My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard Part 7

7 My Dear Mother, These are most troublous times, and thy son is hara.s.sed to the verge of sickness. Shanghai is filled with Chinese who come seeking foreign protection. Within the narrow confines of the foreign settlements, it is said, there are nearly a million Chinese, half of them refugees from their home provinces, fearing for their money or their lives, or both.

The great red houses on the fashionable streets, built by the English for their homes, are sold at fabulous prices to these gentlemen, who have brought their families and their silver to the only place they know where the foreign hand is strong enough to protect them from their own people. There are many queer tales; some are simply the breath of the unkind winds that seem to blow from nowhere but gain in volume with each thing they touch. Tan Toatai, who paid 300,000 taels for his position as Toatai of Shanghai, and who left for his home province with 3,000,000 taels, as the gossips say, was asked to contribute of his plenty for the help of the new government. He promised; then changed his mind, and carefully gathered all his treasures together and left secretly one night for Shanghai. Now he is in fear for his life and dares not leave the compound walls of the foreigner who has befriended him.

It makes one wonder what is the use of these fortunes that bring endless sorrow by the misery of winning them, guarding them, and the fear of losing them. They who work for them are as the water buffalo who turns the water-wheel and gets but his daily food and the straw-thatched hut in which he rests. For the sake of this food and lodging which falls to the lot of all, man wastes his true happiness which is so hard to win.

These Chinese of the foreign settlements seem alien to me. Yuan called upon thy son the other day, and had the temerity to ask for me-- a most unheard-of thing. I watched him as he went away, dressed in European clothes, as nearly all of our younger men are clothed these days, and one would never know that he had worn his hair otherwise than short. There are no more neatly plaited braids hanging down the back, and the beautiful silks and satins, furs and peac.o.c.k feathers are things of the past. These peac.o.c.k feathers, emblems of our old officialdom, are now bought by foreign ladies as a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on their hats. Shades of Li Hung-chang and Chang Chih-tung! What will they say if looking over the barriers they see the insignia of their rank and office gracing the glowing head-gear of the tourists who form great parties and come racing from over the seas to look at us as at queer animals from another world?

It is not only the men who are copying the foreign customs and clothing. Our women are now seen in public, driving with their husbands, or walking arm in arm upon the public street. I even saw a Chinese woman driving that "devil machine," a motor-car, with her own hands. She did not seem a woman, but an uns.e.xed thing that had as little of woman-hood as the car that took her along so swiftly. I promised to send Tah-li the new hair ornaments, but there are no hair ornaments worn now. The old jewels are laid aside, the jade and pearls are things of the past. The hair is puffed and knotted in a way most unbecoming to the face. It is neither of the East nor of the West, but a half-caste thing, that brands its wearer as a woman of no race.

Dost thou remember the story over which the Chinese in all the Empire laughed within their sleeves? Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager, was on most friendly terms with the wife of the Minister of the United States of America, and on one occasion gave her as a gift a set of combs enclosed within a box of silver. The foreign lady was delighted, and did not see the delicate sarcasm hidden within the present. Combs-- the foreign ladies need them! We Chinese like the locks most smoothly brushed and made to glisten and shine with the scented elm, but they, the foreign ladies, allow them to straggle in rude disorder around their long, grave faces, which are so ugly in our eyes.

Thou hast asked me for the latest style in dress. It is impossible to say what is the latest style. Some women wear a jacket far too short and trousers tight as any coat sleeve. The modest ones still cover them with skirts; but I have seen women walking along the street who should certainly stay within the inner courtyard and hide their shame.

For those who wear the skirt, the old, wide-pleated model has gone by, and a long black skirt that is nearly European is now worn. It is not graceful, but it is far better than the trousers worn by women who walk along so stiffly upon their "golden lilies." These tiny feet to me are beautiful, when covered with gay embroidery they peep from scarlet skirts; but they too are pa.s.sing, and we hear no more the crying of the children in the courtyards. I am told that the small-footed woman of China is of the past, along with the long finger-nails of our gentlemen and scholars; and I am asked why I do not unbind my feet.

I say, "I am too old; I have suffered in the binding, why suffer in the unbinding?" I have conceded to the new order by allowing unbound feet to all my girls, and everywhere my family is held up as an example of the new Chinese. They do not know of the many bitter tears I have shed over the thought that my daughters would look like women of the servant cla.s.s and perhaps not make a good marriage; but I was forced to yield to their father, whose foreign travel had taught him to see beauty in ugly, natural feet. Even now, when I see Wan-li striding across the gra.s.s, I blush for her and wish she could walk more gracefully. My feet caused me many moons of pain, but they are one of the great marks of my lady-hood, and I yet feel proud as I come into a room with the gentle swaying motions of the bamboo in a breeze; although my daughter who supports me takes one great step to five of mine.

The curse of foot binding does not fall so heavily upon women like myself, who may sit and broider the whole day through, or, if needs must travel, can be borne upon the shoulders of their chair bearers, but it is a bane to the poor girl whose parents hope to have one in the family who may marry above their station, and hoping thus, bind her feet. If this marriage fails and she is forced to work within her household, or, even worse, if she is forced to toil within the fields or add her mite gained by most heavy labour to help fill the many eager mouths at home, then she should have our pity. We have all seen the small-footed woman pulling heavy boats along the tow-path, or leaning on their hoes to rest their tired feet while working in the fields of cotton. To her each day is a day of pain; and this new law forbidding the binding of the feet of children will come as Heaven's blessing. But it will not cease at once, as so many loudly now proclaim. It will take at least three generations; her children's children will all quite likely have natural feet. The people far in the country, far from the noise of change and progress, will not feel immediately that they can wander so far afield from the old ideas of what is beautiful in their womanhood.

I notice, as I open wide my cas.e.m.e.nt, that the rain has come, and across the distant fields it is falling upon the new-sown rice and seems to charm the earth into the thought that spring is here, bringing forth the faint green buds on magnolia, ash, and willow. Dost thou remember the verse we used to sing:

"Oh she is good, the little rain, and well she knows our need, Who cometh in the time of spring to aid the sun-drawn seed.

She wanders with a friendly wind through silent heights unseen, The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo, the land is green!"

I must send a servant with the rain coverings for the children, that they may not get wet in returning from their schools.

We greet thee, all.

Kwei-li.

8 My Dear Mother, Last night I heard a great wailing in the servants' courtyard, and found there the maid of thy old friend, Tang Tai-tai. She came from Nanking to us, as she has no one left in all the world. She is a Manchu and has lived all her life in the Manchu family of Tang within the Tartar city of Nanking. It seems the soldiers, besieging the city, placed their guns on Purple Hill, so that they would cause destruction only to the Tartar city, and it was levelled to the ground. No stone remains upon another; and the family she had served so faithfully were either killed in the battle that raged so fiercely, or were afterward taken to the grounds of Justice to pay with their life for the fact that they belonged to the Imperial Clan. She is old, this faithful servant, and now claims my protection. It is another mouth to feed; but there is so much unhappiness that if it were within my power I would quench with rains of food and drink the anguish this cruel war has brought upon so many innocent ones. A mat on which to sleep, a few more bowls of rice, these are the only seeds that I may sow within the field of love, and I dare not them withhold.

I am most sorrowful for these poor Manchus. For generations they have received a pension from the government; to every man-child an allowance has been made; and now they find themselves with nothing. Even their poor homes are piles of stone and rubbish. What will they do to gain their food in this great country which is already full to over-flowing? They are so pitiful, these old men and women thrown so suddenly upon the world. Their stories pierce my marrow, and I would that my sleeve were long and wide enough to cover all the earth and shelter these poor helpless ones. One old man-- his years must have been near eighty-- came to our door for help. I talked to him and found that, until his sons were killed before his eyes, his home torn to the ground, he had never been without the city's walls. He said, just like a child, "Why should I go? My wife, my sons, my home, my all, were within the walls; why go outside?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mylady17.]

Each hour brings us fresh rumours of the actions of the rebels, Poor Liang Tai-tai was here and in the sorest trouble. Her husband and her brother were officers in the army of Yuan, and when in Ranking were shot along with twenty of their brother officers, because they would not join the Southern forces. To add to China's trouble, the Southern pirates are attacking boats; and I am glad to say, although it sounds most cruel, that the government is taking measures both quick and just. Ten men were captured and were being brought by an English ship to Canton, and when in neutral waters it is said a Chinese gunboat steamed alongside with an order for the prisoners. As they stepped upon the Chinese boat, each man was shot. The English were most horrified, and have spoken loudly in all the papers of the acts of barbarism; but they do not understand our people. They must be frightened; especially at a time like this, when men are watching for the chance to take advantage of their country's turmoil.

These pirates of Canton have always been a menace. Each village in that country must be forever on the defensive, for no man is safe who has an ounce of gold. When father was the prefect of Canton, I remember seeing a band of pirates brought into the Yamen, a ring of iron around the collarbone, from which a chain led to the prisoner on either side. It was brutal, but it allowed no chance of escape for these men, dead to all humanity, and desperate, knowing there awaited them long days of prison, and in the end they knew not what.

In those days imprisonment was the greatest of all evils; it was not made a place of comfort. For forty-eight long hours, the man within the clutches of the law went hungry; then, if no relative or friend came forth to feed him, he was allowed one bowl of rice and water for each day. A prison then meant ruin to a man with money, because the keepers of the outer gate, the keepers of the inner gate, the guardian of the prison doors, the runners in the corridor, the jailer at the cell, each had a hand that ached for silver. A bowl of rice bought at the tea-shop for ten cash, by the time the waiting hungry man received it, cost many silver dollars. Yet a prison should not be made a tempting place of refuge and vacation; if so in times of cold and hunger it will be filled with those who would rather suffer shame than work.

Another thing the people who cry loudly against our old-time Courts of Justice do not understand, is the crushing, grinding, naked poverty that causes the people in this over-crowded province to commit most brutal deeds. The penalties must match the deeds, and frighten other evil-doers. If the people do not fear death, what good is there in using death as a deterrent; and our Southern people despise death, because of their excessive labour in seeking the means of life. But-- what a subject for a letter! I can see thee send for a cup of thy fragrant sun-dried tea, mixed with the yellow flower of the jessamine, to take away the thoughts of death and evil and the wickedness of the world outside thy walls. It will never touch thee, Mother mine, because the G.o.ds are holding thee all safe within their loving hands.

Thy daughter, Kwei-li.

9 My Mother, I have most joyful news to tell thee. My father has arrived! He came quite without warning, saying he must know the changing times from word of mouth instead of reading it in papers. He has upset my household with his many servants. My father keeps to his old ways and customs and travels with an army of his people. His pipe man, his hat man, his cook, his boy-- well, thou rememberest when he descended upon us in Sezchuan-- yet he could bring ten times the number, and his welcome would be as warm. The whole town knows he is our guest, and foreigners and Chinese have vied one with the other to do him honour. The foreign papers speak of him as "the greatest Chinese since Li Hung-chang," and many words are written about his fifty years' service as a high official. The story is retold of his loyalty to Her Majesty at the time of the Boxer uprising, when he threatened the foreigners that if Her Majesty was even frightened, he would turn his troops upon Shanghai and drive the foreigners into the sea. I wonder if the present government can gain the love the Dowager Empress drew from all who served her.

My father was the pioneer of the present education, so say the papers, and it is remembered that his school for girls in the province where he ruled, nearly caused him the loss of his position, as His Excellency, Chang Chih-tung, memorialised the throne and said that women should not have book learning; that books would only give them a place in which to hide their threads and needles. It is also said of him that he was always against the coming of the foreigners. They could obtain no mine, no railway, no concession in a province where he was representing his Empress. China was closed, so far as lay within his power, to even men of religion from other lands. It was he who first said, "The missionary, the merchant, and then the gunboat."

My father will not talk with men about the present trials of China; he says, most justly, that he who is out of office should not meddle in the government. When asked if he will give the results of his long life and great experience to the Republic, he answers that he owes his love and loyalty to the old regime under which he gained his wealth and honours; and then he shakes his head and says he is an old man, nothing but wet ashes. But they do not see the laughter in his eyes; for my father "is like the pine-tree, ever green, the symbol of unflinching purpose and vigorous old age."

So many old-time friends have been to see him. Father, now that the heavy load of officialdom is laid aside, delights to sit within the courtyards with these friends and play at verse-making. No man of his time is found lacking in that one great attribute of a Chinese gentleman. He has treasures of poetry that are from the hands of friends long since pa.s.sed within the Vale of Longevity. These poems are from the pens of men who wrote of the longing for the spiritual life, or the beauties of the world without their doors, or the pleasure of a.s.sociation with old and trusted friends. I read some scrolls the other day, and it was as though "aeolian harps had caught some strayed wind from an unknown world and brought its messages to me." It is only by the men of other days that poetry is appreciated, who take the time to look around them, to whom the quiet life, the life of thought and meditation is as vital as the air they breathe. To love the beautiful in life one must have time to sit apart from the worry and the rush of the present day. He must have time to look deep within his hidden self and weigh the things that count for happiness; and he must use most justly all his hours of leisure, a thing which modern life has taught us to hold lightly.

But with our race verse-making has always been a second nature. In the very beginning of our history, the Chinese people sang their songs of kings and princes, of the joys of family life and love and home and children. It is quite true that they did not delve deep into the mines of hidden pa.s.sions, as their songs are what songs should be, telling joyful tales of happiness and quiet loves. They are not like the songs of warrior nations, songs of battle, l.u.s.t and blood, but songs of peace and quiet and deep contentment. When our women sang, like all women who try to voice the thoughts within them, they sang their poems in a sadder key, all filled with care, and cried of love's call to its mate, of resignation and sometimes of despair.

My father learned to love the poets in younger days, but he still reads them o'er and o'er. He says they take him back to other years when life with all its dreams of beauty, love, and romance, lay before him. It brings remembrance of youth's golden days when thoughts of fame and mad ambition came to him with each morning's light. This father of mine, who was stiffly bound with ceremony and acts of statecraft for ten long months of the year, had the temerity to ask two months'

leave of absence from his duties, when he went to his country place in the hills, to his "Garden of the Pleasure of Peace." It was always in the early spring when "that G.o.ddess had spread upon the budding willow her lovely mesh of silken threads, and the rushes were renewing for the year." He sat beneath the bamboos swaying in the wind like dancing girls, and saw the jessamine and magnolia put forth their buds.

What happy days they were when father came! For me, who lived within the garden all the year, it was just a plain, great garden; but when he came it was transformed. It became a place of rare enchantment, with fairy palaces and lakes of jewelled water, and the lotus flowers took on a loveliness for which there is no name. We would sit hand in hand in our gaily painted tea-house, and watch the growing of the lotus from the first unfurling of the leaf to the fall of the dying flower. When it rained, we would see the leaves raise their eager, dark-green cups until filled, then bend down gracefully to empty their fulness, and rise to catch the drops again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mylady18.]

The sound of the wind in the cane-fields came to us at night-time as we watched the shimmer of the fireflies. We sat so silently that the only thing to tell us that the wild duck sought his mate amidst the gra.s.s, was the swaying of the reed stems, or the rising of the teal with whirring wings.

My father loved the silence, and taught me that it is in silence, in the quiet places, rather than on the house-tops, that one can hear the spirit's call, and forget the clanging of the world. It is the great gift which the G.o.d of nature alone can give, and "he has found happiness who has won through the stillness of the spirit the Perfect Vision, and this stillness comes through contentment that is regardless of the world."

He often said to me that we are a caravan of beings, wandering through life's pathways, hungering to taste of happiness, which comes to us when we find plain food sweet, rough garments fine, and contentment in the home. It comes when we are happy in a simple way, allowing our wounds received in life's battles to be healed by the moon-beams, which send an ointment more precious than the oil of sandalwood.

I could go on for pages, Mother mine, of the lessons of my father, this grand old man, "who steeled his soul and tamed his thoughts and got his body in control by sitting in the silence and being one with nature, G.o.d, the maker of us all." And when I think of all these things, it is hard to believe that men who love the leisure, the poetry, the beautiful things of life, men like my father, must pa.s.s away. It seems to me it will be a day of great peril for China, for our young ones, when these men of the past lose their hold on the growing mind. As rapidly as this takes place, the reverence for the old-time gentleman, the quiet lady of the inner courtyards, will wane, and reverence will be supplanted by discourtesy, faith by doubt, and love of the G.o.ds by unbelief and impiety.

Yet they say he does not stand for progress. What is progress? What is life? The poet truly cries: "How short a time it is that we are here!

Why then not set our hearts at rest, why wear the soul with anxious thoughts? If we want not wealth, if we want not power, let us stroll the bright hours as they pa.s.s, in gardens midst the flowers, mounting the hills to sing our songs, or weaving verses by the lily ponds. Thus may we work out our allotted span, content with life, our spirits free from care."

My father has a scroll within his room that says:

"For fifty years I plodded through the vale of l.u.s.t and strife, Then through my dreams there flashed a ray of the old sweet peaceful life.

No scarlet ta.s.selled hat of state can vie with soft repose; Grand mansions do not taste the joys that the poor man's cabin knows.

I hate the threatening clash of arms when fierce retainers throng, I loathe the drunkard's revels and the sound of fife and song; But I love to seek a quiet nook, and some old volume bring, Where I can see the wild flowers bloom and hear the birds in spring."

Ah, dear one, my heart flows through my pen, which is the messenger of the distant soul to thee, my Mother.

Kwei-li.

10 My Dear Mother, My days are pa.s.sed like a water-wheel awhirl, and I can scarcely find time to attend to the ordinary duties of my household. I fear I seem neglectful of thee, and I will try to be more regular with my letters, so that thou wilt not need reproach me. To-night my house is quiet and all are sleeping, and I can chat with thee without the many interruptions that come from children, servants, and friends during the waking hours.

I have had callers all the day; my last, the wife of the j.a.panese Consul, who brought with her two children. They were like little b.u.t.terflies, dressed in their gay kimonas and bright red obis, their straight black hair framing their tiny elfin faces. I was delighted and could scarcely let them go. Their mother says she will send to me their photographs, and I will send them to thee, as they seem children from another world. They are much prettier, in my eyes, than the foreign children, with their white hair and colourless, blue eyes, who always seem to be clothed in white. That seems not natural for a child, as it is our mourning colour, and children should wear gay colours, as they are symbols of joy and gladness.

My husband watched them go away with looks of hatred and disdain within his eyes, and when I called them b.u.t.terflies of Gay Nippon, he gave an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of great disgust, as at this time he is not o'erfond of the j.a.panese. He believes, along with others, that they are helping the rebels with their money, and we know that many j.a.panese officers are fighting on the side of the Southern forces. He could not forget the words I used, "Dainty b.u.t.terflies," and he said that these dainty b.u.t.terflies are coming far too fast, at the rate of many tens of thousands each year, and they must be fed and clothed and lodged, and j.a.pan is far too small. These pretty babies searching for a future home are China's greatest menace. j.a.pan reels that her destiny lies here in the Far East, where she is overlord, and will continue as such until the time, if it ever comes, when new China, with her far greater wealth and her myriads of people, dispute the power of the little Island. At present there is no limit to j.a.pan's ambition. Poor China! It will take years and tens of years to mould her people into a nation; and j.a.pan comes to her each year, buying her rice, her cotton and her silk.

These wily merchants travel up her path-ways and traverse her rivers and ca.n.a.ls, selling, buying, and spreading broadcast their influence.

There are eight thousand men of j.a.pan in Shanghai, keen young men, all looking for the advantage of their country. There is no town of any size where you cannot find a j.a.panese. They have driven the traders of other nationalities from many places; the Americans especially have been compelled to leave; and now there is a bitter struggle between the people from the British Isles and the j.a.panese for the trade of our country. In the olden time the people from Great Britain controlled the trade of our Yang-tse Valley, but now it is almost wholly j.a.panese.

The British merchant, in this great battle has the disadvantage of being honest, while the trader from j.a.pan has small thoughts of honesty to hold him to a business transaction. We say here, "One can hold a j.a.panese to a bargain as easily as one can hold a slippery catfish on a gourd." The Sons of Nippon have another point in their favour: the British merchant is a Westerner, while the j.a.panese uses to the full his advantage of being an Oriental like ourselves. Trade-- trade-- is what j.a.pan craves, and it is according to its need that she makes friends or enemies. It is her reason for all she does; her diplomacy, her suavity is based upon it; her army and her vast navy are to help gain and hold it; it is the end and aim of her ambitions.

We, Chinese, have people-- millions, tens of millions of them. When they are better educated, when China is more prosperous, when new demands and higher standards of living are created, when the coolie will not be satisfied with his bowl of rice a day and his one blue garment, then possibilities of commerce will be unlimited. j.a.pan sees this with eyes that look far into the future, and she wants to control this coming trade-- and I fear she will. She has an ambition that is as great as her overpowering belief in herself, an ambition to be in the East what England is in the West; and she is working patiently, quietly, to that end. We fear her; but we are helpless. I hear the men talk bitterly; but what can they do. We must not be another Corea; we must wait until we are strong, and look to other hands to help us in our struggle.

We hope much from America, that country which has so wonderful an influence upon us, which appeals to our imagination because it is great and strong and prosperous. The suave and humorous American, with his easy ways, is most popular with our people, although he cannot always be trusted nor is his word a bond. He is different from the man of England, who is not fond of people not of his own colour and will not try to disguise the fact. He is cold and shows no sympathy to those of an alien race, although we must admit he always acts with a certain amount of justice. America is contemptuous of China and her people, but it is a kindly contempt, not tinged with the bitterness of the other Powers, and we hope, because of that kindliness and also because of trade interests (the American is noted for finding and holding the place that yields him dollars), she will play the part of a kindly friend and save China from her enemies who are now watching each other with such jealous eyes. There is another reason why we like America: she does not seem to covet our land. There is no Shang-tung nor Wei-hai-wei for her. I would that she and England might form a bond of brotherhood for our protection; because all the world knows that where Germany, Russia, or j.a.pan has power, all people from other lands are barred by close-shut doors.