration; and
not without reason, for the feat implies generalship of no mean
order.

Another illustration of the application of cooperative princi-
ples is found in the organization of the men of a village into
details, or reliefs, as bearers of the catafalque of a speciﬁed
size, each having its own leader. Whenever a funeral is to
take place, notice is sent to the head of the division whose turn
it is to serve, and he calls upon the men of his detail in a regu-
lar order. If any one is not on hand to take his turn, he is
subjected to a ﬁne.

In country districts, the funeral catafalque, with its tremen—
dous array of lacquered poles upon which it is borne, is often
the property of a certain number of individuals, who are also
ordinary farmers. On being summoned to take. charge of a
funeral, they often perform the service gratuitously for people
living in their own village, but charging a deﬁnite sum for the
rent of the materials, which sometimes represent a considerable
capital. Wedding chairs are often owned and managed in the
same way, of which the advantage is that an investment which
it is so desirable for the community to have made, and which
is too large for an individual, is made by a company, the mem-
bers of which receive a small dividend on its cash outlay, and
an acknowledgment in food, presents, etc., of the manual la-
bour involved in serving those who invite their aid.

The principle is capable of indeﬁnite expansion. The writer
once lived in a Chinese village, where there was a “ Bowl As-
sociation,”, owning 100 or zoo bowls which were rented to
those who had occasion for a feast, at such a rate as to be re-
munerative to the owners, and at the same time more eConom-
ical to the householder than the purchase of a great number of
dishes for which on ordinary Occasions he would have no use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A BRIDAL PAIR. TEMPORARY FUNERAL PAVILION.

 

VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS 189

Societies for the assistance of those who have funerals are of
common occurrence, and are of many different kinds. There
is special reason for the organization of such leagues (called
pair/12), since, while weddings may be postponed until suitable
arrangements can be made, it is generally difﬁcult, and some
times impossible, to do the same with a funeral.

Sometimes each family belonging to the league pays into the
common fund a monthly subscription of VI 00 cash a month.
Each family so contributing is entitled upon occasion of the
death of an adult member of the family (or perhaps the older
generation only) to draw from this fund, say, 6,000 cash, to be
used in defraying the expenses. If there is not so much money
in the treasury as is called for by deaths in families of the mem-
bers, the deﬁciency is made up by special taxes upon each
member. According to a plan of this sort, a subscriber who
drew out nothing for ﬁve years would have contributed the full
amount to Which he is entitled, without receiving anything in
return. A mutual insurance company of this nature is prob-
ably entered into on account of the serious difﬁculty which
most Chinese families experience in getting together ready
money. From a ﬁnancial point of view there may be nothing
saved by the contribution, but practically it is found to be
easier to raise 100 cash every month, than to get together 6,000
cash at any one time.

Another form of mutual assistance in the expenses of funerals
is the following: A man whose parents are well advanced in
life knows that he may at any time be called upon to spend
upon the ceremonies at their death an amount which it will be
difﬁcult to raise. He therefore “ invites an association ” (c/z‘z'ng
lzuz' ), each member of which is under obligation upon occasion
of the death of a parent to contribute a ﬁxed sum, say 2,000
task. The membership will thus be composed exclusively of
those who have aged parents. The number of names may be
forty, which would result, whenever a call shall be made, in the
accumulation of 80,000 cash. With this sum a showy funeral

190 VILLAGE LIFE IN O'IINA

can be paid for. It is customary to provide in the document
which each signs, and which is deposited with the organizer of
the association, that the funeral shall be conducted on a speci-
ﬁed scale of expense, nor can the funds be diverted to any
other use than for a funeral.

Whenever a member wishes for his own use to make a call
for the quota from each member, he must previously ﬁnd two
bondsmen, who will be surety for him that he will continue to
pay his share on demand, otherwise the other subscribers might
be left in the lurch. Only' those known to be able to meet their
assessments would be likely to be invited to join such an asso-
ciation, and if for any reason a member should fail to furnish
his quota, he would be heavily ﬁned.

*At each funeral, all the subscribers to the funeral fund are
present ex oﬁcz‘o, and it is not necessary for them to contribute
any other share than that represented by the 2,000 cash of the
assessment. Each member of the association appears in mourn-
ing costume, and wailing as would become a near relative of the
deceased. The presence of so large a number of mourners in
addition to those really near of kin, gives a great deal of “ face ”
to the individual whose parent has died, and this is perhaps
quite as attractive a feature of the arrangement as the ﬁnancial
assistance.

If it should happen that for a long time no one dies in the
families of any subscribers to the funeral fund, it may be
thought best to summon the members to a feast, at which the
project is broached of making a call for a share to be used for
a wedding, or some other purpose outside of the constitutional
limits of the society. In any arrangement of this nature the
feast is an indispensable concomitant of the proceedings.
Without it nothing can begin, and without it nothing can end.

Associations of this nature are much more common in con-
nection with funerals than with weddings, yet they are not un-
known for the latter purpose. A family, for example, wishes
to marry a son on a scale which the family resources will not

VILLAGE WEDDING' AND FUNERALS 19:

warrant. It then resorts to an expedient, which is called
“ drawing friends by means of other friends.” Let us suppose
that it is desired to raise the sum of 100,000 cash. A hundred
cards of invitation are prepared, ten of which are sent to ten
friends of the family, who are invited to a preliminary feast.
These friends receive the extra cards of invitation, and each
one gives a card to nine other “ friends ” of his own, who agree
to attend the wedding in question, each one bringing with him
as a share a string of cash. By this means a family with little
wealth and few connections is able suddenly to blossom out at
a wedding with a hundred guests (many of whom nobody
knows), and all expenses are provided for by the liberal contri-
bution of the “friends,” and of the friends of the “friends."

The only motive for the act, on the part of the original
“friends ” is friendship, and the gustatory joy of the wedding
feast. The only motives for the friends of the “ friends,” are
their friendship, and the same joyful feast. It is needless to
observe that the I00,000 cash thus suddenly raised is a debt,
which the family receiving it must repay in future contribu-
tions.

To a Westemer, it doubtless appears a preposterous proceed-
ing to saddle a family with a liability of this sort, for the mere
sake of a temporary display. But love of display is by no means
conﬁned to the Chinese, although doubtless they are satisﬁed
with manifestations of it which to us are far from being attract-
ive. It isa characteristic in the Chinese conduct of affairs, to
make heavy drafts on the future in order to satisfy a present
need. Many a family will sell all their land, and even pull down
their house, to provide for a funeral of a parent, because to
bury the deceased without a suitable display would be a loss of
“face.” And this irrational procedure is executed with an air
of cheerfulness and of conscious virtue, which seems to say,
“ Behold me 1 I will do what is becoming at any personal in-
convenience whatever ! ”

The elaborateness of a Chinese funeral may be roughly de‘

192 PILL/ICE LIFE IN O'IINA

termined in advance by calculating the product of two factors,

+the age (especially the rank of the deceased by generations)
and the social rank of the family. As soon as a death occurs
the wailing begins, and at once, or possibly at sunset, the tem-
ple of the local-god is visited to make the announcement to
him, accompanied with more wailing. Further exercises of
this sort take place on “the third day,” that is in some regions
the next day, which is held to be to all intents “ the third ” !
In case of an affair of great ceremony there will be special per- .
formances on every seventh day (a strange and apparently
unique survival of the hebdominal division in China) for seven
times, the funeral occurring on the forty-ninth day. During
the whole of this period there is no quiet time for the distracted
family. Perhaps .both Buddhist and Taoist priests are chant-
ing their Sacred Books in extemporized mat-shed pavilions of a
tawdry splendour; for it is often considered safest in the dim
uncertainty as to the best way to reach the regions of the blest,
to take passage by both of these religious routes. Excruciating
music rends the air from morn till eve, and bombs are detonat-

+ing at frequent intervals to terrify malignant spirits, and to de-
light the swarms of village boys who riot in ecstasies during
the whole procedure.

English-speaking peoples have been criticised for taking their
pleasures sadly. The Chinese, on the contrary, often contrive
to get through their mourning not without considerable enjoy-
ment. Under no other mundane circumstances is so much to
be had to eat on such easy terms. The adage says truly,

“ When old folks die, the rest feed high.”

The strain upon the exiguous resources of a single courtyard
or set of yards in preparing food simultaneously for the guests,
often numbering hundreds, is very great ; yet the inevitable
waiting, the crowding, the turmoil, and discomfort are all borne
without a tenth of the complaint and resentment which a tithe
of the same annoyances and provocations would probably cause

VILLAGE WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS [93

inc readers of these lines. In China there is no other way to
bury the dead, and there never has been any other way. Cere-
mony is the very life of the Chinese race, and on no other oc-
casion is ceremony so triumphantly tyrannical as at a Chinese
funeral. Yet in the most showy pageantry there is likely to be
an element of unutterable shabbiness. In city processions ﬂags,
banners, umbrellas, screens, and handsome wooden tablets
shining with lacquer and glittering with gilt are carried in great
numbers before and behind the cofﬁn of notables, but the
bearers are not infrequently dirty, ragged beggars, straggling
along without aim and without order. Little or nothing of this
is to be seen in the rural districts, but the confusion and dis-
orderliness are omnipresent and inevitable. There is in the
Chinese language no word meaning solemn, for there is no such
thing as solemnity in the Chinese Empire.

White being the mourning colour, at a funeral swarms of 4~
people appear, some with a mere ﬁllet about their head, others
with square caps, and others with a more abundant display, up
to those whose near relationship to the deceased requires that
they be covered entirely with the coarse cloth which denotes
the deepest depth of mourning, their feeble steps being sup.
ported by a short stick of willow upon which they ostentatiously
lean, particularly at the numerous junctures when wailing is to
take place. Generally speaking, the wearers of white are those
who come within the “ Five Degrees of Relationship ” (wu fu),vl~
that is, all directly descended from one’s grandfather’s grand-
father (the steps being indicated in Chinese by separate names
for each generation, to wit, kao, tséng, rm, fu, and 5/2272, viz.,
three generations of “grandfathers,” my father, and myself).
The family in mourning furnishes material for all the cloud of
mourners, but if the married daughters are provided by their
husband’s family with a supply, this is a mark of special honour.
Sometimes women are seen proudly carrying a huge bolt of
wholly superﬂuous cloth on their arm all through a funeral,
furnishing a public testimonial that their husbands or fathers-in-

194 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

law have done the correct thing, thus giving the daughter-in-
law a large supply of “ face.”

Since family graveyards are surrounded by planted ﬁelds, if
a funeral happens to be held in the spring or early summer, it
is inevitable that by the trampling of so many persons much
damage should be done to growing crops. A space twenty feet
wide or more would be required by the bearers of a catafalque,
and if the funeral is a large one it will be followed all the way
by a dense crowd. The unhappy owners of adjacent land
sometimes provide themselves with shovels, and throw quanti-
ties of earth into the air so as to fall on the heads of the tres-
passers on their grain, as a protest (like all Chinese protests
wholly futile) against the invasion of their rights.

Angry words and reviling are not infrequent concomitants of
Chinese funerals, for the provocation is often grievous. To in-
terfere with a funeral is a serious offence, but disputes some-
times arise between the participants. The writer once saw a
coffin left for many days by the side of a public road because
the bearers of the two cofﬁns that were to have been buried to-
gether, differed as to which set should ﬁrst leave the village,
the disagreement terminating in a ﬁght and an angry lawsuit,
pending the settlement of which the dead man could not stir.

It is when the almost interminable feasts are at last over, and
the loud cry is raised, “ Take up the cofﬁn,” that the funeral’s
climax has arrived. Sixteen bearers, or some multiple of six-
teen (and the more the better) wrestle with the huge and un-
wieldy burden of the ponderous cofﬁn and the enormous cata-
falque supporting it. Only the bearers in the immediate front
. can see where they are going, so that it is necessary that a
funeral director take charge of their motions, which he does by
shrill shouts in a falsetto key ending in a piercing cry by no
means unlike the scream of a catamount. To each of his di-
rective yells the whole chorus of bearers responds with shouts
resembling those of sailors heaving an anchor. These cries
mingled with the ostentatious wails of the mourners piled into

VILLAGE WEDDING AND FUNERALS [95

a whole caravan of village farm—carts, combine to produce a
total effect as remote from our conception of what a funeral
ought to be as can easily be imagined. When, by a slow and
toilful progress, the family graveyard has been reached, the
lowering of the cofﬁn into the grave—sometimes a huge circu-
lar opening—is the culminating point of the many days of ex-
citement. The cries of the director become shrieks, the re-
sponses are tumultuous and discordant, every one adding his
own emendations according to his own point of view, and no one
paying any attention to any one else. Thus, amid the explosion
of more crackers and bombs, the ﬁercer wails of the mourners,
the shouts of the bearers and the grave-diggers, and the buzz
of the curious spectators, the Chinese is at last laid av'vay to his
long rest.

XIX
NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGIS

IF the foreigner who has lived in China long enough to take

in its external phenomena, but not long enough to per-
ceive the causes of them,,were to explain to one of less knowl-
edge his views as to the leading features of the change from one
Chinese year to another as exhibited in the life of the Chinese,
he would probably name (and with much plausibility) one or
more of the following particulars.

DUMPLINGS

The customs of different parts of the wide empire doubt-
less vary, but probably there is no part of it in which either
dumplings or some similar article are not inseparably associated
with New Year’s Day, in the same way as plum-pudding with
an English Christmas, or roast-turkey and mince pie with a
New England Thanksgiving. As compared with Western peo-
ples the number of Chinese who are not obliged to practice
self-denial either in the quantity or the quality of their food,
and in both, is small. The diet of the vast mass of the nation
is systematically and necessarily abstemious. Even in the case
of farmers’ families who are well enough off to afford the year
round good food in abundance, we do not often see them in-
dulging in such luxury. Or if the males of the elder genera-
tion indulge, the women and children of a younger generation
are not allowed to do so. Hereditary economy in the item of
food is a marked Chinese trait. To “eat good things ” is a
common phrase denoting the occurrence of a wedding, a.
funeral, or some occasion upon which “good things ” cannot
be dispensed with. To eat cakes of ordinary grain on New

196

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES :97

Year's Day, and not to get any dumplings at all, is proverbially
worse than not to have any New Year.

Moreover. the keen joy with which every member of a
Chinese family looks forward to the dietetic aspect of their
New Year, the still keener joy with which every member is
absorbed in devouring all he can get of the best there is to be
got. and the scarcely less keen joy with which each one recalls
the details of the menu when the family is once more launched
upon the Sahara of ordinary fare—these are full of suggestion
and instruction to Occidentals who habitually have so much to
eat that they seldom secure the best sauce of gnawing hunger,
and are more likely than not to be bored by being asked out to
an elaborate dinner with many courses. The most robust
imagination ﬁnds it impossible to conceive of a Chinese who
should take this view of what always appeals to the ﬁnest feel-
ings of his nature. There is therefore much reason in placing
Dumplings m the forefront of a Chinese New Year.

REUNION

No feast-day in any Western land—the two previously men-
tioned not excepted—can at all compare with Chinese New
Year, as regards powers of traction and attraction. We con-
sider the gathering of families on these special occasions as
theoretically desirable, and as practically useful. But we have
this fatal disadvantage; our families divide and disperse, often
to the ends of the earth, and a new home is soon made.
Whole families cannot be transported long distances, especially
at inclement seasons of the year. even if average dwellings
would hold them all.

But in China the family is already at home. It is only some
of its male members who are absent, and they return to their
ancestral abode, with the infallible instinct of the wild fowl to
their southern haunts. If vast distances should make this
physically impossible—as is the case with the countless Shan-hsi
men scattered over the empire doing business as bankers, pawn-

r98 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

brokers, etc., or as happens with many from the northern prov-
inces who go “ outside the Great Wall,”——still the plan is to go
home, perhaps one year in three, and the time selected is al-
ways at the close of the year.

A cat in a strange garret, a bird with a broken wing, a ﬁsh
out of water are not more restless and unhappy than the aver-
age Chinese who cannot go home at New Year time. In addi-
tion to his personal deprivations, he has the certainty of being
ridiculed not only by the persons with whom he is obliged to
stay, but also by the people of his own village when he does go
home. The Chinese dread ridicule, even more than they dread
the loss of a good meal, and unless the circumstances are alto-
gether exceptional, one can depend upon it that every Chinese
can only be kept away from his home at New Year by circum-
stances over which he has no control. There is, therefore,
good ground for regarding reuniOn as a leading feature of a
Chinese New Year. ~

NEW CLOTHES

Whoever takes even a superﬁcial view of the Chinese in their
towns, cities and villages during the period from the ﬁrst day of
the ﬁrst moon to the ﬁfteenth of the same, will be struck with
the display of new and bright-coloured garments. Every article
of apparel, both of the men and of the women, and still more
of the children, may be of any or all the colors of the rain-
bow. The Chinese do not seem to us to be conspicuous for
what we call good taste, but rather at times to emulate the
vagaries of the African savages, and never more so than at this
time of holiday show. Combinations of colour which would
cause Western ladies to shrug their shoulders, and to shiver
with horror, appear to recommend themselves to the Chinese
taste as the correct thing, and as good form. Bright green and
blue, accompanied by deep scarlet, purple, lilac or orange, do
not seem to “ kill each other,” as our modistes would shudder-
ingly afﬁrm, but they convey such evident and such universal

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES :99

pleasure to wearers and spectators alike, that it becomes plain
to the most prejudiced foreigner, that here, at least, his stand
ards do not apply. In consideration of the stress which the
Chinese lay upon this feature of their great anniversary, we
should be justiﬁed in assuming ﬁne clothes as a main character-
istic of the occasion.

RELIGIOUS RITES

The very ﬁrst aspect in which Chinese New Year presents
itself, no matter in what part of the world we happen to meet
it, is that of noise. All night long, there is a bang! bang!
bang! of ﬁrecrackers large and small, which, like other ca-
lamities, “ come, not single spies, but in battalions." The root
of all this is undoubtedly connected with religion, as in other
similar performances all over the world. But though the ex-
plosion of gunpowder is the most prominent, it is far from being
the most important act of New Year worship. There is the
despatch of the last year’s kitchen-god, generally on the twenty-
third of the twelfth moon, and the installation of his successor
at the close of the year. On the last evening of the year, there
is the family gathering either at the ancestral temple, or should
there not be one, in the dwelling-house, for the worship of the
tablets of the past few generations of ancestors. In some parts
of China ancestral tablets are comparatively rare among the
farming and working people, and the place of them as regards
the practical worship at New Year’s eve, is taken by a large
scroll, containing a portion of the family genealogy, which is
hung up, and honoured with prostrations and the burning of
incense. On the morning of the second day of the new ﬁrst
moon, perhaps at other times also, all the males of a suitable
age go to the family or clan graveyard, and there make the
customary offerings to the spirits of the departed. There has
been considerable controversy among foreigners expert in
Chinese affairs as to the true value of these various rites from
a religious point of view, but there is no doubt on the part of

zoo VILLAGE'LIFE IN CHINA

any one that they constitute a most essential ingredient in a
Chinese New Year, and that in the present temper of the
Chinese race, a New Year without such rites is both incon-
ceivable and impossible. We do well, therefore, to place Re-
ligious Rites prominently in our catalogue.

SOCIAL CEREMONIES

It requires but a slight acquaintance with the facts, however,
to make us aware that while the ceremonies connected with
the dead are important, they are soon disposed of once for all,
and that they do not form a part of the permanent New Year
landscape. It is quite otherwise with the social ceremonies
connected with the living. The practice of New Year calls, as
found in some Western lands is a very feeble parody of the
Chinese usage. We call on whom we choose to call upon,
when we choose to go. The Chinese pays his respects to those
to whom he must pay his respects, at the time when it is his
duty so to do and from this duty there is seldom any reprieve.
For example, not to press into undue prominence local prac-
tices, which vary greatly, it may be the fashion for every one
to be up long before daylight. After the family salutations
have been concluded, all but the older generation of males set
out to make the tour of the village, the representatives of each
family entering the yard of every other family, and prostrating
themselves to the elders who are at home to receive them. This
business goes by priority in the genealogical table, as military
and naval ofﬁcers take rank from the date of their commissions.
Early marriages on the part of some members of a collateral
branch of a large clan, late marriages on the part of other
branches, the adoption of heirs at any point, and other causes,
constantly bring it about that the men oldest in years are by
no means so in the order of the generation to which they be-
long. Thus we have the absurd spectacle of a man of seventy
posing as a “ nephew”—or, if worst comes to worst—as the
“ grandson ” of a mere b0!!- One often hears a man in middle

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES 7 not

life complain of the fatigues of the New Year time, as he being
of a “ late generation,” is obliged “ to kotow to every child two
feet long ” whom he may happen to meet, as they are “ older ”
than he, and in consequence of this inversion of “ relative
duties,” the children are fresh as a rose, while the middle—aged
man has lame knees for a week or two !

If the ﬁrst day is devoted to one’s native town or village, the
succeeding ones are taken to pay calls of ceremony upon one’s
relatives living in other towns or villages, beginning with the
mother’s family, and branching into relationships the names of
which few foreigners can remember, and which most cannot
even comprehend. That all this social ceremony is upon the
whole a good thing cannot be doubted, for it prevents many
alienations, and heals in their early stages many cases of
strained relations. Yet, to us such a formal and monotonous
routine would prove insufferable.

To the Chinese, these visits are not only an important part
I of New Year, presumptively they are in real sense New Year

itself. Every visit involves a “square meal,” and (from the
. Chinese point of view) a good time. To omit them, would be
not only to deprive oneself of much pleasure, it would be to
commit a social crime, which would almost certainly give great
offence.

NATIONAL LEISURE

Greater familiarity with the conditions and details of Chinese
life lead us to wonder that so laborious a people ﬁnd time for all
this junketing and vain display. The marvel is indeed a per-
manent one, but it ceases to surprise us when we have once
taken in the fact that the whole Chinese race have as a unit,
practically agreed to deduct from the twelve available months,
an entire half moon, from New Year till the Feast of Lanterns.
Within this twenty-fourth part of the year, nothing shall be
done which can be left undone. The outgo is to be put down
to the expense account of the whole year, and the main pur-

202 'HLLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

pose is to have a good time. This period thus becomes a
safety-valve for the nation, which else might go distraught in
all its otherwise ceaseless toils. If the Chinese did not as a
rule, work so hard, they could not so heartily enjoy their long
vacation. If they did not so heartily enjoy their vacation, they
could not during the rest of the year work so well. We are
therefore authorized, in arranging our table of contents of the
Chinese New Year, to give large place to the almost complete
cessation of productive industry. It is the epoch of national
leisure. -

GAMBLING

It is a venerable maxim that “Satan ﬁnds some mischief
still, for idle hands to do.” Probably no race that ever lived
could resist the strain of such a sudden transition from constant
industrial activity, to complete industrial inactivity, to be fol-
lowed half a month later by the old routine and another year
of bondage. They could not resist the strain, that is to say,
without a corresponding reaction; neither can the Chinese.
It is not in human nature to ﬁnd consecutive enjoyment merely
in the directions which have been named, without trying to go
farther and to get more. This is precisely what the Chinese
do, and they do it by the excitement of gambling. This, with
opium smoking, is the greatest vice in China, and the most
ruinous. But after all, taking the country districts through,
the proportion of gamblers among the working classes, so far
as we are aware, is limited, though vast sums are everywhere
annually squandered in this way. But the remarkable thing is
that at New Year's time all restrictions seem to be removed,
and both men and women give themselves up to the absorbing
excitement of cards, dominoes, etc., with money stakes of vary-
ing amount, and with no fear or even thought of future evil
harvests. In the abstract, gambling is of course recognized as
wrong and not to be indulged, as likely to lead to trouble.
But at New Year’s time “ everybody does it,” “it is only for

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES 203

amusement,” and “ there is nothing else to do,”-—-the latter an
important fact to be taken account of at a time when even
cooking is often praetermitted as much as possible. Merchants
do not take down their shutters, but one can hear the clerks
noisily gambling inside. Innkeepers will not Open their front
doors, but landlord and servants are all gambling together and
will refuse to stop a game to feed your animals or get you a
meal, telling you that it is no time to travel, and that business
is business, and amusement amusement.

Old women and young women squatted on their mats or their
bangs, feverishly shuﬂle their cards and pay their little stakes,
and all are having a good time.

That this state of things will not stop suddenly on the day
after the Feast of Lanterns, is obvious. It often never stops at
all, but goes on with a widening and lengthening trail of ruin,
not ending even with the grave, but lasting to the third and
fourth generation. Surely we are right in calling gambling a
leading feature of a Chinese New Year. And yet after all,
perhaps we have not got to the bottom of the matter.

DEBT-PAYING

However little attention he may pay to the Chinese calendar,
every foreigner in China is sure to be reminded in a very effect-
ive way of the approach of the close of the Chinese year, long
before the edge of the New Year is to be seen above the horizon.
At some time during the twelfth moon, the “boy ” makes his
appearance, and with an unusual animation in his unanimated
face, explains that owing to a combination of circumstances
which seem to be to a large extent incapable of elucida-
tion to us, he is obliged to request the advance of his wages for
the current month, and also for the one to come. This may be
contrary to rule, doubtless is so, but owing to the combination
above alluded to, is an imperative necessity. Otherwise ruin
impends. It is not long before a similar statement is made by
the cook, with regard to his affairs, and by the various coolies

m4 ' VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

as to theirs. In each case the necessity turns out upon investi-
gation to be so real, and the pressure of the combination of cir-
cumstances so powerful, that we are, in a manner, forced to do
violence to our own judgment, in order to avert the imminent
ruin of those who are in our employ, and in whom we feel,
perhaps, some interest. But it is a long time before it occurs
to us to look into the matter more deeply than sufﬁciently to
ascertain what everybody knew before, that Chinese New Year
is preceded by a universal season of debt-paying from which no
one is exempt. If we insist upon following up any speciﬁc case
with a rigid examination into its remoter causes, we soon learn
from the principal party such facts as appear to justify his as-
sertion of an emergency, and also that there is nothing peculiar
in his case, but that other people are in the same predicament.
If these inquiries are carried far enough, and deep enough, they
will bring to light the seven deadly sins of Chinese social ﬁnan-
ciering.

1. Everybody always need: to borrow. That the business
of the world even in Western lands depends upon the borrowing
of money, and that credit is the largest factor in trade, are posi—
tions which we do not for a moment forget. But Chinese bor-
rowing is of a different type from that with which the great ex-
pansion of modern commerce has made us familiar. We do
not afﬁrm that there are not Chinese who do not need the
money of other people for the conduct of their affairs, but only
that these people are so rare that they may as well be disre-
garded. The whole scale of Chinese living and the whole sys-
tem of economics are of such a sort, that as a rule there is but
a narrow margin of ﬁnancial reserve. With all their practical-
ity and skill in affairs, it is a constant source of wonder that so
few Chinese ever have anything to fall back upon. One reason
for this is the fact that it is very difﬁcult for them to accumu~
late a reserve, and another equally potent is the fact that there
is nothing which can be safely done with it pending its use.
There are no savings-bankS, and there are no investments which

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES 205

are safe. The only thing which can be done with ready money,
is to lend it to those who need it, which is generally done with
some reluctance, as the lender justly fears lest he should never
again see either interest or principal. Whoever has a wedding
in his family, is liable to have to borrow money to carry it
through, and if it be a funeral the necessity will be still more
urgent. He needs money to start in business, and he needs
more to settle up at the end of the year, when, if their own ac-
counts are to be trusted, nine Chinese out of ten who engage in
business in a small way, ﬁnd that they have “ lost money " ;
though this often signiﬁes that they have not realized so much
as they had hoped. In short it is hard to ﬁnd a Chinese to
whom the loan of a sum of money at any time, would not be
as welcome as “water to a ﬁsh in a dry rut.” It is this all-
prevailing need which smoothes the surface of the spot where
the pit is to be dug.

2. Everyéoa’y is obliged to lend money. We have just re-
marked that the man who happens to have a little surplus cash
does not like to lend it, lest he should never see it again. But
there are various kinds and degrees of pressure which can be
brought to bear upon the capitalist. One of these is connected
with the solidarity of the Chinese family, or clan. If one of
the members has money which he might lend and another is
desperately in need of it, the latter will get a member of the
generation higher than that to which the capitalist belongs, to
intercede for him. This may be done unwillingly, but it will
probably be done. To a sufﬁcient amount of pressure of this
ancestral description, the capitalist will ﬁnd it best to yield,
though not improbably against his ﬁnancial judgment. But
every Chinese is from infancy accustomed to the idea that it is
seldom easy to have one’s own way in all things, and that when
one cannot do as he would, he must do as he must. If the
borrower does not belong to the same family or clan as the
lender, the difﬁculty will be greater, but it may perhaps be
overcome by the same description of pressure, by means of

206 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

friends. A would-be borrower is often obliged to make a
great many kotows before he can secure the favour of a loan (at
an extortionately high rate of interest), but he is much aided
in his efforts by the Chinese notion that when a certain amount
of pressure has been brought to bear, a request must be granted,
just as one of a pair of scales must go down if you put on
enough weights. Thus it comes about that in all ranks of
Chinese, the man who has, is the man who must be content
to allow to share in his wealth (for a handsome remuneration).

3. From the foregoing propositions, it follows with inevi-
table certainty, that almost everyboo’y owes some one else.
There is never any occasion to ask a Chinese whether he owes
money. The proper formula is, How much do you owe, and
to whom, and what is the rate of interest?

4. No Chinese ever pays eash down, unless he is obliged to
do so. To us this may appear a most ec'centric habit, but it
seems to be almost a law. The Chinese has learned by ages
of experience, that he no sooner pays away money to satisfy
one debt, than he needs that same money to liquidate other
debts. In their own ﬁguratively expressive phrase, a single
cup of water is wanted in three or four places at once, and the
supply is always as inadequate, as the classical “cup of water
to put out the ﬁre in a cart—load of fuel.” Knowing this with
a keenneLS of apprehension which it is difﬁcult for us to appre-
ciate, the Chinese holds on fast to his cash till it is wrung from
him by a force which overcomes his own tenacity of grip.

5. No Chinese ever jays a deb! till he is dunnea’. To us
this also seems a strange practice. Most of us have grown up
with a ﬁxed idea that as a debt must be paid, “if it were done
when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly." The
mind of a Chinese operates in quite a different way. His
view is, “ If it must be done, it were best done when it is done
as deliberately as the case admits.”

6. It seems also to be the rule, that no Chinese will pay his
debts till he has been dunner! a great number of times. Here

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VlLL/lGES 207

again he is at the opposite pole from that which we occupy.
We do not like to be dunned, and would rather make consid-
erable sacriﬁces than to have needy persons dogging us for the
collection of debts which we honestly owe, which we must ul-
timately pay, and not to arrange for the payment of which at
once is more or less of a disgrace. By “we” we mean of
course the average foreigner, for it is not to be denied that
Western lands have their full proportion of impecunious and
shameless rascals who “live off the interest of their debts,”
and who swindle all those whom they can. But the Chinese
of whom we are speaking do not belong to this class. The
mass of the Chinese people we believe to be honest, and they
fully intend to pay all that they owe, but they do not intend to
pay until they are ready to do so, and neither gods nor men
can tell when that will be. It is a current saying that when a
person has many debts he is no longer concerned about them,
just as when one has many parasites he ceases to scratch I

7. In a large proportion of cases, file Chinese who pays
a dew, pay: but a part of it at a time. The rest he will try to
get together in the “third month,” “ the ninth month,” or at
the “ end of the next year." The practical outcome of these
last three peculiarities is, that the twelfth moon of every Chinese
year is a time of maximum activity all over the empire. One
would suppose that a vast amount of work was being accom-
plished, but the facts are otherwise. One is reminded of the
Witch in “Alice Behind the Looking—Glass,” where the child
was hurried along on a broomstick at such a rate as to take
her breath away. She thought she must be traversing illimit-
able space, but when this idea was communicated to the
Witch, the latter only laughed, and replied that this was noth-
ing at all, for they had to‘ go like that to “keep up with
things ” andif they were really to get ahead to any extent, the
rate of travel must be enormously faster than that I The rac-
ing around of the Chinese in their ﬁnal moon, is just “ to keep
up with things.” Every shop, no matter how triﬂing the sum

208 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

total of its business, has its army of runners out, each “de-
manding debts,” or rather endeavouring to do so; for to
achieve it is no such easy matter. The debtor is himself a
creditor, and he also will be occupied in the effort to call in
the sums which are owing to him. Each separate individual
is engaged in the task of trying to chase down the men who
owe money to him, and, compel them to pay up, and at the
same time in trying to avoid the persons who are struggling to
track him down and corkscrew from him the amount of his in-
debtedness to them! The dodges and subterfuges to which
each is obliged to resort, increase in complexity and number
with the advance of the season, until at the close of the month,
the national activity is at fever heat. For if a debt is not se-
cured then, it will go over till a new year, and no one knows
what will be the status of a claim which has actually contrived
to cheat the annual Day of Judgment. In spite of the excel-
lent Chinese habit of making the close of a year a grand clear-
ing—house for all debts, Chinese human nature is too much for
Chinese custom, and there are many of these postponed debts
which are a grief of mind to many a Chinese creditor.

The Chinese are at once the most practical and the most
sentimental of the human race. New Year must not be violated
by duns for debts, but the debt must be collected New Year
though it be. For this reason one sometimes sees an urgent
creditor going about early on the ﬁrst day of the year carrying
a lantern looking for his creditor. His artiﬁcial light shows
that by a social ﬁction the sun has not yet risen, it is still yes-
terday and the debt can still be claimed !

We have but to imagine the application of the principles
which we have named, to the whole Chinese empire, and we
get new light upon the nature of the Chinese New Year festivi-
ties. They are a time of rejoicing, but there is no rejoicing so
keen as that of a ruined debtor, who has succeeded by shrewd
devices in avoiding the most relentless of his creditors and has
thus postponed his ruin for at least another twelve months.

NEW YEAR IN CHINESE VILLAGES 9‘79

For, once past the narrow strait at the end of the year, the
debtor ﬁnds himself again in broad and peaceful waters, where
he cannot be molested. Even should his creditors meet him
on New Year's day, there could be no possibility of mentioning
the fact of the previous day’s disgraceful ﬂight and conceal-
ment, or indeed of alluding to business at all, for this would
not be “good form,” and to the Chinese “Good Form”
(otherwise known as Custom), is the chief national divinity.
An ingenious device by which to secure the desirable result
that a family shall be sure to have a supply of the food most
indispensable- for a proper treatment of guests at the festive
New Year season, is found in what are called New Year
Societies. Each member of the society contributes a few hun-
dred or perhaps a thousand cash a month for the ﬁrst ﬁve
months of the year, until the wheat harvest in June when
wheat is at its lowest price, for example 1,200 cash for 100
catties or picul. During the ﬁve months which have elapsed,
the money thus assessed upon the members has been put at in-
terest, and has already accumulated a handsome income. As
soon as the new wheat is in the market, the loans are all called
in, and the treasurer takes the whole of the sum belonging to
the association and invests it in wheat. This he keeps until
the close of the year, by which time it is not at all unlikely
that the price of the grain has doubled. He then exchanges
the wheat, at the current rate, with some maker of bread-cakes
(man-t‘ou), and these are divided among the stockholders. In
this way, each one gets not only the beneﬁt of the interest on
loans for ﬁve months, but also nearly or quite double the value
of the wheat bought just after harvest. Sometimes the monthly
payments are continued throughout the year, and the sum is
then expended in a lump for bread-cakes, wheat, cotton, or
whatever each family most needs for the New Year season. In
societies of this kind, the rate of interest is sure to be at least
three per cent. per month, and perhaps four per cent. The
amounts borrowed are usually small, and each borrower must

210 VILLAGE ME IN G'IINA

have a security from among the contributors to the fund. In
case payment is not forthcoming at the due date, the next step
is to raise an uproar, and if possible‘to collect the debt by force.
The inevitable and universal uncertainty and difﬁculty attend-
ing the collection of any money on loan, give emphasis to the
adage that “where the proﬁt is large, the risk'is correspond-
ingly great.”

Extortionate as are the ordinary rates of Chinese interest,
ranging from twenty-four to forty-eight or more per cent. per
annum, there are other ways than direct loans, by which even
greater proﬁts may be gathered. The passion for gambling
seems to be all-pervasive among the Chinese, and it is perhaps
a greater bar to the prosperity of the common people than any
other habit of their lives. Many of the phenomena of Chinese
cooperation are associated with gambling practices, from which
the proﬁt to those who manage the ﬁnances is very great. In
all cases where there is money to loan, it is possible to employ
it for gaming, under the direction of the managers, or trustees.
Those who are in the habit of gambling do not stop when their
supply of money fails, but draw upon the bank of the loan as-
sociation at terms which are agreed upon, but which differ ac-
cording to circumstances. In an emergency, it might happen
that a person whose fortune had failed him, would be obliged
to borrow of the bank, say 800 cash, which in a short time he
must replace with 1,000. At the end of the year when the ac-
counts are made up and the money paid in, it is equally di-
vided among the contributors of the society, whether they may
have used the capital for gambling or not. In case they have
borrowed a part of the capital and are not able to repay it,
their debt is set against their contribution, and they lose their
investment.

XX

THE VILLAGE BULLY

NO adequate understanding of the life of the Chinese is

possible without some comprehension of the place
therein of the bully, and conversely it might almost be said
that a just apprehension of the character and functions of the
Chinese bully is equivalent to a comprehension of Chinese so-
ciety.

So far as we know, the Chinese bully is a character peculiar
to China. By this it is not of course meant that other lands
do not have and have not always had their bullies, but that the
mode in which Chinese bullies exert their power is unique. It
depends largely upon the peculiar characteristics of the Chinese
race, prominent among which is the desire for peace, and a re-
luctance to engage in a quarrel. The traits of a bully among
a savage and warlike people such as our ancestors once were,
and of a bully among such a quiet folk as the Chinese, are in-
herently different.

The Chinese have many terms to designate the individual
whom we have termed a bully, among which one of the most
common is that which means literally “bare-stick ” (kuang-
ézm), in allusion to the fact that those who are most frequently
bullies are generally those who have no property to lose. But
the general term is applicable to any one who plays the part,
whatever his social condition may be, and it is in this sense
that we shall employ it.

In considering the social functions of the bully, it is neces-
sary to distinguish him from several classes of persons, to any
one of which he may belong, but from each one of which he
may be different. These four classes are,—ﬁrst, headmen of

an

2m , VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the village (called also, as we have already remarked, by many
other names); second, intermediaries (not “middlemen ” in
the technical sense, but those who as peace-talkers, intervene
in the affairs of others) etc.; third, beggars ; and lastly
thieves.

In China next in importance after the division of human be-
ings into two sexes, is another classiﬁcation which every Chi-
nese instinctively adopts. According to this arrangement, all
members of society are rated according to their probable be-
haviour under bad treatment, just as the chemist considers all
substances in the light of their capacity for combination with
other elements.

In the popular speech of the people, every Chinese villager
is said to be either “ low-312271” or not “ lac-shill.” The words
“/ao-s/zz'lz” mean literary “old and solid,” or in a derived
‘ sense gentle, tractable, from which again arises a third signiﬁ-
cation of stupid, and gullible. The highest degree of this
latter quality is expressed in the phrase “ sszZ—lao-s/Lz'lt,” which
literally denotes one who is “ dead-stupid ” ; that is, one who
can be imposed upon to any extent. Such a one, in a common
adage, is compared to the toes on an old woman’s feet, which
have been suppressed all their life, without any power of as-
serting themselves.

The village bully is, (as we used to be taught of vulgar
fractions) of three kinds, simple, compound, and complex.
The simple bully is a unit by himself, managing his own affairs
with his own resources. The compound bully calls to his aid
the power of numbers, and the mysterious and almost irresisti-
ble talent for combination inherent in the Chinese. The com-
plex bully is not a bully merely, but has some business or pro-
fession, in the management of which he is materially aided by
the fact that he is a man to be feared.

In his simplest form, a Chinese bully is a man of a more or
less violent temper and strong passions, who is resolved never
to “ eat loss,” and under all circumstances to give as good (or

THE VILLAGE HJLLY 213

as bad) as he gets. Fortunately for the peace of society, the
overwhelming majority of the Chinese belong to the “ lag-5111'}: ”
variety. In order to secure the reputation of being not “law-
512271,” a shrewd villager will sometimes adopt the expedient,
not unknown to other lands, of wearing his clothes in a loose
and rowdy-like fashion, talking in a boisterous tone, and re-
senting contradiction or any overt lack of compliance with his
opinions. ‘

His cap is worn studiedly awry; his outer garment instead
of being decorously fastened, is left purposely unlooped; his
abundant hair is braided into a loose cue apparently as thick as
his arm, the plaiting beginning several inches away from the
head : the end of the cue is generally coiled about his neck or
over his head (a gross breach of Chinese etiquette), as if to
show that he thirsts for a ﬁght. His outer leggings are not im-
probably so tied as to display a lining which is more expensive
than the outside; and his shoes are invariably worn down at
the heel, perhaps to make an ostentatious display of a silk em-
broidered ﬂee! to the cotton stocking—a touch of splendour
adapted to strike awe into the rustic beholder. In a time of
intense excitement over alleged kidnapping of children, we have
known a man to be apprehended in open court and examined
as a bad character, because the colour of his clothes was un-
usual.

By persistently following out his peculiar lines of action, he
will not unlikely succeed in diffusing the impression that he is
a dangerous man to interfere with, and will in consequence be
let severely alone. A cat of even a small experience will not
improbably manifest considerable hesitation before attempting
to swallow a lizard. It is evident, therefore, that if any small
reptile is obliged to associate with cats, the art of simulating a
lizard is a valuable one. The grade of bully of which we are
now speaking is in all Chinese society too common to attract
much notice, and he can be avoided by letting him alone. His
weapons, like the walls of Chinese cities, are defensive only.

214 VILLAGE LIFE IN U-IlN/i

Much more to be dreaded is the bully who will not let others
alone, but who is always inserting himself into their affairs
with a view to extracting some beneﬁt for himself. The most
dangerous type of these men is the one who makes very little
ado, but whose acts are ruinous to those whom he wishes to in—
jure. Such a one is aptly likened to a dog which bites without
showing his teeth.

The tactics which such a man adopts to establish his claim
to the rank of “ village king,” are the same with which we are
only too familiar in other lands, and which an advancing civili-
zation has not yet succeeded in rendering wholly obsolete. If
there is no overt act which he sees his way to commit, he can
always pick a quarrel by reviling, which is regarded as throw-
ing down a glove of deﬁance. Not to notice such a challenge
is from a Chinese standpoint almost impossible. “ To be tau
viled and to feel no pain,” this is the Chinese ideal of shame-
lessness. Nothing is rarer than to ﬁnd a Chinese who has been
reviled, and who, when he was strong enough to demand an
apology, has allowed the matter to drop.

The intricate constitution of Chinese society is such that
there is a great variety of acts which, while they may not be
directly hostile, must be understood in the light of a challenge.
If for example a bully has let it be known that he is determined
that a theatrical representation shall take place the next autumn
in his village, for some one to oppose it might not improbably
be such an act of hostility as to amount to a challenge. The
bully must then see that the theatre is engaged, or his “ face ”
is lost, which one may be sure will never happen as long as he
is able to prevent it.

There is always about one of these village bullies a general
atmosphere of menace, as if he were thirsting for an oppor-
tunity to issue an ultimatum. He often does so, in a singularly
vague manner, the signiﬁcance of which is, however, perfectly
well understood. If A is the bully, and B is known to oppose
him, then A publicly states that if B does so and so, A will not

I

THE VILLAGE BULLY 215

put up with it (pa man I‘d, literally, “will not take the ac-
count,” but insinuating a dark hint as to consequences). If B
takes the hint and quietly retires, there is peace, but otherwise
there is war. I ‘

One of the qualiﬁcations which is very convenient for the
village bully, although not absolutely indispensable, is physical
strength. One of the nicknames of the local bully as just re-
marked, is that of village king. Among those whose forte is
violence, the king must be a man who has inherent power,
“the man who can,” for it is impossible to say at what mo-
ment all his strength will be needed in some ﬁght.

It is in view of this consideration, that it is very common for
young fellows who wish to distinguish themselves among their
comrades, to take systematic lessons in “ ﬁst-and-foot,” that is,
in gymnastics. A high degree of skill in wrestling, and the
ability (as alleged) to deliver such a blow with the ﬁst as shall
knock out a brick from a wall a foot thick, are in many cir-
cumstances valuable accomplishments.

The writer is well acquainted with a young man who en-
joyed the reputation of being the strongest person in his village.
Being sent on an errand to a distant city, he had occasion to
pass through a smaller city some forty [2' from his home, where
he was not known._ Here a number of bullies, who happened
to be gathered in front of the district yamen, struck with his
rusticity, stopped him, and demanded who he was and where
he was going. His replies to their inquiries not being sufﬁ-
ciently prompt to give satisfaction, he was set upon by several
men, who attacked him simultaneously. Here his “ ﬁst-and-
foot ” skill was of great service ; for though two men were on
top of him, he was able to seize the ankle of one of them and
to give it such a fearful twist as almost to dislocate the joint,
whereupon his assailants, howling with pain, were only too glad
to release him. At a later date the matter was looked into,
and at the feast which the attacking party was compelled to
give, by way of apology, one of those present hobbled around

216 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

in a particularly feeble manner, and freely expressed the opinion
that upon this occasion he had mistaken his man 1

In the numerous cases in which persons are imposed upon by
a bully who is too much for them, their earliest thoughts are
how it may be practicable to collect a band of men, expert in
the “ ﬁst-and-foot ” practices, and make an attack upon the
aggressive party, by which means he may be suppressed. The
writer once met a man whose home is in a village noted as the
headquarters of a daring and unscrupulous band of thieves.
Having been robbed by them with no prospect of any redress
through legal channels, this man collected a band of athletes
and attacked the thieves in the vicinity of the village where
they made their home, so belabouring them that the band re-
moved its headquarters elsewhere.

It is a useful, but by no means a necessary qualiﬁcation of the
bully, that he should be a poor man, with nothing to lose. Pov-
erty in China is often a synonym for the most abject misery and
want. The entire possessions of great numbers of the people
would not amount in value to ﬁve dollars, and thousands of per-
sons never know whence the next meal is to come. Such persons
would in European countries constitute what are called “ the dan-
gerous classes.” In China, unless their distress is extreme, they
do not mass themselves, and they seldom wage war against soci-
ety as a whole. But individuals of this type may, if they have
other requisite abilities, become “ village kings,” and order the
course of current events much according to their own will.

Such persons, in the ﬁgurative language of the Chinese, are
called “barefoot men,” in allusion to their destitute condition,
and it is a common saying that “ the barefoot man (otherwise
known as ‘ mud-legs ’) is not afraid of him who has stockings
on his feet,” for the former can at once retreat into the mud,
where the latter dare not follow. In other words, the barefoot
man is able to hold in terror the man who has property to lose,
by an open or an implicit threat of vengeance, against which
the man of property cannot safeguard himself.

THE VILLAGE BULLY 217

The forms which this vengeance will take vary according to
circumstances. One of the most common is that of incendiary
ﬁres, which, in a thickly inhabited village, where there is often
a large accumulation of fuel stacked up, is a mode of attack
particularly to be dreaded. It is always easy to set a ﬁre, but
difﬁcult and frequently impossible to extinguish it. We have
known numberless instances of this sort, in which, despite all
diligence, no one was. ever detected in setting the ﬁre. The
terror which such ﬁres inspire is so great, that the man who is
thought to be specially liable to them may be marked and
avoided for that reason alone. It is considered unsafe to have
anything to do with him, much less to aid him in extinguishing
his ﬁres. In one case of this sort, the same individual was re-
peatedly visited with incendiary ﬁres, and on the last occasion
all his carts were totally destroyed, nothing remaining but the
tires of the wheels. It was afterward found that strong leather
straps had been used to bind the wheels to the framework of the
shed in which they were kept, so that any attempt to drag the
carts out was certain to fail.

Another method by which the bully signiﬁes his dissatisfac-
tion with his enemy, is by injuring his crops. In a country
where the farms are subdivided into mere fragments, every
farmer’s land is contiguous to that of a great number of other
persons. As already mentioned a large farm will often consist
of scores of different pieces of ground, which have been
bought as opportunity offered. When the land is planted, and
again when the harvest is gathered, excellent opportunity is af-
forded for disputes. The little bushes which serve as bound-
aries of the ﬁelds of different owners, in regions where stone
posts are too expensive, are readily destroyed or removed, and
in any case the boundaries are more or less inexact, leaving
room for uncertainty as to the precise point at which one piece
of ground ends and another begins.

It is in such situations as this that the bully is at his best. It
is well understood that 136 Will suffer no loss, and that whoever

218 VILLAGE LEE IN O-IINA

happens to be his neighbour, will literally have “ a hard row to

hoe.” There are sometimes sections of ground, such as those

belonging to public uses, river embankments, the land of cer-

tain temples, and the like, which no one but a bully could cul-

tivate at all, because the crops must be defended against in-

vasion from all quarters, and only a bully can furnish the.
necessary skill and ferocity to protect himself.

In his essay on Lord Clive, Macaulay mentions the circum-
stance which was still remembered in Shropshire, that in his
boyish days the great Indian soldier “formed all the idle lads
of the town into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the
shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and half-pence, in
consideration of which he guaranteed the security of the win-
dows.” Young Robert Clive had hit upon the precise principle
by which the Chinese bully maintains himself in perpetual rule,
a principle indeed as old as the race:

“ The good old rule, the simple plan
That those should take who have the power,
And those should keep who can."

The means of enforcing these exactions is always at hand,
and is expressed in one fateful and compound noun, [aw-suit.
The bully who understands his business is well acquainted with
every one at the district yamen, and is in fact one of their best
customers, or rather the man who brings them their custom.
The yamén is the spider’s web, and the bully is the large insect
which drives the ﬂies into the net, where it will go ill with them
ere they escape.

If his adversary is rich, the bully may adopt the plan of
leaving a bag of smuggled salt in the doorway of the rich man,
at the same time taking care to have a “ salt inspector ” ready
to seize the salt, and bring an accusation against the man of
means as a deﬁer of the law. The “ salt inspectors ” are
themselves smugglers, selected for their expertness in the art,
and like all other underlings in Chinese ofﬁcial life they are

 

 

 

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THE VILLAGE BULLY 219

quite free from the trammels of any sort of conscience. From
a suit of this kind no rich man would be likely to escape with-
out the sacriﬁce of many thousand strings of cash, being not
improbably forced to furnish the funds for repairing a city wall,
for rebuilding a temple, or some other public work. The ca-
pacity to conduct successfully a lawsuit is in China what it
must have been in Bagdad during the time of the Caliph
Haroun A1 Raschid to wear the Cap of Darkness and Shoes of
Swiftness. Such agencies defy all foes except those similarly
equipped. And as in the Arabian Nights there are many stories
of magicians warring with magicians who also “ did so with
their enchantments,” in like manner when Chinese bullies meet
in a legal ﬁght at a yamen, it is a battle of giants.

The most expert of all this dreaded class is the bully who is
also a literary man, perhaps a lzsz'u-ts‘az', or Bachelor of Arts,
and who thus has a special prestige of his own, securing him a
hearing where others would fail of it, guaranteeing him im-
munity from beating in open court, to which others are liable,
and enabling him to prepare accusations for himself or others,
and to be certain of the bearing of these documents upon the
case in hand.

These advantages are so great, that it is not uncommon to
ﬁnd persons who make no secret of the fact that their main
motive in submitting to the toils requisite to gain the lowest lit-
erary degree, is that they may be able, during the rest of their
lives, to make use of this leverage as a means of raising them-
selves and of harming their neighbours. Any Chinese bully is
greatly to be feared, but none is so formidable as the literary
bully.

One other type of Chinese bully must not fail of mention,
for it is in some respects the most unique of all, to wit the fe-
male bully. Her traits are, mutatz's mutamz’z's, the same as
those of the individuals already mentioned, but her mere ex-
istence is so great a departure from our ordinary conceptions
of Chinese social life, that it needs aword of explanation. She

m VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

is simply an evolution of her surroundings. Skill in speech,
physical violence in act, and an executive talent are her endow-
ments, and her usefulness to the perennially hungry “wolves
and tigers ” of the yamen is such that she is called their
draught-horse to draw victims. Like her male compatriots, she
is able from her value to the underlings of the yamen to con-
duct a lawsuit of her own, without any of those numberless
and vexatious expenses which suck out the lifeblood of ordi-
nary victims. This makes her a terrible, if not an invulnerable,
foe, and those who are wise will beware of her. According to
a Chinese proverb, a woman is more to be dreaded in such
cases than a graduate of the second degree. It is a saying of
a certain humorous philosopher, that “ one hornet can break up
a whole camp—meeting, when he feels well.” How much mis-
chief one Chinese bully can accomplish in an average lifetime,
it is impossible to estimate.

While the government of China appears to have elements of
extreme stability, it is at the same time often practically weak
in the very points where it most needs strength, namely, in its
capacity to put forth powerful and sudden efforts. Whenever
any uprising of the people takes place, there is generally noth-
ing to prevent its gaining a great momentum, owing to the in-
capacity of the local authorities to cope with it. The same
phenomenon is seen in any personal affray between single indi-
viduals. There are no police to arrest the one who commits a
breach of the peace, and it is only by the intervention of third
parties, friendly to the principals, that order is restored. But
if either of the parties is able to bring a large force to bear
upon the person whom he attacks, he is almost certain to be
victorious.

It is at this point that the organization of the followers of the
bully proves a formidable foe to the peace of Chinese society.
Let us suppose that a man has a violent personal quarrel with
an enemy. An outbreak of their feud occurs at a great fair,
such as abound at almost all seasons of the year. One of the

THE VILLAGE BULLY 221

men is intimate with another man who is a professional bully
and who has within call a number of associates who can be de-
pended upon in an emergency. The man who knows the bully
goes to him and tells him of the grievance and asks his help.
The bully lets it be known among his comrades that a friend is
in need of assistance, and that their services will be called for.
The party assembled goes to that section of the fair-ground
where congregate the dealers in sticks used for supports for
awnings, etc., and each man “ borrows ” a stout sapling, prom-
ising to return it later. With this lawless band, like the forces
of Robin Hood, the bully sets upon his victim and wins an
easy victory. None of the spectators will interfere in a brawl
of this sort, for the consequences might be most serious. It
does not follow that there is any regular organization among
the rough members of the dangerous classes who are assembled,
except that they are ready to unite in anything which promises
the joy of battle, and a probable reward in the shape of a com-
plimentary feast.

Cases of this sort, which are by no means of infrequent oc-
currence, exhibit the weakness of the Chinese government, but
they also exhibit its strength. If the millions of China were
not satisﬁed with the existing rule, nothing would be easier
than for them to unite and overthrow it. But the security of
the government is based mainly upon the well-understood and
well-ascertained fact that the people as a whole have no wish to
overturn the system under which they live, as well as upon the
equally indisputable fact that, with the Chinese, effective combi-
nation is an exceedingly difﬁcult matter.

The assemblage of bands of men under the virtual direction
of a leader is a menace to the peace of the whole region in
which they live, and it is not strange that Magistrates of such
Districts live a life which is not to be envied. As plunder is
often the real object of these combinations, the yamen of the
Magistrate is as likely to be the point of attack as any other
place, which makes it necessary that the oﬂicial shall provide

e

m’ VILLAGE 1.11%7 IN CHINA

himself with trained athletes, who shall be able to meet and re-
pel assaults made at night. Cases are occasionally reported in
the Peking Gazette, where in spite of this precaution the yamén
was robbed, and the seal actually carried off, to the ruin of the
Magistrate, upon whom perhaps the people are glad to be re-
venged.

The existence of such small and lawless forces in the midst
of Chinese social life, quiet and orderly as that life ordinarily
is, renders it certain that outbreaks will continually occur. But
these attacks are not all from one side. There are in Chinese
many proverbial sayings referring to the tiger, which have a
metaphorical signiﬁcance, and really denote the person whom
we have named the bully, who is regarded as a social tiger.
One of these sayings is to the effect that a tiger who has
wounded too many men, is liable to fall into a mountain ra-
vine. This means that the bully who has made enemies of too
many people will at last himself fall into trouble, and then his
enemies will be able to have their revenge upon him.

Cases of this sort are constantly occurring, and often result in
one or more murders, which must be reported, and which are
sometimes narrated in detail in the Peking Gazette. It is not
uncommon to hear of instances in which bullies have been at-
tacked by large bands of men, many of them formerly the vic-
tims of the bully. Sometimes he is kidnapped, and sometimes
he is killed outright. The method by which the village wars
and clan ﬁghts of the F u—kien and Kuang-tung previnces are
conducted, probably bears a close analogy to these proceedings.
They appear to be trials of strength between neighbouring
rivals, conducted upon the plan of warfare during the middle
ages in which the feudal system reigned. The local Magis-
trates take care not to interfere too soon or too far, lest it be
the worse for them. When the ﬁght is over the ofﬁcers put in
an appearance, arrests are made, and the machinery of govern‘
ment recovers from its temporary paralysis.

We have spoken of the literary bully as one of those most to

THE V ILL/ICE BULLY 22 3

be dreaded in China. But there is another qualiﬁcation which
a bully may possess, either with or without that of learning,
which makes him an almost irresistible enemy. If he belongs to

a family, one or more members of which are in ofﬁcial life and-

have a certain degree of power with the ofﬁcial class, such a
man is a dangerous foe. Instances are constantly coming to
light, not only in the native papers of China but also in me-
morials in the Peking Gazette (to which we have so frequently
had occasion to refer), showing how difﬁcult, or rather how al-
together hopeless, it is to deal with such offenders. Even in
cases of the most wanton murder, there is always some way by
which the matter can be adjusted, and there is no assurance
that the inﬂuential culprit gets any real punishment at all.

The following instance which occurred more than a genera-
tion ago, in a District near to that in which the writer lived for
a long time, illustrates the kind of proceedings to which refer-
ence is made.

During the eighteenth century there lived in that County a
family named Lu, one of the members of which attained to the

lofty eminence of K0 Lao, 0r Grand Secretary. A family of ‘

this class, especially if it should be the only one of the sort in
the District, exerts a commanding inﬂuence, and it is necessary
for the local Magistrate to conduct himself discreetly, in order
.not to win the ill-will of such a powerful corporation. It is
well if he is able to collect from them even the ordinary land-
tax, which all the soil of the empire is supposed to pay.

It is related of this family that, upon one occasion having
been ordered by the District Magistrate to collect this tax, the
local constable was unable to do as he was told. Having been
repeatedly beaten for his delinquencies in this respect, he pre-
sented himself at the entrance of the premises of his wealthy
neighbour, and with earnest prostrations begged the gate-
keeper to intercede for him, and get the tax paid.

The elderly widow who was the manager of the establish-
ment, having been informed of this plea, ordered her cart

224 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

harnessed, and proceeded to the District Magistrate’s yamen,
for an interview. The ofﬁcial perhaps entertained a wild hope
that she had come to settle up her arrears of taxes, and even
planned to borrow a sum of money of her, but she soon dis-
\ pelled this idea, by telling him in so many words that she her-
self required a “loan ” of a certain number of thousands of
taels, which the Magistrate was obliged to promise to get for
her, at the earliest possible moment. As she rose to take her
leave, she remarked incidentally that her gatekeeper had been
much annoyed by some of the yamen underlings who hung
about the premises under pretence of wanting a grain-tax, ad-
ding that she should expect to hear no more of such proceed-
ings in future !

Upon another occasion, while the K0 Lao himself was
alive, a complaint was made to the District Magistrate that a
son of the K0 Lao had a maidservant, who was virtually im-
prisoned in the family mansion. She was originally hired
having been betrothed, but although it was time for her to be
married, her employer refused to let her go. The Magistrate
sent for the son of the K0 Lao, made known the charge, and
desired the release of the person detained. He even went to
the length of beating the attendant of the Lu family, who had
accompanied his master, the latter being himself too lofty a
subject for punishment. The son went to his home in a tower-
ing rage, and wrote a letter to his father in Peking, detailing
the circumstances. Soon after this, the Magistrate received
the news of his promotion from the grade of Sub-prefect to that
of Prefect, in the province of Ssﬁ-ch‘uan.

The journey to a new post is often a most serious matter for
an ofﬁcial, and where, as in this case, he has the entire empire
to cross, the trouble and expense are very great. He had no
sooner reached this distant post, than he received a notiﬁcation
that he was promoted to another in the province of Yﬁn-nan,
again involving an expensive and tedious journey. When he
had at length taken up the duties of this ofﬁce it was only to

THE VILLAGE BULLY 325

be informed that he was promoted afresh to the high rank of
Tao—t‘ai in a region beyond the Great Wall. He now began
to perceive the signiﬁcance of this strange series of events, and
wholly unable either to bear the ills which he already had, or
to support the prospect of perhaps greater ones yet to come, he

“swallowed gold,” and thus escaped further promotion and
ruin!

XXI

VILLAGE HEADMEN

MANY of the phenomena of village life which we shall
have occasion to notice, are instances of the Chinese
talent for cooperation.

Perhaps no more important exempliﬁcation of this prin-
ciple is to be found in Chinese society than that embodied
in the local self—government of the small communities of
which the greater part of the empire is composed. The
management of the village is in the hands of the people them-
selves. At ﬁrst this condition of affairs is liable to be mistaken
for a pure democracy, but very slight inquiry is sufﬁcient to
make it evident that while all matters of local concern are theo-
retically managed by the people, in practice the burden falls
not upon the people as a whole, but upon the shoulders of a
few persons, who in different places are called by different
titles and whose functions differ as much as their designations.

The apparent dead-level uniformity of China is found upon
investigation to be subject to surprising variations, not only in
parts of the empire remote from one another, but in those which
are separated by but a short distance. On this account it is
difﬁcult to generalize in regard to the government of villages in
general, but easy to describe that of some villages, with the ex-
planation that elsewhere the same results may be attained by
means slightly different, or by the same means under different
names.

Every Chinese village is a little principality by itself, al-
though it is not uncommon for two or more which are contigu-
ous and perhaps otherwise linked together, to manage their
affairs in unison, and perhaps by the same set of persons.

:26

VILLAGE HEADMEN 227

These headmen are sometimes styled village elder: (/m'ang
chang, or lzsz'ang lac), and sometimes they are termed merely
managers (r/zou slzz'hjén). The theory in regard to these per-
sons is that they are chosen, or rather nominated, by their fel—
low-townsmen, and conﬁrmed in their position by the District
Magistrate. In some regions this is actually done, and for the
good conduct of the headmen in their ofﬁce the leading land-
owners are required to become a security.

The designation “ village elders” might be understood to
denote that the persons who bear it are the oldest men in the
village, but this is not necessarily the case. Neither are they
necessarily the wealthiest men, although it is probable that
every family of property will be in some way represented among
them. They are not necessarily men of literary attainments,
although this may be the case with a few.

In those regions where the method of selection is most loose,
the number of headmen has no necessary relation to the size of
the village ; the position is not hereditary, neither is there any
ﬁxed time of service. A man may act in this capacity at one
time, and refuse or neglect to do so at another time. Where
this plan prevails, the headmen are not formally chosen, nor
formally deposed. They drop into their places—or perhaps
climb into them—by a kind of natural selection. The quali-
ties which ﬁt a villager to act as headman are the same which
contribute to success in any line of business. He must be a
practical person who has some native ability, acquainted with
the ways of the world, as well as able and willing to devote
upon occasion an indeﬁnite amount of time and attention to the
affairs which may be put in his charge.

The duties and functions of the headmen are numerous.
They may be classiﬁed as those which have relation to the gov-
ernment of the District, those which relate to the village as
such, and those which concern private individuals, and are
brought to the notice of the headan as being the persons best
able to manage them.

228 macs LIFE IN CHINA

Of the affairs which concern the government, the most im-
portant is the imperial land or grain-tax, the nature of which
and the mode of collecting which vary greatly. Calls are con-
stantly made by the local ofﬁcials for government transporta-
tion, provision for the entertainment of ofﬁcers on government
business, materials for the repairs of the banks of rivers, work
on river-banks, patrols for the Imperial roads at the season of
year when travel is at its maximum, and many other similar
objects.

The medium through'whom the District Magistrate com-
municates with the village, is the “local constable,” (called
the li-fang or ti-paoo and this individual has necessarily inti-
mate relations with the headmen, who constitute the executive
board, through which alone deﬁnite action is taken.

Among affairs which relate to a village as such, are to be
named the construction and repair of the wall (if it has one),
and the care of the gates (if they are closed at night), the es-
tablishment and supervision of fairs and markets, the engage—
ment of theatrical companies, the Organized watching of the
crops, together with the punishment of persons detected in vio-
lating the rules which have been agreed upon, the building and
repair of temples, the sinking of wells for the use of the village,
or the cleaning of those which are already in use, and a great
variety of other similar duties, depending upon the situation of
the village and its traditions and circumstances.

It is a noteworthy fact that the government of China, while
in theory more or less despotic, places no practical restrictions
upon the right of free assemblage by the people for the consid-
eration of their own affairs. The people of any village can if
they choose meet every day in the year. There is no govern-
ment censor present, and no restriction upon liberty of debate.
The people can say what they like, and the local Magistrate
neither knows nor cares what is said. The government has
other security for itself than espionage, and by a system of
graded responsibility, is able to hold all its subjects under strict

VILLAGE HEAD/VEN 229

control. But should insurrection break out, these popular
rights might be extinguished in a moment, a fact of which all
the people are perfectly well aware.

The methods of Chinese management being what they are, it
is not surprising that those who are in the position of headmen
ﬁnd it, or rather make it to their advantage to stay in it. The
ways in which this comes about are numerous.

There is in every village an unceasing supply of matters
which do not belong to the public, but which must be adjusted
by some man or men who are in the habit of transacting busi«
ness, and who not only know what is to be done but how to do
it. There are always Chinese who like to engage in these af-
fairs, such as the adjustment of domestic quarrels, differences
between neighbours, and the like. The headmen of the village
will be certain to be frequently called upon for services of this sort.

But such labours, onerous as they often are, will be acknowl-
edged only by the thanks of those interested, and a participa-
tion in the inevitable ﬁnal feast. It is quite otherwise with
such public matters as the collection of material for public uses,
and the disbursement of public funds. Every village has nu-
merous enterprises which involve the handling of money, and
these enterprises must be in the hands of those competent to
take charge of them.

There is not in such cases that constant struggle between the
“ins ” and the “outs,” which is seen in lands where the de-
mocracy is of a more ﬂagrant type than in China. Yet even
in China such contests do sometimes occur. We know of one
village in which the public business had for along time been
monopolized by a band of men who had subjected themselves
to the criticisms of those who, although younger, felt sure that
they were not on that account the less capable. The result of
the criticisms was that the incumbents withdrew from thei 1‘
places, leaving them to those who oﬁ‘iered the criticisms, a
method of adjustment which is known to be practiced in the
government of the empire. ‘

23o VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

But it is probable that cases of such easy victory are relatively
rare, for the reason that the “ ins ” have every opportunity to
keep themselves in their position, and they are for the most
part not at all sensitive to criticism, being quite content to reap
the substantial beneﬁts of their position, and to leave the talk-
ing to spectators. In the ordinary matters of routine, it is easy
for them to ﬁnd abundant precedents for almost any irregular.
ity, and to the Chinese precedents are most precious, as mark-
ing out the natural limits of human action.

In many villages but a' small portion of the population can
read well enough to inspect accounts, and many of those whose
knowledge is equal to this strain upon it, have no practical
familiarity with public business, with which they have never
had any opportunity to become acquainted.

Many who clearly recognize the evils attending the methods
in which the business of their village is managed, do not for
two excellent reasons make any protest. In the ﬁrst place, to
do so would raise a storm about their heads, which they have
no wish to encounter. Even if the movement should prove
completely successful, and the present incumbents should all be
removed from their places, it would be difﬁcult, not to say im-
possible, to ﬁnd others who would manage matters upon any
plan essentially different. A change would be simply the re-
moval of a well—fed swarm of ﬂies, to make way for a set much
more hungry, a substitution against which the fox in the fable
wisely remonstrated. The Chinese wholly agree with the saga-
cious fox.

The course which matters take when complaint is really
made, may be understood by an illustrative example with
which the writer is acquainted. During one of the years in
which the Yellow River made destructive‘breaks in central
Shan-tung, an order was issued that all the counties in the
province accessible to the river should furnish a certain quota
of millet stalks to be used in the repair of the river-banks.
These stalks were to be paid for in ready money by the govern-

VILLAGE HEADMEN 23:

ment agents. But as some of the counties were situated more
than two days’ journey from the river-banks, the amount re-
ceived for the stalks did not cover the cost of the feed of men
and animals for so long a journey. Besides this, the govern-
ment ofﬁcials had a ready means by which to exercise com-
plete control over those who brought the stalks, by refusing to
take over the material or to weigh it until such time as the
ofﬁcials might be ready. By this means, both men and teams
were kept on expense, so that at last the persons who hauled
stalks were only too glad to be allowed to depart without any
pay at all for the loads which they had brought.

Abuses of this sort were said to be exceedingly common at
that time, although on subsequent occasions we have been as-
sured by those who have taken stalks to river-embankment,
that full pay in good money was invariably given. In the vil-
lage to which we refer, the business of providing and deliver-
ing the stalks was put by the District Magistrate into the hands
of an elderly headman, a literary graduate. This man natur-
ally called about him some of his former pupils, who did the
practical part of the work. They took stalks three times to the
place of deposit, and received in payment about 70,000
cash. Taking advantage of the general uncertainty which
prevailed in regard to payments, these managers rendered no
accounts to the village, but proceeded to appropriate a certain
part of their receipts to their own use.

Matters continued in this way for more than a year, when
some of those who were dissatisﬁed, called a public meeting in
a village temple, and demanded a clear account of receipts and
expenses, which for reasons well understood, it was impossible
to give. Finding that the affair was becoming serious, the
graduate got some residents of the same village to “ talk peace ”
to the excited villagers. Their argument was this: “If we
press this matter, and take it before the District Magistrate,
the old graduate, who is really altogether innocent, will lose
his button and will be disgraced. The others concerned will

232 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

all be beaten, and this will engender hatred and feuds which
will last for generations.” The middlemen then proposed that.
by way of settlement a feast should be prepared by the grad-
uate, at which a representative of every surname in the ville-7'2
should be present, and this plan being adopted, bcwuse noth-
ing else was feasible, the matter was buried in compulsory
oblivion. This is a type of a large class of cases.

In many villages, there are those who are never so happy as
when they are in a disturbance with others, and such men will
be a thorn in the side of - any “board of aldermen ” to whose
councils admission is not to be had. It is very common indeed
to hear of lawsuits arising about village temples, and there is
good reason to believe that it is exceptional to meet with a
large ancestral temple, in connection with which quarrels have
not arisen and perhaps lawsuits been prosecuted.

In some districts the temples are built rather from a general
impulse to do as others do than from any sense of the need of
such structures, which become a perpetual tax on the revenues
of the people and a source of dispute. In such regions it is a
common thing to meet with temples from which the priests
have been ousted, or which they have voluntarily abandoned,
ﬁnding the place too hot for them.

In one instance of this description, which occurred rear the
writer’s home, a certain prominent headman set on foot a law-
suit which drove several priests from a Buddhist monastery,
and left only one priest where before there had been many.
After the priests had left, this headman kindly took charge of
the temple lands, and absorbed the entire income himself to
the exclusion of the priest, dispensing altogether with rendering
any account whatever for the proceeds. Even the cart and the
harness which belong to the temple, are in this man’s yard as
if they were his own.

Intelligent men of this village, when asked why some of them
do not protest against this usurpation, always make the same
reply: “ Who wants to stir up a lawsuit, out of which he will

VILLAGE HEADAEN 233

gain nothing but loss? It is certainly no affair of mine.”
This particular village is scarcely a type of the average, but it
is a very fair sample of the more ﬂagrant cases in which a small
knot of men fasten themselves upon a Chinese community, by
the same process by which many years ago the Tweed ring
saddled themselves upon the city of New York. If any objec—
tion is made to their procedure, the ring inquire disdainfully,
in the language of Mr. Tweed, “What are you going to do
about it? ” And all the pe0ple hasten to reply, “ Oh, nothing
at all. It is all right as it is.”

An instance of the facility with which trouble may arise in
village affairs was afforded in this same town, during one of
the years in which heavy rains threatened the lands of the vil-
lage. A part of these lands were situated in a region subject
to inundation, and the rest on higher ground. As soon as the
danger of a ﬂood became apparent, the village headmen ordered
relays of men to work on a bank, which was made of whatever
soil was at hand, and in order to strengthen this bank, the stand-
ing millet was pulled up by the roots, and buried in the earth-
work. Those whose crops were thus ruined, had for this loss
no redress whatever. It is held that the exigency of a public
need justiﬁes any injury of this kind, the persons who beneﬁt
by the sacriﬁce, always largely in the majority, having no dis-
position to make up the incidental losses. Some days after this
occurred, the headmen went about collecting a deﬁnite assess- .
ment from each acre of land in the village, for the purpose of
paying for the labour upon the bank previously made. They
visited the house of one of the men whose crops had been de-
stroyed, at a time when he chanced to be away from home and
were met by his son, who not only manifested no awe of the
village authorities, but expressed his indignation at the destruc-
tion of the family crops, and declared that instead of being
called upon to contribute to the cost of the ruin which had
been wrought, his family ought to be reimbursed for their own
losses. However compatible such a view may appear with ab-

234 VILLAGE LIFE IN G-IINA

stract justice, to the minds of the village headmen this was
nothing less than rank treason of the most dangerous type.

When the head of the family returned, it was to ﬁnd that the
headmen had already left the village on their way to the Dis-
trict city, to enter a complaint against him, as one who refused
to pay his just dues to the defence of the village. A lawsuit
begun upon such a basis meant nothing less than a calamity
greater than any ﬂood that was likely to overtake him, so the
distracted father hastened to pursue the headmen with offers of
adjustment, made through third parties. By dint of an im--
‘ mense amount of talking, the headmen were induced to return
to the village, without entering the city and making a formal
complaint.

The father of the offending lad then appealed to certain
friends living in another village, to come and intercede for him
with the outraged guardians of the welfare of his own village.
In the course of the next forenoon, the persons who had been
entrusted with this difﬁcult task, made their way to the village,
and had interviews with some of the headmen. It was impos-
‘ sible to get all of these men together at any one time, but one set
was ﬁrst seen, and then another, until the matter had been
thoroughly discussed in all its bearings. These conferences,
including plans of adjustment offered, modiﬁed, rejected,
amended, and afterward brought up again and again, actually
consumed the whole day, and all the next night until the crow-
ing of the cocks announced the dawn, and it was not until day-
light on the second day, that the weary and disgusted “ mid-
dlemen ” returned to their own village, having at last succeeded
in securing a reduction of the proposed ﬁne, which was to have
been an exemplary one, to a merely nominal amount.

This instance is a type of countless cases everywhere in
which the evil forces of Chinese society effect a cooperation of
their own, seriously modifying all other social phenomena, and
leading to results of great importance.

PART II
Village Family Life

 

XXII

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN

HERE is a passage in one of the oldest Chinese
Classics, the Book of Odes, which, in describing the
palace of an ancient king, shows in a striking light the rela-
tive estimation at that remote time put upon boys and upon girls.
After speaking of the dreams of the king, the poet adds a cou-
ple of stanzas, which, according to Dr. Legge’s translation, are
as follows:

Sons shall be born to him ; they will be put to sleep on couches;

They will be clothed in robes; they will have sceptres to play with;
Their cry will be loud.

They will be (hereafter) resplendent with red knee-covers,

The (future) king, the princes of the land.

Daughters will be born to him. They will be put to sleep on the ground;
They will be clothed with wrappers; they will have tiles to play with.
It will be theirs neither to do wrong nor to do good.

Only about the spirits and the food will they have to think,

And to cause no sorrow to their parents.

From the sentiment of this poem alone it would be easy to
determine the Chinese of to-day to be lineal descendants of
their ancient ancestors.

The early years of a Chinese boy are spent in what, viewed
from the experience of a. decade later, must appear to him a
condition of supreme happiness. He is welcomed to the
household with a wild delight, to which it is wholly impossible
for an Occidental to do any justice. He begins life on the
theory that whatever he wants, that he must have 3 this theory
is also the one acted upon by those who have him in charge, to

237

' 23s VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

an extent which seems to us, who occupy the position of im—
partial critics, truly amazing. 'A Chinese mother is the literal
slave of her children. If they cry, they must be coddled,
most probably carried about, and at whatever expense, if it is
possible to prevent such a terrible state of things. They must
not be allowed to cry continuously. In this respect, at least, it
does not appear that there is much distinction between the
treatment of boys and girls.

The names given to Chinese children, like those of the
babies of North American Indians, are frequently suggested by
whatever happens ﬁrst to attract the father’s attention, such as
Basket, Cart, etc. Each year of the cycle of twelve has an
animal which “belongs to” it, as Dog, Cat, Chicken, Tiger,
Horse or Monkey, and all these names are constantly em-
ployed. If when the child is born an old grandmother hap-
pens to be three score and ten, he is not improbably dubbed
“Seventy.” Many have no other appellation than a numer-
ical one such as Three, Five, or Six, to the hopeless confusion
of an inquirer. If the child seems to be of a good constitution
he may receive the title of Stone, or Solid. Should he be
plump, he is likely to be styled Little Fat One ; if dark coloured,
Little Black One. Bad Temper, and Little Idiot are common,
and if all the previous children have died, the last one may go
by the name of Great Repairs.

When the parents are peculiarly fearful lest an only boy
should be made away with by malicious spirits, they often call
him by a girl’s name in order to deceive the powers of evil, and
thus beat them at their own game. Another plan with the

4 same end in view is a nominal adoption into another family,
where the children spend at least a portion of their time, the
spirits being thus hopelessly perplexed as to which family really
owns the child ! Slave Girl, and Old Woman are names
sometimes given to boys under these conditions. A man who
had more girls than he desired, called one of them Enough
Hawks (Kou Ying), while another little maid was outﬁtted with

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 239

the happy title “ Ought-to-have-been-a-Boy " (Kai Tzﬁ).
Girls are frequently named for birds, fruits, and ﬂowers.

All the preceding are “milk-names, ” or “ small names,”
which strangers must be careful even should they know them,
never to employ. No greater insult can be put upon an adult Chi-
nese than to revile him in public by his “ small name ”—-—a by no
means infrequent occurrence—which seems to convey the im-
plication that the reviler knows all about his antecedents and
holds them in supreme contempt.

It is a highly convenient arrangement of Chinese family no-
menclature, that the names of each member of the same gen-
eration (within certain deﬁned degrees of cousinship) furnish a
clue to his relationship to the rest. Thus, if a man’s surname
is Wang, his family name (which can be either two charac-
ters or one) may be compounded with the character denoting
Spring, in which case one brother might be called Wang
Spring-F lowers, the next Wang Spring-Fragrance, a third
Wang Spring-Fields, and so universally for that generation as
far away among the cousins as the Spring inﬂuence penetrates.
These family names are theoretically recorded in carefully kept
registers, and must not be repeated in later generations, or only
after the lapse of a due number of generations. Memorials
sometimes appear in the Peking Gazette from high ofﬁcials ask-
ing permission to have a family name altered, since a repeated
’title has inadvertently been taken.

This use of the same characters in Chinese family names has
often been compared to the Anglo-Saxon habit of bestowing upon
brothers names of which one syllable is constant, as Edward,
Edwin, Edmund, Edgar, etc.

Besides the name, there is the “ style,” often much more in
use than any other designation, which may be bestowed upon
the owner by a friend. It is common by a respectful familiarity
to preﬁx to the ﬁrst character of the style, the honouriﬁc “ Old,”
(Lao) making still another title. Thus supposing Mr. Wang
Spring-Fragrance has the style of Illustrious Virtue, his com-

340 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

mon appellation may be Wang Old Illustrious, his other names
being used as alternatives. The result of all this is that a sin-
gle Chinese not infrequently appears to be three and sometimes
four, since students have also their examination names, differ-
ing, strange to say, from any which they have hitherto borne.
The confusion attending the addressing of Chinese letters in
correspondence would be intolerable to an Occidental.

Aside from the ambiguities already mentioned, it sometimes
appears to the writer of a letter a happy expedient to employ a
title on the back of his epistle, known only to himself and to
the recipient, to the great bewilderment of the persons through
whose hands the missive may pass. We have seen a Chinese
teacher invited to inspect the address of a letter of this sort,
the destination of which neither he nor any one else could de-
cide. Yet it subsequently turned out that the epistle was meant
for his own son ! With all this labyrinth of future complexity
the village boy is very little concerned, often passing through
life without any name at all to speak of.

In this connection it is worth noting that the foreigner in
China suffers from a chronic embarrassment as to how to ad-
dress a Chinese. There is in the language no term answering
to our Mister or'Master, the nearest equivalent being the words
Elder-born 0r Seignor (Hsz'm-slzéng). The expression prop-
erly connotes a Teacher in reality or by courtesy, and although
applied indiscriminately to blind men (even if they should be
beggars) will not serve for general use. Honouriﬁc terms abound,
but in the rural regions these are not in use, and are but dimly
comprehensible. On the principle that “Within the four seas
all are brethren,” it is the Chinese habit to assume the existent:
of a relationship, so that the passing stranger may appropri-
ately call out to one whom he has never seen before: “ Great
elder-brother may I borrow your light and inquire whether
this is the right road to Peking P ” Should the person ad-
dressed be an old man, the title would be changed to Uncle or
Grandfather. The fact that the term for an older uncle differs

VILLAGE BOYS AND MN 241

from that for a younger one, embarrasses the foreigner by forcing
upon him a decision of the difﬁcult question which one to use,
for deciding which point he often has absolutely no data.

A Chinese married woman has literally no name at all, but
only two surnames, her husband’s and her father's, so that
when these chance to be common ones, it is impossible by this
means to discriminate one woman from another. If Chinese
women are to be addressed by strangers at all, there is even
more embarrassment than in the case of men. In some regions
the term Elder-sister-in-law (mo—2‘22?) serves indiscriminately
for any woman, but in others Aunt (ta-mlmg) must be used,
while in yet others nothing is appropriate but Grandmother
(nai—mzz') which elsewhere would be equivalent to Old Granny.
When there happen to be three generations of women in the
same family to dub them all “ Grandmother” (especially if one
of them is a girl in her teens just married) is ﬂagrantly absurd.
Beggars at the other gates clamour to have their “ Aunts ” be-
stow a little food, and the phrase Old Lady (lac T‘aH‘az‘) is
in constant use for any woman past middle life.

The age at which a boy is too large to be carried is a very
indeﬁnite one, and it is common to see distracted mothers stag~
gering with their little goat-feet under the weight of children
half their own size, lugging their offspring about for the reason
that .“ they would not stand it ” to be put down. A prepara-
tory discipline of this nature is not adapted to teach children
independence, self-control, or any useful lessons, and the result
is such as might have been expected. But the Chinese child
is an eminently practical being, and he ﬁnds by experience that,
when there are half a dozen children smaller than himself, the
period of his own supreme rule has passed away, and has passed
away never to return. To this altered condition he soon learns
to adapt himself.

Of that sympathy for childhood as such, which is so distin-
guishing a part of our modern civilization, an average Chinese
father has no conception whatever. By this is not meant that

242 VILLAGE IJFE IN CHINA

he is not fond of his children, for the reverse is most palpably
true. But he has no capacity for entering into the life of a
child, and comprehending it. His fondness for his children is
the result of the paternal instinct, and is not an intelligent and
sympathetic appreciation of the mind of a child. He not only
has no conception of such a thing, but he would not be able to
understand what is meant by it, if the possibility of such sym-
pathy were pointed out. The invariable reply to all sugges-
tions, looking toward such sympathy coming from a foreigner,
seems to be, “ Why, he is only a mere child! ” It is by the
slow moulding forces of maturing life alone that the boy is ex-
pected to learn the lessons of life, and these lessons he must
learn largely—though not altogether—by himself.

To most Chinese children, there is very little that is attract-
ive in their own homes. The instinct of self—preservation does
of course lead them to ﬂy thither, as soon as they meet with
any repulse from without, but this instinct they share with ani-
mals.

Chinese courtyards are almost invariably very contracted,
and allow little scope for enterprising youth to indulge in any
but the most crude and simple forms of amusement. The Chi-
nese lad generally has but few toys, and those of the simplest
and most clumsy description. At certain festivals, especially
in the cities, one sees the children loaded down with all varie-
ties of playthings often of a ﬂimsy and highly inexpensive
character. In the country the same phenomenon is observed
wherever there has been a large fair, at which the provision for
the children is always on a scale commensurate with their
known wants. But of these articles made of earth, paper, bits
of cloth, clay, reeds, sugar, and other perishable substances,
nothing will be left when the next moon shall have completed
its orbit. In regions where bamboo is to be had, there are a
few more serviceable and less fragile articles constructed ex-
pressly for the children, and such articles doubtless have a
longer lease of life.

VILLAGE BOYS AND IVEN 243

That Chinese parents should take occasion to have a romp
with their children, or even to engage with them in any game
whatever, is, so far as we have observed, a thing wholly outside
of the range of their wildest imagination. Children have very
few games which can be played in the house, and the time
which is to our little ones the cream of the whole day, that
namely in which they can gather “ around the evening lamp,”
is to the Chinese a period of dismal obscurity. By the dim
light of a small and ill-trimmed wick, dipped into a few spoon-
fuls of crude vegetable oil, the evening’s occupations are car-
ried on as best they may be; but to a foreigner a Chinese home
is at such times most ideally comfortless, especially if the sea-
son be winter. No wonder that those members of the family
who can do so, are glad to crawl upon the more or less per-
fectly warmed k‘cmg, and wrap themselves in their wadded
bedclothes. During the portion of his existence in which the
father and the mother of the Chinese child most gladly forsake
him, kind Morpheus takes him up, and claims him for his own.

The outdoor games of Chinese children are mostly of a
tame and uninteresting type. Tossing bits of earth at a mark,
playing shuttlecock with his toes and heels, striking a small
stick‘ sharpened at the ends so as to make it jump into a
“city," a species of “fox and geese,” a kind of “cat’s—cra—
dle,” a variety of “jack—stones,”——these are among the most
popular juvenile amusements in the rural regions with which
we happen to be acquainted. Chinese cities have allurements
of their own, some of which do not differ essentially from those
found in other parts of the world than China. But even in the
country, where restrictions are at a minimum, Chinese lads do
not appear to take kindly to anything which involves much ex-
ercise. One does not ordinarily see them running races, as
foreign boys of the same age cannot fail to do, and their jump-
ing and climbing are of the most elementary sort. We have
never heard of a crow which was so injudicious as to build its
nest in a spot where it would be visible to the eye of an Anglo-

244 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

Saxon boy, unless the owner of the eye had previously made a
long journey with it to a distance from all human habitations.
But Chinese crows build their huge nests in all sorts of trees,
in and about every Chinese village. It is not uncommon to
see an old poplar with ten or twelve of these huge mats of
sticks, which are undisturbed from year to year and from gen-
eration to generation. ’ i

The writer once counted twenty—four such nests in a single
moderate sized elm, and this in the suburbs of a Chinese city.
Buddhist teachings in regard to the sacredness of animal life
do not sufﬁce to account for the singular inviolability which
crows’-nests enjoy in China. In the spring they are sometimes
defended with the query: “ How would you like to have your
house pulled down? ” But in a region where every stick of
fuel is precious, what sacredness can attach to a bushel or two
of large twigs, when the crows have visibly done using them?
Neither does superstition in regard to ill-luck arising from dem-
olition of the nests of crows explain their security, although at
ﬁrst sight this may seem to be the case. Extensive inquiries
have satisﬁed us that the true explanation is simply the natural
one, that the Chinese boy is afraid to climb so high as a crow’s—
nest. “What if he should fall?” says every one when ap-
plied to for information on the point, and it is this unanswered

'and unanswerable question which seems to protect young Chi-
nese crows from age to age.

The Chinese boy can seldom get access to running water;
that is to say, the proportion of Chinese who can do so is inﬁn-
itesimal. Most of them have no lakes, rivers, or ponds in
which they can plunge and learn to swim, or in which they can
ﬁsh. The village mud-hole is the nearest approach to the joys
of a “watering-place ” to which Chinese children can ordi-
narily aspire. These excavations are the hole whence the ma-
terial for the village houses was originally dug. During the
summer time these pits, many of them as large as a dry-dock,
are ﬁlled to the brim with dirty water, and at such times they

 

 

UNCh AND JUDY.

CHINESE P

 

 

 

.AGE STORY-TELLER.

E VlLl

TH

 

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 245

are sure to be surrounded by groups of children clad in the
costume of the garden of Eden, enjoying one of the few luxur—
ies of their mundane existence. When the boys are too large
to indulge in this amusement, there is much reason to fear that
most of them have taken their last bath, no matter to what age
their lives may be prolonged !

If he cannot ﬁsh, neither can the Chinese boy go a-hunting,
for in the most populous parts of the plains, of which so large
a portion of the empire is composed, there is nothing to hunt.
A few small birds, and the common hare, seem to constitute
the objects most frequently shot, but except in the case of the
limited number of those who make a business of securing such
game to sell as a means of support, there are very few persons
who devote their energies to any form of hunting. Indeed, the
instinct which is said to lead the average Englishman to remark
“ It is a ﬁne day, let us go and kill something,” is totally lack-
ing in the Chinese.

In those relatively limited parts of the empire where ice
forms to a sufﬁcient thickness to bear the weight of human be-
ings, one does see considerable frolicking upon frozen rivers
and ponds. But the propulsion of the ice-sleds with passengers
is a matter of business with those boatmen who during the sea-
son of navigation have no other means of earning a living.
Chinese children do not take to them as our boys do to sleds,
and even if they wish to do so, their parents would never
dream of furnishing the children with such an ice—sled simply
for amusement. To earn one, as a boy at home earns a sled or
a pair of skates, by doing extra work, by picking up old iron,
and other similar expedients, would be for a Chinese lad an
impossibility.

If the amusements of the Chinese lad are relatively scanty
and uninteresting, there is one feature of his life which is a
ﬁxed fact, and upon which nothing is allowed to intrude. This
is his work. The number of Chinese children within any
given area is literally incalculable, but it may be safely laid

246 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

down as a general truth, that by far the larger part of these
children are for the greater part of their time made to do some
useful work. There is scarcely any handicraft in which even
the very smallest children cannot be utilized, and it is for this
reason in part that hereditary occupations are so commonly the
rule. The child bred up to one mode of physical activity is
ﬁtted for that, if he is ﬁtted for nothing else. If he is the son
of a farmer, there is a very small portion of the year during
which there is not some deﬁnite work for him to do, by way of
assisting in the cultivation of the land. This is no doubt true
of farming everywhere, but the unfailing industry of the
Chinese and the heavy pressure of the common poverty give to
this fact an emphasis not so strongly felt in other lands.

But even if the work on the land were all done, which is
never the case until the winter has actually set in, there are two
occupations at which the children may be set at any time, and
at which more myriads of young persons are probably em-
ployed, than in any other portion of the planet. These two
employments are gathering fuel and collecting manure. In a
land where the expense of transportation forbids the use of coal
in places distant even a few miles from the mouth of the pit, it
is necessary to depend upon what comes from the soil in any
particular place, for fuel to cook the food and furnish such
warmth as can be got. Not a stalk, not a twig, not a leaf is
wasted. Even at the best, the products of a ﬁeld ill sufﬁce in
the item of fuel for the wants of those who own it. The
Chinese habit of constantly drinking hot water, which must be
furnished afresh as often as it cools and for each chance comer,
consumes a vast amount of fuel over and above what would be
strictly required for the preparation of food. The collection
and storage of the fuel supply is an affair second in importance
only to the gathering of the crops. But in every village, a
considerable although varying proportion of the population is
to be found who own no land. These people pick up a pre-
carious living as they can, by working for others who have

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 247

land, but their remuneration is slight, and often wholly insuﬂi-
cient for the food supply of the many mouths clamouring to be
ﬁlled.

Farm labourers can be hired by the year in Shan-tung, for a
sum equal to not more than ﬁve dollars in gold, with food but
no perquisites. If the year has an intercalary month the
labourer sometimes gets less than two cents a day. When
refugees from regions ﬂooded by the Yellow River abound,
workmen can be obtained at merely nominal wages.

The writer has known an able-bodied boy engaged for a year
for a sum equal to about a dollar and a half (gold). In an-
other case a lad was offered about a dollar for a year’s toil, and
was required to ﬁnd some one as security that he would not
abscond !

For the fuel wherewith to cook the exiguous supplies of this
uncertain food, the family is wholly dependent upon what the
children can scratch together. Any intermission of this labour
is scarcely less a check upon the means of existence, than the
interruption of the work of the bread-winner himself. In this
dismal struggle for a basket full of leaves and weeds, the chil-
dren of China expend annually incomputable millenniums of
work.

In the midst of such a barren wilderness as constitutes the
life of most Chinese children, anything which breaks the dull
monotony is welcomed with keen joy. The feast—days, the
annual or semiannual fairs held at some neighbouring town, an
occasional theatrical exhibition, the humbler Punch and Judy
performance, the peripatetic story-teller, the unfailing succession
of weddings and funerals, and most of all the half—month holi-
day at New Year all serve as happy reliefs to the unceasing
grind of daily toil.

There is one incident in the life of the Chinese lad, which
assumes in his eyes some degree of importance, to which most
Occidental boys are strangers. This is the ceremony of don-
ning the cap, in other words of becoming a man and his mar-

3'48 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

riage. The age at which this takes place is far from being a
ﬁxed one, but is often in the vicinity of sixteen. The customs
observed vary widely, in some rural districts they frequently
consist in nothing more exciting than the playing by a band of
music in the evening before his marriage, and a visit on the part
of the young man to each house in the village where he makes
his prostration, much as at New Year, and is henceforth to be
considered a full-grown man, and is protected to some extent
from snubs because he is “ only a child.”

The more. conspicuous part of the affair, however, is the
wedding. This proceeding is based upon principles so radi-
cally different from those to which we are accustomed, that it
is generally hard for a Westerner to become reconciled either
to the Chinese theory or to the practice. To us, marriage
seems suitable for persons who have attained, not merely years
of puberty, but a certain maturity of development compatible
with the new relations which they now assume. We regard
the man and wife as the basis and centre of a new family, and
there is ancient and adequate authority for the doctrine that
they should leave father and mother. In China it is altogether
otherwise. The boy and girl who are married are not a new
family, but the latest branch in a tall family tree, independent
of which they have no corporate existence.

It is by no means uncommon for boys to be married at the
age of ten, although this is regarded as a triﬂe premature. The
physical, intellectual, or moral development of the parties con-
cerned has nothng whatever to do with the matter of their
marriage, which is an affair controlled by wholly different con.
siderations. Sometimes it is hastened because an old grand-
mother is in feeble health and insists upon seeing the 'main
business of life done up before she is called away. Sometimes
the motive is to settle the division of a piece of property so that
it shall be impossible for the elder heirs to retreat from the
settlement. Quite as often the real motive for hastening the
wedding is the felt need, in the boy’s family of an additional

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 249

servant, Which need will be supplied by the introduction of a
new bride. It is for this reason that so many Chinese women
are older than their husbands. When they are betrothed, the
bigger they are the better, because they can do all the more
work.

To a Chinese, there is no more sense of incongruity in mar-
rying a little slip of a boy, simply because he is young, and
perhaps not more than half the size of his bride, than there
would be in playing checkers with buttons, and then crowning
the ﬁrst button that happened to get to the king-row. What
signiﬁed whether the button is a small one or a large one, since
it has reached the last row, and has now a set of moves of its»
own, a fact which must be recognized by doubling itself. It is
not otherwise with the Chinese boy. He is a double button, it
is true, but he is nothing but a button still, and a small one,
and is only an insigniﬁcant part of a wide and complicated
game.

During the celebration of a. Chinese wedding it does not
strike the spectator that the bridegroom is the centre of interest,
and the bride is so only for the time being, and in consequence
of the curiosity which is felt to see what sort of a bargain the
family has made in getting her. The young man is ordered
out of the apartment where he has been kept in ambush—ac—
cording to the custom in some regions—like an ox for the sacri-
ﬁce. He is to fall upon his knees at a word of command, and
kotow with intermittent sequence to a great variety of persons,
until his knees are stiff and his legs lame. His eyes are ﬁxed
upon the ground, as if in deepest humility, and the most awk-
ward Chinese youth will perform the details of this trying
ordeal with a natural grace, with which the most well—bred
Occidental youth could scarcely hope to vie, and which he
assuredly could not hope to surpass.

When the complicated protracted ceremonies are all over,
our young lad is, it is true, a married man, but he is not the
“ head ” of any family, not even of his own. He is stili under

250 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the same control of his father as before, his bride is under the
control of the mother-in-law, to a degree which it is difﬁcult
for us to comprehend. If the youthful husband is trying to
learn to compose essays, his marriage does not at all interrupt
his educational enterprise and as soon as the ceremonies are
over he goes on just as before. If he is dull, and cannot make
the “ seven empty particles ”—the terror of the inexpert Chinese
essayist—ﬁt into his laborious sentences to the satisfaction of
his teacher, he is not unlikely to be beaten over the head for
his lack of critical acumen, and can then go weeping home to
have his wife stick a' black gummy plaster over the area of his
chastisement. We have known a Chinese boy who had the
dropsy in an aggravated form but who could not be persuaded
to take a single dose of medicine that was at all bitter. If he
was pressed to do so by his fond mother, he either fell into a
passion, or cried. If he was not allowed to eat two whole
watermelons at a time his tactics were the same, a domestic
scene either of violent temper, or of dismal howling grief. He
was merely prolonging into youth the plan universally adopted
in the childhood of Chinese children. Yet this sensitive infant
of seventeen had been married for several years, and leaves a
widow to mourn the circumstance that drugs, dropsy, and
watermelons, have blighted her existence.

It is far from being an infrequent circumstance for boys who
have been married early, on occasion of some grievance, to run
crying to their mothers for comfort as they have been in
the habit of doing, and to be met with the chilling inquiry:
“Why do you come to me? If you want anything, go to
Her .’ "

By a strange exception to the otherwise almost uniform
prudishness of Chinese practice, on the occasion of a wedding
it is common—although by no means universal—for guests to
take the liberty of going into the apartment set apart for the
married pair, inspecting the bride as if she were an animal just
purchased at a market, openly expressing whatever criticisms

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 25!

may occur. In this as in everything else customs differ greatly,
but the phrase “ playing pranks in the bridal room ” (nao tung-
fang) testiﬁes to the frequency of the occurrence. In the year
1893, a native newspaper of Canton reported a case in which
the bride was actually killed in this way, by having cold water
poured on her, the perpetrators being ﬁned $200 for “ consola-
tion money,” and all the costs of remarrying.

It is a postulate of Chinese ethics that no branch of any
family should be allowed to be without its living representative,
in order that the ancestral rites may be duly performed. As it
constantly happens that there are no sons, it becomes necessary
to adopt those of other brothers, or failing these the grandson
of an uncle, or the great-grandson of a granduncle. Sons thus
adopted are on the same footing as if they were own children,
and cannot be displaced by such sons born later. The uni-
versality of these adoptions often makes it difﬁcult to ascertain
with precision the real relationship of a man to others of his
family. Sometimes he continues to call his real father by that
title, and sometimes he terms the uncle who has adopted
him his “ father” and his own father “uncle.” Again, he
may be nominally adopted by an uncle, but continue to live
with his own parents as before. The adoption of relatives is
expressed by the general term “ crossing over,” (km) and it is
a sufﬁciently important feature of Chinese life to serve as the
subject for a treatise rather than for a paragraph. It enters into
the warp and woof of all Chinese family life, which cannot be
comprehended without taking into account the substratum upon
which the universal practice rests. While it is rooted in ancestral
worship it is kept alive among even the poorest classes in the social
scale by their very poverty. If a man has no heir he can be
compelled to adopt some one of the numerous candidates who
are thirsting to enter into prospective possession of even a small
holding. But whoever is thus adopted becomes responsible for
the funeral expenses of the one who adopts him. Innumerable
lawsuits 2‘ be out of these complex conditions.

252 VILLAGE LIFE IN GIINA

If there are no suitable persons for adoption among the
family or clan of the adopter, he is often obliged. to content
himself with the son of his sisters, or even the grandchildren of
his aunts. To our thought one “nephew ” is as good as an—
other, but it is otherwise with a Chinese, to whom the children
of his sister (being of a different surname) are much farther off
than those of his brothers. Besides this, on occasion of the
death of the adopter, the position of a sister’s son is liable to be
very insecure. Rather than take such an heir many Chinese
will pick up a mere stranger, but in this case he can be easily
got rid of should he turn out unsatisfactory. Outsiders thus
adopted although they may be as ﬁlial and in every way as sat-
isfactory as an own son, never escape the stigma of being only
“picked up,” and this taint lasts to distant generations. A
man told the writer that he was wholly without inﬂuence in the
village where he was born, since his grandfather had been
adopted as a stranger.

There is still another method of securing a son which is far
less common than we should expect it to be. This is that of
ﬁnding a suitable husband for a daughter, and then adopting
him as a son. By this means the parents are enabled to have
the services of an own daughter all their lives—a rare privilege
in China, and an adopted heir of this kind is certainly much
more closely bound to the family than any other of a different
family would be likely to be. But there are not many clans
which do not have a number of candidates available for an
adoptive vacancy. It would be necessary to conciliate whoever
was entitled to adoption by dividing the property with him,
which, in the case of those with but small resources, would be
tantamount to perpetual pauperism. For this reason most cases
of “ calling a son-in-law ” occur in families where there are no
sons of brothers or cousins available.

As a rule every Chinese is as wide-awake to opportunities for
laying claim to the property of some one else, as a cat appar—
ently asleep is to seize an injudiciously venturesome bird. The

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 253

writer is acquainted with a man who had adopted a son-in-law
in legal form, but who at the funeral of his own father was sur-
prised to see a large band of strangers enter his courtyard clad
in mourning, and set up a simultaneous wail for their “ Uncle,”
“ Grandfather," etc., according to the alleged relationship.
Upon inquiry he learned that they came from a village at some
distance, and bearing the same surname as the deceased had
determined to claim kinship with him in order to fall heirs to
the property which consisted of but little more than enough to
support a moderate sized family. The result was a lawsuit in
which the pretenders being unable to produce any family regis-
ter to the purpose, were severely beaten by the District Magis-
trate as a penalty for their presumption.

One is constantly surprised in China to hear that a Chinese
whose name he knows perfectly well, has taken an entirely dif-
ferent surname, so that Mr. Wang Spring—Flowers suddenly ap-
pears as Mr. Ma Illustrious-Virtue. This is called “reverting
to the original name,” and may be due to any one of a great
variety of causes. Even while these lines are being committed
to paper, a friend of the writer has called to mention the ex-
periences through which he has recently passed, a résumé of
which may throw a little light on the Chinese theory and prac-
tice of adoption. This man is the second of four brothers, the
eldest of whom was adopted into a somewhat distant branch of
the family, and has three sons. Number two has two sons, the
youngest of whom,is adopted by number three, who has none
of his own. Number four died some time ago without a son.
The funeral has never been held, and the body has been en-
cofﬁned awaiting a favourable time, that is to say, a period of
ﬁnancial prosperity. Number four owed to a grain—shop in
which numbers two and three are interested, several hundred
strings of cash. To pay up this debt and to have a proper fu-
neral, would require the sale of all the forty acres of land, so
that the right of adoption has not seemed worth contesting.
But of late a son of number one has set up a claim to this in-

254 VILLAGE LIFE IN G-IINA

heritance, and it is this which has been in active dispute for a
period of twelve days. To adjust the matter, “ peace-talkers ”
have been summoned to the number of thirty-eight, many of
them literary graduates. There have been angry disputes be-
tween them and some of the members of the family, and an
actual ﬁght. The “ peace-talkers ” were reviled, and took re-
venge by beating the son of number one who was in fault.
This involved fresh complications, which had just been settled
by a ﬁnal feast.

During the course of the intricate controversies the eight and
thirty men had by no means omitted to eat and drink (one of
the leading functions of “peace-talkers” and for the sake of
which many quarrels are purposely stirred up, and many more
kept unsettled for long periods). They consumed in all seventy
catties of wine, and a hundred more of bread-cakes, and the
total cost to number two is about two hundred and thirty
strings of cash, one hundred of which are paid by number two
to number one’s family as “ consolation money.” Yet in this
whole matter the ﬁnancial interest of number two is absolutely
nil 1

Another of the many devices which the Chinese have chosen
for perpetuating a branch of the family which might otherwise
become extinct, is to have a single individual represent two
branches. Thus suppose there are two brothers only one of
whom has a son, he may be married to two wives, one for each
branch. The establishment must be a double one, and he will
probably be obliged to divide his time equally between his
partners, even having to change all his clothing in going from
one house to the other. It is needless to remark that the jeal-
ousies thus provoked are such as would destroy any home.

If there is very little sentiment connected with the introduc-
tion of a daughter-in-law into a family, on the part of the hus-
band’s family at least, there is often not much more on the oc-
casion of her death. But this is generally regretted, if for no
other reason, on account of the trouble and expense involved.

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 25;

Perhaps there is no single particular in which the Orient and
the Occident differ more widely-than in the utter disregard of
Orientals for what we understand by privacy and for quiet.
The lack of the latter is indeed often vaguely felt, but as it is a
blessing known only by the imaginative faculty and never from
experience, its absence has none of the intolerable features
which we should associate with it. The moment that any
Chinese is ill, the ﬁrst step is to send in every direction to
notify all sorts and grades 'of relatives, many of whom will feel
it their stern duty to drop whatever they are doing, no matter
what its importance, to go, and “ take a look.” This inspec-
tion not infrequently extends for days and sometimes for weeks,
when the presence of the relative has not the smallest relation
to the care of the sick person, except as a hinderance by adding
to the throng that hover over the patient, each with his endless
questions as to how he feels now, and each with fertile sugges-
tions as to articles of food vying with one another in preposter-
ousness. Few of us would not welcome death as a relief from
the experiences incident to serious illness under Chinese condi—
tions, but under these conditions all Chinese are born, live,
and die.

If a sick person is considered to be beyond the possibility of
recovery, the next step is to “ put on the clothes,” that is, those
in which he is to be buried, a process which involves pulling
him about to an extent which it is distressing to contemplate.
In the case of old men there are sometimes angry disputes about
the property in the immediate presence of death, and in that of
wives—especially younger ones—if there is any considerable
property, it will not be strange if the house is visited by relays
of go-betweens intent upon proposing an eligible successor to
the one about to depart, so as to be certain to forestall other
offers. These negotiations may take place in the immediate
presence of the dying woman, perhaps two or more strangers
striving at the same time to get a hearing with their rival pr0~
posals I I

256 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

The writer is acquainted with a family in which this took
place, and one of the offers was accepted, but the sick woman
contrived not to die after all ! The agreement, hoyvever, was
valid, and the prospectively stricken husband thus found him-
self provided with two [awful wives, each of whom subse-
quently bore him sons. Strange to say the family life is in this
instance a comparatively peaceful one. Should a wife die, it
is often a short time before the marriage of the next one takes
place, an interval regulated not by sentiment, but by the difﬁ-
culty of raising funds. Soon after the wedding may come the
funeral of the predecessor. ‘

In theory a Chinese lad becomes of age at sixteen, but as a
practical thing he is not his own master while any of the gen-
eration above him within the ﬁve degrees of relationship re-
main on the mundane stage. To what extent these relatives
will carry their interference with his affairs, will depend to a
large extent upon their disposition, and to some extent upon
his own. In some households there is a great amount of free-
dom, while in others life is a weariness and an incessant vexa—
tion because Chinese social arrangements effectually thwart Na-
ture’s design in giving each human being a separate personality,
which in China is too often simply merged in the common
stock, leaving a man a free agent only in name.

Taking it in an all around survey there is very little in the
life of the village boy to excite one’s envy. As we have al-
ready seen, he generally learns well two valuable lessons, and
the thoroughness with which they are mastered does much to
atone for the great defects of his training in other regards.
He learns obedience and respect for authority, and he learns to
be industrious. In most cases, the latter quality is the condi-
tion of his continued existence and those who refuse to submit
to the inexorable law, are disposed of by that law, to the great,
advantage of the survivors. But of intellectual independence,
he has not the faintest conception or even a capacity of com-
prehension. He does as others do, and neither knows nor can

VILLAGE BOYS AND MEN 257

imagine any other way. If he is educated, his mind is like a
subsoil pipe, ﬁlled with all the drainage which has ever run
through the ground. A part of this drainage originally came,
it is true, from the skies, but it has been considerably altered
in its constituents since that time; and a much larger part is a
wholly human secretion, painfully lacking in chemical purity.
In any case this is the content of his mind, and it is all of its
content.

If, on the other hand, the Chinese youth is uneducated, his
mind is like an Open ditch, partly vacant, and partly full of
whatever is ﬂowing or blowing Over the surface. He is not in-
deed destitute of humility; in fact he has a most depressing
amount of it. He knows that he knows nothing, that he never
did, never shall, never can know anything, and also that it
makes very little difference what he knows. He has a blind
respect for learning, but no idea of gathering any crumbs
thereof for himself. The long, broad, black and hopeless
shadow of practical Confucianism is over him. It means a
high degree of intellectual cultivation for the few, who are nec-
essarily narrow and often bigoted, and for the many it means a
lifetime of intellectual stagnation.

XXIII

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN

THE Chinese are as practical a people as ever had a na-

tional existence, and we know of no reason to suppose
that the Chinese ever had the least doubt that a substantial
equality of the sexes in point of numbers is a condition of the
continued propagation of the race. Certainly no race was
ever more careful to keep itself propagated, or has ever met
with greater success in the undertaking. Yet the Chinese are
almost the only people boasting an ancient and developed civi-
lization who despise their own daughters who are married into
the families of others, and are by that process lost to their own
because according to ancient custom they can offer no sacri—
ﬁces for their parents when the latter are dead. It is for this
reason that the popular saying declares that the most ideally
excellent daughter (literally a daughter with the virtues of the
eighteen Lo-hans) is not equal to a splay-footed son. This
sentiment is endorsed by all Chinese consciously and uncon-
sciously, in a manner to show that it is interwoven with the
very ﬁbres of their being. Its ultimate root is the same as that
of so many other human opinions, pure selﬁshness.

The Chinese girl when she makes her ﬁrst appearance in the
world is very likely to be unwelcome, though this is by no
means invariably the case. The ratio in which fortune-tellers
allot happiness is generally about ﬁve sons to two daughters.
“Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” With
theories like those of the Chinese about the unavailability of
daughters for the performance of ancestral rites, and with the
Chinese nature as it is, it is not to be wondered at that the

258

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 259

great pressure of poverty leads to the crime of infanticide upon
an enormous scale. For aught that appears, this has always
been the case. It is not that the Chinese conscience does not
recognize the murder of girl babies as wrong, but that the
temptation to such murder, especially the temptation to the
disappointed and often abused mother, is too strong to be re-
sisted by any motives which have the opportunity to act upon
her. _

Much has already been done by those who have had most op-
portunity to learn the facts, toward exhibiting the real practice
of the Chinese in the matter of destroying female infants. Yet
no more can be safely predicated than that this is a crime
which to some extent everywhere prevails, and in some places
to such a degree as seriously to affect the proportion of the
sexes. It seems to be most common in the maritime provinces
of the southern part of China, in some districts of which it is
by the Chinese themselves regarded as a terrible and a threaten-
ing evil. Native tract societies publish books exhorting the
people against the practice, and magistrates occasionally issue
proclamations forbidding it, but it is evident that the nature of
the offence is such that no laws can touch it, and nothing short
of the elevation of the mothers themselves to a far higher point
of view than they now occupy, can have any permanent effect
upon Chinese female infanticide.

Next to the destruction of the lives of female infants, the
Chinese practice most revolting to our Western ideas is the sale
of their daughters, at all periods from infancy up to a marriage-
able age. The usages of different parts of the empire vary
widely, but the sale of girls, like infanticide, seems to ﬂourish
most in the maritime provinces of the south, where it is con-
ducted as openly as any other trafﬁc. That the parents are
generally impelled to this extreme step simply by the pressure
of poverty we are [quite ready to believe. Yet the knowledge
that the girl must be separated from her family at a later period,
and that this parting is irrevocable, must tend to reconcile

26o VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

many Chinese parents to an anticipation, by a few years, oi‘che
inevitable. Of the miseries which girls who have been thus
sold are likely to endure, it is unnecessary to speak in detail,
but enough is known on the subject to lead us to regard the
practice with horror. If the parents do not feel able to keep
their daughter until she is old enough to be married, and yet
do not wish to sell her, Chinese custom has invented another
expedient, which is a compromise between the two. This is
the well-known “ rearing—marriage,” by which the girl is made
over to the family into which she is to be married, and is by
that family brought up, and married whenever their conven-
ience dictates. There are manifest and grave objections to
this practice, but there can be no doubt that it is far better
than the custom of child marriages, which lead to so much
wretchedness in India. In some instances the relations with
the family of the girl are wholly broken off, when she is taken
for a “rearing-marriage,” and in all cases it is regarded as a
confession of poverty and weakness, which places the girl’s
family. at much more than their usual disadvantage, at best
sufﬁciently great. When a girl is brought up in the family the
son of which is to become her future husband, it is of course
wholly out of the question that the parties should not have the
fullest opportunities to become acquainted with each other’s
disposition, however they may be forbidden by usage to speak
to one another. There is and can be very little sentiment
about Chinese matches, but anything which tends to make the
parties to one of these matches better able to adapt themselves
to the inevitable friction of after life, cannot fail to have its ad-
vantages. Whether the parties to a “rearing-marriage ” are
or are not on the whole happier than those married in the ordi-
nary way, is a question which no Chinese would be likely to
ask, for the reason that he has no associations connecting mar-
riage with happiness, but rather the reverse, and if the ques-
tion is proposed by a foreigner, he is not likely to be made
much the wiser by the replies which he receives.

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 261

The practice of binding the feet of Chinese girls 15 familiar
to all who have the smallest knowledge of China, and requires
but the barest mention. It is almost universal throughout
China, yet with some conspicuous exceptions, as among the
Hakkas of the south, an exception for which it is not easy to
account. The custom forcibly illustrates some of the innate
traits of Chinese character, especially the readiness to endure
great and prolonged suffering in attaining to a standard, merely
for the sake of appearances. There is no other non—religious
custom peculiar to the Chinese which is so utterly opposed to
the natural instincts of mankind, and yet which is at the same
time so dear to the Chinese, and which would be given up
with more reluctance.

It is well known that the greatest emperor who ever sat upon
the throne of China dared not risk his authority in an attempt
to put down this custom, although his father had successfully
imposed upon the Chinese race the wearing of the queue as a
badge of subjection. A quarter of a millennium of Tartar rule
seems to have done absolutely nothing toward modifying the
practice of foot-binding in favour of the more rational one of
the governing race, except to a limited extent in the capital it-
self. But a few [2' away from Peking, the old habits hold their
iron sway. The only impulse toward reform of this useless
and cruel custom originated with foreigners in China, and was
long in making itself felt, which it is now, especially in the
central part of the empire, beginning to be.

The observations which may be made with regard to the in-
dustry of Chinese boys, are equally applicable—mama's mu-
tazzdz’x—to Chinese girls. In all lands and in all climes,
“woman’s work is never done,” and this is most especially
true of China, where machinery has not yet expelled the prim-
itive processes of what is literally manufacture, or work by the
hand. The care of silk-worms, and the picking, spinning, and
weaving of cotton, are largely the labour of women, to which
the girls are introduced at a very early age. The sewing for a

262 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

Chinese family is a serious matter, especially as the number of
families who can afford to hire help in this line is a very triﬂing
proportion. But aside from this employment, in which a Chi-
nese girl who expects to be acceptable to the family of her
mother-in-law must be expert, girls can also be made useful in
almost any line of home work to which the father may be de-
voted. In the country districts all over the empire, boys and
girls alike are sent out to scratch together as much fuel as pos-
sible, for the preparation of the food, and this continues in the
case of the girls until they are too large to go to any distance
from home. It is not an unmeaning appellation, which is given
to girls generally, that of ya-z“ou, or “ slave-girl,” used just as
we should say “ daughter.” To a foreigner, this sounds
much like the term “ nigger ” applied to black men, but to the
Chinese there is a ﬁtness in the designation, which they refuse
to surrender.

With the exception of such limited raids as she may have
been able to make in early childhood, and occasional visits to
relatives, most Chinese girls never go anywhere to speak of,
and live what is literally the existence of a frog in a well.1
Tens of thousands of them have never been two miles away
from the village in which they happened to be born, with the
occasional exception of the visit to the mother’s family just men-
tioned, where they are not improbably regarded as terrible be-
ings who cannot be exterminated, but who are to be as much
as possible repressed. If the nieces on the mother’s side are
numerous, as is often the case, there is some reason for dread
of the visits, on the part of the bread-winners, for no Chinese
mother can be dissociated from her ﬂock of children, whose
appetites are invariably several horse—power strong, and who,

1 A Chinese woman for many years employed in the writer’s family, re-
marked that for a long time after she was married she was never allowed
to leave the narrow courtyard in her hamlet. The wife ofa Tao-t‘ai told
a foreign lady that in her next existence she hoped to be born a dog, that
she might go where she chose!

 

 

 

 

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CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN | 263

like their elders, are all excessively fond of enjoying the pleas-
ure of eating at some one else’s expense.

It is when the married daughters of a large family have all
returned to their parents to spend a few days or weeks, that the
most dramatic scenes of childhood occur. Self-control and
unselﬁshness have not been a feature in the culture of any one
of the numerous cousins thus brought together in a cluster
which frequently resembles those on the inside of a beehive.
Each of the young generation has the keenest instinct for get-
ting as much of the best of what is to be had as any one else,
and if possible more. This leads to occasional “ scenes of con-
fusion, and creature complaints," in which each small partici-
pant publishes his or her version of the particular squabble in
piercing tones, which soon summon the whole establishment to
the scene of action. Judicious parents would punish the chil-
dren all round for their complicity in such a quarrel, which is
most often based upon alleged or supposed inequalities in dis-
tribution of food. But Chinese parents are seldom judicious,
and the most that can be expected is that the mother will call
off her child or children, and “ yell ” it, or them. “ Yelling ”
a person is the act of proclaiming in a loud and piercing voice
the disapprobation on the part of the “ yeller ” of the conduct
of the “ yellee,” often accompanied by reviling language, and
frequently also with promises to “ beat ” and “kill " the said
“ yellee " in the event of further provocation. These remarks
are interpreted by the “ yellee ” as a hint to stop, a feat which
is at length accomplished after a period of more or less spas-
modic and convulsive recrimination.

But if, as often happens, each of the mothers feels called
upon from a high sense of duty to take a ﬁrm stand for the
rights of her offspring, the case becomes much more serious.
Each of the mothers will then scream simultaneously, to the
accompaniment of the wails, yells, and reviling of the whole
half-dozen or more of her posterity, while above the general
clamour may be distinctly caught the shrill shrieks of the grand-

 

264 VILLAGE LIFE IN GIINA

mother, whose views, whatever difﬁculty they may have in get-
ting themselves heard, must eventually prevail when peace once
more reigns in the domestic teapot. After one of these family
cyclones, the atmosphere gradually becomes cleared again, and
things go on as before ; but we have known a particularly spir-
ited married daughter, who exhibited her dissatisfaction with
the terms of settlement of a dispute of this sort by refusing to
speak to her sisters for some days together.

With the humdrum routine of her life at home, the occa-
sional visits to relatives, and now and then a large fair or a
theatrical exhibition, the Chinese girl grows to be what we
should call a “ young schoolgirl,” by which time all her
friends begin to be very uneasy about her. This uneasiness,
we need scarcely remark, has not the smallest connection with
her intellectual nature, which, so far as any culture which it
receives is concerned, might as well be non-existent. Unless
her father happens to be a schoolmaster, and at home with
nothing to do, he never thinks of teaching his daughter to read.
Even in the case of boys, this would be exceptional and irreg~
ular, but in the case of girls it is felt to be preposterous. And
why P asks the incredulous foreigner. It will take the average
Chinese a long time to explain the nature of his objection, and
when he does so he will not have stated the whole of the case,
nor have gone to the root of the matter. The real difﬁculty is
that to educate a girl is like weeding the ﬁeld of some other
man. It is like putting a gold chain around the neck of some
one else's puppy, which may at any moment be whistled off,
and then what will have become of the chain P It is a prover-
bially mean man in China, Who, when marrying his daughter,
wants to be paid for the food he has wasted upon her up to the
date of marriage. But the expression illustrates clearly one of
the underlying assumptions of Chinese society, that it is the
body of the girl for which the parents are responsible, and not
the mind. To almost any Chinese it would probably appear a
self-evident proposition that to spend time, strength, and much

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 265

more money in educating the daughter-in-law of some one else
is a sheer waste. But, you say to him, she is your daughter.
“ Not after she is married,” he replies ; “ she is theirs, let them
educate her themselves if they want her educated.” “Why
should I teach her how to read, write and reckon, when it will
never do me any good P ” With which ultilitarian inquiry, the
education of most Chinese girls has been banished from human
thought for the space of some millenniums.

The anxiety which all her friends begin to feel about a
Chinese girl, as soon as she attains any considerable size, is ex-
hibited in the inquiries which are made about her whenever
she happens to be spoken of. These inquiries do not concern
her character or her domestic accomplishments, much less her
intellectual capacity—of which she has, theoretically, none to
speak of—but they may all be summed up in the single phrase,
“ Is she said?” meaning by the term “ said” “betrothed.”
If the reply should be in the negative, the intelligence is re-
ceived in much the same way as we should receive the infor-
mation that a foreign child had been allowed to grow to the age
of sixteen without having been taught anything whatever out
of books. “Why?" we should say, “what is the explana—
tion age of this strange neglect P ” The instinctive feeling of
a Chinese in regard to a girl is that she should be betrothed
as soon as possible. This is one of the many points in regard
to which it is almost impossible for the Chinese and the
Anglo-Saxon to come to terms. To the latter the betrothal
of a mere child, scarcely in her teens, is a piece of absolute
barbarity.

As soon as a Chinese girl is once betrothed, she is placed in
different relations to the universe generally. She is no longer
allowed such freedom as hitherto, although that may have been
little enough. She cannot go anywhere, because it would be
“inconvenient.” She might be seen by some member of the
family into which she is to marry, than which it is hardly pos-
sible to think of anything more horrible. “ Why? ” the irre-

266 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

pressible Occidental inquires; and is quenched by the infor-
mation that “it would not be proper.”

l The imminent risk that the girl might in some unguarded
/ ionicnt be actually Jam by the family of the future mother-in—
law is a reason why so few engagements for girls are made in
the town in which the girl lives, an arrangement which would
I seem to be for the convenience of all parties in a great variety
of ways. It would put a stop to the constant deceptions prac-
ticed by the middle-women, or professional match-makers,
whose only object is to carry through whatever match has
been proposed, in order to reap the percentage which will
accrue to the agent. It would do away with the waste of time
and money involved in transporting brides from one of their
homes to the other, often at great inconvenience and loss. It
would make the interchange of little courtesies between the
families easy and frequent. But for all these advantages the
Chinese do not seem to care, and the most frequent explana-
tion of the neglect of them is that there would be the risk al-
ready mentioned. When these two families are such as would
in the ordinary course of events he likely to meet, nothing is
more amusing to a foreigner than to watch the struggles which
are made to avert such a catastrophe. One is reminded of
some of our Childhood’s games, in which one party is “ poison ”
and the other party is liable to be “ poisoned ” and must at all
hazards keep out of the way. The only difference between the
cases is that in the Chinese game, each party is afraid of being
“ poisoned,” and will struggle to prevent it. There is one set
of circumstances, however, in which, despite their utmost
efforts, Fate is too much both for the poisoners and the poi-
soned. If during the betrothal a death of an older person takes
place in the family of the mother~in~law, it is generally thought
necessary that the girl (who is considered as already “ belong-
ing ” to that family) should be present and should perform the
same reverence to the cofﬁn of the deceased as if she had been
already married. She is (theoretically) their daughter; why

a
l.

l

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 267

should she not come and lament like the rest?‘ If it is pos-
sible to arrange it, however, the marriage will be hastened, in
the event of a death of a person belonging to an older genera-
tion, even if a later date had been previously set.

To a foreigner, the Chinese habit of early engagements ap-
pears to have no single redeeming feature. It hampers both
families with no apparent corresponding advantages, if indeed
there are advantages of any kind. It assumes, what is far from
certain, and often not at all likely, that the relative position of
the two families will continue to be the same. This assump-
tion is contradicted by universal experience. Time and change
happen to all, and the insecurity of human affairs is nowhere
more manifest than in the tenure of Chinese property. Fami-
lies are going up and coming down all the time. It is a well-
settled principle in China that matches should be between those
who are in the same general circumstances. Disregard of this
rule is sure to bring trouble. But if early betrothals are the
practice, the chances of material alteration in the condition of
each of the families are greatly increased. When he is en-
gaged, the character of the boy, upon which so much of a
bride’s happiness is to depend, has not perhaps been formed.
Even if it has been formed, it is generally next to impossible
for the girl’s family to learn anything authentic as to what the
~ character is, though to all appearance it would be so easy for
them to ascertain by latent methods. But as a rule, it would
appear that they do not concern themselves much about the
matter after the engagement is proposed and accepted, and at
no time do they give it a hundredth part of the investigation
which it seems to us to warrant. If the boy becomes a gam-
bler, a proﬂigate, or dissipated in any other way, there is no

‘We have known occasional instances in which a betrothed girl was
not required to attend the funeral of her future father-in-law or mother-in-
law, a trying ordeal which she must be glad to escape. Sometimes when
she does attend, she merely kneels to the cofﬁn, but does not “ lament,"
for usage is in this, as in other particulars, very capricious.

268 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

retreat for the family of the girl, no matter to what extremities
they may be driven. Chinese violation of the most ordinary
rules of prudence and common sense in the matter of the be-
trothal of their daughters is, to a Westerner, previous to ex-
perience and observation, almost incredible.

A Chinese marriage engagement begins when the red cards
have been interchanged, ratifying the agreement. These are in
some districts formidable documents, almost as large as a crib-
blanket, and are very important as evidence in case of future
trouble. It is very rare to hear of the breaking of a marriage
engagement in China, though such instances do doubtless oc-
cur. In a case of this sort the card of the boy’s family had
been delivered to the other family, at which point the transac-
tion is considered to be deﬁnitely closed. But an uncle of the
betrothed girl, although younger than the father of the girl,
created a disturbance and refused to allow the engagement to
stand. This made the matter very serious, but as the younger
brother was inﬂexible, there was no help for it but to send the
red acceptance card back by the middleman who brought it.
This also was a delicate matter, but a Chinese is seldom at a
loss for expedients when a disagreeable thing must be done.
He selected a time when all the male members of the boy’s
family were in the wheatﬁeld, and then threw the card declin-
ing the match into the yard of the family of the boy, and went
his way. None of the women of the family could read, and it
was not until the men returned that it was discovered what the
document was. The result was a lawsuit of portentous pro—
portions, in which an accusation was brought against both the
father of the girl and against the middleman. This case was
ﬁnally adjusted by a money payment.

The delivery of the red cards is, as we have remarked, the
beginning of the engagement, the culmination being the arrival
of the bride in her chair at the home of her husband. The
date of this event is generally dependent upon the pleasure of
the boy’s family. Whatever accessories the wedding may have,

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 269

the arrival of the bride is the de facto completion of the con-
tract. This becomes evident in the case of second marriages,
where there is often, and even proverbially, no ceremony of any
sort which must be observed. The Chinese imperial calendar
designates the days which are the most felicitous for weddings,
and it constantly happens that on these particular days there
will be what the Chinese term “ red festivities " in almost every
village. This is one of the many instances in which Chinese
superstitions are ﬁnancially expensive. On “lucky days ” the
hire of sedan-chairs rises with the great demand, while those
who disregard luck are able to get better service at a lower
price. There is a tradition of a winter in the early part of this
century when on a “ fortunate day ” many brides were being
carried to their new homes during the progress of a tremendous
snowstorm which blinded the bearers and obliterated the roads.
Some of the brides were frozen to death, and many were taken
to the wrong places. On the other hand in a blistering sum-
mer, cases have been known where the bride was found to be
dead when the chair was deposited at the husband's home.
The same bridal sedan-chair may be used many times. In
regions where it is the custom to have all weddings in the
forenoon, second marriages are put off until the afternoon, or
even postponed until the evening, marking their minor impor-
_tance.

That the only essential feature of a Chinese wedding is the
delivery of the bride at her husband’s home, is strikingly
shown in those not very uncommon instances in which a
Chinese is married without himself being present at all. It is
usually considered a very ill omen to change the date set for a
wedding, especially to postpone it. Yet it sometimes happens
that the young man is at a distance from home, and fails to re-
turn in time. Or the bridegroom may be a scholar, and ﬁnd
that the date of an important examination coincides with the
day set for his wedding. In such a case he will probably
choose “business before pleasure ” and the bride will be

27o VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

“taken delivery of ” by older members of his family, without
disturbing his own literary ambitions.

Of the details of Chinese weddings we do not intend to
speak. There are wide variations of usage in almost all par-
ticulars, though the general plan is doubtless much the same.
The variations appertain, not to the ceremonies of the wedding
alone, but to all the proceedings from beginning'to end. It is
supposed that the explanation of the singular and sometimes
apparently unaccountable variation in these and other usages,
found all over China, may be due to the persistent survival of
customs which have been handed down from the time of the
Divided Kingdoms. But very considerable differences in usage
are to be met with in regions not far apart, and which were
never a part of different kingdoms. The saying runs, “ Cus-
toms vary every ten 11',” which seems at times to be a literal
truth.

In the south of China, as we have already remarked, the
transfer of money, at the engagement of a daughter, from the
parents of the boy to those of the girl, assumes for all practical
purposes the aspect of a purchase, which, pure and simple, it
often is. But in other parts of China we never hear of such a
transaction, but only of a dowry from the bride’s family, much
in the manner of Western lands at times. Vast sums are un-
doubtedly squandered by the very wealthy Chinese at the wed-
dings of their daughters, and it is a common adage that to such
expenditures there is no limit. But in weddings in the ordi~
nary walks of life, to which all but a small fraction of the peo-
ple belong, the impression which will be made upon the ob-
servant foreigner will generally be that there is a great amount
of shabby gentility, a thin veneer of display beneath which it
is easy to see the real texture.

In this as in everything relating to Chinese usages it is im-
possible to make general statements which shall at the same
time be accurate. There are regions in northern China where
the money exacted from the family of the future bridegroom is

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 271

l
so considerable, that what remains after the real bridal outﬁt
has been purchased is a positive source of proﬁt to the father.
There are also other districts where local custom requires the
bridegroom’s family to give very little or even nothing at all for
dowry, but exacts heavily from the bride’s family. There must
be a large supply of clothing, and bedding; even when at her
own home the young married woman must sew for her hus-
band’s family, and the one which furnishes the bride is subject
to a constant series of petty exactions.

The bridal chair is often itself a ﬁt emblem of a Chinese
wedding. Looked at from a distance, it appears to be of the
most gorgeous description, but on a nearer view it is frequently
perceived to be a most unattractive framework covered with a
gaudy set of trappings sometimes much worn and evidently the
worse for wear. In some cases there is a double framework,
the outer of which can be lifted entirely off, being too clumsy
to be got into a courtyard. The inner chair can be carried
through the narrow doors of any Chinese yard, or, if required,
into the house itself.

The bride is no sooner out of the chair than the process of
dismantling the bridal chair begins, in the immediate sight of
all the guests, and as a matter of course. The Chinese is not
a victim of sentiment, and he fails to see anything incongruous
in these proceedings. It not infrequently happens that the
resplendent garment worn by the bride is hired for the occasion,
a fact of which the guests present are not likely to be ignorant.
We once saw a garment of this sort which the bride had just
taken off, delivered to the headman in charge of the bridal
chair and of the accompanying paraphernalia. Upon examin-
ing it to make sure that it was in as good condition as when it
was hired, this man found, or professed to ﬁnd, a grease—spot
upon it, which not only attracted his attention but excited his
wrath. He began to talk in loud and excited tones, waxing
more and more furious until the guests were all called away
from their other occupations to listen to the dispute. Yet the

272 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

foreign spectator was probably the only person present to whom
it occurred that this was an untimely and unseemly proceeding,
out of harmony with the time and the circumstances.

The arrival of a ﬁrst baby is, in the life of a Chinese wife, a
very different event from the like occurrence in the life of a
wife in Occidental lands. If the child is a boy, the joy of the
whole household is of course great, but if on thecontrary it is
a girl, the depression of the spirits of the entire establishment
is equally marked. In such a case, the young wife is often
treated with coldness, and not infrequently with harshness, even
if, as sometimes happens, she is not actually beaten for her lack
of discretion in not producing a son. If she has had several
daughters in succession, especially if she has borne no son or
none which has lived, her life cannot be a pleasant one.

There is a story of a certain noble English lord, who had
more daughters than any other member of the aristocracy.
When on the Continent travelling, he walked out one day with
six of his daughters. Some one who saw him, remarked to a
companion, “ Poor man.” The noble lord Overheard the ob-
servation, and turning to the person who made it, replied,
“ Not so ‘ poor ’ as you think ; I have six more at home 1 ” It
is questionable whether any Chinese could be found who would
not sympathize with the comment of the bystander, or who
would agree with the reply of the father. Indeed, we have
serious doubts whether, among all the innumerable myriads of
this race, there ever lived a Chinese who had twelve daughters
living at once.

It is one of the postulates of Chinese propriety that however
much a wife may continue to visit at the maternal home, (and
on this point the usages in some regions are very liberal), her
children must all be born at their father’s house. This is a
rule of such unbending rigour that a breach of it is considered
a deep disgrace, and in the effort to avoid it women will some-
times submit to extreme inconveniences, and run the most
serious risks, not infrequently, it is said, meeting in conse-

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 273

quence with painful and humiliating accidents. To the Occi-
dental question as to the reason for this powerful prejudice
against a conﬁnement at a mother’s home, the Chinese are able
to give no better reply than an afﬁrmation that, if such an
event should happen, the mother’s family may be expected to
become very poor. This superstition is so strong that in some
localities, if such an event has happened, it is customary for the
family of the husband to harness a team to a plough, and, prev
ceeding to the home of the girl's parents, plough up their
courtyard. The son-in-law must also cook a kettle full of
millet or rice for his mother-in—law, by which means the dire
extremity of poverty may be avoided. Perhaps, after all, the
idea at the bottom of these singular performances is merely the
thoroughly Chinese one that, if a married daughter and her
children are to come upon her mother’s family for their sup
port, poverty will be the certain result, a view which has in it
some reason.

A description of the ceremonious superstitions common
among the Chinese on occasion of the birth of a child,
especially of a 'son, and most especially of a ﬁrstborn son,
would ﬁll a volume. These are far more rigorously observegl/
in the southern part of the empire than at the north, and more
in cities than in the country village, where many of these cus-
toms may be wholly unknown.

There is the highest Chinese classical authority for the props-
sition that if a mother is really anxious to do the best that she
can for her infant, although she may not succeed perfectly, she
will not come far short of success. There is equally trustworthy
Occidental medical authority for the statement that, as applied
to Chinese women, this proposition is a gross error. Undoubt—
edly superstition directly or indirectly destroys the lives of many
Chinese children. But this cause, which is complex in its
operations, is probably much less efﬁcient for evil than the utter
lack, on the part of the parents, of the instinct of conformity to
the most obvious of Nature's laws.

274 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

The newborn infant is laid upon the k‘ang where it is some-
times 'warmly covered, and sometimes exposed to excessive
changes of temperature. Many children continue to nurse at
the breast for a series of years, and whenever they cry this is
the sole method of effectually quieting them, even though they
be thus fed an hundred times a day. When the baby is large
enough to eat miscellaneous food, there is almOst no restraint
either upon the kind or the quantity. He is allowed to swallow
unripe fruits and melons to almost any extent, and raw sweet-
potatoes or turnips are gnawed on by very small infants in
arms.

When children are able to run about they are likely to be
constantly nibbling at something, often sucking their father’s
tobacco pipe, sometimes producing serious weakening of the
system and atrophy. In Shan hsi mere babies learn to smoke
opium, which thus becomes at once a natural and an invincible
appetite.

Taking into account the conditions of their early life, it is by
no means improbable that more than half the whole number
of Chinese infants die before they are two years old. This
result is greatly promoted by many of those superstitions
which sometimes have more than the force of law. Thus in
some regions there is an absolute interdict on seeing either
mother or child until forty days shall have elapsed from its
birth. During this critical period myriads of young lives dis-
appear almost without the knowledge of near neighbours. Sim-
ilar bans are laid upon the period of some of the most common
and most fatal of infantile diseases, such as measles, diphtheria,
and smallpox, the mortality frequently attending which is
enormous.

Multitudes of Chinese children die in ﬁts, the causes of
which are sufﬁciently obvious to foreigners who see the care-
lessness with which Chinese children are handled. We have
known a Chinese mother, in a moment of dissatisfaction, to
throw her young and naked infant out of doors into a snow-

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 275

bank. Another cut off one of her baby’s ﬁngers with a pair
of dull shears, to save it from ﬁts, and was rewarded by seeing
it die in convulsions. Such a practice is said to be not un-
common. “ Who would have supposed that it would have
done so? ” her mother remarked to a foreigner. But even if
the young mother were endowed with the best of judgment, it
would still be impossible for her to secure proper care for her
children, for the reason that she is herself only a “ child ” 1 and
in her management of her children, as in other affairs, is wholly
subject to the dictation of her mother-in-law, as well as to the
caprices of a platoon of aunts, grandmothers, etc., with whom
nearly all Chinese courtyards swarm.

The severe labour entailed upon Chinese women in the
drudgery of caring for large families, assisting in gathering the
crops, and other outside toils, and the great drafts made upon
their physical vitality by bearing and nursing so many children,
amply suffice to account for the nearly universally observed
fact that these women grow old rapidly. A Chinese bride,
handsome at the age of eighteen, will be faded at thirty, and
at ﬁfty wrinkled and ugly.

It has been already remarked that the life of the Chinese
village woman is an apt illustration of the inherent impossibility
that woman's work should ever be done. Before her own
children have ceased to be a constant care by day and by
night, grandchildren have not improbably made their appear-
ance, giving the grandmother little peace or rest. The mere
preparation of the food for so many in the single kettle which
must serve for everything, is a heavy task incessantly repeated.
All articles of apparel, including shoes, are literally manufac-
tured or done by hand, and so likewise is the supply of bedding
or wadded quilts which like the wadded garments must be
ripped open from time to time, cleaned and renewed.

1A Chinese woman whose parents are living, is constantly referred to

not only as a “ gir ,” but as an unmarried girl (ku-m'ang), although she
may be herself the mother of half-a-dozen children.

:76 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

Women and girls take their share of watching the orchards
and the melon patches, etc. , by day, and sometimes by night
as well. When the wheat harvest comes on, all the available
women of the family are helping to gather it, and in the autumn
harvest likewise every threshing-ﬂoor abounds with them, and
their countless children. In cotton growing districts the women
and girls are busy a large part of the time in the ﬁelds, and
often earn the only pin-money which they ever see by picking
cotton for others.

The preparation of this indispensable staple for use occupies
the hands of millions of Chinese women, from its collection in
the ﬁeld—a most laborious work since the plant grows so low—
to its appearance as garments, and its ﬁnal disappearance
as ﬂat padding to be used in shoe-soles. The ginning, the
“ scutching ” or separation of ﬁbres, the spinning, the cording,
the winding and starching, and especially the weaving are all
hard and tiresome work, and that too without end in sight
while life lasts. In some regions every family owns a loom
(one of the clumsy machines exiled from the West a century
ago) and it is not uncommon for the members of a family to
take turns, the husband weaving until midnight, when the wife
takes up the task till daylight, (often in cellars two-thirds under-
ground, damp, unventilated, and unwholesome). Even so it is
frequently difﬁcult to keep the wolf away from the door.
Within the past few years the competition of machine twisted
cotton yarns is severely felt in the cotton regions of China, and
many who just managed to exist in former days are now per—
petually on the edge of starvation. This is the “ seamy side ”
of “progress.”

The fact that Chinese girls are married so young, and that
they have not been taught those lessons of self-control which
it is so important for them to learn, sufﬁces to demonstrate the
absolute necessity for the existence of the Chinese mother-in-
law as an element in the family. A Chinese married woman
must address her mother-in-law as “ mother,” but for precision

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 277

is allowed to refer to her as “ mother-in-law mother.” A
Chinese woman calling on a foreign lady asked the latter (in
the presence of her husband) about her family in the home-
land. The lady mentioned that she had “a mother-in-law,”
upon which the Chinese woman in an awed whisper pointing
to the foreign gentleman, inquired: “ W07?! he beat you for
saying flzat 2 ”

A great deal is heard of the tyranny and cruelty of these
mothers-in-law, and there is a ﬁrm basis of fact for all that is
so often said upon that point. But it must at the same time be
borne in mind that without her the Chinese family would go to
utter ruin. The father-in-law is not only unﬁtted to take the
control which belongs to his wife, even were he at home all the
time which would seldom be the case, but propriety forbids
him to do any such thing, even were he able. In families
where a mother-in-law is lacking, there are not unlikely to be
much greater evils than the worst mother-in-law. Abuse of
the daughter-in-Iaw is so common a circumstance, that unless
it be especially ﬂagrant, it attracts very little attention.

It would be wholly incorrect to represent this as the normal
or the inevitable condition to which Chinese brides are re-
duced, but it is not too much to afﬁrm that no bride has any
adequate security against such abuse. It assumes all varieties
of forms, from incessant scolding up to the most cruel treat-
ment. If it is carried to' an extreme pitch, the mother’s family
will interfere, not legally, for that they cannot do, but by brute
force. In a typical case of this sort, where the daughter~in-law
had been repeatedly and shamefully abused by the family of
her husband, which had been remonstrated with in vain by the
family of the girl, the latter family mustered a large force,
went to the house of the mother-in-law, destroyed the furniture,
beat the other family severely, and dragged the old mother-in-
law out into the street, where she was left screaming with what
strength remained to her, and covered with blood, in which
condition she was seen by foreigners. These proceedings are

278 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

designed as a practical protest against tyranny and an intima-
tion that sauce for a young goose may be in like manner sauce
for an older one also. One would suppose that the only out—
come of such a disturbance as this would be a long and bitter
lawsuit, wasting the property of each of the parties, and per-
haps reducing them to ruin. But with that eminent practical-
ity which characterizes the Chinese, the girl was carried off to
the home of her parents, “peace-talkers ” intervened, and the
girl was returned to her husband’s home upon the promise of
better treatment. This would probably be secured, just in
proportion to the ability of the girl’s family to enforce it.

In another case reported to the writer, similar in its nature
to the one just mentioned, the girl was sent to her husband,
after ” peace-talkers " had adjusted the affair, and was locked
up by the mother—in-law in a small room with only one meal a
day. Within a year she had hanged herself.

It is not the ignorant and the uneducated only who thus take
the law into their own hands on behalf of injured daughters.
We have heard of a case in which the father of the girl who
drowned herself was a literary graduate. He raised a band of
men, went to the home of his son-in-law, and pulled down the
gate-house to the premises, and some of the buildings. In the
resulting lawsuit he was severely reproved by the District
Magistrate, who told him that he had no right to assume to
avenge his own wrongs, and that he was only saved from a
beating in court by his literary degree.

A still more striking example was offered by an ofﬁcial of the
third rank, whose daughter’s wrongs moved him to raise an
armed band and make an attack upon the house of the son-in-
law. This proved to be strong and not easily taken, upon
which the angry Tao—t‘ai contented himself with reviling the
whole family at the top of his voice, exactly as a coolie would
have done. Wrongs which can only be met with such acts as
this, on the part of those who are are the most conservative
members of Chinese society, must be very real and very

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 279

grievous. In the very numerous cases in which a daughter-in-
law is driven to suicide by the treatment which she receives,
the subsequent proceedings will depend mainly upon the num-
ber and standing of her relatives. The ﬁrst thing is to notify
the family of the deceased that she has died, for without their
presence the funeral cannot take place, or if it should take
place the body would have to be exhumed, to satisfy her friends
that the death was a natural one, and not due to violence,
which is always likely to be suspected. A Chinese in the em—
ploy of the writer, was summoned one day to see his married
daughter in another village, who was said to be “not very
well.” When the father arrived, he found her hanging by her
girdle to a beam !

In cases of this sort, a lawsuit is exceptional. There are
several powerful considerations which act as deterrents from
such a step as sending in an accusation. It is almost always
next to impossible to prove the case of the girl’s family, for the
reason that the opposite party can always so represent the mat-
ter as to throw the blame on the girl. In one such instance,
the husband brought into court a very small woman’s shoe,
explaining that he had scolded his wife for wearing so small a
one, which unﬁtted her for work. He alleged that she then
reviled him, for which he struck her (of which there were
marks), whereupon she drowned herself. To a defence like
this, it is impossible for the girl’s family to make any reply
whatever. The accusation is not brought against the husband,
but against the father—in-law, for practically the law does not
interfere between husband and wife. It is only necessary for
the husband to admit the fact of having beaten his wife, alleg-
ing as a reason that she was “ unﬁlial ” to his parents, to screen
himself completely. We have heard of a suit where in reply to
a claim of this sort, the brother of the girl testiﬁed that she had
been beaten previous to the alleged “ unﬁlial " conduct. This
seemed to make the magistrate angry, and he ordered the
brother to receive several hundred blows for his testimony, and

280 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

decided that the husband’s family should only be required to
provide a cheap willow-wood cofﬁn for the deceased.

Another even more efﬁcient cause deterring from such law-
suits, is the necessity of holding an inquest over the girl’s body.
This is conducted with the utmost publicity, upon the Oriental
plan of letting the public see how the matter really stands. A
threshing ﬂoor is turned into an ofﬁcial arena, a set of mat-
sheds are put up, and the whole village soon swarms with
yamén-runners. The corpse of the deceased is laid uncovered
on a mat exposed to the sight of every one, before and during
the inquest. In order to avoid the shame of such exposure,
and the great expense, the most bitter enemies are often willing
enough to put the matter in the hands of “ peace-talkers."
These represent the village of each of the principals, and they
meet to agree upon the terms of settlement. These terms will
depend altogether upon the wealth or otherwise of the family
of the mother-in-law. If this family is a rich one, the opposite
party always insist upon bleeding it to the utmost practicable
extent. Every detail of the funeral is arranged to be as expen-
sive to the family as possible. There must be a cypress—wood
coffin, of a speciﬁed size and thickness, a certain variety of fu-
neral clothes, often far in excess of what the cofﬁn could by any
possibility contain, and some of them made perhaps of silk or
satin. A deﬁnite amount is required to be spent in hiring
Buddhist or Taoist priests, or both, to read masses at the fu-
neral. It is considered disgraceful to compound with the family
of the mother-in-law, by receiving a money payment, instead
of exacting all this funeral show, but doubtless such composi-
tions are sometimes made. As a business arrangement merely,
it is evidently more to the interest of all parties to pay the girl’s
relatives say two hundred strings of cash, rather than to expend
a thousand strings on a funeral which can do no one any good.
But Chinese sensitiveness to public sentiment is so extreme, that
such settlements for a mere transfer of cash must be compara‘
tively rare.

n

GIINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 28!

The wedding outﬁt of a bride is often very extensive, but in
case of her suicide none of it goes back to her family. We
have heard from eyewitnesses of many cases in which huge
piles of clothing which had been required for the funeral of
such a suicide from the family of the mother-in—law, have been
burnt in a vast heap at the grave. We know of one instance
in which all the wedding outﬁt, which had been a large one,
wardrobes, tables, mirrors, ornaments, etc., was taken out upon
the street and destroyed in the presence of the girl’s family.
The motive to this is of course revenge, but the ultimate effect
of such proceedings is to act as an imperfect check upon the
behaviour of the mother-in-law and her family toward the
daughter-in-law, for whom while she lives the laws of the land
have no protection.

When the funeral actually takes place, under conditions such
as we have described, there is great danger that despite the ex-
ertions of the “peace-talkers ” from both sides, the dispute
may break out anew. At sight of the girl’s livid face, the re-
sult of death by strangulation, it will not be strange if, excited
by the spectacle, her family cry out “Let her be avenged!
Let her be avenged l ” To keep the women of the girl’s fam-
ily quiet at such a time, is beyond the power of any collection
of “peace-talkers,” however numerous and respectable. If
the respective parties are restrained from mutual reviling and
from a ﬁght, the funeral is regarded as a successful one. The
girl’s family complain of everything, the cofﬁn, the clothing,
the ornaments for the corpse, and all the appointments gener-
ally. But they are soothed by the comforting reminder that
the dead are dead, and cannot be brought to life, and also that
the resources of the family of the mother-in-law have been ut-
terly exhausted, the last acre of land mortgaged to raise money
for the funeral, and that they are loaded besides with a mill-
stone of debt.

It is an. ancient observation that one-half the world does not
know how the other half lives. It is quite possible to dwell

282 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

among the Chinese for a long time without becoming practically
acquainted with their modes of settling those difﬁculties to
which their form of civilization makes them especially liable.

The best way to study phenomena of this sort is through
concrete cases. A single instance, well considered in all its
bearings, may be a window which will let in more light than a
' volume of abstract statements. Whoever is disposed to enter
into such studies will ﬁnd in China the material ready to his
hand, and it will not be strange if it is forced upon his atten-
tion whether he desires to contemplate it or not, as happened
in the following highly illustrative case. Many years ago a
Chinese teacher in the writer’s employ had leave of absence
for a deﬁnite period, but when that period had expired he
failed to make his appearance. This is so common, or rather
so almost universal an occurrence in China, that it might have
passed with only a temporary notice, but for the explanation
which the teacher afterward gave of his inability to return, an
explanation which appeared to be so peculiar that he was re-
quested to reduce it to the form of a written statement, of
which the following is a synopsis.

An elder sister of the teacher was married to a very poor
man in a village called the “ Tower of the Li Family,” an in~
signiﬁcant hamlet consisting of only four families. In a year
of great famine (1878), both the sister and her husband died,
leaving three sons, all married. Of these the second died, and
his widow remarried. The wife of the elder nephew of the
teacher also died, and this nephew married for his second wife
a widow, who had a daughter of her own, twelve years of age.
This widow enjoyed the not very assuring reputation of having
beaten her former mother-in-law, and also of having caused
the death of her ﬁrst husband. The wife of the third nephew
was a quarrelsome woman, and the two sisters-in-law were al-
ways at sword’s points, especially as all four of the adults and
their four children shared the house and land together.

In the month of August of that year the third nephew started

O-IINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 283

for a distant market, with a boat-load of watermelons. On
leaving he ordered his wife to fetch his winter garments, which
she refused to do, upon which they had a ﬁght, and he left.
The next day was cold and rainy. The elder nephew was sit—
ting in a neighbour’s house, and heard his wife engaged in a
violent quarrel with her sister-in-law, but he did not even rise
to look into the merits of the case, and no other neighbour in-
tervened to exhort to peace. The younger sister-in-law left
the house in a fury, and from that time she disappeared.
About noon her continued absence became alarming to the
elder brother, who searched for her till dark, and then sent
word to her mother’s family at a village called “The Little
Camp ” two 12' distant. This family, upon hearing of the dis.
appearance of their daughter, raised a company of ten or a
dozen persons, went over to the “Tower of the Li Family,"
entered the yard, and smashed all the water—jars and other pot-
tery-ware which they could. “Peace-talkers" emerged, and
succeeded in preventing the attacking party from entering the
house, or the damage would have been still greater.

After they had gone, the “Lord-of-bitterness” (2'. e., the
elder brother) begged his friends to interfere and “ talk peace,"
for as he was a resident of a small village, he could not for a
moment stand before the men of “The Little Camp,” which
is a large village. These latter belonged to one of the numer-
ous small sects which are styled “ black-doors,” or secret so-
cieties. In these societies there is often a class of persons
called “ Seers” or “ Bright-eyes ” (Ming-yen), who profess to
be able to tell what progress the pupils have made in their
learning of the doctrine. Sometimes, as in this instance, they
also undertake the functions of fortune-tellers. To the Bright-
eye of their sect, the Little Campers applied for information as
to what had become of the missing woman. In response they
learnt that she had been beaten to death and buried in the yard
of the “ Lord-of—bitterness.” Upon hearing this, the family of
the murdered woman went to every door in their village, mak-

284 VlL/IGE LIFE IN CHINA

ing a kotow at each door, a common and signiﬁcant mode of
imploring their help. Thus a large force was raised, which
went to the “ Tower of the Li Family,” armed with spades to
dig up the body. Warned of their coming, all the male resi-
dents of this latter village ﬂed, the family of the “ Lord-of—bit-
terness ” taking refuge at the village in the house of the local
constable who had charge of several villages. The teacher in
question, being a near relative of the “ Lord-of-bitterness,"
and a man of intelligence and pleasant manners, was asked to
look after the house of his nephew, which he did. Owing to
his presence and his politeness, no further damage was then
done to the property, but the whole yard was dug over to ﬁnd
the body. On the failure of this quest, the Bright-eye modiﬁed
the former announcement by the revelation that the body was
outside the yard, but not more than thirty paces distant. The
search was kept up with spades and picks by day and by night
for a week. After repeated attempts had been made by the
Lord-of-bitterness to get the matter adjusted, and after the
other party had refused to listen to any terms, the latter lodged
an accusation in the District Magistrate’s yamen. The Mag-
istrate heard the case twice, but each time the family of the
missing woman behaved in such an unreasonable and violent
manner that the ofﬁcial dismissed their case, merely ordering
the local constable to enlist more peace-talkers, and make the
parties come to some agreement.

It happened that about that time another case somewhat re-
sembling this had occurred in that neighbourhood, in which a
woman was suspected of having drowned herself. On this ac-
count a sharp watch was kept at the ferry of the District city,
some miles lower down the river, for any ﬂoating body.

About the time of the Magistrate’s decision, a woman’s body
appeared abreast of the ferry and was identiﬁed as that of the
missing woman from the Li Family Tower. The oﬂicial held
an inquest, in which all parties made diligent search for wounds,
but none being found the Magistrate compelled the family of

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 285

the woman to afﬁx their thumb marks to a paper recognizing
this fact. He ordered the Lord-of-bitterness to buy a good
cofﬁn, clothes, and prepare other appointments for a showy
funeral, including chanting by Buddhist priests, and to have
the body taken to his house. He also instructed the constable
once more to secure peace-talkers, to arrange the details and to
hold the funeral.

But the Little Campers proved to be the most obstinate of
mortals, and would not only listen to no reason, but drove the
peace-talkers from their village with reviling language, never so
exasperating to a Chinese as when employed against those who
are sacriﬁcing their interests for those of the public. At this
juncture the husband of the drowned woman returned from the
watermelon market, went himself to the home of his late wife,
and expostulated with her family and also urged peace through
still other third parties. But the Little Campers insisted upon
funeral paraphernalia which would have cost Io,ooo strings of
cash.

One more effort at compromise was made, by the visit of an
uncle of the teacher who was guarding the house of the Lord-
of—bitterness, to the Little Campers. The latter now altered
their demands to a payment of 800 strings of cash, which by
much chaffering was eventually reduced to 400. The Lord~of-
bitterness offered 250 strings, but this was rejected with disdain.

Upon the failure of these numerous negotiations, the local
constable presented another complaint to the Magistrate, recit-
ing the facts in the repeated refusal, on the part of the family
of the woman, to come to any terms. The Magistrate, recog-
nizing the case as one in which the relatives were resolved to
make the utmost possible capital out of a dead body, ordered
eight men from his own yamén to go on that very day and at-
tend the funeral, in order to insure that there should be no
breach of peace. These yamén—runners, after the customary
Chinese manner, hoped to be bribed to do as they were ordered
and did not go to the place at all. The Lord-of-bitterness

286 ' VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

and all his neighbours continued in obscurity, but in the in:
terval the men from the Little Camp again gathered their hosts,
and made four more visits to the premises at the Li Family
Tower, breaking everything which they could lay their hands
upon. The next day the yamen-runners arrived, and the Lord-
of-bitterness, now thoroughly exasperated, succeeded in collect-
ing a force of several hundred men from other villages, intend-
ing at all hazards to hold the funeral and also to havea general
ﬁght, if need arose. But the men of the Little Camp failed to
put in an appearance at this time, and the funeral accOrdingly
at last took place. The friends of the woman, however, obsti-
nately refused to consider the matter as settled, at which point
the curtain falls, with a plentiful promise of future lawsuits,
ﬁghts, and ruin.

The reader who is sufﬁciently interested in the inner-work-
ing of the life of the Chinese to follow the tangled thread of a
tale like this, is rewarded by the perception of several important
facts. It is an axiom in China that the family of the married
daughter holds its head down, while the family of the man
whom she has married holds its head up. But in case of the
violent death of the married woman all this is reversed, and by
a natural process of reaction the family of the married woman
becomes a ﬁerce and formidable antagonist.

Principles such as these have but to be put in issue between
two large villages, or families, and we have the well—known
clan ﬁghts of southern China, in all their perennial bitterness
and intensity. One of the weakest parts of the Chinese social
fabric is the insecurity of the life and happiness of woman, but
no structure is stronger than its weakest part, and Chinese
society is no exception to this law. Every year thousands
upon thousands of Chinese wives commit suicide, tens of thou-
sands of other persons are thereby involved in serious trouble,
hundreds of thousands of yet others are dragged in as co-part-
ners in the difﬁculty, and millions of dollars are expended in
extravagant funerals and ruinous lawsuits. And all this is the

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 287

outcome of the Confucian theory that a wife has no rights
which a husband is bound to respect. The law affords her no ,
protection while she lives, and such justice as she is able with
difﬁculty to exact is strictly a fast mortem concession.

The reality of the evils of the Chinese system of marriages
is evidenced by the extreme expedients to which unmarried
girls sometimes resort, to avoid matrimony. Chinese news-
papers not infrequently contain references to organized socie-
ties of young maidens, who solemnly vow never to wed. The
following paragraphs are translated from a Chinese newspaper
called the Ski]; Pao .-

SUICIDE AS A VIRTUE.

There is a prevailing custom in a district called Shun-té in
the Canton province, among female society to form different
kinds of sisterhoods such as “All pure” sisterhoods, “ Never-
to-be-married ” sisterhoods, etc. Each sisterhood consists of
about ten young maidens who swear vows to heaven never to
get married, as they regard marriages as something horrid, be-
lieving that their married lives would be miserable and unholy;
and their parents fail to prevail upon them to yield.

A sad case has just happened: a band of young maidens
ended, their existence in this world by drowning themselves in
the Dragon River because one of them was forced by her par-
ents to be married. She was engaged in her childhood before
she joined this sisterhood. When her parents had made all
the necessary arrangements for her marriage she reported the
affair to the other members of her sisterhood who at once
agreed to die for her cause, if she remained constant to her
sworn vows to be single and virtuous. Should she violate the
laws of the sisterhood and yield to her parents, her life was to
be made most unpleasant by the other members and she was to
be taunted as a worthless being. She consulted with them as
to the best mode of escaping this marriage, and they all agreed

288 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

to die with her, if she could plan to run away from her parents
on the night of the marriage.

As there were many friends to watch her movements, it was
almost impossible for her to escape, so she attempted her life
by swallowing a gold ring, but any serious consequence that
might have resulted was prevented by the administration of a
powerful emetic. She was ﬁnally taken by force and made
over to the male side, to her great grief. According to the
usual custom she was allowed to return to her parents. During
all this time she was planning a way to escape to her sisters.
By bribing the female servants she was taken one night to her
sisters under the cover of darkness. The sisters at once joined
with her in terminating their lives by jumping into the Dragon
River with its swift currents, which rapidly carried them off.

This kind of tragedy is not uncommon in this part of the
land. The ofﬁcials have from time to time tried to check the
formation of such sisterhoods, but all their efforts were in vain.
Girls must have reasons of their own for establishing such
societies. Married life must have been proved by many in
that region to have been not altogether too sweet. However,
such wholesale suicide must be prevented by law if the parents
have no control over their daughters.

It is well known that Chinese law recognizes seven grounds
for the divorce of a wife, as follows : childlessness, wanton con-
duct, neglect of husband’s parents, loquacity (to yen), thievish-
ness, jealousy, malignant disease. The requisites for a Chinese
wife are by no means sure to be exacting. A man in the
writer’s employ, who was thinking of giving up his single life,
on being questioned as to what sort of a wife he preferred,
compendiously replied, “It is enough if she is neither bald
nor idiotic.” In a country where the avowed end of marriage
is to raise up a posterity to burn incense at the ancestral graves,
it is not strange that “ childlessness ” should rank ﬁrst among
the grounds for divorce, It would be an error, however, to
infer that simply because they are designated in the Imperial

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 289

code of laws, either this or any other of the above mentioned,
are the ordinary occasions of divorce.

It is always difﬁcult to arrive at just conclusions in regard to
facts of a high degree of complexity, especially in regard to
the Chinese. But so far as we can perceive, the truth appears
to be that divorce in China is by no means so common as
might be expected by reasoning from the law just quoted.
Probably the most common cause is adultery, for the reason
that this is the crime most fatal to the existence of the family.

But it must be distinctly understood that in every case of
divorce, there is a factor to be taken into account which the
law does not even consider. This is the family of the woman,
and, as we have seen, it is a factor of great importance, and
by no means to be disregarded. It is very certain that the
family of the woman will resist any divorce which they con-
sider to be unjust or disgraceful, not merely on account of the
loss of “ face,” but for another reason even more powerful.

In China a woman cannot return to her parent’s home after
an unhappy marriage, as is often done in Western lands, oe-
oause tlzero is no provision for lzer support. Enough land is
set apart for the maintenance of the parents, and after that has
been provided for, the remainder is divided among the brothers.
No lot or portion falls to any sister. It is this which makes it
imperative that every woman should be married, that she may
have some visible means of support. After her parents are
dead, her brothers, or more certainly her brothers' wives, would
drive her from the premises, as an alien who had no business
to depend upon their family when she “belongs” to another.
Under this state of things, it is not very likely that a husband
would be allowed to divorce his wife except for a valid cause,
unless there should be some opportunity for her to “take a
step," that is, to remarry elsewhere.

Next to adultery, the most common cause of Chinese divorce
is thought to be what Western laws euphemistically term in-
compatibility, by which is meant, in this case, such constant

290 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

domestic brawls as to make life, even to a Chinese, not worth
living. It is needless to remark that when things have reached
this pitch, they must be very bad indeed. Every one of the
above cited causes for divorce evidently affords room for the
loosest construction of the facts, and if the law were left to its
own execution, with no restraint from the wife’s family, the
grossest injustice might be constantly committed. As it is,
whatever settlement is arrived at in any particular case, must
be the result of a compromise, in which the friends of the
weaker party take care to see that their rights are considered.

We have repeatedly referred to the imperative necessity that
every Chinese youth should be married. To a foreigner there
is a mixture of the ludicrous and the pathetic in the attitude
of the average parent, in regard to a marriage of a son who has
nearly reached the age of twenty and is still single. It is a
Chinese aphorism of ancient times that when sons and daugh-
ters are once married, “the great business of life has been
despatched." Chinese parents look upon the marriage of their
sons just as Western parents look upon the matter of taking
young boys out of their early dresses and putting them into
trousers. The serious part of life cannot be begun until this
is done, and to delay it is ridiculous and irrational.

There is a sentiment of false modesty which forbids the per-
sons most interested in a marriage, even to refer to it. It is
often impossible for any one but the mother to hint to a girl
that it is time she were betrothed, an announcement which is
naturally the frequent occasion for stormy scenes.

A Chinese teacher well known to the writer, having gradu-
ated from a missionary college at the age of twenty-three, re-
membered that he was not betrothed. When matters had been
arranged without his appearing to be aware of the fact (al-
though, he was consulted at each step) it became necessary to
visit his home to arrange with his parents the time of the mar-
riage. But the sensitive young man refused to go on this
errand himself, and posted off a “ yard uncle," urging as a

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 29!

more than sufﬁcient reason: “ How could I speak to my father
and mother about such a thing as that P "

Since this paragraph was written a Chinese friend called on
the writer with an air of pleased embarrassment about “ a little
matter ” which seemed to interest him. He is more than forty
years of age, and had never been married. He has two broth-
ers, all three sharing in common a property amounting to less
than two English acres. This brother had been at home for
some months, during which there was no mention of matri-
mony, nor any thought of it. Having left home for a few
weeks, before the time was nearly expired the elder brother
posted off a special messenger to a distance of more than goo 1i
to mention to him the fact that he had suddenly arranged a be-
trothal for this forty years old bachelor, to a girl of seventeen,
whose friends were now pressing for an immediate execution of
the contract. The interview closed with the expression of an
earnest wish on the part of the Chinese that his foreign friend
would see his way clear to “ a loan " of twenty strings of cash
for the bride’s outﬁt, the bridegroom having no independent
property whatever, and no income. The comment of ninety—
nine out of an hundred Chinese on this match, or on any other
in similar circumstances would be compendiously condensed in
the single word “1140,” meaning when fully explicated, “It is
well; this is what certainly ought to be done now.” Questions
of expense appear to them as irrelevant as they would to us if
the matter was the burial of a parent.

Chinese parents are never willing to run the risk of having
the marriage of any of their children, especially the sons, post-
poned until after the death of their parents. They often feel
uncertain whether the children already married will be willing
to make the proper provision for the event, or indeed that they
will let it take place at all. Affairs of this sort involve the
partition of the land, with a portion to each married son, and
it is not in human nature to wish to multiply the sharers in a
property which is too often at the best wholly inadequate. For

29: VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

this cause, every prudent parent wishes to see this “ main busi-
ness of life,” put through while he is able to superintend the
details.

The inexorable necessity for the marriage of sons is not sus-
pended by the fact that the child is wholly unsuited for a real
marriage, or indeed incapable of it. Cases constantly occur,
in which a boy who is a hopeless and helpless cripple is mar-
ried to a girl, whose family only assent to the arrangement, be-
cause of the advantageous terms which are offered. Children
who are subject to epileptic or other forms of ﬁts, those who
are more or less insane, and even those who are wholly idiotic,
all may have, and do have, wives, pr0vided only that the fam-
ilies of the boys were in good circumstances. The inevitable
result of this violation of the laws of nature, is an inﬁnity of
suffering for the girls whose lives are thus wrecked, and the ev-
olution of a wealth of scandal.

There is another feature of Chinese married life, to which
little attention seems to have been paid by foreigners, but
which is well worth investigation. It is the kidnapping of le-
gally married wives. The method by which this may be ac-
complished, and the difﬁculty of tracking those who do it,
may be illustrated by the following case, with the principal
parties in which, the father and father-in-law of the bride, the
writer is acquainted, having been present at the wedding in
December, 1881. ,

The bride herself, was, as so often, a mere child. On her
frequent visits to her native village, which local custom allows,
the bride did not spend much of her time at her own home,
where she was probably not made very welcome by her step-
mother, but went instead to her grandmother's, who was old,
half blind, and ill supplied with bedding. In a neighbouring
yard lived a cousin of the girl, who was a “ salt inspector,”
that is, one whose duty is to seize dealers in smuggled salt.
His wife was the daughter of a widow, who was reported to
be herself a dealer in smuggled salt, of course with the conniv-

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 293

ance of her son-in-law. This couple were said to have been
married without the intervention of go-betweens, and hence
the most ﬂagitious conduct was to be expected from them.
The girl got into the habit, whenever she visited her village, of
going to the house of this cousin, and not to that of her father.
The cousin was absent much of the time, on his business in
connection with the suppression (or the sale) of smuggled salt.
Upon one occasion, after a ten days’ visit to her native village
she returned to the home of her husband (also a mere child),
where she stayed ﬁve days, and then went again to her own
village. A younger sister-in—law, sixteen years of age, went
with her two-thirds of the way, at which point the bride sent
her escort back and proceeded alone. Some days after this
the own sister of the bride met the father-in-law at a fair, and
inquired why the bride did not return to her own village as
agreed. Her absence from both homes was thus for the ﬁrst
time discovered. The steps taken to follow her are an excel-
lent illustration of certain phases of Chinese life. It is almost
impossible in China for any one to do anything so secretly that
some other persons do not know of it, and in an affair so se-
rious as the disappearance outright of a young bride, the
chances of successful concealment would seem to be very
slight.

The father-in-law of the girl went to the village where she
had lived, and learned that upon the occasion of her home
visits the child had been allowed to go where she pleased, and
that once after coming in from her cousin’s, she had been
heard to remark that she herself was worth as much as ﬁve
ounces of silver. It was also reported that the wife of the
cousin had been observed waiting for the missing girl, on the
night she was last seen at the time when she dismissed the sis-

/ ter-in—law who had accompanied her. This was all the clue
that could be got.

The father-in-law now presented a petition to the District
Magistrate, reciting the facts and accusing the girl’s father, and

294 VILLAGE LIFE IN GﬂNA

others. This was followed by counter accusations from the
father, the cousin, and his mother-in-law. The ofﬁcial reply
to the complaint was an order to the local constable to ﬁnd th:
girl. The constable was a wholly incompetent person, and
could not have found her if he had tried. A second petition
to the Magistrate was followed by the same reply. This signi-
ﬁed that there was no hope from that ofﬁcial, who took no in-
terest in the matter.

After these repeated failures of justice, the poor father-in-law
resolved to make one more trial, a desperate expedient, but the
only one which was left. He seized the occasion of the pass-
ing of the District ofﬁcial through that village, to kneel in front
of the sedan-chair and proclaim his grievance. The Magis-
trate merely repeated what had been said in court, that he knew
nothing about the matter 3 that it was not his business to ﬁnd
the cattle of those who might lose them, neither was it his
function to recover daughters-in—law. He also expressed the
opinion that the father-in-law was lacking in proof of his case,
and was falsely accusing parties who were innocent, and then
ordered his chair to proceed.

The only remaining hope of tracing the missing person was
to follow up chance clues. In such a case, no one will give any
information whatever, no matter what he may know, for the
reason that the possible effect may be to drag him as witness
into a fearful lawsuit, which is only one step removed from be-
ing the principal victim oneself. This is so universal ‘a deter-
rent in a quest of this sort as almost to bar all progress. Those
who were interested in this particular case were led to recall an!
other, which occurred many years before in a village immedi-
ately contiguous, where the wife of a man who was working for
some one else was taken off (of course with her consent) while
he was absent. In this instance, although the husband was
able to ascertain to what village she had been taken, yet as it
was a large one he could never get any further trace of her,
and she died there. The writer is personally acquainted with

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 295

two families in which such occurrences have taken place, and
with a third, the wife in which, when living with her ﬁrst hus-
band who divorced her, was to have been kidnapped, if the
plan could have been carried out.

It is of course impossible to form any correct idea as to the
extent to which the kidnapping of married women is carried in
China, but there are a few little windows through which glimp-
ses may be had of regions beyond our ordinary vision. Such
glimpses may be frequently gained from accounts published in
Chinese native newspapers, in which such accounts often form
a staple t0pic. In the absence of any acquaintance with the
wider interests of the empire, these piquant personalities seem
to many Chinese very entertaining, as items of a similar sort
do to certain readers in Western lands. Such gossip is col-
lected at the yaméns, where many of the cases reported have
already reached the stage of a prosecution, and others are quietly
adjusted by “ peace-talkers." Similar information may also be
obtained from occasional memorials printed in the Peking Ga-
zette. It not seldom happens that these kidnapping cases lead
to murder, and perhaps to wholesale ﬁghting, ending in many
deaths, which render it necessary for a Governor to report the
facts and proceedings to Peking. From data of this sort one
would infer that, as the proverb says, “ The crow is everywhere
equally black."

We have spoken of the sale of girls by their parents, and
have now to refer to the more or less common cases of the sale
of wives by their husbands. This is generally due to the press
of poverty, and the writer is acquainted with a Chinese who,
being deeply in debt, was thrown into prison from which he
found deliverance hopeless. He accordingly sent word to his
relatives to have his wife sold, which was done, and with the
proceeds the man was able to buy his escape. The frequency
of such sales may be said to bear a direct ratio to the price of
grain.

There is another method of selling wives, with which the

296 VILLAGE LIFE IN U-IINA

Chinese are acquainted, which can be adopted whenever the
pressure of life at home becomes too hard to be borne. The
husband and wife then start off on a begging expedition toward
a region in which the crops have been good. Ina bad year,
there are thousands of such persons roaming about the country,
picking up a scanty subsistence wherever they can. The man
who wishes to sell his wife represents her as his sister, and de-
clares that they are forced by hunger to part company. He
reluctantly makes up his mind to sell her to some one who is in
need of a wife, and who can get one more cheaply by this proc-
ess than by any other. To this arrangement the woman tear-
fully assents, the money is paid to her “ brother,” and he de-
parts, to be seen no more. After a few days or a few weeks in
her new home, the newly married “sister” contrives to steal
out in the evening with all of her own clothes and as many
more as she can collect, and rejoins her “ brother,” setting out
with him for “ fresh woods and pastures new.” With that
keen instinct for analogy which characterizes the Chinese, they
have invented for this proceeding the name of “ falconing with
a woman,” likening it to the sport of a man who places his
hawk on his wrist, and releases it when he sees game in sight,
only that the bird may speedily return. It is a popular prov-
erb, that “ playing the falcon with a woman ” implies a plot in
which two persons are concerned.

An inquirer is told that in some districts this practice of
“ falconing ” is exceedingly common, for the supply of gullible
persons who hope to buy a wife at a cheaper rate than usual
never fails.

The Chinese ridicule any one who seems to be infatuated
with a bargain in which a woman is concerned, but it is not
improbable that under similar circumstances they themselves
would do the same. An old fellow living in the same village
as the writer bought a woman under what he considered excep-
tionally proﬁtable conditions, and lest she should escape, he
anchored her in the yard fastened to a peg likea donkey. Hi

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 297

neighbours laughed at him, and he at them, until the woman
suddenly disappeared, an event which reduced him to a more
sober view of the “ ﬁve relations.”

Chinese public sentiment is altogether on the right side of
this question, but Chinese practice is not under the guidance of
sentiment of any kind. It is proverbial that a judicious man
will never marry a woman who has a living husband, for the
sufﬁcient reason that he never can foresee the consequences,
which are often serious. But the instinct of trying to cheat
Fate is in all Chinese most vigorous. “ Cheaper than an
animal,” was the self-complacent comment of a Chinese friend
of the writer’s in regard to his own second marriage where he
had paid no money for his wife, but only an allowance for out-
ﬁt. But when the elder sister-in-law had been heard from,
this same individual was dissolved in tears for many moons,
since his future peace seemed to have been wrecked.

It is a natural sequence to the Chinese doctrine of the neces-
sity of having male children that, in case this becomes un-
likely, a secondary wife, or concubine, should be taken, with
that end in view. As a matter of fact this practice is conﬁned
‘ to a comparatively small number of families, mainly those in
fairly good circumstances, for no others could afford the ex-
pense. The evils of this expedient are well recognized, and it
is fortunate for Chinese society that resort is not had to it on a
much greater scale than appears to be the case. The practical
turn of the Chinese mind has suggested to them a much simpler
method of arriving at the intended results, by a much less ob-
jectionable method. This is the well-known adoption of chil-
dren from collateral branches of the family, already mentioned,
so as to keep the line of succession intact, and prevent the ex-
tinction of any particular branch.

It not infrequently happens that the son in a family dies be-
fore he is married, and that it is desirable to adopt, not a son,
but a grandson. There is however, to the Chinese, a kind of
paradox in adopting a grandson, when the son has not been

298 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

married. To remedy this defect after the boy had died un-
married would, to the practical Occidental, appear impossible,
but it is not so to the sentimental Chinese. To meet this exi-
gency they have invented the practice of marrying [he dead,
which is certainly among the most singular of the many singu-
lar performances to be met with in China.

In order to keep the line of succession unbroken, it is thought
desirable that each generation should have its proper represent-
atives, whether they really were or were not links in the chain.
It is only in families where there is some considerable property
that this question is likely to arise. Where it does arise, and
where a lad has died for whom it is thought desirable to take a
post-mortem wife, the family cast about to hear of some young
girl who has also died recently. A proposition is then made,
by the usual intermediaries, for the union of these two corpses
in the bonds of matrimony ! It is probably only poor families
to which such a proposition in regard to their daughter would
be made ; to no others would it be any object. If it is ac-
cepted, there is a combination of a wedding and a funeral, in
the process of which the deceased “ bride ” will be taken by a
large number of bearers to the cemetery of the other family,
and laid beside her “ husband ” l The newly adopted grand—
son worships the corpse of his “ mother,” and the other cere-
monies proceed in the usual way.

The writer was personally acquainted with a Chinese girl
who after her death was thus “ married ” to a dead boy in an-
other village. Upon being questioned in regard to the matter,
her father admitted that it was not an entirely rational proce-
dure, but remarked that the girl’s mother was in favour of ac-
cepting the offer. The real motive in this case was undoubtedly
a desire to have a showy funeral at the expense of another family,
for a child who was totally blind, and whose own parents were
too poor at her death to do more than wrap her body in a mat.

The practice of marrying one dead person to another is very
far from uncommon to China. Its ultimate root is found in the

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 299

famous dictum of Mencius, that of the three lines of unﬁlial
conduct the chief is to leave no posterity. This utterance is
one upon which the whole domestic life of the Chinese seems
to have rested for ages. It is for this reason that those Chinese
who have not yet married are accounted as of no importance.
When they die, they are, if children, “thrown out ” either
literally or ﬁguratively, and are not allowed a place in the
family graveyards. These belong exclusively to those who are
mated, and occasional bachelors must expect no welcome
there. The same principle seems to be applicable to those
who have died, and whose wives have remarried. It is for
such cases that the strange plan of marrying a living woman to
a dead husband has been invented. The motive on the part
of the woman could be only that of saving herself from starva-
tion, a fate which often hangs imminent over poor Chinese
widows who do not remarry. The motive on the part of the
family of the deceased husband is to make the ancestral graves
complete. If the family of the deceased is not moderately well
off, they would not go to the expense and trouble of bringing
in a wife for a dead husband. But if she were well off, the
widow would probably not have remarried. It thus appears
the marriage of a living woman to a dead man is likely to
be conﬁned to cases where the family being poor, the widow
remarried, but where the family circumstances having subse
quently materially improved, it became an objet‘z :3 mange an
already explained to ﬁll the threatened graveyard gap.

It is perhaps for this reason that cases of such marriage ap
pear to be relatively rare, so rare indeed, that many even intel-
ligent and educated Chinese have never heard of them at all,
and perhaps stoutly deny their existence. Sufﬁcient inquiry,
however, may not improbably develop here and there speciﬁc
cases of conformity to this custom, so repellent to our thought,
but to the Chinese natural and rational.

As already mentioned, in cases where it has been decided to
adopt a son, and where there are no suitable candidates within

300 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

the family circle, a lad may be taken from a different family,
sometimes related, sometimes connected, sometimes neither re-
lated nor connected, and sometimes he may even be a total
stranger merely “ picked up.” The result of this latter prac-
tice especially is often very disappointing and painful for the
couple who have gone to so much trouble to ﬁnd an heir, and
who too often discover that they have spent' their strength
in vain, and that ﬁlial piety is not a commodity to be had for
the asking.

But whatever its attendant evils, which are undoubtedly
many and great, the Chinese plan of adoption is always in-
comparably preferable to that of bringing into the yard a
“little wife.” It is by no means singular that the Chinese
have given to the relations between the real wife and the sup-
plementary one, the signiﬁcant name of “sipping vinegar.”

We happen to have been personally acquainted with several
families in which a concubine had been introduced. In two
of them, the secondary wives had been bought because they
were to be had at a cheap rate in a year of famine. One of
these poor creatures came one day running into the yard of a
Chinese family with whom the writer was living, screaming and
dishevelled, as the result of “vinegar sipping." The man
who had taken her openly reviled his mother in the most
shameless way, upon her remonstrance at the act.

In a second instance, a man past middle-life thought by this
means to make sure of a son, but was greatly disappointed in
the result. He was in the habit of inviting elderly Chinese
women of his acquaintance to go to his house, and “exhort”
his wives to stop “sipping vinegar," a labour which was at-
tended with very negative results. When he died, the last
wife was driven out to return to her relatives, although for a
country villager her husband was reputed to be a fairly rich
man. In cases where the concubine has a son, in the event of
her husband’s death, if affairs are properly managed, she has
a portion of land set apart for her like any other wife.

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 30!

In a third case a neighbour of the writer, a man in middle-
life, had a wife about forty years of age, two others having
died, one of them leaving a daughter now twenty years of age.
The father was absent from home much of the time, engaged
in business in Peking. With Chinese thus situated, it often
appears to be a particularly happy solution of a difﬁculty to
have two wives, the legal wife at home, and the “ small one ”
at the place where the husband spends most of his time. When
the man returned to his home, he brought this secondary wife
with him, an act very well adapted to promote “vinegar sip-
ping." This additional wife was a mere child much younger
than the daughter of her husband.

At the next New Year it was reported that the man would
not allow his proper wife to go to the ancestral graves, but in-
sisted upon taking his young concubine to do the sacriﬁcing.
Other injurious reports, true or false, were circulated in regard
to his behaviour toward his proper wife, and his intentions in the
future to abandon or divorce her, and these soon reached the
village of which she was a native. The result was a deputa-
tion of a considerable number of elderly men from that village
to the one in which the husband lived. This deputation insti-
tuted proceedings by summoning the head of the husband’s
clan to meet them. But a large number of young men from
that same village, having heard of the affair, could not wait
for the elders to adjust the matter by slow Chinese diplomacy,
but came in a body to the house of the husband, and without
any ceremony made an attack upon it, breaking down the
barred door and throwing themselves with violence upon the
defenceless husband.

The attacking party had armed themselves with awls, but
not, according to their own account, with knives. It was late
at night when the onslaught was made, and it was impossible
to distinguish friend from foe. The husband was at once over«
powered, and was subsequently found to have seventeen awl-
stabs on his chest, and two savage knife-cuts on his back, pene.

3oz VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

trating to the lungs. It was alleged by the attacking party
that the latter wounds must have been made by some of the
- man‘s immediate neighbours who were personal enemies, and
who, hearing the outcry, rushed in only to ﬁnd that their
enemy was defenceless and open to their attack (which could
not be proved against them), a circumstance of which they
took care to avail themselves. The attacking party having
thus placed themselves in the wrong, were obliged, upon being
prosecuted at law, to get an inﬂuential company of intermedi—
aries to help them out-of the difﬁculty. This was at last ac-
complished according to the usual Chinese method—a great
deal of head knocking and a great many feasts for the injured
party.

Notwithstanding such instructive object-lessons as these,
with which all parts of China must to a greater or less extent
abound, many of those who think that they can afford to do so
continue to repeat the experiment, although the adage says: “ If
your wife is against it, do not take a concubine.” If this ad-
vice were to be adopted, it is not improbable that the practice
of concubinage in China would become practically extinct.

A traveller through China often notices in the villages along
his route that in the early morning most of the men seem to be
assembled by the roadside, each one squatting in front of his
own door, all busily engaged in shovelling in their food with
chopsticks (appropriately called “ nimble-sons ”), chatting
meantime during the brief intervals with the neighbour near—
est. That the entire family should sit down to a table, eating
together and waiting for one another, after the manner of the
inhabitants of Western lands, is an idea so foreign to the ordi-
nary Chinese mind as to be almost incomprehensible.

This Chinese (and Oriental) habit is at once typical and sug-
gestive. It marks a wholly different conception of the family,
and of the position of woman therein, from that to which we
are accustomed. It indicates the view that while man is yang,
the male, ruling, and chief element in the universe, woman is

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 303

yin, “dull, female, inferior.” The conception of woman as
man’s companion is in China almost totally lacking, for woman
is not the companion of man, and with society on its present
terms she never can be. A new bride introduced into a family
has visible relations with no one less than with her “ husband.”
He would be ashamed to be seen talking with her, and in
general they seem in that line to have very little to be ashamed
of. In those unique instances in which the young couple have
the good sense to get acquainted with each other, and present
the appearance of actually exchanging ideas, this circum-
stance is the joke of the whole family circle, and an insoluble
enigma to all its members. We have heard of cases in which
members of a family where there was a newly married
couple, kept a string in which was tied a knot, every time
that they were heard to speak to one another. This cord
would be subsequently exhibited to them in ridicule of their
intimacy !

A Chinese bride has no rational prospect of happiness in her
new home, though she may be well dressed, well fed, and per-
haps not abused. She must expect chronic repression through
the long years during which she is for a time in fact, and in
theory always, a “child." Such rigorous discipline may be
necessary to ﬁt her for the duties of her position, when she shall
have become herself a mother-in-law, and at the head of a
company of daughters-in-law, but it is a hard necessity. That
there are sometimes genuine attachments between mothers-in-
law and daughters-in-law it would be a mistake to deny, for in
such rare cases human nature shows its power of rising superior
to the conventional trammels in which it ﬁnds itself by iron
customs bound.

To defend herself against the fearful odds which are often
pitted against her, a Chinese wife has but two resources. One
of them is her mother’s family, which, as we have seen, has no
real power, and is too often to be compared to the stern light
of a ship, of no service for protection in advance, and only

304 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

throwing a lurid glare on the course which has been passed
over, but which cannot be retraced.

The other means of defence which a Chinese wife has at her
command is—herself. If she is gifted with a ﬂuent tongue,
especially if it is backed by some of that hard common sense
which so many Chinese exhibit, it must be a very peculiar
household in which she does not hold her own. Real ability
will assert itself, and such light as a Chinese woman possesses
will assuredly permeate every corner of the domestic bushel
under which it is of necessity hidden. If a Chinese wife has
a violent temper, if she is able at a moment’s notice to raise a
tornado about next to nothing, and to keep it for an indeﬁnite
period blowing at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, the po-
sition of such a woman is almost certainly secure. The most
termagant of mothers-in-law hesitates to attack a daughter-in-
law who has no fear of men or of demons, and who is fully
equal to any emergency. A Chinese woman in a fury is a
spectacle by no means uncommon. But during the time of the
most violent paroxysms of fury, Vesuvius itself is not more un—
manageable by man.

If a Chinese husband happens to be a person of a quiet
habit, with no taste for tumults, he may possibly ﬁnd himself
yoked to a Xantippe who never for an instant relaxes the reins
of her dominion. In such cases the prudent man will be glad
'to purchase “ peace at any price,” and whatever the theory
may be, the woman rules. Such instances are by no means in-
frequent. This is witnessed as well by what one sees and hears
in Chinese society as well as by the many sayings which refer
to the “man-who-fears-what-is-inside,” that is, the “hen-
pecked man.” Although it is an accepted adage that

“ A genuine cat will slay a mouse,
A genuine man will rule his house,”

yet there are numerous references to the punishment of “ kneel-
ing-by-the—bedside-holding-a-lamp~on—the-head,” which is the

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 305

penalty exacted by the regnant wife from her disobedient hus-
band.

If a Chinese woman has the heaven-bestowed gift of being
obstreperous to such a degree that, as the sayings go, “ people
do not know east from west ” 5 that “men are worn out and
horses exhausted ” ; that “ the mountains tremble and the earth
shakes,” this is unquestionably her surest life-preserver. It is
analagous to the South American toucan, which is said to
frighten away enemies by the mere exhibition of itself, they not
caring to wait for further and detailed proofs of its capacities of
execution. But if such an endowment has been denied her,
her next best resource is to pursue a course exactly the op-
posite, in all circumstances and under all provocations holding
Izer tongue. To most Chinese women, this seems to be a feat
asdiﬂﬁcult as aerial navigation, but now and then an isolated
case shows that the difﬁcult is not always the impossible.

The present position of woman in China is a heritage of the
remote past, as is illustrated by the most ancient Chinese litera-
ture, an example of which heads the present chapter. The
instructions and the prohibitions in the Book of Rites, one of
the oldest and most venerated classical works, embody funda-
mental principles which have always governed the Chinese in
their treatment of women. The essence of the Chinese clas~
sical teaching on this subject is, that woman is as inferior to man
as the earth is inferior to heaven; and that she can never at-
tain to full equality with man.

According to Chinese philosophy death and evil have their
origin in the Yin, or female principle of Chinese dualism, while
life and prosperity come from the subjection of it to the Yang,
or male principle; hence it is regarded as a law of nature to
keep woman completely under the power of man, and to allow
her no will of her own. The result of this theory and the cor-
responding practice is that the ideal for women is not develop-
ment and cultivation, but submission. Women can have no
happiness of their own, but must live and work for men, the

I

306 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

only practical escape from this degradation being found in be-
coming the mother of a son. Woman is bound by the same
laws of existence in the other world. She belongs to the same
husband, and is dependent for her happiness on the sacriﬁces
offered by her descendants.‘

It is occasionally objected that to attribute the evils attending
the lot of woman in China to the moral system which has
molded and preserved that empire, is as inaccurate as it would
be to hold Christianity responsible for all the moral evils found
in Christian lands. Between the two cases there is, however,
this fundamental difference. Every moral evil has from the
beginning been antagonized by Christianity. Those evils that
still ﬂourish do so in spite of it, and against its unceasing
efforts and incessant protest. Christianity acting upon the
relatively lofty conception of woman, held by the Teutonic
races, has gradually brought about that elevation of the sex
which we now witness in full development. The theory of
Confucianism, on the other hand, is both erroneous and defect-
ive. It is therefore no exaggeration to charge a large part of
the evils from which Chinese women suffer to this efﬁcient
cause. It is moreover highly important to remember that
neither for evils arising from wrong moral teaching nor for
others, has Chinese ethics ever furnished either preventive or
remedy.

We must, therefore, regard the position of women in China,
as the ultimate outcome and a most characteristic fruitage of
Confucianism. In our view it has been a bitter fruit, and in
recapitulation we would lay emphasis upon seven deadly sins in
the relation of that system to woman.

I. Viewed from a purely Chinese point of view there is no
inherent objection to the education of Chinese women. In
one of the huge Chinese encyclopedias, out of 1,628 books,

1See a small pamphlet on “ The Status of Woman in China,” by Dr.
Ernst Faber, Shanghai, 1889, containing many illustrative classical cita-
tions.

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 307

376 are devoted to famous women, and of these four chapters
treat of female knowledge, and seven others of the literary pro-
ductions of women, works which have been numerous and in-
ﬂuential. But as compared with the inconceivable numbers of
Chinese women in the past, these exceptional cases are but iso-
lated twinkles in vast interstellar spaces of dense darkness.
Yet in view of the coming regeneration of China, their value
as historical precedents to antiquity loving Chinese 15 beyond
estimation. 1

Rare and unimportant exceptions aside, Chinese women are
provided with no education. Their minds are left in a state of
nature, until millions of them are led to suppose that they have
no minds at all, an opinion which their fathers, husbands and
brothers often do much to conﬁrm, and upon which they then
habitually act.

II. The sale of wives and daughters. This comes about
so naturally, and it might almost be said so inevitably, when
certain conditions prevail, that it is taken by the Chinese as a
matter of course. Except in years of famine it appears in
some parts of the empire to be rare, but in other parts it is the
constant and the normal state of things for daughters to be
as really sold as are horses and cattle.

There are sections of northern China in which it is not un-
common for a man who has contracted debts which he cannot
otherwise pay, to part with a daughter as a last resort. But
there are other districts where the practice cannot be excep-
tional, as is evident from the great number of girls who, one is
told, have been procured from this region. If the Chinese
themselves are questioned about the matter, the fact is always
admitted, the custom is reprobated, but the universally conclu-
sive inquiry is propounded: “ What he]; is there for it? ”

i For ample illustration of this subject see Dr. Ernst Faber’s “ The
Famous Women of China,” Shanghai, 1890, and “ Typical Women of
China, ” by the late Miss A. C. Saftord, an abridged translation of a
famous and authoritative Chinese work.

308 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

In the present condition of the empire this interrogatory is un-
answerable.

III. Too early and too universal marriages. A consider-
able part of the unhappiness caused by Chinese marriages may
fairly be charged to the immaturity of the victims. To treat
children as if they were adults, while at the same time treating
them as children who require the same watch- and ward as
other children, does not appear to be a rational procedure, nor
can it be claimed that it is justiﬁed by its results. That a new
pair constitute a distinct entity to be dealt with independently,
is a proposition which Confucianism treats with scorn, if indeed
it ever entertains such a conception at all. The compulsory
marriage of all girls forces all Chinese society into cast-iron
grooves, and leaves no room for exceptional individual devel-
opment. It throws suspicion around every isolated struggle
against this galling bondage, and makes the unmarried woman
seem a personiﬁed violation of the decrees of heaven and of
the laws of man.

IV. Infanticide of female infants. This is a direct, if not
a legitimate result of the tenet that male children are absolutely
indispensable, applied in a social system where dire poverty is
the rule, and where an additional mouth frequently means im-
pending starvation. In a chapter in her “ Pagoda Shadows,”
on “ The Extent of a Great Crime,” Miss F ielde combines a
great variety of testimony taken from several different pr0v-
inces, in the following paragraph. “I ﬁnd that 160 Chinese
women, all over ﬁfty years of age, had borne 631 sons, and
538 daughters. Of the sons, 366, or nearly sixty per cent.,
had lived more than ten years; while of the daughters only
205, or thirty-eight per cent., had lived ten years. The 160
women, according to their own statements, had destroyed 158
of their daughters; but none had ever destroyed a boy. As
only four women had reared more than three girls, the proba-
bility is that the number of infanticides confessed to is consid-
erably below the truth. I have occasionally been told by a

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 309

woman that she had forgotten just how many girls she had had,
more than she wanted. The greatest number of infanticides
owned to by any one woman is eleven."

Infanticide will never cease in China, until the notion that
the dead are dependent for their happiness upon sacriﬁces of-
fered to them by the living shall have been totally overthrown.

V. Secondary wives. Concubinage is the natural result of
the Confucian theory of ancestral worship. The misery which
it has caused and still causes in China is beyond comprehen-
sion. Nothing can uproot it but a decay of faith in the as-
sumption underlying all forms of worship of the dead.

VI. Suicides of wives and daughters. The preceding
causes, operating singly and in combination, are wholly sufﬁ—
cient to account for the number of suicides among Chinese
women. The wonder rather is that there are not more. But
whoever undertakes to collect facts on this subject for any given
district will not improbably be greatly surprised at the extraor-
dinary prevalence of this practice. It is even adopted by chil-
dren, and for causes relatively triﬂing. At times it appears to
spread, like the smallpox, and the thirst for suicide becomes
virtually an epidemic. As already mentioned, according to
the native newspapers, there are parts of China in which young
girls band themselves into a secret league to commit suicide
within a certain time after they have been betrothed or mar-
ried. The wretchedness of the lives to which they are con-
demned is thoroughly appreciated in advance, and fate is thus
effectually checkmated. It would be wrong to overstate the
evils suffered by woman in China, evils which have indeed
many alleviations, and which are not to be compared to those
of her sisters in India or in Turkey. But after all abatements
have been made, it remains true that the death-roll of suicides
is the most convincing proof of the woes endured by Chinese
women.

VII. Overpopulation. The whole Chinese race is and al-
Ways has been given up with a single devotion to the task of

310 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHWA

raising up a posterity, to do for the fathers what the fathers
have done for the grandfathers. In this particular line, they
have realized Wesley's conception of the ideal church in its
line, where, as he remarked, the members are “All at it, and
always at it.” War, famine, pestilence sweep off millions of
the population, but a few decades of peace seem to repair the
ravages of the past, which are lost to sight, like battleﬁelds
covered with wide areas of waving grain.

However much we may admire the recuperative power of the
Chinese people as a whole and individually, it is difﬁcult not to
feel righteous indignation toward a system which violates those
beneﬁcent laws of nature which would mercifully put an end
to many branches of families when such branches are unﬁtted
to survive. It is impossible to contemplate with equanimity
the deliberate, persistent, and uniform propagation of poverty,
vice, disease and crime, which ought rather to be surrounded
with every restriction to prevent its multiplication, and to see
this propagation of evil and misery done, too, with an air of
virtue, as if this were of itself a kind of religion, often indeed
the only form of religion in which the Chinese take any vital
interest.

It is this system which loads down the rising generation with
the responsibility for feeding and clothing tens of thousands of
human beings who ought never to have been born, and whose
existence can never be other than a burden to themselves, a
period of incessant struggle without respite and without hope.

To the intelligent foreigner, the most prominent fact in
China is the poverty of its people. There are too many vil—
lages to the square mile, too many families to the village, too
many “ mouths ” to the family. Wherever one goes, it is the
same weary tale with interminable reiteration. Poverty, pov-
erty, p0verty, always and evermore poverty. The empire is
broad, its unoccupied regions are extensive, and its undevel-
oped resources undoubtedly vast. But in what way can these
resources be so developed as to beneﬁt the great mass of the

 

 

ONE OF CHINA’S PARASITES—A BEGGAR. ONE OF HER SOURCES OF STRENGTH—A CARPENTER.

 

CHINESE COUNTRY GIRLS AND WOMEN 3!:

Chinese people? By none, with which we are acquainted, or
of which we can conceive, without a radical disturbance of the
existing conditions. The seething mass of over-population
must be drawn off to the regions where it is needed, and then
only will there be room for the relief of those who remain.

It is impossible to do anything for people who are wedged
together after the manner of matches in a box. Imagine a
surgeon making the attempt to set the broken leg of a man in
an omnibus in motion, which at the time contained twenty
other people, most of whom also had broken legs which like-
wise require setting !- The ﬁrst thing to do would be to get
them all unloaded, and to put them where they could be prop-
erly treated, with room for the treatment, and space for breath—
ing. It is, we repeat, not easy to perceive how even the most
advanced political economy can do anything of permanent
beneﬁt for the great mass of the Chinese without a redistribu-
tion of the surplus population. But at this point practical
Confucianism intervenes, and having induced the begetting of
this swarm of human beings, it declares that they must not
abandon the graves of their ancestors, who require their sacri—
ﬁces, but must in the same spot continue to propagate their
posterity to continue the interminable process.

The world is still large, and it has, and for ages will doubt-
less continue to have, ample room for all the additional million;.
which its existing millions can produce. The world was never
so much in need of the Chinese as to-day, and never, on the
other hand, were the Chinese more in need of the world. But
if China is to hold its own, much more if it is to advance as
other nations have advanced and do advance, it must be done
under the lead of new forces. Confucianism has been a mighty
power to build up, and to conserve. But Confucianism with
its great merits has committed many “Deadly Sins," and of
those sins it must ultimately suffer the penalty. Confucianism
as a developing force is a force, which is spent. Sooner or later
it must give way to something stronger, wiser, and better.

XXIV
THE MONOTONY AND VACUITY OF VILLAGE LIFE

IT is difﬁcult to project ourselves backward to the times of our

great-grandfathers when mails were carried/ on horseback,
the postman leisurely knitting stockings as he rode. Yet how-
ever slow, measured by modern standards, the rural life of a
century and more ago, it was a varied life, ultimately anastomos-
ing with the great currents of the age. The rate of progress
of thought has no necessary correlation to the versatility or the
virility of mental processes. Our ancestors may perhaps have
been peasants, but they were an integral part of the land in
which they dwelt, and they rose and fell with the national tides
of life like boats in a harbor.

A Chinese village is physically and intellectually a ﬁxture.
Could one gaze backward through a vista of ﬁve hundred years
at the panorama which that vast stretch of modern history
would present, he would probably see little more and little less

thanhe sees to-day. The buildings now standing are not in-
deed ﬁve hundred years old, but they are just such houses as
half a millennium ago occupied the same sites, “similar and
similarly situated.” Some families that then lived in adobe
dwellings now ﬂourish under roofs of tile in houses of brick.
Other families have become extinct. Now and then a new one
may have appeared, but this is irregular and exceptional.
Those who now subsist in this collection of earth-built abodes
are the lineal descendants of those who lived there when Co-
lumbus discovered America. The descendants are doing just
what their ancestors did, no more, no less, no other. They
cultivate the same ﬁelds in the same way (albeit a few of the
crops are modern) ; they go to the same markets in the same
invariable order; buy, sell, and wear the same articles; marry
and are given in marriage according to the same pattern.

312

THE MONOTONY AND VACUITY OF VILLAGE LIFE 313

It was a shrewd suggestion of a philosopher that if we wish
to understand a people, we should note what things they take
for granted. The pre-suppositions of a Chinese villager are the
same as those of his ancestry near and remote. There is in a
Chinese village as such no intellectual life. If there happen to
be literary men living in it, they form a little clique by them-
selves, largely out of relation to their neighbours, and likewise
to most of their own families. It is an ancient aphorism that
“ Scholars talk of books—butchers of pigs.” We have already
abundantly seen that the processes of Chinese education are
narrowing processes, ﬁtting the accomplished student to run
only in grooves. It is almost incredible how narrow these ruts
become. Each literary examination is a crisis at which one
either becomes a graduate or does not; in either case the re-
sult, whether appertaining to the student himself, the pupils
whom he has coached, or his own sons, is contemplated purely
as a personal and an individual matter. It is a literary lottery
upon which much has been risked, and out of which it is de-
sirable to recover if possible a prize. If that is out of the
question all interest in the literary business is at an end.

Unlike his representative in Western lands, the Chinese vil-
lage scholar is not a centre or source of illumination to others.
His life is the ideal of “subjectivity”—the quintessential es-
sence of selﬁshness. It is a venerable superstition of the Chi-
nese that though the graduate does not emerge from his own
door, he knows the affairs of all under heaven. As we have
already had occasion to point out, among the many rhetorical
exaggerations of Chinese proverbial philosophy this aphorism
may be held to take the lead. The typical scholar knows noth-
ing whatever about all-under-heaven. He has no decided
opinions one way or the other as to whether the earth is round
or ﬂat, for it is no concern of his. Neither is the current his-
tory of his own country. National affairs belong to the man—
darins who get their living by them ; what have such matters to
do with a literary man who has taken his degree ?

314 VILLAGE LIFE IN GIINA

The writer is acquainted with an ex-schoolmaster who went
into a business which often led him to a distance from home.
About a year after peace had been concluded with Japan, this
much-travelled merchant inquired during the progress of a call
if we could inform him how the war turned out, explaining
that he had heard such contradictory accounts at the capital of
his province and at Tientsin that he knew not what to believe,
and had judiciously held his mind entirely in suspense until he
had an opportunity to see his foreign friend, who might, he
thought, know for certain ! ,

Linked with this dense ignorance and more impenetrable in-
difference is a most unbounded credulity. Faith in the fang-
s/zuz', or geomancy of a district is still as ﬁrmly rooted as ever
in the minds of the leading literary men of the empire, as is
shown by memorials in the Peking Gazette calling for changes
in buildings, the erection of lucky towers, etc., because the
number of successful competitors is not greater.

A scholar who thinks it necessary to beat drums in order to
save the sun in an eclipse from the “ Dog ” which is devouring
it, receives with implicit faith the announcement that in West-
ern lands the years are a thousand days in length, with four
moons all the time. If some one who has dabbled a little in
chemistry reports to him a rudimentary experiment in which
carbonic dioxide poured down a trough extinguishes a row of
burning candles, he is at once reminded that The Master re-
fused to speak of feats of magic, and he dismisses the whole
topic with the verdict: “ Of course it was done by malign
spirits.”

In this fertile soil every kind of mischievous tale takes root
downward, and in due time bears its bitter fruit, as many for-
eigners in China know to their cost. Were it not for the cre-
dulity of the literary men in China, riots against foreigners would
seldom or never occur. It is a melancholy fact that vast num-
bers of this class, especially in the rural districts, are pro-
foundly convinced of the truth of the worst allegations made

THE MONOTONY AND VACUITY OF VILLAGE LIFE 315

against the men of the West, while still greater numbers are
absolutely indifferent to the matter unless it happens in some
way to affect themselves.

The learned and semi-intelligent vacuity of the village
scholar is more than matched by the ignorant vacuity of his
illiterate neighbours. If he happens to have travelled,
the latter has indubitably the better education of the two, for
the reason that it is based (as far as it goes) upon facts. But if
he is a typical villager he has never been anywhere to speak of,
and knows nothing in particular. His conversation is ﬁlled
with unutterable inanities till he is gathered to his fathers. In
every Chinese village one sees, except at the busiest times,
groups of men sitting in the sunshine in Winter, in the shade in
summer, on some friendly stick of timber, and clustered in the
little temples which constitute the village exchange. Even in
the depth of winter they continue to huddle together in a vain
effort to be comfortable as well as sociable, and chatter, chatter
all the day, or until it is time to go to their meals. The past,
present, and future state of the weather, the market prices,
local gossip, and especially the details of the latest lawsuit form
the warp and woof of this unending talk. What the Magis-
trate asked of Chang when he was examined, what Chang re-
plied, what Wang retaliated, as well as what the Oﬂicial had to
say to that, with interminable iterations and profuse commen-
tary furnish the most interesting and the most inexhaustible
themes for discourse.

For any ofﬁcial changes unless it be that of his own District
Magistrate the villager cares very little. At a time when it was
supposed that His Majesty Kuang Hsii had been made way
with, the writer remarked to a Chinese friend that there was
reason to fear that here was an empire without an Emperor. A
villager of the sluggish type just mentioned, who had heard
nothing of the news from Peking, inquired of what country the
observation had been made, and when the answer had been
given that it was the Central Empire, he reﬂected for a moment,

316 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

and merely replied, “ Oh ”, with the air of one who had
feared it might be worse ! Yet the rustic of this class is
shrewd in his own affairs, and by no means deﬁcient in prac-
tical intelligence. He is passionately fond of hearing story-
tellers and of witnessing plays having for their heroes the great
men of the Three Kingdoms seventeen hundred years ago, and
on occasion he might be able to tell us much about these
characters and their deeds. But modern and contemporaneous
history is out of his line, and lacks ﬂavour. It is most literally
none of his business, and he knows nor cares nothing about it.
The whole map of Asia might be reconstructed, and it would
have for him no interest whatever, provided it did not increase
his taxes nor raise the price of grain.

We have already mentioned that the villager who has been
far from home is a conspicuous exception to the general vacuity
of mind so often to be met. He has a rich and a varied ex-
perience which he is willing although not forward to relate.
But it is a striking fact that the man of this sort when he re-
turns to go abroad no more, tends speedily to relapse into the
prevailing type. He may have been in every one of the Eight—
een Provinces, or possibly in foreign lands, yet on his settling
down to his old ways he has no more curiosity to know what
is going on elsewhere, than a man who had at some time in his
life been shipwrecked would have to know what had become
of the shoals of ﬁsh with which for a time he was in fortuitous
proximity. When it is considered how vast a proportion of the
whole population live in villages, and when we contemplate in
detail the meagreness and poverty of the mental output, an im-
pressive conception is gained of the intellectual barrenness of
the Flowery Empire. The phenomena which we everywhere
see are the outward expression of inner forces which have been
at work for more than two thousand years. The longer they
are considered and the more thoroughly they are understood
the more profoundly will it be seen and felt that the “ answer
to Confucianism is China."

XXVI

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF THE CHINESE FAMILY

THE family is the unit of Chinese social life and, as we have
often had occasion to observe, the Chinese Family is a
highly complex organization, with many aspects which some-
times appear mutually contradictory. To the consideration of
one of these polyhedral faces we now turn, asking the reader to
bear well in mind that while what we have to say contains im-
portant truth, this is but one out of many points of View.

The instability of the equilibrium of the Chinese family
arises from its constitution, from its environment, and from
the relation between the two. Let us ﬁrst glance at some of
the exterior causes. In a large portion of the empire the rain-
fall is more or less uncertain, rendering famine a perpetual pos-
sibility. Within the past quarter of a century foreigners in
China have had superabundant opportunities to study the phe-
nomena of famine upon a great scale. The misery thus occa-
sioned is inconceivable, but we wish to refer only to the result-
ant disruption of families. Nothing is more common than to
ﬁnd that the father has gone to some distant region hoping to
secure a bare sustenance leaving the wife and children to shift
for themselves. This is not because he does not care for them,
nor because he desires the separation, but because there is
literally “no help for it.”

Large portions of the empire are liable to inundation, often
with little or no warning. Those who contrive to save them-
selves wander off whither they can, generally in family groups,
but not infrequently one by one.1 Children are born and

lAn extreme case of chronic misery from this cause is found in the
Hsién District of Chih-li, where there is a section wedged in between the

3‘7

318 VILLAGE LEE IN CHINA ,

children die on these haphazard journeys nowhither. The
elders die too, and sometimes a marriageable girl is disposed of
for life to some husband who could not afford the expense of an
ordinary wedding. It is proverbial that there are no cere-
monies for a second marriage, and whenever a family is broken
up, it is highly probable that all the widows will soon ﬁnd
partners, the union liable to be discontinued whenever there is
again a scarcity of food.

Political disturbances which often rise to the dignity of small
rebellions operate in the same way as famines and ﬂoods. In
any of these cases families once widely dispersed are not likely
again to recombine.

It is not in times of special stress only that families are
parted. In several of the provinces of China a considerable
proportion of the adult males earn their living at great distances
from home.

Myriads of Chinese from the northern portion of China get
such a livelihood as they can in Manchuria or elsewhere be-
yond the Great Wall, hundreds or thousands of miles from
home, to which multitudes never return. Innumerable Chinese
mothers never learn what has become of their sons, who went
away in early youth to be heard of no more. Communication
is irregular and uncertain, and uniformly untrustworthy. No
wonder the current adage declares that when the son has gone
a thousand miles the mother grieves.1 The Chinese Enoch

high artiﬁcial banks of two rivers. Every year many villages are deluged
as a matter of course, and the houses have been repeatedly destroyed.
No autumn crop can ever be raised here, but wheat is put in after the
waters have subsided. In the winter one sees many of the houses with
doors and windows plastered up, almost all the inhabitants having gone
off in droves to beg a living where they can, returning the next spring to
look after their wheat. This has become a regular practice even with
families who own ﬁfty or sixty acres of land, and who elsewhere would be
called well off.

I A case of this sort came to the writer’s notice in which a man from
Ho-nan had gathered a stock of goods amounting to more than the value

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF THE CHINESE FAMILY 319

Arden perhaps returns from an absence of possibly ten or it
may be twenty years, enters his house, throws down his bundle
and without a question or a greeting to any one, proceeds to
take a solacing smoke. He may have been away so long that
no one recognizes him, and perhaps he is taken for a tramp and
warned off. But he merely replies “ Why. should I not make
myself at home in my own house ? ” and resumes his smoking,
leaving details to be ﬁlled in later.

The equilibrium of every Chinese family is liable to be dis-
turbed by an evil which may not unlikely work more mischief
than an ordinary earthquake—to wit, a lawsuit. There is not
a day in the life of any Chinese when his peace, his prosperity,
and possibly his life may not be endangered by some complica-
tion for which he is not in any way responsible, but frOm which
escape is practically impossible. Let not the reader suppose
that most Chinese are entangled in the meshes of the law, for
this is not the case. But there is always the unavoidable lia-
bility. A moment of uncontrollable passion on the part of any
one of a score of persons, may precipitate a crisis involving the
expenditure of the greater part of one’s resources, subjection to
protracted detention in jail, to torture, to punishment of im-
measurable barbarity, and to virtual starvation in prison unless
the means of the family are drained to prevent it. Not every
lawsuit has within it such phenomena as these, but they are
everywhere potential, for no one can predict where or how any
suit will end. It is not alone the principals who suffer in cases
of this sort, for, as the current saying runs, “ When one family
has trouble none of the four neighbours are in peace.”

of ﬁfty Mexican dollars, and departed for Manchuria, nearly 1,500 miles
distant, in order to learn what had become of his sister’s son who had left
home in anger. The goods were disposed of to pay travelling expenses,
but the journey of a few months as planned, was lengthened to more than
a year. The poor man fell sick, his goods were spent, and he was many
months slowly begging his way back, and after all had learned nothing of
his nephew.

33° VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

Attention has been repeatedly called to the familiar fact that
practically no Chinese can maintain ﬁnancial independence.
To a foreigner nothing is more amazing than the reckless
manner in which a debt is contracted which subsequently
proves to have within it the fruitful seeds of ruin for the whole
family. It is vain to ask why the money was borrowed. One
might as well inquire why one is so wet who has been out all
night in a Scotch mist. Ages of experience have made the
Chinese relentless creditors, and woe to bind who owes but can—
not pay. China is full of small dealers with a limited capital,
who do well enough in ordinary years. A very small percent-
age contrives to get so far ahead as to buy land, and thus the
family is rooted to the soil. But a far larger number lose the
capital invested, are obliged to sell their little holdings to pay
their dues, and thenceforth they join the great, hopeless, land- ’
less class. A single failure of one important crop may carry
with it consequences of this kind to many small dealers. In
China the man or the family which is loaded with a debt be-
yond the recuperative power of the debtor, ﬁnds itself upon an
oiled toboggan—slide at the bottom of which is remediless ruin.

In the families of the poor there is no margin of any kind for
sickness, but sickness comes impartially to every grade of life.
When the bread-winner is laid aside, when the mother of a little
ﬂock is no longer able to keep the simple domestic machinery
in motion, then indeed trouble has arrived. If a young mar-
ried woman is sick, the ﬁrst step is to send for her mother; for
ordinarily no one in the family \into which she has married has
the time or disposition to take care of her, least of all the hus-
band, who regards himself as aggrieved by her disability, and
who is often far more inclined to expect the family of his wife
to bear all the resultant expenses, than to meet them himself.
One of the legal occasions for divorce is chronic illness, al-
though we have never heard of a single instance where formal
steps were taken for that reason. It is a current saying that
in the presence of a long continued sickness there is no ﬁlial

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF THE CHINESE FAMILY 321

son. How great the family strain often is, there are many
things to pr0ve. In the midst of it all one is sometimes agree-
ably surprised to ﬁnd an amount of tenderness and forbearance
worthy of all praise. But in the constitution of Chinese society
these exhibitions are and must be in a great minority. A man
well known to the writer in speaking of the serious symptoms
of a disease of his wife, remarked that he had asked her how
long she expected to keep up the groans called forth by the in-
tolerable agonies of terrible and incurable ulcers, and that for
his part he had offered to provide her with a rope that she
might relieve him of his inconvenience, and herself of her
miseries, though upon being remonstrated with for such an in-
human view of the case, he frankly admitted that his troubles
had made him “ stupid.” It is a signiﬁcant saying in such in-
stances that the sufferer although poor has contracted a rich
man’s malady.

The disintegrating forces which operate in the Chinese family
are more efﬁcient in the homes of the poor than of the rich, be-
cause there is less power of resistance. But there are two of
these agencies which imply a certain degree of prosperity ere
they can be fully developed, the gambling and the opium habit,
twin vices of the Chinese race. Each leads by swift and re-
lentless steps to destruction, and in each case there ensues at
last what is virtually a paralysis of the will, making amendment
impossible. Against these gigantic evils there is in Chinese so-
ciety no safeguard whatever, no preventive inﬂuences, and no
remedies. It would be easy to illustrate in terrible detail how
these forces act insidiously, universally and irresistibly. The
wonder is that the track of devastation is not even wider. They
take rank among the most destructive instrumentalities in
Chinese social life. It is very rare indeed to hear of reform from
either of these vices, when there has been no impulse imparted
from without, and it is rarer that there is any one who can and
who will impart it.

To this dark catalogue of maleﬁcent forces must be added

322 ' VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

one more, violation of social morality. To what extent this
prevails in any given place it is impossible for any Chinese-—
much less for any foreigner—to say with authority. There is
among the people, despite their loquacity—an instinct of ret-
icence in every way commendable. Little value is placed
upon infant life. The air is always full of rumors and sus-
picious whispers, so that the judicious will believe nothing of
which there is not positive evidence. The Chinese code of
morals is a lofty one, both in theory and in practice. The so-
cial arrangements are all made with a carefulness which to the
Occidental seems mere prudery, but which the accumulated ex-
perience of millenniums has convinced the Chinese to be not
only wise, but indispensable.

Yet in the conditions of everyday life it is simply impossible
that theoretical regulations should be reduced to practice. The
elderly women die, and courtyards are left from sheer neces-
sity in a condition to invite catastrophe. Against a bad father-
in~law especially if he be a widower—there is in the Chinese
social economy no provision and no defence. It is proverbial
that insinuations lurk about the dwelling-place of widows. In
a word it may almost be said that no one has absolute con-
ﬁdence in any one else.

In spite of all apparent evidence to the contrary, there is
adequate reason to believe that Chinese social morality at its
best is fully equal to that of any Western land. Yet it is
necessary to take careful note of the circumstance that the con-
sequences of a lapse from virtue are destitute of the ameliora-
tions with which we have become familiar. The principal con-
cern of every one interested is the “face” of the family in-
volved, and to save this imaginary self-respect it may be neces—
sary for some one to commit suicide, which is done with the
smallest provocation at all times. No Chinese is ever quite
free from the dread that some one of his household may take
this step. Provision is expressly made in Chinese law for the
punishment of those who can be proved to have “urged to

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF THE CHINESE FAMILY 323

dcat " others; a crime which is treated as manslaughter.
This fact alone would serve as a guage of the wide interval be-
tween the civilizations of the west and of China.

All Chinese may be said to have strongly developed an at-
tachment to the family in which they were born, and most of
them have also strong family affections running in speciﬁc and
limited channels, and by no means evenly distributed. They
share with the rest of the race a desire to make their families
perpetual, and when they fail, as they so frequently do, their
failure is the more conspicuous by reason of their inalienable
attachment to their natal soil. In order more deeply to ex-
plore some of the causes of their want of success, it will be
necessary to go farther below the surface of the Chinese
family.

XXVI

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITY

TO give a correct diagnosis of the inner causes of the dis-
unity of Chinese social and family life without at the
same time grossly misrepresenting both the Chinese character
and society, is a hopeless undertaking. Merely to note even
the most authentic and typical facts is to convey an impression
which is incorrect because it is not proportional. Every family
contains within itself the seeds of disunity, and if they do not
in all cases produce their appropriate harvest, it is because they
are mercifully blighted or counteracted in their development.
Of each Chinese family a full half has had or will have in-
terests largely at variance with those of the other half. Every
Chinese wife came by no choice of her own from some other
family, being suddenly and irrevocably grafted as a wild stock
upon the family tree of her husband. As we have already
seen, she is not received with enthusiasm, much less with
affection (the very idea of which in such a connection never
enters any Chinese mind) but at best with mild toleration, and
not infrequently with aggressive criticism. She forms a link
with another set of interests from which by disruption she has
indeed been dissevered, but where her attachments are centred.
The affection of most Chinese children for their mothers is
very real and lasting. The death of the mother is for a
daughter especially the greatest of earthly calamities. F ilial
piety in its cruder and more practical aspects constantly leads
the married daughter to wish to transfer some of the property
of the husband’s family to that of her mother. The tempta-
tion to do so is often irresistible, and sometimes continues
through life, albeit with many dramatic checks. The Chinese
32‘}

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITY 325

speak of this habit in metaphorical phrase as “ a leak at the
bottom” which is proverbially hard to stop. It is a current
saying that of ten married daughters, nine pilfer more or less.
It is not uncommon to hear this practice assigned as one of the
means by which a family is reduced to the verge of poverty.
The writer once had occasion to acquaint a Chinese friend with
the fact that a connection by marriage had recently died. He
replied thoughtfully: “It is well she is dead; she was glut-
tonous, she was lazy ; and beside she stole things for her
mother ! ”

Visits to the mother’s family constitute by far the most sub-
stantial joys in the life of a young Chinese married woman.
It is her constant effort to make them as numerous as possible,
and it is the desire of her husband’s family to restrict them,
since her services are thus partially lost to them. To prevent
them from being wholly so, she is frequently loaded down with
twice as much sewing as she could do in the time allowed, and
sent off with a troop of accompanying children, if she has
reached so advanced a stage as to be a mother of a ﬂock. An
invasion of this kind is often regarded with open dissatisfaction
by her father and brothers, and what could be more natural
than her desire to appease them by the spoils which she may
have wrested from the Philistines P

After the death of her mother the situation has materially
altered. The sisters-in—law have now no restraint on their crit-
icisms upon her appearance with her hungry brood, and her
whole stay may not improbably be a struggle to maintain what
she regards as her rights. It is one of the many pathetic
sights with which Chinese society abounds to witness the
effort to seem to keep alivé a spark of ﬁre in coals which have
visibly gone out. Not to have any “ mother’s family " to
which to go is regarded as the depth of misery for a mar-
ried woman, since it is a proclamation that she no longer has
any one to stand up for her in case she should be abused. To
discontinue altogether the visits thither is to some extent a loss

326 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

of face, which every Chinese feels keenly. We have known an
old woman left absolutely alone in the world, obliged at the
age of ninety-four to gather her own fuel and do whatever she
wanted done for herself, except draw water, which was fur-
nished her by a distant relative as an act of special grace.
Her poverty was so abject that she was driven to mix ﬁne
earth with the little meal that sufﬁced for her scanty food, that
it might last the longer. Yet this poor creature would some-
times be missed from her place, when it was reported that she
had gone on a visit to her “ mother's family ” consisting of the
great-grandchildren of those whom she had known in youth !

By the time a married woman had reached middle life her
interest in her original home may have greatly weakened.
There are now young marriageable girls of her own growing
up, each of whom in turn repeats the experience of her mother.
To their fathers and also to their brothers these girls are at once
a problem and a menace. Could the birth-rate of girls be de-
termined by ballot of all the males of full age, it is probable
that in a few generations the Chinese race would become extinct.
The expression “ commodity-on-which-money-has—been-lost,” is
a common periphrasis for a girl. They no sooner learn a little
sewing, cooking, etc., than they are exported, and it is pro-
verbial that water spilled on the ground is a synonym for a daugh-
ter. “ Darnel will not do for the grain-tax, and daughters will
never support their mothers.” These modes of speech repre-
sent modes of thought, and the prevailing thought, although
happily not the only thought of the Chinese people.

Girls as a rule have next to no opportunities for cultivating
friendships with one another. The readiness with which un-
der favourable condition such attachments are formed and per-
petuated, shows how great a loss is their persistent absence.
When it is considered that each Chinese family consists not of
a man and his wife and their children, but of married sons, and
of their several wives, each one introduced into the circle in
the same compulsory way, each with a strong and an uncurbed

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITY 327

will, yet powerless to assert herself except by harsh speeches
and bad temper, it is evident that the result is not likely to be
unity.

In the eye of Chinese law brothers are equal, and though the
elder has some advantages, a portion larger than that of the
others is not one of them. Sometimes the young married pair
are given an outﬁt, say of cotton, for spinning and weaving,
and are thenceforth expected to support themselves by this
capital and their own added labour. Not infrequently an un-
equal distribution of the land is made among several brothers
by the father while living, a wrong for which there is no remedy
other than remonstrance. Neither if the father should con-
ceive the idea of depriving a son of any portion at all in the
land, is there effective redress.

Should the property be held in common according to Chinese
traditions, it is a physical, a psychological, and a moral im.
possibility that there should not be ceaseless friction among so
many claimants for what is often at best a most inadequate
support.

The Chinese ideal is to hold the family property in common
indeﬁnitely. But the Chinese themselves are conscious that
theirs is not an ideal world, so that division of the land cannot
always be postponed. It not infrequently happens that one of
the sons becomes discontented, and commissions one of the
neighbours to tell the father that it is time to effect a division.
At such times the family affairs are put into the hands of third
parties who are supposed to be entirely disinterested, but some-
times the family has itself so well under control as to be able
to dispense with this important assistance. The middlemen
who have to conduct operations, begin by taking an inventory
of the numerous pieces of land, the buildings, etc., which they
then appraise roughly, endeavouring to separate these assets into
as many portions as there are to be shares. A certain part of
the land is set aside for “ nourishing the old age ” of the par-
ents; and perhaps another section is reserved for the wedding

338 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

expenses of unmarried daughters or younger sons. What re-
mains is to be divided, which is accomplished by grouping the
portions, and writing the descriptions of the several pieces of
land, houses, etc., on pieces of paper which are rolled up
and placed in a rice-bowl. This is shaken up and it is a
courtesy to allow the youngest son to draw ﬁrst. Whatever is
noted on his bit of paper represents his share, and so on
until all are drawn. The household furniture, water-jars,
utensils of every kind, and all the grain and fuel on hand
must be all taken out in public in the presence of the mid-
dlemen to be sure that nothing is secreted. We have known
a particularly obstreperous son to come to his father’s house
the day after a division, and under pretence of looking for
something which he had lost, to feel in every jar and pot to
be sure that no beans or millet had escaped him. In a family
where harmony reigns, all this trouble is avoided, but such are
altogether exceptional. Shrewd Chinese estimate that out of
every ten families which “ divide ’! seven, if not nine, will have
a domestic tempest as a concomitant, and these storms vary all
the way from a short, sharp squall, to a hurricane which leaves
everything in a wreck.

It is the Chinese theory that parents are to be taken care of
in old age by their children either in combination or in rota-
tion. But cases in which aged mothers have a portion to them-
selves, doing all their own cooking and most of the other nec-
essary work are everywhere numerous. A Westerner is con-
stantly struck with the undoubted fact that the mere act of
dividing a property seems to extinguish all sense of responsi-
bility whatever for the nearest of kin. It is often replied when
we ask why a Chinese does not help his son or his brother who
has a large family and nothing in the house to eat, “ We have
dz‘vzklea’ some time ago.” The real explanation is perhaps to be
found in the accumulated exasperations of the larger part of a
lifetime, once delivered from. which, a Chinese feels that he
can judiciously expend his energies in looking out for Number

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNI TY 329

One, leaving the rest of the series to do the same as best they
may.

If a member of a family is absent when a division is made,
it is common to hear that advantage has been taken of that fact
to assign to him a portion which he would not have quietly ac-
cepted had he been present. This is particularly the case with
the family debts, often aggregating a large sum. Sometimes a
young man is forced to begin life weighted down with several
hundred thousand cash worth of these liabilities due to some
unproﬁtable partnership of his father with his uncles—which
may have extended over a period of perhaps many years.

Another most undesirable but unavoidable asset is “empty
grain—tax land! ” This means a liability to pay the tax on
land which is non—existent, but which has been made to appear
to exist by mismeasurements in former years, either by accident
or design. Suppose, for example, that a family has a hundred
acres of land, which has to be sold in small pieces from time
to time as occasion arises. Each surveying party works from
such indeﬁnite boundaries as the stump of an aged mulberry
bush to another stump which may prove to be missing. The one
who buys the land will use his best efforts to see that he gets
good measure, which it is no concern of the measurers to refuse.
No one knows exactly what is left until some ﬁnal measurement
becomes necessary, when it often appears that there is a short-
age of a considerable amount. From deﬁcits like this there
arises the necessity of paying “ empty taxes,” and though the
tax itself is sufﬁciently solid and substantial, there is no way
known to Chinese practice by which such injustice can be rec-
tiﬁed. The son who ﬁnds himself saddled with this sort of a
burden is not likely to contribute to the harmony of the house-‘
hold in future, and were he ever so much inclined to bury the
matter in oblivion and “ eat a dumb man’s loss,” his wife would
never stop talking about it, unless she chanced to be dumb her-
self. A complete catalogue of the possible and indeed inevi-
table occasions which produce family alienations and bitterness

330 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

would of itself ﬁll a volume, but those which have been sug-
gested may serve as samples of them all.

It deserves mention that when the strain has reached the
breaking point, especially when it is difﬁcult for the aggrieved
individual to go off to a great distance and escape his woes, he
is often seized by the idea of administering poison to the per-
son hated. Were the list of toxic substances available to the
Chinese larger, poisoning would be far more frequent than at
present. As it is cases are everywhere to be heard of, and oc-
casionally foreigners are the victims.

While this chapter was in preparation a Chinese friend
called to ask advice. He had a nephew thirty-six years of age,
who until recently had never been married. He is a dull
witted man, with very little property, and had never been re-
garded as a desirable match. About ﬁve months previous to
the recent occurrence which led to the request for advice, a girl
aged sixteen was found who had a deformity in one limb pre-
venting her from making a match. A go-between proposed
her for this bachelor and it was arranged that he should pay
her family eight strings of cash for “ bridal outﬁt," and in due
time the marriage took place. As might have been expected
it was a conspicuously infelicitous one. On the twenty-sixth
day of the ﬁrst moon of the current year, the husband ate a
bowl of millet which seemed to him to have a singular taste,
but he did not suspect poison until he had taken it all, when he
saw arsenic at the bottom. After violent retching he was some-
what relieved. The next day but one the same thing occurred,
the symptoms being graver. He vigorously remonstrated, and
his bride left for her home some miles away. The husband
was now very ill, and was waited on for some days by his un-
cle, at the times of whose visit for advice the nephew’s life was
supposed to be out of danger. The uncle wanted to know
what should be done about it. In an empire where “talka-
tiveness” is a legal ground for divorce, it naturally appeared to
an Occidental that repeated, albeit clumsy attempts at poison-

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNI TY 33!

ing might be equally so. But the uncle explained that there
was a sister-in-law who objected. Why? Apparently because
having invested eight strings of cash in a wife it was a pity to
lose her for a mere triﬂe like this! The matter was put into
the hands of peace~talkers, who arranged that the relative who
had brought the bride the arsenic should kotow to the man
poisoned by the arsenic, and that the family of the bride should
pay the injured husband ﬁfteen strings of cash wherewith to
recruit his depleted vitality. Meantime the bride remained at
her mother’s home, where one of the women was said to have
beaten her a little. She is not divorced, her husband being re-
luctant to proceed to such extremities, in part on account of
the large investment originally made, and in part for fear of
ridicule. In due time she will probably be sent back to his
home to resume her experiments in the art of making home
happy-

Thus far we have spoken of disunity of Chinese families as
promoted by that intense subjectivity to which we give the
name selﬁshness. There are, however, many other factors to
be taken into account, which have to do with racial habits and
race traits.

To afﬁrm that every Chinese is a natural liar is a grievous
error. On the contrary we believe the Chinese to be by far
the most truthful 'of Asiatics. Yet there can be no doubt that
disingenuousness is to them a second nature. It runs through
the warp and woof of their life.

A witness in a Chinese lawsuit (where veracity is more than
ordinarily important) usually begins his mixture of three-tenths
fact with seven-tenths ﬁction with the remark : “ I will not de—
ceive Your Honour.” In this he speaks the truth,for His Honour
knows perfectly well that the witness is lying, and the witness
knows that His Honour knows it. The only question is in re-
gard to the percentage of falsehood, and as to which particular
statements come under that head. The same principles are in
operation in the family life as in court. Most husbands know

332 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

better than to conﬁde the rear state of their affairs to their
wives. Children in turn constantly conceal from their parents
what ought to be known, and are themselves deceived when-
ever it becomes convenient to do so. A Chinese woman known
to the writer when a mere child was one day told by her mother
that she must not go upon the street to play as usual, but must
remain in the house and have her clothes changed. This was
done, and before she knew it, she was thrust into a sedan-chair,
and was on the way to the house of her “husband,” for this
was her marriage ! The conditions which would make such an
occurrence possible, would produce quite naturally many phe-
nomena of a disagreeable description. It is a popular adage
that “ She who knows how to behave as a daughter—in-law will
prevaricate at both her homes, while the inexpert daughter-in-
law reveals what she knows at each of them ”—-and is in con
stant trouble in consequence.

Despite their disadvantages wives may contrive to conceal
from their husbands the fact that they have a little property in
the hands of some member of the wife’s family. The writer
is acquainted with a Chinese almost sixty years of age, who
has a ﬂock of grandchildren, but who will have nothing to do
with his wife nor she with him. During all their married life,
between thirty and forty years, he has cherished the suspicion
that she has somewhere at interest a considerable sum of money
which she will not share with him. It is certainly not true
that all Chinese deceive one another, but it is surely true that
there is always danger of it, which everywhere begets unrest
and suspicion. It is also an allied phenomenon that the prin—
cipals ‘in a matter may be totally unable to ascertain the real
facts with which every one else is perfectly acquainted, but
which no one will tell.

Mencius remarked that the feeling of pity is common to all
men, and what was true in his day is no less so now. At the
same time there are wide differences in its exhibition. Every
Chinese is a seasoned soldier in the warfare of life and is ac-

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNI TY 333

customed to every form and grade of misery. His ﬁrst thought
at such a spectacle is not, Cannot something be done about it?
but if he has a thought at all it is far more likely to be, Why
should I do anything about it P Ages of hereditary experience
have taught him not too rashly to indulge in sentimental be-
nevolence which may have disagreeable sequelae. A Chinese
remarked in the writer’s hearing while glancing at the corpse
of a man who had died far from home under painful circum-
stances: “This plaything will be hard to transport.” Of
what we call sympathy he had not the smallest conception. A
few years later this same individual was seized by the District
Magistrate of the county in which he lived, thrust into the
standing-cage (a punishment far more horrible than the slicing
process, since the victim is conscious but is in a position of acute
agony without food or water until he miserably perishes) with
no deﬁnite charge of any kind against him, and with no trial
whatever. The only comment of many of these who had once
known him well, was either that it was just what might have
been expected, or that it was probably just what he deserved.
The typical Chinese is a good—natured, even-tempered,
peaceable individual, ready to do his part in life without shirk-
ing, and asking only for fair treatment. But as the placid sur-
face of many lakes is often lashed into fury by sudden and
violent winds pouring down through mountain gorges, so the
equilibrium of the Chinese is liable to be destroyed by gusts of
terrible passion, instantly transforming him from a quiet mem-
ber of a well ordered society, into an impressive object-lesson
on the reality of demon possession. Whether life is worth liv-
ing has been thought “to depend upon the liver.” In China
one might rather afﬁrm that it hinges upon the spleen. Some
of our readers may not be unfamiliar with a legend of a dis—
tinguished American who was provided by his kind father with
a little hatchet which he tried upon a favourite cherry tree with ,
marked success. When the father discovers this, he asks who
did the deed, upon which the child handsomely confesses, and

334 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

is clasped to his father’s arms with the remark that he would
rather lose many cherry trees than to have his son tell a lie.
The whole occurrence probably did not consume more than
ten minutes. To illustrate some of the traits of disunity al-
ready mentioned, let us translate this incident into Chinese.
Mr. Hua Hsing-tun was a well-to—do farmer, who had in his
courtyard a handsome pomegranate tree of which he was very
proud. His youngest son one day got hold of a sickle, which
had been sharpened ready to cut wheat the next morning.
With this implement he chopped at everything he saw, and
among the rest, at the pomegranate tree which fell at the third
blow. Seeing what mischief he had done, he ran to the other
end of the village where he played with some boys whom he
told that a cousin (the third son of his fourth uncle) had done
the deed. This was overheard by a neighbour who passed on
to the other end of the village just in time to hear Mr. Hua
angrily roaring out the inquiry who had spoiled his pet tree.
During a lull in the storm the neighbour, who had stepped into
the courtyard to see what was the matter, conﬁded to another
neighbour that it was the nephew who had done the mischief.
The neighbours soon after depart. As no one in the yard
knows anything about the tree, Mr. Hua, white with rage, con-
tinues his bawling upon the village street, denouncing the indi-
vidual who had killed his tree. An older son who has just
come up, having heard the story of the two neighbours, repeats
it to his father, who gaining at last a clue, rushes to his fourth
brother’s yard, only to ﬁnd no one at home but his sister-in-
law, whom he begins to revile in the most outrageous manner.
For an instant only she is surprised, then takes in the situation
and screams at her brother-in-law, returning his revilings with
compound interest added. He retreats into the alley and
thence to the street, whither she follows him, shrieking at the
top of her voice. ‘
At this juncture the unfortunate nephew alleged to be the
author of the mischief attracted by the clamour comes home,

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITY 335

when the infuriated uncle administers a great deal of abusive
language relative to his illegitimate descent from a base ances-
try, as well as a stunning blow with a stick. This drives the
mother of the child to frenzy, and she attacks her brother-in-
law by seizing his queue, being immediately pulled off by the
second brother, and some neighbours, there being now ﬁfty or
more spectators. The fourth sister-in-law is forcibly dragged
back to her own yard by several other women, screaming deﬁ-
ance as she goes, and ends by scratching her own face in long
furrows with her sharp nails, being presently covered with
blood. Her husband has now come in furious at the insult to
his family, reviles the elder brother (and his ancestry) declar-
ing that he will immediately go to the yamen and lodge a com-
plaint. He takes a string of cash and departs on this errand,
but is subsequently followed several miles by six men, who
spend two hours in trying to get him to return, with the promise
that they will “talk peace.” About midnight they all reach
home. Most of the next ﬁve days is spent in interviews be-
tween third parties, who in turn have other conferences with
the principals. At the expiration of this period all is settled.
Mr. Hua the elder is to make a feast at an expense of not less
than ten strings of cash, at which he shall admit that he was in
error in reviling this sister-in-law at that time; the younger
brother is to accept the apology in the presence of fourteen
other men who have become involved in the matter at some of
its stages. When the feast has been eaten, “ harmony” is re-
stored. But what about the author of all this mischief? Oh,
“he is only a child.” With which observation the whole af-
fair is dismissed, and forgotten.

Chinese quarrels are objectionable by reason of their sudden-
ness, their violence, and their publicity. The last named
feature is the one most repugnant to Western civilization which
has not yet learned how to avoid domestic disputes itself. As
every occurrence immediately becomes public property, the
element of “face” at once enters in, demanding an adjust-

336 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

ment which shall put the injured party right in the presence of
the rest of creation always conceived as looking critically on.

One of the most melancholy phenomena of Chinese life is
the suddenness, the spontaneity, the inexorableness with which
natural affection and all kindly relations under certain condi-
tions seem absolutely to wither up. If a member of a clan
comes into collision with the prejudices of the generation above
his own, or even with that to which he himself belongs, his
grandfather, father, great uncles, uncles, cousins, and brothers
often promise to break his legs, rub out his eyes with quick-
lime, and the like, and not infrequently carry these threats into
execution. It is constantly mentioned as a mitigation of an
attack with violence, that there was no intention to kill the in—
dividual, only to maul him till he had so many broken bones
that he could not stir 1

If the matter comes to a lawsuit, it is a common cry that no
compromise shall ever be made, until the opponent has parted
with his last piece of land. The suspense of mind under
which many Chinese habitually live, uncertain whether these
menaces will be carried into execution, would drive an Occi-
dental to insanity or to suicide, or both. A frequent ending to
a stormy conference is the dark hint: “ We shall see about
this later.”

The Chinese are ﬁrm believers in the doctrine of rewards
and punishments. A man who has been conspicuous for his
evil deeds will meet no shadow of sympathy when trouble of
any sort overtakes him. He is a tiger in a pit. Such an one
who was attacked with worm—breeding corrosive ulcers, dragged
himself to the terrace of one of the temples of his native vil-
lage, where he lay sometimes in a coma, and at others scream-
ing with pain. His neighbours would revile him as they passed
with the comment: “ It is heaven’s vengeance I ”

The Chinese character often abounds in amiable alleviations
of conditions which would seem at ﬁrst sight to make existence
intolerable. In the breasts of the Chinese, as in ours, Hope

INSTABILITY FROM FAMILY DISUNITI 337

springs eternal. His generalizations from the experience of
others as well as his own, render him measurably certain that
in the long-run almost nothing will go right. He expects to
meet insincerity, suspicion, and neglect, and he is rarely dis-
appointed. He will often be dependent upon those who would
be glad to get rid of him, and who keep him constantly aware
of this fact. He knows as certainly before as after the event
that the loans which he is obliged to make will not be repaid at
the proper time, nor in full; that the promised assistance if
given at all will be rendered grudgingly, and perhaps turned
into open hostility. It is proverbial that he has in his mind
“ two hundred next years ” but he is not infrequently perfectly
aware that no number of “ next years ” will ever sufﬁce to get
him straight with the world. Yet amid all this he generally
maintains a serene cheerfulness which to us would be as impos-
sible as comfortable respiration in the foul atmosphere of a
Chinese sleeping—room. He is used to it—we are not. A man
of this type weighted with a termagant wife, who had become
exasperated by the unexpected remarriage of a brother of her
husband for twenty years a widower, and who ﬁlled the house
with a tempest in consequence, said to the writer that for the
past three months he had not drawn “one peaceful breath ! ”
This was not mentioned by way of complaint, but as one might
refer in reply to an inquiry about a troublesome corn on the
toe. Under stress of this sort many Chinese exhibit a degree
of forbearance to which it is to be feared we have no counter—
part in the West, where individual rights have not for ages been
merged in those of the family. Such persons are said to “ eat
a dumb man’s injury,” and the number of them is proverbially
unlimited, for the class is immortal.

No one who is intimately acquainted with their real life is
likely to exaggerate the evils from which the Chinese suffer,
since the strongest representation often seems to come short of
the truth. But every one ﬁnds himself asking by what means it
would be possible to forefend some of these evils. Since many

338 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHIN/I

of them appear to be inseparably associated with that poverty
which is apparently the keynote of Chinese discords, one is
tempted to imagine that if poverty were abolished, family dis-
unity also would largely disappear. Something may be said in
favour of this theory, but it fails in presence of the undoubted
fact that the evils to be remedied are perhaps quite as prevalent
among those Chinese who are fairly well off, as among the
poor, besides being much more conspicuous and irrepressible.
‘ Moral discord can be cured only by radical and not by
superﬁcial remedies. Yet there is one prescription of an
economic as distinguished from a moral type which were it
tried on a large scale for a generation or two might work such
a revolution that China would hardly know itself. If mar-
riages could be invariably postponed until the partners had ar-
rived at mature age, and if on occasion of the marriage of each
son the family property were divided so that a conﬂict of inter-
_ ests were no longer unavoidable, a whole continent of evils
would be nipped in the bud.

At the inquiry held in marine courts as to the reasons for the
wreck of great steamers with all their passengers and cargo, in
the Formosan Channel, it is often shown that the vessel was
acted upon by a powerful but hidden current which made ruin
inevitable. The hereditary habits of the Chinese in the
agglomeration of large numbers of individuals under one head
constitute a drift toward disunity and disintegration. We
ﬁrmly believe that the strain upon the temper and the disposi-
tion incident to the mechanical collocation of so many human
beings in one compound-family on the Chinese plan is one
which no society in the world could endure, because it is more
than human nature can bear. It is certain that the resultant
evils are inevitable, insufferable, and by any means at the com-
mand of the Chinese incurable.

PART III

Regeneration of the Chinese Village

 

XXVII
WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA?

HOWEVER inadequte or imperfect our survey of the life of

the Chinese Village may have been, it must at least have
shown that it has defects of a serious character. It is therefore
a legitimate question how they are to be remedied, on the sup-
position that they can be remedied at all.

It is certainly conceivable that there might be many remedial
agencies set at work with varying degrees of success; but as a
matter of fact, so far as we are aware, there is but one the
friends of which have been stimulated to try on any extended
scale. That sole agency is Christianity. It thus becomes an
inquiry of great moment, what effect the introduction into
China of Christianity in its best form may be rationally ex-
pected to exert upon the springs of the national life and char-
acter of the Chinese. What can Christianity do for the Chinese
family i’ What can it do for the Chinese boy and girl?

In the ﬁrst place it can take better care of them. The dense
and impenetrable ignorance which sacriﬁces so large a propor-
tion of Chinese infants during the ﬁrst two years of their life,
might perhaps be counteracted in other ways, but it is probably
safe to predict that it never would be. To the Chinese girl the
practical introduction of Christianity will mean even more than
to her brother. It will prevent her from being killed as soon
as she is born, and will eventually restore her to her rightful
place in the affections of her parents. It is never enough
merely to point out the folly, danger, or sin of a given course
of action. There must be moral as well as intellectual en-
lightenment, cooperation in a new social order, the stimulus
both of precept and example, and adequate moral sanctions.

341

342 I’ll/ICE LH’E IN CHINA

This can be furnished by Christianity alone. History testiﬁes
that if Christianity begins to lose its power, the dormant forces
of human selﬁshness, depravity and crime reassert themselves
in infant murder.

Christianity will call into existence a sympathy between par-
ents and children hitherto unknown, and one of the greatest
needs of the Chinese home. It will teach parents to govern
their children, an accomplishment which in four millenniums
they have never made an approach to acquiring. This it will
do, not as at present by the mere iterative insistence upon the
duty of subjection to parents, but by showing parents how ﬁrst
to govern themselves, teaching them the completion of the ﬁve
relations by the addition of that chiefest one hitherto unknown,
expressed in the words Our Father. It will redeem many years
during the ﬁrst decade of childhood, of what is now a mere
animal existence, ﬁlling it with fruitfulness for a future intel-
lectual and spiritual harvest.

It will show Chinese parents how to train as well as how to
govern their children—a divine art of which they have at pres-
ent no more conception than of the chemistry of soils. It will
put an end to the cruelty and miseries of foot-binding. To-
ward this great reform there was never in China the smallest
impulse, until it had long been urged by Christian forces. If
it shall prove at length to have successfully taken root in China '
apart from Christianity, that fact would be a luminous star in
the East showing that there are no Chinese walls which may
not ultimately fall before the blast of Christian trumpets.

Christianity will revolutionize the Chinese system of educa-
tion. Such a revolution might indeed take place without ref—
erence to Christianity. The moral forces which have made
China what it is, are now to a large extent inert. To introduce
new intellectual life with no corresponding moral restraints,
might prove far more a, curse than a blessing, as it has been in
the other Oriental lands. Christian education will never make the
mistake so often repeated of seeking'for fruits where there have

 

 

 

 

 

GOING TO A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL.

 

2 ‘ ‘MEV‘E‘A .

WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA? 343

been no roots. It starts from a ﬁxed point and moves onward
to a deﬁnite end.

Christian education will teach the Chinese child his own
tongue in a rational manner. It will abbreviate to the greatest
possible extent “ the toils of wandering through the wilderness
of the Chinese language to arrive at the deserts of Chinese
literature.” It will awaken the child’s hibernating imagination,
enormously widen his horizon, develop and cultivate his judg-
ment, teach him the history of mankind, and not of one branch
only. Above all it will arouse his conscience, and in its light
will exhibit the mutual interrelations of the past, the present,
and the future. It will create an intellectual atmosphere in the
home, causing the children to feel that their progress at school
is intimately related to instruction at home, and has a personal
interest to the parents and to the family as a whole. The value
of such a stimulus, now totally lacking in most Chinese homes,
is beyond calculation, and would of itself easily double the
mental output of every family into which it entered.

Christianity will provide for the intellectual and spiritual
education of girls as well as boys, when once the Christian
point of view has been attained. The typical Chinese mother
is “an ignorant woman with babies,” but she is not the
Chinese ideal woman as the long list of educated ladies in
many dynasties (a number too considerable to be ignored but
too insigniﬁcant to be inﬂuential) abundantly shows. A
Chinese girl told her foreign friend that before Christianity
came into her life, she used to go about her work humming a
ballad, consisting of the words: “ The beautiful teacup ; the
painted teacup ; the teacup, the teacup, the beautiful, beauti-
ful teacup.” Contrast the outlook from such an intellectual
mouse-hole with the vista of a maiden whose thoughts are ele-
vated to the stars and the angels. By developing the neglected
spiritual nature, Christianity will broaden and deepen the ex-
isting rills of natural affection into glorious rivers wide and
deep, supplementing the physical and the material by the intel-

344 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

lectual and the divine. By cultivating a fellowship between
mothers and daughters in all these and in other lines, it will
make it easier for children to love their fathers and respect their
mothers, and will ﬁll the lives of both parents and children
with new impulses, new motives and new ambitions. It will
impel mothers to give their daughters much needed instruction
in their future duties as daughters-in-law and as wives, instead
of throwing them overboard as now, often in mere childhood,
expecting them to swim untaught, against the current, and in
the dark.

It will for the ﬁrst time provide and develop for the daugh-
ters girl friendships, adapted to their long—felt but uncompre-
hended needs. The education of Chinese women is a condi-
tion of the renovation of the empire. No nation, no racecan
rise above the status of its mothers and its wives. How deftly
yet how surely Christianity is beginning to plant its tiny acorns
in the rifts of the granitic rock may be seen in the surprising
results already attained. When the present isolated and initia-
tory experiments shall have had time to bring forth fruit after
their kind, it will be clearly perceived that a new and an Im-
perial force has entered into the Chinese world.

Christianity wherever introduced tends to a more rational
selection of partners for its sons and daughters than has ever
been known before. In place of the mercenary considerations
which alone ﬁnd place in the ordinary practice of the Chinese,
it naturally and inevitably leads to the choice of Christian
maidens for daughters-in—law, and Christian youths for sons-in-
law. It attaches weight to character, disposition and acquire-
ments instead of to wealth and to social position alone. A
Christian community is the only one in China where it is pos-
sible to learn with certainty all important facts with regard to
those who may be proposed for matrimonial engagements, be-
cause it is only in such a community that dependence can be
placed upon the representations of third parties. As Christian
communities come more and more to distinct self-consciousness,

 

WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA? 345

more and more care will be exercised in making matches.
Christians are indeed the only Chinese who can be made to
feel that caution in this direction is a religious duty. The re-
sult of this process continued for an extended period will pro-
duce by “natural selection ” a distinctly new type of Chinese,
physically, intellectually, and morally the superiors of all types
about them and therefore more ﬁtted to survive.

Chinese customs will not be rashly invaded, but the ultimate
tendency will be to postpone marriage to a suitable age, to
consider the preferences of the principal parties—so far as they
may have any—and to make wedlock a sacred solemnity in-
stead of merely a social necessity.

Christianity will make no compromise with polygamy and
concubinage, but will cut the tap-root of a upas-tree which
now poisons Chinese society wherever its branches spread.
Christianity will gradually revolutionize the relations between
the young husband and his bride. Their common intellectual
and spiritual equipment will have ﬁtted them to become com-
panions to one another, instead of merely commercial partners
in a kettle of rice. The little ones will be born into a Chris-
tian atmosphere as different from that of a non—Christian house-
hold as the temperature of Florida from that of Labrador.
These forces will be self—perpetuating and cumulative.

Christianity will purify and sweeten the Chinese home, now
always and everywhere liable to devastating hurricanes of pas-
sion, and too often ﬁlled with evil—speaking, bitterness and
wrath. The imperative inhibition of all manner of reviling
would alone do more for domestic harmony than all the wise
maxims of the sages mechanically learned and repeated could
accomplish in a lifetime. Indeed, Christianity will take these
semi—animate precepts of the dead past, breathe into them for
the ﬁrst time the breath of life, and then reinforce them with
the Word of the Lord and the sanctions of His Law.

Christianity will introduce a new and a potent factor into
the social life of the Chinese by its energy as a prophylactic.

346 VILLAGE LIFE IN GIINA

Chinese society has a virtuous talent for “ talking peace ” when
there is no peace, and when matters have come to such a pitch
that a catastrophe appears inevitable. But the remedy almost
invariably comes too late. Chinese “ peace-talking ” is usually
a mere dust-storm, unpleasantly affecting the eyes, the ears,
the nostrils of every one exposed to it, thinly covering up the
surrounding ﬁlth with even impartiality, while after all leaving
the whole of it just where it was before. Christianity is an
efﬁcient sanitary commission which aims at removing every-
thing that can breed pestilence. In this it will not, indeed,
entirely succeed, but itsintroduction upon a large scale will as
certainly modify Chinese society, as a strong and steady north-
east wind will eventually dissipate a dense fog.

As has been already remarked, perhaps there is no single
Chinese custom which is the source of a larger variety of mis-
chief than that of keeping large family organizations in a con-
dition of dependence upon one another and upon a common
property, instead of dividing it up among the several sons,
leaving each free to work out his own destiny. The inevitable
result is chronic discontent, jealousy, suspicion, and on the
part of many indolence. This is as clearly perceived by the
Chinese as by us, indeed far more so, but hereditary cowardice,
dread of criticism, and especially of ridicule prevent myriads
of families from effecting the desired and necessary division,
lest they be laughed at. Christianity is itself a deﬁance of all
antecedent public opinion, and an appeal to a new and an
illuminated understanding. Christian communities will prob-
ably more and more tend to follow the Scriptural plan of making
one man and one woman a new “family, and by this process
alone will save themselves an inﬁnity of misery. This will be
done, not by the superimposition of any force from without,
but by the exercise of a common sense which has been at once
enlightened to see and emboldened to act, attacking with cour-
age whatever needs amendment.

Christianity will introduce an entirely new element into the

WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA? 147‘

friendships of the Chinese, now too often based upon the selﬁsh
considerations suggested by the maxim of Confucius, “ Have
no friends not equal to yourself.” Friendship is reckoned
among the Five Relations and occupies a prominent place in
Chinese thought as in Chinese life. But after all is conceded
in regard to it which can be reasonably claimed, it remains
true that its beneﬁts are constantly alloyed by mutual insin-
cerity and suspicion, and not infrequently by jealousy. This
the Chinese themselves are ready to admit in the frankest man-
ner; but as they have no experience of friendships which arise
from conditions above and beyond those of the material issues
of everyday life, no remedy for existing evils is ever thought
of as possible. Those Chinese who have become intimate with
congenial Christian friends, recognize at once that there is a
ﬂavour and a zest in such friendships not only unknown before,
but absolutely beyond the range of imagination. Amid the
poverty, barrenness, and discouragements of most Chinese lives,
the gift of a wholly new relationship of the sort which Chris-
tianity imparts is to be reckoned among the choicest treasures
of existence.

The theory of the Chinese social organization is admirable
and beautiful, but the principles which underlie it are utterly
inert. When Christianity shows the Chinese for the ﬁrst time
what these traditional principles really mean, the theories will
begin to take shape as possibilities, even as the bones of Ezekiel’s
vision took on flesh. Then it will more clearly appear how
great an advantage the Chinese race has enjoyed in its lofty
moral code. The Classical but not altogether intelligible aph-
orism that “within the Four Seas all are Brethren," requires
the Christian teaching regarding a common Father to make it
vital to Chinese consciousness. When once the Chinese have
grasped the practical truth of the Fatherhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Man, the starlight of the past will have been
merged into the sunlight of the future.

In China the family is a microcosm of the empire. To amplify

348 VILLAGE LIFE IN O-IINA

illustrations of the modus operandi of Christianity on a wider
scale beyond the family is superﬂuous. What Christianity can
do in one place it can do in another. Though soils and climate
vary, the seed is the same. For the changes which Christianity
alone can affect, China is waiting to-day as never before. Her
most intelligent thinkers—too few alas, in number—recognize
that something must be done for her. They hope that by the
adoption of certain formulae, educational, industrial, ecOnom-
ical, China may be saved, not perceiving that her vital lack is
neither Capital nor Machinery, but Men. The New China is
to be penetrated by numerous railways, and by steam naviga-
tion of its inland waters. Vast industrial enterprises such as
mines and factories will call for great supplies of labour from
the most numerous people on earth. In the management of
these immense and varied interests, in the conduct of the new
education which China cannot dispense with, in the adminis-
tration of all branches of its government China must have men
of conscience, and of sterling character. It has hitherto been
impossible to secure any such men except by importation; how
is it to be otherwise in the future? Only by the cultivation of
conscience and character as they have been cultivated in lands
to which China is at last driven to turn for help. Like all
processes of development this will be a slow one, but it will
be sure ; and aside from it there is literally no hope for
China.

With its other great beneﬁts Christianity will confer upon
China real patriotism, at present existing almost entirely in the
blind impulses of the bias of national feeling. During the
political crises of the past few years, the great mass of the
Chinese people have been profoundly indifferent to the fate of
their country, and in this respect there has been little distinc-
tion between scholars, farmers, merchants, and coolies. Each
individual has been chieﬂy occupied in considering how in any
cataclysm impending he could make with fate the best bargain
for himself. If there are any exceptions to this generalization,

WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA? 349

so far. as we know they consist exclusively of those who have
been acted upon by forces from outside of China.

The Christian converts are now sufﬁciently numerous to show
in what direction their inﬂuence will be felt in the not distant
future. They are keenly alive to what is taking place in the
empire, and they may almost be said to be the only Chinese in
it who are so. China will never have patriotic subjects until
she has Christian subjects, and in China as elsewhere Chris-
tianity and patriotism will be found to advance hand in hand.

It must be distinctly understood that all which we have said
of the potency of Christianity as of “ unwasting and secular
force ” is based upon the conception of it as a moral power
“producing certain deﬁnite though small results during a cer-
tain period of time, and of a nature adapted to produce indeﬁ-
nite similar results in unlimited time." It is therefore emi-
nently reasonable to point out that under no circumstances can
it produce its full effects in less than three complez‘e generations.
By that time Christian heredity will have begun to operate. A
clear perception of this fundamental truth would do much to
abate the impatience alike of its promotors and its critics.

There are some Occidentals with large knowledge of China
who seriously raise the question, What good can Christianity
do in China? Of what use is it for a Chinese to be “ con-
verted ” i‘

To infer from any phenomena of Chinese life that the Chin-
ese do not need a radical readjustment of their relations is to
judge most superﬁcially. Patient and long continued exami-
ation of these phenomena in their endless variety and complex-
ity, shows clearly the imperative necessity of a force from with-
out to accomplish what all the forces from within operating un-
impeded for ages have been powerless to effect. To those who
know the Chinese people as they are the question what good
Christianity can do them, answers itself. Of the necessity of
a new power the Chinese themselves are acutely conscious.
If what has been already set forth in proof of the proposition

350 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

that there is imperative need of renovation is regarded as ir-
relevant or inadequate, then further debate is indeed vain.

But it may be objected that the views here taken of the ef-
ﬁcacy of the remedy are exaggerated. Those Chinese who
have had the best opportunity to become acquainted with the
nature of the beneﬁts which Christianity affords, perceive its
adaptation to China’s need. All that is required to render the
proof to every reasonable inquirer as complete as evidence can
be made, is a searching and scientiﬁc analysis of known facts.
The case for Christianity in China may rest solely upon the
transformations which it actually effects. These are not upon
the surface, but they are as real and as capable of being accu-
rately noted as the amount of the rain-fall, or the precession
of the equinoxes. They consist of revolutionized lives due to
the implanting of new motives and the inﬂuence of a new life.
They occur in many different strata of society, and with the
ever widening base-line of Christian work they are found in
ever increasing numbers. At ﬁrst few and isolated, they are
now counted by scores of thousands. Among them are many im-
mature and blighted developments, as is true of all transitional
phenomena everywhere ; but the indisputable residuum of gen-
uine transformations furnish a great cloud of witnesses in the
presence of which it is unnecessary to inquire further what
good Christianity will do the Chinese, and of what use it will
be to a Chinese to be converted. It will make him a new
man, with a new insight and a new outlook. It will give back
his lost soul and spirit, and pour into all the avenues of his na-
ture new lzfe. There is not a human relation in which it will
not be felt immediately, profoundly, and beneﬁcently.

It will sanctify childhood, ennoble motherhood, dignify man-
hood, and purify every social condition. That Christianity
has by no means yet done for Western lands all that we expect
it to do for China, we are perfectly aware. Christianity has
succeeded wherever it has been practiced. It is no valid ob-
jection to it that it has been misunderstood, misrepresented

WHAT CAN CHRISTIANITY DO FOR CHINA? 35!

and ignored. Whatever defects are to be found in any Chris-
tian land, not the most unintelligent or the most sceptical
would be willing to be transplanted into the non-Christian con-
ditions out of which every Christian land has been evolved.
It must be remembered also that although the lessons of
Christianity are old, the pupils are ever new. Each genera-
tion has to learn its lesson afresh. It has well been said that
heredity, so mighty a force for evil, has not yet been captured
for Christianity on any large scale, and its reserves turned to
the furtherance of Christian forces. When it has been so taken
captive, progress upward will be greatly accelerated.

How long it will take Christianity to renovate an empire like
China, is a question which may be answered in different ways,
but only hypothetically. First by historical analogies. It took
eight centuries to develop the Roman Empire. It has taken
about as long to mold Saxon, Danish, and Norman elements
into the England of to—day. Each of these race-stocks were at
the start barbarous. The Chinese are an ancient and a highly
civilized race, a fact which may be in some respects a help in
their Christianization, and in others a hindrance. Taking into
account the intensity of Chinese prejudices, the strength of ._
Chinese conservatism, the vast numbers involved and their
compact, patriarchal life, we should expect the ﬁrst steps to be
very slow. Reckoning from the general opening of China in
1860, ﬁfty years would sufﬁce for a good beginning, three hun-
dred for a general diffusion of Christianity, and ﬁve hundred
for its obvious superseding of all rival faiths. Reasoning from
history and psychology this is perhaps a probable rate of prog—
ress, and its realization would be a great result.

There is however a different sort of forecast which appeals
to many minds more poWerfully. It must be remembered that
spiritual development, like that of races, is slow in its inception,
but once begun it takes little account of the rules of ratio
and proportion. The intellectual, moral, and spiritual forces
of Christianity are now far greater than they have ever been

352 VILLAGE LIFE IN 011sz

before. The world is visibly contracted. The life of the man
of to-day is that of “ a condensed Methusaleh.” The nine-
teenth century outranks the previous millennium. Great ma-
terial forces are but types and handmaids of great spiritual
forces which may be reinforced and multiplied—as they have
been at certain periods of the past—to a degree at present little
anticipated. , .

Putting aside all consideration of the time element, we con-
sider it certain that what Christianity has done for us it will
do for the Chinese, and under conditions far more favourable,
by reason of the high vitalization of the age in which we live,
its unfettered communication, and the rapid transfusion of in-
tellectual and spiritual forces. The forecast of results like
these is no longer the iridescent dream which it once appeared.
It is sober history rationally interpreted. When Christianity
shall have had opportunity to work out its full effects, it will be
perceived to have been pervasive leaven in the individual heart,
in society, and in the world. Whether it is to take ﬁve cen-
turies or ﬁfty to produce these results appears to be a matter of
altogether minor importance in view of certain success in the
end.

There are in China many questions and many problems, but
the one great question, the sole all-comprehending problem is
how to set Christianity at work upon them, which alone in time
can and will solve them all.

Index

ABACUS, Chinese, 105.

Abdomen, the seat of intellect, 85.

Actors debarred from literary de-
grees, 54; different grades, 57;
salaries, 58.

Adobe houses, construction, 23.

Adoption, conditions, 251, 252.

Aged, occasional hard lot of the,
326.

“Analects ” quoted, 93.
Architecture of China described, 25.
Arnold of Rugby 71:. Confucius, 72.

“BACKING” the lesson, 81; illus-
tration, 81, 82.

Betrothal, evils of early, 267.

Bookkeeping, difﬁcult in Chinese,
52.

“ Book of Surnames,” 84.

Books copied by poor scholars, 100.

‘ Borrowing, its universal necessity,
204, 205.

" Bowl associations,” 188.

Boys and men, village: infancy of,
237, 238; “milknames” given
them, 238; why called by girls’
names, 238; names a clue to re-
lationship, 239; “style,” 239,
240; secret titles used on letters,
240; titles for men, 240; boys
carried about for years, 241;
Chinese fathers not sympathetic
with childhood, 242, 243; boys’
amusements and toys, 242.245;
do not rob birds’ nests, 244;
work of boys, 245—247; their
wages, 247; outings, 247; “ don-
ning the cap ” on arriving at

353

 

majority, 247, 248; getting mar
ried, 248—250; adoption of sons,
251, 252; adopting a daughter’s
husband, 252; “reverting to
original names,” 253, 254; two
branches of a family represented
by one man, 254; treatment in
serious illness, 255, 256; subor-
dination of men to the elder re-
lationships, 256; summary of vil-
lage boy’s limitations, 256, 257.

Bricks, colour and manufacture of,
22; adobe, 23.

Bridal chair, 269; its dismantling,
271.

Bully, the village: peculiar to
China, 21 1 ; Chinese traits favour-
ing his existence, 211; names,
211, 216; differentiated from four
cognate classes of society, 211,
212; dual classiﬁcation of vilv
lagers, 212; three varieties of
bully, 212—225; dress of bullies,
213; how one becomes a “vil—
lage king,” 214; gymnastic prep-
aration, 215 ; poverty as a quali-
ﬁcation, 216; bullies as incendi-
aries, 217; as crop injurers, 217,
218; feeders to the yaméns, 218;
devices used against the rich,
218, 219; the literary bully, 219;
the female bully, 219; organiza—
tion of a bully’s followers, 220,
221; attacks on yaméns, 222;
worsted, 222; power when inﬂu-
ential, 223; ,an illustration of
such a bully, 223-225.

CANDIDATES for examination, 112.
Carts, 39; how drawn, 39.

354

Cash, one way of securing rare
coins, 52.

Cash payments rare, 206.

Cave dwellings, 22.

Chang Kung, 27.

Chén—tien, or market towns, 147.

Christianity, what can it do for
China? it can care for children
physically, 341, 342; it creates
sympathy between parents and
children, 342; it teaches child-
training, 342; it will revolution-
ize education, 342, 343; will
educate girls as well as boys,
343; will foster girl friendships,
344; will lead to Christian choice
of partners in marriage, 344,
345; will postpone marriage to
a suitable age, 345; will oppose
polygamy and concubinage, 345;
will sweeten and purify home
life, 345; will be a true peace-
maker, 346; will make man and
wife the unit of society, 346;
will change ideals of friendship,
347; will implant Christian idea
of brotherhood, 347 ; will im-
prove the government, 348; will
implant patriotism, 348, 349 ; the
time required for this process,
349. 351. 352; this prephecy
based on past accomplishment,
350; Christianity’s ultimate tri-
umph, 352.

Chu Hsi’s Commentary, 87.

Cities irregular in form and reason
therefor, 20; monotonous appear-
ance, 25.

Civilization unable to vitally change
China, 348.

“Classics,” their excellencies, 95;
their defects, 95, 96.

Classiﬁcation unheard of in Chinese
schools, 90.

Colquhoun’s volume and its impor-
tance, 16, note.

Concubinage, 297, 300—302.

INDEX

Confucius and his son, 70, 71 ; his
theory of teaching, 71, 72; hon-
oured in schools, 76.

Constables, local, 228.

Conversation, topics of, 315.

Cotton-gathering and manufacture,
276. ' ’

Cotton-gleaming, 166, 167.

Courtyard, arrangement of build-

ings in a, 25; animals in, 28.
i‘Crop-watching“societies, why nec—
essary, 161—164; description of
watchers’ ‘lodges, 162; fate of
captured thieves, 163; announc-
ing the existence of a society,
164; how expense is borne, 164;

agreement entered into, 165;

trial and punishment of thieves,

165, 166; ﬁnes, 168; effect on
health, 168.

DAUGHTERS, infancy of, 237.

Dead, marrying to the, 298, 299.

Degrees, sale of, 121; three meth-
ods of falsely securing, 122—126;
motives leading men to compete
for degrees, 132, 133.

Democracy in China apparent, not
real, 226.

Dictionary, standard Chinese, 97.

Digging through walls by thieves,
28.

Display, Chinese love of, 191.
“ Distant reserve,” a Chinese factor
in education, 72, 73.

District ofﬁcials’ occasional objec-
tions to theatres, 59.

Divorce, seven grades of, 288.
Dogs destroyers of crops, 162.
Door-locking and thieves, 28.

Dunning must be repeated, 206,
207.

EDUCATIONAL Edicts of 1898, 134,
135; results, 135.

 

 

INDEX

Education, Chinese theories of, 71—
73; its object, 91, 106.

Education of girls unnecessary, 264.

Emigration made necessary in
Yung Lo’s time, 20.

Essay brokers, 124, 125.

Essay, its place in Chinese educa-
tion, 110, 111.

Examinations announced, 111, 1 12;
District Examinations, ﬁrst day,
112, 113; second to fourth days,
113; fees, 113, 114; second ex-
amination on ﬁfth or sixth day,
114; third examination, 114;
fourth examination, 114; ﬁfth
examination, 115; number of
successful candidates small, 115 ;
Prefectural Examinations, their
character, 116; number of candi-
dates, 116; severity of hall reg-
ulations, 117, 118; fees of suc-
cessful candidates, 119; “joyful
announcements,” 119, 120; hon~
ours paid successful candidates,
120; diplomas lacking, 120, 121;
literary buttons and their forfeit-
ure, 121 ; result of negligence of
examiners, 127, 128; examina-
tions required after ﬁrst degree
is obtained, 129.

FAIRS, shopkeepers preparing for,
50; gambling at temple fairs,
144; differentiated from markets,
149; numbers attending, 149;
duration, 150; essentials to their
success, 150; opened by a play,
150.

“ Falconing ” with a woman, 296.

Family disunity: why marriage is
an element in this, 324—326; dis-
unity due to daughters, 326; due
to married sons living at home,
326, 327; due to distribution of
property, 327—329; due to
“ empty grain-tax land,” 329, 3 3o ;
due to poisoning propensities,
330, 331; due to lack of mutual
conﬁdence, 332; due to lack of

 

355

sympathy and pity, 333; due to
“face,” 335, 336; due to trans-
migration ideas, 336; due to do-
mestic brawls, 337; partial
remedy for this disunity, 338.

Family, unstable equilibrium of the
Chinese: unit of social life, 317;
equilibrium affected by famine,
317; by inundation, 317, 318;
by rebellions, 318; by the labour
market, 318; by lawsuits, 319;
by debts, 320; by sickness, 320,
321 ; by gambling and opium
among the wealthy, 321; by so-
cial immorality, 322.

Farmers in China comparatively in~
dependent, 146.

Farms in various plots, 163.
“ Feast ” in its technical sense, 183.

Ferries, why essential in the North,
39; loading animals and carts on
the boats, 40, 41 ; unloading, 41 ;
why ferry reforms are deemed
impossible, 42.

Ferule and its uses, 78, 89.

Financiering, seven deadly sins of
Chinese, 204—208.

“ Five Classics,” 85.

Five degrees of relationship, 193.
Foot-binding, 261.

Foggigners attacked in theatres, 65,

" Four Books,” 85.
Freedom of assembling, 228.

Funerals: of suicides, 186 ; why pil-
laging occurs at rich men’s funer-
als, 186; fate of unpopular sur-
vivors, 187 ; announcing funeral

expense deﬁcits, 187, 188;,c9ﬁp»

erztive bearers, 188?; catafalque
ownership, 188; funeral aid so-
cieties, 189, 190;» two factors de~
terminiﬁg"elaborateness of, 192;
rites of the “ seven sevens,” 192;
shabby paraphernalia, 193;
mourning costume, 193; block-

.._...—»-

356 , INDEX

ing the procession, 194; funeral
director’s duties, 194; at the
grave, 195.

GATHERING fuel and manure, 246,
247-

Girls and women in China: girls’
inferiority to boys, 258; unwel-
come at birth, 258; reasons for
female infanticide, 258, 259; sale
of daughters, 259, 260; “rear~
ing marriage,” 260; foot-binding,
261; girls’ employments, 261;
conﬁned at home, 262; married
daughter’s return home and its
consequences, 263, 264; daugh-
ters rarely taught to read, 264;
anxiety about girl’s betrothal,
265; restrictions after betrothal,
265, 266; evils of early engage-
ments, 267; engagement cards,
268; arrival of bridal chair, 268,
269; “ lucky days" sometimes
unlucky, 269; delivery of bride
essential feature of wedding, 269;
dowry, 270, 271; birth of ﬁrst
baby, 272; children must be
born at their father’s house, 272,
273; faulty care of infants and
children, 274, 275; mortality of
infants, 274, 275; early senility
of women, 275; incessant labours
of women, 275, 276; daughter-
and mother-in—law, 276, 277;
abuse of daughters-in—law and
consequent retaliation, 277—279 ;
why lawsuits in such cases are
rare, 279, 280; result of bride’s
suicide, 281 ; a typical case, 282-
286; number of women suicides,
286; suicide a virtue, extract
from the Slzz'ﬁ Pao, 287, 288;
grounds of divorce, 288, 290;
why women must be married,
289; prudishness in speaking
about marriage, 290, 291; sons
should be married before parents’
death, 291, 292; marriage to ep-
ileptics, idiots, etc., 292; kidnap-
ping of wives, 292—295; wives

 

sold by husbands, 295, 296;
“ cheaper than an animal,” 297;
concubines, 297, 300—302; mar-
rying the dead, 298, 299; men
and women do not eat together,
302; husband and wife do not
converse, 303; wife’s twofold de-
fence, 303, 304; hen-peeked hus-
bands, 304, 305; classical teach-
ing concerning women, 305, 306;
Confucianism’sfseven sins against
woman: lack of education, 306,
307; sale of wives and daugh-
ters, 307, 308; early and too
universal marriage, 308; female
infanticide, 308, 309; secondary
wives, 309 ; suicide of wives and
daughters, 309; overpopulation,
309, 310
God of Literature, 140.
God of War, 137.

Government high schools or col-
leges, I 31.

Government, weaknesses of Chi.
nese, 220; its strength, 221.

Grapevines unlucky in yards, 24.

Greek drama in some respects like
the Chinese, 56.

HARE hunting in Denmark, 175.

“ Harrying to death,” 185.

Headmen, village: names, 227 ;
qualiﬁcations, 227; duties and
functions, 227—229; “ ins ” and
“outs,” 229, 230; why incompe-
tents are not removed, 23o; re-
sult of complaints illustrated,
230—232; facility with which
troubles arise in village life, 233,
234.

High schools, how different from
common schools, 110; Govern-
ment high schools, 131.

History, Chinese, 99.

History taught through plays, 66.

Hospitable man described, 180.

Houses of stone, 22; of bricks, 22;

 

INDEX 357

of adobe, 23; their roof, 23;
rooms, 25; doors, 26; windows,
26; k‘angs, 26, 27; ﬂoors, 28;
furnishings, 28.

Hsien District, conditions in, 317,
318, note.

Hsiu-ts'ai obliged to attend exam-
inations after graduation, 129.

,ICE-SLEDS, 245.
'lllness announced and the results,
255.
Imperial University in Peking, 135.
Incendiary ﬁres, 217.
Infanticide of girls, 258, 259; op-
position to, 259.
Infant mortality, 274.

Intellectuality without stimulus ex~
cept in school, 91; intellectual
obtuseness, 101.

Interest per month, 152, 210.

K‘ANG, construction and use of, 26,
27.

Kidnapping wives, 292—295.

Kinship claimed for inheritance,
253.

Kitchen god, 27; at New Year,
199.

Kung-shéng’s rank, 129, 130.

LENDING a necessity, 205, 206.
Letters, ambiguity of address, 240.
Letter-writing, 101, 102.

Life in villages, monotony and vacu-
ity of: villages a ﬁxture, 312; their
intellectual life in grooves, 313;
illiteracy a source of vacuity, 315 ;
topics of conversation, 315 ; in-
difference to happenings outside
the village, 315, 316; travelled
villagers speedily stagnate, 316.

Li Hung Chang honouring snakes,
169.

Literary chancellor’s duties, III.

Live-stock fairs, 148.

 

Loan Societies, object, 152; sim—
plest form, 152, 153; feasts, 1 5 3;
societies charging interest, 154;
method of securing loans, 154,
155 ; tables illustrating their
working, 155, 156; insuring pay
ment, 157; risks involved, 157,
I58 ; Hong Kong lawsuit re
such societies, 158—160.

Local deity, T‘u-ti, 137, 138. ~

Lord Clive a Chinese bully in boy.
hood, 218.

“ Lord-of-bitterness,"
brother, 283.

i. 3., elder

MARKETS, why necessary, 146;
harmful to morals, 147; “of-
ﬁcial” markets, 14.7 ; number
attending, 147; use made of
market taxes, 148; market-day
nomenclature, 148, 149; “mar-
ket" and “ fair ” differentiated,
149; taxes levied, I49, 150; co-
operation most helpful in one re-
spect, 151.

Mencius’ view of teachers, 70.

Men (See Boys and men).

Mill, James, and his method of
teaching, 72.

Mind, characteristics of the Chinese,
102; like a high bicycle, 103.
Ming Huang, the god of actors, 54.
Mohammedans exempt from temple

assessment, 137.

Mothers—in-law, 276, 277.

NAMES of villages derived from
Surnames, 30; from temples, 3o ;
confusion in names, 31, 32;
names derived from distances,
31 ; villages nicknamed, 33; sin-
gular names, 33, 34.

Naming children, 238; a clue to
relationship, 239. ~

New Year in China:' dumplings,
196, 197; family reunions, 197,
198; new clothes essential to,

358

198, 199; New Year religious
rites, 199, 200; its social cere—
monies, 200, 201; universal leis-
ure of the time, 201, 202; gam-
bling, 202, 203; debt-paying,

203, 204; lantern search for_
debtors, 208.
New Year Societies: fees, 209;

use of funds, 209; consequences
if not paid, 210; gamblers’ use
of its funds, 210.

" 01111.5, Book of,” quoted, 237.

PARENTS,8 care of in Chinese the-
ory, 328, 329.

Partial payments in China, 207,
208.

Peking Gazette, 99.

Pig-styes, 28, 29.

Pits near villages, 24.

Poisoning in China, 330, 331.

Population of China: ignorance of
the Chinese people concerning
it, 17; ofﬁcial ignorance on the
subject, 17 ; attempts of foreign-
ers to ascertain density in certain
districts, 18, 19; too great, 308,
309.

Poverty characteristic of China, 3 10,
311 ; its alleviation, 311.

Property, distribution of, 327—329.

Proverbs: concerning teachers, 73,
74; school discipline in last
month, 76; necessity of continu-
Ous study, 91 ; reading required,
if one would know history, 99;
funeral feasts, 192; girls 723. boys,
258; obstreperous women, 305;
daughters useless to mother’s
family, 326.

Punctuality a lost art in China, 151.

RAIN-MAKING: gods connected
therewith, 169, 170; iron tablets
used, 170; why these methods
seem eﬂicacious, 171; detrimen-

INDEX

tal inﬂuences, 171; punishment
of unsuccessful rain-gods, 172.
Reforms in China, how to be se-
cured, 43; difﬁcult in educa-
tional matters, 107.
Relationships, assumed, 24o.

Nileligious societies, four character-
istics of, 141; two varieties of
“ Mountain Societies,” 142, 143;
program on reaching the moun-
tain, 144, 145 ;, the secret sects,
145.

Roads in villages used as shops,
35; “ low -,”ways 3, wy

crooked, 35 , ﬂanked by ditches,

36; in rainy season often rivers,

36; method of making new ones,

37; road-building and la grippe,

38.

SCHOLARS 4‘ not utensils,” 93;
economically they are useless,
94; an exception, 94; begging
of foreigners, 94, 95; without
adequate literary apparatus, 96,
97; their ignorance of history,
98, 100; of geography, 101 ; their
conservatism, 103; lack of liter-
ary judgment, 104; ignorance of
arithmetic, 105; strolling schol-
ars, 107—109; functions at funer-
als, 133; in lawsuits, 133; sub-
jectivity of, 313; gullibility, 314;
riots due to their credulity, 314,
315.

Schoolboy beginning his studies,
80; honoured in the family, 91,
92; a spoiled child, 92; effects
of study, 92, 93.

Schoolhouses, 75; their furniture,
75, 76-

Schools' in villages, why important,
70; prevalence of schools, 73;
abundance of teachers, 73; sal-
aries, 74; school lists, 74.; ar—
rangements concerning tuition,
75; schoolhouses, 75 , furniture,
75, 76, duration of school year,
76; vacations, 76,90; honour

 

INDEX

shown to Confucius, 76; school
hours and intermissions, 77 ;
heating schoolrooms, 77; return-
ing from school, 77; severity of
discipline, 79, 80; shouting in
study, 80; “backing,” 81, 82;
books studied, 82—85 ; “ explain-
ing,” 85, 86; writing exercises,
87; studies interrupted by teach-
er’s guests and his examinations,
88, 89; playing in the school,
89; irregular attendance of pu-
pils, 89, 90; lack of classiﬁca-
tion, 90; no genuine intellectual
work done, 90; two valuable leS<
sons learned at school, 93; do
not teach arithmetic, 104, 105;
their strength and weakness, 106,
107.

Screens before gates, their use, 21.

Secret sects, I45.

Seers or “ bright-eyes,” 283, 284.

Shan-tung productions, 161, 162.

Shops in villages, goods sold, 49,
50; headquarters from which to
radiate to fairs, 50; hard lot of
clerks, 5 1, 52; case of meat seller,
51, 52; cheating methods, 53.

Sorghum, 161; stripping off lower
leaves, 166.

Strolling scholars, 107, 109.

“ Style ” of individuals, 239, 240.

Suicide, punishment for inciting to,
322, 323.

Superintendent of Instruction, I30,
131.

.. Surety ” for literary candidates,
115, 116.

“ Surnames, Book of,” 84.

Surnames, the four common ones,
31.

TM SHAN’S historical importance,
141; its pilgrimages, 141, 142;
“ Mountain Societies,” 142.

Taxes on “ empty grain-tax land,”
329-

 

359

Teacher’s hard lot as pictured in a
play, 67, 68; in proverbs, 73;
in experience, 74; do not teach
in their own towns, 74, 75 ; their
manner of life, 75; honourable
position, 76, 78 ; unlimited power,
78; relation to pupils, 78; sub-
stitute teachers, 89; Western
criticism of, 102.

Temples to be used as school-
houses, 13 5 ; how village temples
came to be built, 136; reasons
for their absence in some villages,
137; two gods most commonly
honoured with temples, I37, 138;
uses made of building fund sur-
plus, 138; resorts of thieves and
beggars, 139; temple expenses,
139 ; as receptacles of coﬂins and
funeral paraphernalia, 139; dif-
ferent deities in same temple,
I40; temple tax at fairs, 149;
lawsuits over, 232.

Theatre, its origin in China, 54;
little understood by foreigners,
55 ; the stage and its equipment,
55, 56; the theatre an invest-
ment, 56, 57; costumes, 57;
classes of players, 58; amateurs,
58; child apprentices, 58, 59;
plays a public beneﬁt, 60, 65;
occasions for giving a play, 60,
61 ; cost of presenting it, 61 ; the
“ program bearer,” 62; trans-
porting stage properties, 62;
preparations for a theatre, 62; 7
used as a device for attracting
customers for fairs, 62;~impres-
sion made by a play, 63; plays
as a social factor, 63, 64 ; a drain
upon hosts, 64; subjects of plays,
66; synopsis of one, 66.68; the
theatre an index of the Chinese
theory of life, 68, 69.

Thieves’ action at theatres, 65; use
temples as resorts, r 39.

“ Thousand Character Classic,” 84.

Title deeds often lost, 27.

36o

Torture as a means of raising tem-
ple funds, I 36.

"Trimetrical Classic” quoted, 78;
origin, 82; epitomized, 82—84 ;
its allusions often not understood,
roo. '

VILLAGE hunt, why possible in pop-
ulous China, 174 ; the bald an-
nunciator of the hare-hunt, 175,
176; the hunt described, 176;
resulting quarrels, 176—178.

Villages, number of in India, 15 ;
the residence of most Chinese,
15; irregularly laid out, 21 ; how
ﬁrst settled, 21 ; streets and alleys,
21 ; overcrowding, 21 ; \village
walls and their use, 29 ; nearness
of one to another, 146, 147; each
village a principality, 226.

" Vinegar sipping,” 300.

WAGES of farm labourers, 247 ; of
boys, 247.

Washington and the cherry tree in
Chinese, 333—335.

Weddings: a “joyful event,” I79;
wedding contributions, 179;
bride’s arrival the essence of the
wedding, 18o; exposition of the

 

INDEX

‘“ share ” principle, :80; account.
keeping at weddings, 181 ; duties
of the wedding committee, r82;
'city and village caterers, 182,
183; three “wedding commit-
tees,” 183; “ borrowing ” pro-
visions, ‘184; opium smoking
stewards, 184'; poor relatives at
weddings, 185; “drawing
friends,” 191 ; pranks at, 25!.
Week, unique survival of the, 192.

Wells, manner of digging, 44, 45 ;
driven wells, 45; occasions of
feuds, 45; unpopular people for-
bidden to use, 45 ; Western ideas
needed for Chinese well-diggers,
46; how a force pump was re-
fused by a village, 46—48.

Western Learning Edict, I34, I35.

Wife of Tao-t‘ai envying a dog,
262, note.

Woman (See Girls and women).

Women have no name, 241 ; terms
used, 241.

Writing Chinese very difficult, 87,
88.

YELLOW River, “ China’s Sorrow,”
r72, 173.

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