Letters from China and Japan Part 5

According to the papers, the j.a.panese boycott is spreading, but the ones we see doubt if the people will hold out long enough--meanwhile j.a.panese money is refused here.

The East is an example of what masculine civilization can be and do. The trouble I should say is that the discussions have been confined to the subjection of the women as if that were a thing affecting the women only. It is my conviction that not merely the domestic and educational backwardness of China, but the increasing physical degeneration and the universal political corruption and lack of public spirit, which make China such an easy mark, is the result of the condition of women. There is the same corruption in j.a.pan only it is organized; there seems to be an alliance between two groups of big capitalists and the two leading political "parties." There the very great public spirit is nationalistic rather than social, that is, it is patriotism rather than public spirit as we understand it. So while j.a.pan is strong where China is weak, there are corresponding defects there because of the submission of women--and the time will come when the hidden weakness will break j.a.pan down. Here are two items from the Chinese side. A missionary spoke to Christian Chinese about spending the time Sunday, making chiefly the point that it was a good time for family reunions and family readings, conversation and the like. One of them said that they would be bored to death if they had to spend the whole day with their wives. Then we are told that the rich women--who have of course much less liberty in getting out than the poorer cla.s.s women--spend their time among themselves gambling. It is universally believed that the attempt to support a number of wives extravagantly is one of the chief sources of political corruption. On the other hand, at one of the political protest meetings in Peking a committee of twelve was appointed to go to the officials and four of them were women. In j.a.pan women are forbidden to attend any meetings where politics are discussed, and the law is strictly enforced. There are many more Chinese women studying in America than there are j.a.panese--in part, perhaps, because of the lack of higher schools for girls here, but also because they don't have to give up marriage here when they get an education--in fact we are told they are in especial demand not only among the men who have studied abroad, but among the millionaires. Certainly the educated ones here are much more advanced on the woman question than in j.a.pan.

"You never can tell" is the coat of arms of China. The Chancellor of the University was forced out on the evening of the eighth by the cabinet, practically under threat of a.s.sa.s.sination; also soldiers (bandits) were brought into the city and the University surrounded, so to save the University rather than himself, he left--n.o.body knows where. The release of the students was sent out by telegraph, but they refused to allow this to become known. It seems this Chancellor was more the intellectual leader of the liberals than I had realized, and the government had become really afraid of him. He has only been there two years, and before that the students had never demonstrated politically and now they are the leaders of the new movement. So of course the government will put in a reactionary, and the students will leave and all the honest teachers resign. Perhaps the students will go on strike all over China.

But you never can tell.

Tuesday A.M.

Ex-President Sun Yat Sen is a philosopher, as I found out last night during dinner with him. He has written a book, to be published soon, saying that the weakness of the Chinese is due to their acceptance of the statement of an old philosopher, "To know is easy, to act is difficult." Consequently they did not like to act and thought it was possible to get a complete theoretical understanding, while the strength of the j.a.panese was that they acted even in ignorance and went ahead and learned by their mistakes; the Chinese were paralyzed by fear of making a mistake in action. So he has written a book to prove to his people that action is really easier than knowledge.

The American sentiment here hopes that the Senate will reject the treaty because it virtually completes the turning over of China to j.a.pan. I will only mention two things said in the conversation. j.a.pan already has more troops, namely twenty-three divisions, under arms in China than she has in j.a.pan, j.a.panese officered Chinese, and her possession of Manchurian China is already complete. They have lent China two hundred millions to be used in developing this army and extending it. They offered China, according to the conversation at dinner, to lend her two million a month for twenty years for military purposes. j.a.pan figured the war would last till '21 or '22, and had proposed an offensive and defensive alliance to Germany, j.a.pan to supply its trained Chinese army, and Germany to turn over to j.a.pan the Allies' concessions and colonies in China. As an evidence of good faith, Germany had already offered to j.a.pan its own Chinese territory, and it was the communication of this fact to Great Britain which induced the latter to sign the secret pact agreeing to turn over German possessions to j.a.pan, when the peace was made. These men are not jingoists; they think they know what they are talking about, and they have good sources of knowledge. Some of these statements are known facts--like the size of the army and the two hundred million loan--but of course I can't guarantee them. But I'm coming to the opinion that it might be well worth while to reject the treaty on the ground that it involved the recognition of secret treaties and secret diplomacy. On the other hand, a genuine League of Nations--one with some vigor--is the only salvation I can see of the whole Eastern situation, and it is infinitely more serious than we realize at home. If things drift on five or ten years more, the world will have a China under j.a.panese military domination--barring two things--j.a.pan will collapse in the meantime under the strain, or Asia will be completely Bolshevikized, which I think is about fifty-fifty with a j.a.panized-Militarized China. European diplomacy here, which of course dominates America, is completely futile. England does everything with reference to India, and they all temporize and drift and take what are called optimistic long-run views and quarrel among themselves, and j.a.pan alone knows what it wants and comes after it.

I still believe in the genuineness of the j.a.panese liberal movement there, but they lack moral courage. They, the intellectual liberals, are almost as ignorant of the true facts as we are, and enough aware of them to wish to keep themselves in ignorance. Then there is the great patriotism, which of course easily justifies, by the predatory example of the Europeans, the idea that this is all in self-defense.

SHANGHAI, May 13.

I closed up abruptly because there seemed a possibility of mail going out and now it is a day after and more to tell, with a prospect of little time to tell it. China is full of unused resources and there are too many people. The factories begin to work at six or earlier in the morning, with not enough for the poor to do, and they have the habit of not wanting to work much. Two shifts work in factories for the twenty-four hours. They get about twenty to thirty cents a day and the little children get from nothing up to nine cents, or even eleven cents after they get older. Iron mines are idle, coal and oil undeveloped, and they cannot get railroads. They burn their wood everywhere and the country is withering away because it is deforested. They made the porcelain industry for the world and they buy their table dishes from j.a.pan. They raise a deteriorated cotton and buy cotton cloth from j.a.pan.

They buy any quant.i.ty of small useful articles from j.a.pan. j.a.panese are in every town across China like a network closing in on fishes.

All the mineral resources of China are the prey of the j.a.panese, and they have secured 80 per cent of them by bribery of the Peking government. Talk to a Chinese and he will tell you that China cannot develop because she has no transportation facilities. Talk to him about building railroads and he tells you China ought to have railroads but she cannot build them because she cannot get the material. Talk to him about fuel when you see all the weeds being gathered from the roadsides for burning in the cook stoves, and he tells you China cannot use her mines because of the government's interference. There are large coal mines within ten miles of this city with the coal lying near the surface and only the j.a.panese are using them, though they are right on the bank of the Yangste River. The iron mines referred to are near the river, a whole mountain of iron being worked by the j.a.panese, who bring the ocean ships up the river, load them directly from the mines, the ore being carried down the hill, and take these ships directly to j.a.pan, and they pay four dollars a ton to the Chinese company which carries on all the work.

The last hope of China for an effective government pa.s.sed away with the closing of the Peace Conference, which has been working hard here for weeks. It seems the delegates from the south could act with plenary power. The delegates from the north had to refer everything to the military ministers from Peking, and so at last they gave up. Despair is deeper than ever, and they all say that nothing can be done. We have gone round recommending many ways of getting at the wrong impressions that prevail in our country about them, such as propaganda, an insistence upon the explanation of the differences between the people and the government. But the reply is, "We can do nothing, we have no money." Certainly the Chinese pride has been grounded now. An American official here says there is no hope for China except through the protection of the great powers, in which j.a.pan must join. Without that she is the prey of j.a.pan. j.a.panese are buying best bits of land in this city for business, and in other cities. j.a.pan borrows money from other nations and then loans it to China on bleeding terms. The cession of Shantung has, of course, precipitated the whole mess and some Chinese think that is their last hope to so reduce them to the last extremity that rage will bring them to act. The boycott of j.a.panese goods and money has begun, but many say it will not be persistently carried out.

The need for food and clothes in China keeps everybody bound by the struggle for a livelihood, and everything else has to be forgotten in the long run.

The protests of the Faculty on behalf of the students seem to have been received by the government in good part. Students here are in trouble also to some extent and there is a probability of a strike of students in all the colleges and middle schools of the country. The story at St.

John's here is very interesting. It is the Episcopalian mission school, and one of the best. Students walked to Shanghai, ten miles, on the hottest day to parade, then ten miles back. Some of them fell by the way with sunstroke. On their return in the evening they found some of the younger students going in to a concert. The day was a holiday, called the Day of Humiliation. It is the anniversary of the date of the twenty-one demands of j.a.pan, and is observed by all the schools. It is a day of general meetings and speechmaking for China. These students stood outside of the door where the concert was to be held and their princ.i.p.al came out and told them they must go to the concert. They replied that they were praying there, as it was not a time for celebrating by a concert on the Day of Humiliation. Then they were ordered to go in first by this princ.i.p.al and afterwards by the President of the whole college.

Considerable excitement was the result. Students said they were watching there for the sake of China as the apostles prayed at the death of Christ and this anniversary was like the anniversary of the death of Christ. The President told them if they did not go in then he would shut them out of the college. This he did. They stood there till morning and then one of them who lived nearby took them into his house. Therefore St. John's College is closed and the President has not given in.

I fancy the Chinese would be almost ready to treat the j.a.panese as they did the treacherous minister if it were not for the reaction it would have on the world at large. They do hate them and the Americans we have met all seem to feel with them. Certainly the apparent lie of the j.a.panese when they made their splurge in promising before the sitting of the Peace Conference to give back the German concessions to China is something America ought not to forget. All these, and the extreme poverty of China is what I had no idea of before coming here.

A wonderfully solemn and intent old pedlar has made his appearance most every day, and much the same ceremonies are gone through. For instance, there was a bead necklace--the light hollowed silver enamel--he wanted fourteen dollars for; he seemed rather glad finally to sell it for four, though you can't say he seemed glad; on the contrary, he seemed preternaturally gloomy and remarked that he and not we would eat bitterness because of this purchase. The funniest thing was once when, after getting sick of bargaining, we put the whole thing down and started to walk away. His movements and gestures would have made an actor celebrated--they are indescribable, but they said in effect, "Rather than have any misunderstanding come between me and my close personal friends I would give you free anything in my possession." The blood rushed to his face and a smile of heavenly benignity came over it as he handed us the things at the price we had offered him.

The students' committees met yesterday and voted to inform the government by telegraph that they would strike next Monday if their four famous demands were not granted--or else five--including of course refusal to sign the peace treaty, punishment of traitors who made the secret treaties with j.a.pan because they were bribed, etc. But the committee seemed to me more conservative than the students, for the rumor this A.M. is that they are going to strike to-day anyway. They are especially angered because the police have forbidden them to hold open-air meetings--that's now the subject of one of their demands--and because the provincial legislature, after promising to help on education, raised their own salaries and took the money to do it with out of the small educational fund. In another district the students rioted and rough-housed the legislative hall when this happened. Here there was a protest committee, but the students are mad and want action.

Some of the teachers, so far as I can judge, quite sympathize with the boys, not only in their ends but in their methods; some think it their moral duty to urge deliberate action and try to make the students as organized and systematic as possible, and some take the good old Chinese ground that there is no certainty that any good will come of it. To the outsider it looks as if the babes and sucklings who have no experience and no precedents would have to save China--if. And it's an awful if.

It's not surprising that the j.a.panese with their energy and positiveness feel that they are predestined to govern China.

I didn't ever expect to be a jingo, but either the United States ought to wash its hands entirely of the Eastern question, and say "it's none of our business, fix it up yourself any way you like," or else it ought to be as positive and aggressive in calling j.a.pan to account for every aggressive move she makes, as j.a.pan is in doing them. It is sickening that we allow j.a.pan to keep us on the defensive and the explanatory, and talk about the open door, when j.a.pan has locked most of the doors in China already and got the keys in her pocket. I understand and believe what all Americans say here--the military party that controls j.a.pan's foreign policy in China regards everything but positive action, prepared to back itself by force, as fear and weakness, and is only emboldened to go still further. Met by force, she would back down. I don't mean military force, but definite positive statements about what she couldn't do that she knew meant business. At the present time the j.a.panese are trying to stir up anti-foreign feeling and make the Chinese believe the Americans and English are responsible for China not getting Shantung back, and also talking race discrimination for the same purpose. I don't know what effect their emissaries are having among the ignorant, but the merchant cla.s.s has about got to the point of asking foreign intervention to straighten things out--first to loosen the clutch of j.a.pan, and then, or at the same time, for it's the two sides of the same thing, overthrow the corrupt military clique that now governs China and sells it out.

It's a wonderful job for a League of Nations--if only by any chance there is a league, which looks most dubious at this distance.

The question which is asked oftenest by the students is in effect this: "All of our hopes of permanent peace and internationalism having been disappointed at Paris, which has shown that might still makes right, and that the strong nations get what they want at the expense of the weak, should not China adopt militarism as part of her educational system?"

NANKING, May 18.

There is no doubt we are in China. Hangchow, we are told, was one of the most prosperous of the strictly Chinese cities, and after seeing this town we can believe it. It has a big wall around it, said to be 21 miles and also 33--my guess is the latter; nonetheless there are hundreds of acres of farm within it. This afternoon we were taken up on the wall; it varies from 15 to 79 feet in height, according to the lay of the ground, and from 12 to 30 feet or so wide; hard baked brick, about as large as three of ours. They always had a smaller walled city inside the big one, variously called the Imperial and Manchu city. But since the revolution they are tearing down these inner walls, partly I suppose to show their contempt for the Manchus, and partly to use the brick. These are sold for three or four cents apiece and carted all around on the big Chinese wheelbarrow, by man power, of course. The compound wall of this house is made of them, and they have several thousand of them stored at the University grounds. They sc.r.a.pe them off by hand; you can get some idea of the relative value of material and human beings. I started out to speak of the view--typical China, deforested hills close by, all pockmarked at the bottom with graves, like animal burrows and golf bunkers; peasants' stone houses with thatched roofs, looking like Ireland or France; orchards of pomegranates with lovely scarlet blossoms and other fruits; some rice fields already growing, others being set out, ten or a dozen people at work in one patch; garden patches, largely melons; in the distance the wall stretching out for miles, a hill with a paG.o.da, a lotus lake, and in the far distance the blue mountains--also the city, not so much of which was visible, however.

One of the interesting things in moving about is the fact that only once in a while do I see a face typically Chinese. I forget they are Chinese a great deal of the time. They just seem like dirty, poor miserable people anywhere. They are cheerful but not playful. I should like to give a few millions for playgrounds and toys and play leaders. I can't but think that a great deal of the lack of initiative and the let-George-do-it, which is the curse of China, is connected with the fact that the children are grown up so soon. There are less than a hundred schools for children in this city of a third of a million, and the schools only have a few hundred--two or three at most. The children on the street are always just looking and watching, wise, human looking, and reasonably cheerful, but old and serious beyond bearing. Of course many are working at the loom, or when they are younger at reeling. This is a good deal of a silk place, and we visited one government factory with several hundred people at work; this one at least makes out to be self-supporting. There isn't a power reeler or loom in the town, nor yet a loom of the Jacquard type. Sometimes a boy sits up top and shifts things, sometimes they have six or eight foot treadles. A lot of the reeling isn't even foot power--just hand, though their hand reeler is much more ingenious than the j.a.panese one. There seem so many places to take hold and improve things and yet all of these are so tied together, and change is so hard that it isn't much wonder everybody who stays here gets more or less Chinafied and takes it out in liking the Chinese personally for their amiable qualities.

Just now the students are forming a patriotic league because of the present political situation, j.a.panese boycott, etc. But the teachers of the Nanking University here say that instead of contenting themselves with the two or three things they might well do, they are laying out an ambitious scheme covering everything, and their energy will be exhausted when they get their elaborate const.i.tution formed, or they will meet so many difficulties that they will get discouraged even with the things they might do. I don't know whether I told you about the clerk in the tailor shop in Shanghai; after taking the usual fatalistic att.i.tude that nothing could be done with the present situation, he said the boycott was a good thing but "Chinaman he got weak mind; pretty soon he forget."

In various places there are lots of straw hats hung up painted in Chinese characters where they have stopped pa.s.sersby and taken their hats away because they were j.a.panese made. It is all good natured and n.o.body objects. There are policemen in front of j.a.panese stores, and they allow no one to enter; they are "protecting" the j.a.panese. This is characteristic of China. The policemen all carry guns with bayonets attached; they are very numerous and slouch around looking bored to death. The only other cla.s.s as bored looking is the dogs, which are even more numerous, and lie stretched out at full length, never curled up, and never by any chance doing anything.

We visited the old examination halls which are now being torn down.

These are the cells, about 25,000 in number, where the candidates for degrees used to be shut up during the examination period. Said cells are built in long rows, under a lean-to roof, mostly opening face to face on an open corridor, which is uncovered. Some of them face against a wall which is the back of the next row of cells. Cells are two and one-half feet wide by four long. In them are two ridges along the wall on each side, one at the height of a seat, the other at the height of a table.

On these they laid two boards, two and a half feet long, and this was their furniture. They sat and wrote and cooked and ate and slept in these cells. In case it did not rain, their feet could stick out into the corridor so they might stretch out on the hard floor. The exams lasted eight days, divided into three divisions. They went in on the eighth day of the eighth moon in the evening. They wrote the first subject until the afternoon of the tenth. Then they left for the night.

On the afternoon of the eleventh they came in for the second subject and wrote till the afternoon of the thirteenth, when there was another day off. On the evening of the fourteenth they re-entered the cell for the third period and that ended on the evening of the sixteenth. They had free communication with each other in the corridors, which were closed and locked. No one could approach them from the outside for any reason.

Often they died. But if they could only get put into a corridor with a friend who knew, the biggest fool in China could get his paper written for him, and he could pa.s.s and become an M. A., or something corresponding to that degree. Thus were the famous literati of China produced. Preparation for the exam was not the affair of the government, and might be acquired in any possible way. The houses of the examiners are still in good condition and might be made into a school very easily.

But do you think they will do that? Not at all. The government has not ordered a school there, and so they will be torn down or else used for some official work. You can have no conception of how far the officialism goes till you see it. We also visited a Confucian Temple, big and used twice each year. It is like all temples in that it is covered with the dust of many years' acc.u.mulation. If you were to be dropped in any Chinese temple you would think you had landed in a deserted and forgotten ruin out of reach of man. We went to the Temple of h.e.l.l on Sunday, and the gentleman who accompanied us suggested to the priest that the images ought to be dusted off. "Yes," said the priest, "it would be better if they were."

NANKING, Thursday, May 22.

The returned students from j.a.pan hate j.a.pan, but they are all at loggers with the returned students from America, and their separate organizations cannot get together. Many returned students have no jobs, apparently because they will not go into business or begin at the bottom anywhere, and there is strong hostility against them on the part of the officials.

As a sample of the way business is done here, we have just had an express letter from Shanghai which took four days to arrive. It should arrive in twelve hours. People use express letters rather than the telegraph because they are quicker. You may spend as much time as you like or don't like, wondering why your express letter did not reach you on time; you do it at your own risk and expense. The Chinese do not juggle with foreigners as the j.a.panese do, in the conscious sense, they simply drift, they juggle with themselves and with each other all the time.

This house is four miles from the railroad station. There is no street car here; there are many 'rickshas, a few carriages, still fewer autos.

There are no sedan chairs, at least I don't remember seeing any, but at Chienkiang, where we went the other day, the streets are so narrow that chairs are the main means of conveyance. The 'ricksha men here pay forty cents a day to the city for their vehicles, which are all alike and very poor ones. They make a little more than that sum for themselves. In Shanghai they pay ninety cents a day for their right to work, and earn from one dollar to a possible dollar and a half for themselves.

I said to a young professor, the other day, that China was still supporting three idle cla.s.ses of people. He looked surprised, though a student and critic of social conditions, and asked me who they were.

When I asked him if that couldn't be said of the officials, the priests, and the army, he said yes, it could. Thus far and no further, seems to be their motto, both in thinking and acting, especially in acting.

NANKING, May 23.

I don't believe anybody knows what the political prospects are; this students' movement has introduced a new and uncalculable factor--and all in the three weeks we have been here. You heard nothing but gloom about political China at first, corrupt and traitorous officials, soldiers only paid banditti, the officers getting the money from j.a.pan to pay them with, no organizing power or cohesion among the Chinese; and then the students take things into their hands, and there is animation and a sudden buzz. There are a hundred students being coached here to go out and make speeches, they will have a hundred different stations scattered through the city. It is also said the soldiers are responding to the patriotic propaganda; a man told us that the soldiers wept when some students talked to them about the troubles of China, and the soldiers of Shantung, the province turned over to j.a.pan, have taken the lead in telegraphing the soldiers in the other provinces to resist the corrupt traitors. Of course, what they all are afraid of is that this is a flash in the pan, but they are already planning to make the student movement permanent and to find something for them to do after this is settled.

Their idea here is to reorganize them for popular propaganda for education, more schools, teaching adults, social service, etc.

It is very interesting to compare the men who have been abroad with those who haven't--I mean students and teachers. Those who haven't are sort of helpless, practically; the height of literary and academic minds. Those who have studied abroad, even in j.a.pan, have much more go to them. Certainly the cla.s.sicists in education have a n.o.ble example here in China of what their style of education can do if only kept up long enough. On the other hand, there must be something esthetically very fine in the old Chinese literature; even many of the modern young men have a sentimental attachment to it, precisely like that which they have to the fine writing of their characters. They talk about them with all the art jargon: "Notice the strength of this down stroke, and the spirituality of the cross stroke and elegant rhythm of the composition."

When we visited a temple the other day, one of the chief Buddhist shrines in China, we were presented with a rubbing of the writing of the man who is said to be the finest writer ever known in China--these characters were engraved in the rock from his writing some centuries ago--I don't know how many. It is very easy to see how cultivated people take refuge in art and spirituality when politics are corrupt and the general state of social life is discouraging; you see it here, and how in the end it increases the decadence.

I think we wrote you from Shanghai that we had been introduced to all the mysteries of China, ancient eggs, sharks' fins, birds' nests, pigeon eggs, the eight precious treasures, rice pudding, and so on. We continue to have Chinese meals; yesterday lunch in the home of an adviser to a military official. He is very outspoken, doesn't trim in politics, and gives you a more hopeful feeling about China. The most depressing thing is hearing it said, "When we get a stable government, we can do so and so, but there is no use at present." But this man's att.i.tude is rather, "d.a.m.n the government and go ahead and do something." He is very proud of having a "happy, Christian home" and doesn't cover up his Christianity as most of the official and wealthy cla.s.s seem to do. He expects to have his daughters educated in America, one in medicine and one in home affairs, and to have help in a campaign for changing the character of the Chinese home--from these big aggregates of fifty people or so living together, married children, servants, etc., where he says the waste is enormous, to say nothing of bickerings and jealousies. In the old type of well-to-do home, breakfast would begin for someone about seven, and someone would have cooking done for him to eat till noon; then about two, visitors would come, and the servants would be ordered to cook something for each caller--absolutely no organization or planning in anything, according to him.