Sidelights on Chinese Life Part 13

The impression one gets from a look into these miserable homes is that the Chinese idea of comfort differs essentially from our own, and that they can put up with a vast amount of discomfort such as would drive an Englishman mad. Their houses are filthily dirty and untidy. The wife after a few weeks of married life loses the trim, neat appearance she had as a young girl. She drops naturally into the slattern ways of the women who are her neighbours, and ere long dust and dirt and cobwebs, and frowsy and untidy garments, are the leading features of the home.

It would be unwise to infer from this state of things that the Chinese are unhappy, or that they are conscious that their surroundings have something in them to induce melancholy or discontent. The ideal of the West is cleanliness, a thing that the East never seems to aim at, or to even dream of. This great city through which we are walking is an example of this latter statement. Its streets are unswept from one year's end to the other. Heaps of rubbish festering and fermenting in the sun and exhaling the most unpleasant odours meet you at every turn. The drains are badly made and left absolutely to themselves until, choked up, they are opened up for repairs, when the hidden compressed effluvia send their noxious vapours into the homes around.

The people are highly uncleanly in their persons. They never bathe, and even in the homes of the rich the bath tub is an unknown luxury. The face and hands are about the only parts of the body that on ordinary occasions ever make the acquaintance of water. Their clothes, too, from a Western standpoint, are anything but satisfactory. They are frowsy and wanting in the crisp cleanliness that a liberal supply of soap and water impart to them. There are always certain garments that are worn day after day and week after week, that men never dream of cleansing in any way whatever.

The lower you go down in the scale of life, the more conspicuous is this disregard of cleanliness, and yet it does not seem to affect either the general health or spirits of the people. They are a laughter-loving race, and jokes and funny stories and everything that would raise a smile to the face find a ready echo in their hearts. The fact that they are surrounded by dust and dirt and untidiness such as would put the shivers into any ordinary Englishman, and dim for the time being the very light of life, have no seeming effect upon this long-lived race.

The people of this town appear to be endowed either with very good appet.i.tes, or to have very defective arrangements at home for supplying the wants of the inner man, for there seems to be an altogether extravagant number of itinerant kitchens with food already cooked stationed at various corners where the traffic is the greatest, to cater at once to the public appet.i.te.

Here is one close at hand, and as we have a few minutes to spare let us draw near and see what it is like. It consists of two wooden stands which can be slung on to the ends of a stout bamboo pole and carried at a moment's notice in any direction that suits the owner. Where trade is brisk at any particular spot, he remains there until his customers desert him, and then, shouldering his miniature eating-house, he goes off at a quick trot to the localities where the hungry are most likely to congregate.

On one of the stands there is a large rice pan which is filled with rice that is kept just on the boil by a fire that burns underneath. The heat must be so modulated that it will never blaze into a flame, for to allow it to do that would be fatal to the success of the enterprise. The Chinese, who are connoisseurs in the art of cooking rice, can never tolerate it being boiled to a pulp. The grains must to a certain extent retain their individuality, and though boiled to the very heart, there must be no loss of that. The man who would wish to be popular must have learned the secret of how to please the taste of the most critical. The other stand is a kind of rough dresser, where the condiments that are to allure a pleasant pa.s.sage to the rice are tastefully set out. These are salted turnips of a brown, leathery look, and the most popular, because very cheap, of all the various articles that the Chinese eat with their rice. There are also bean curds and cuc.u.mbers pickled crisp and juicy, and celery and lettuce, and salted beans and plates of various kinds of fish, and different kinds of soy, which are sprinkled with a sparing hand over the bowl of rice to give it a flavour in order to induce an appet.i.te with the first sip that the customer takes of the savoury compound.

It is interesting to watch the deft way with which the man fulfils the orders that are given him. He first of all ladles out enough rice from the pan to nearly fill one of the bowls that lies turned upside down on the dresser. He then selects with his chopsticks a bit of salted turnip and drops it into the very centre of the steaming rice. Then once more, with the eye of a connoisseur, he picks up a bit of crisp pickled cuc.u.mber about the size of a bean and drops it on the top. If his customer is extravagant and is going in for luxuries, he selects a tiny sprat that lies cooked and ready for use, and places it in a tempting position just within the lip of the basin, and resting on the rice as though it were in its native element. A little savoury soy is then sprinkled over the whole, a pair of chopsticks are daintily laid crosswise over the steaming compound, and the man whose mouth has been watering all the time this process has been going on takes it with eager hands, and without any delay proceeds to satisfy his appet.i.te, and all for the modest sum of a little over a halfpenny.

Several men are seated on their heels round this peripatetic kitchen, shovelling down with their chopsticks the good things contained in their bowls. It does not seem at all strange to any one that they should thus in the sight of all the pa.s.sers-by and without tables or chairs be willing to be seen eating on the public streets. The free-and-easy methods of Eastern life, as well as the intensely sociable character of the Chinese mind, make many things possible here that would be considered highly improper in the West.

The scene before us is a thoroughly Oriental one and in some respects a very picturesque one. The narrow street only six feet wide, packed as it were with human life, is a splendid place from which to view the various items of which the life of the city is composed. Here is a scholar in his long gown, threadbare and showing signs of decay. Amidst the crowd of pa.s.sers-by we should never mistake him for anything but what he is. His face has that keen intellectual look that the students of this Empire usually have. Though poor, he has a proud and haughty air, as though he felt himself higher than any of the crowd that brushes up against him.

Coming close behind him is a farmer, rough and unsophisticated, with the sun burnt into his face, and with the air of a man who never opened a book in his life except the ancient one of nature which he has studied to such a purpose that he can read her secrets and can extract such crops from her as make his fields laugh for very gladness. Following on is a countryman whose home lies at the foot of the hills in the near distance. He is carrying a huge load of brushwood balanced on the ends of a bamboo pole slung across his shoulders, which he is carrying to the market to be sold as firewood. He occupies more than half the roadway, and when he swings his burden from one tired shoulder to the other, the width of the street is only just enough to contain it. He pa.s.ses along, however, at a steady trot as though the town belonged to him. His loud cries, "Clear the way,"

"Get to the side," "I'll b.u.mp against you," are uttered with an air of authority as though some royal edict had given him the authority to take possession of the road in this masterful manner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A REFRESHMENT STALL.

_To face p. 184._]

It is amusing to watch the good-natured way in which the ebbing and flowing crowds yield to this man from the hills. Every one gets out of his way, and even the scholar, with pride and contempt in his heart for the unlearned ma.s.ses, stands meekly at the side of the road and crushes himself up against a counter to let the imperious seller of firewood pa.s.s by. No thanks are given and none are asked, and as the tide of men close up behind him, we can hear coming down the air, "I'll b.u.mp you," "I'll b.u.mp you," "Go to the side," "Fly, fly," until the sounds so masterfully given and so meekly obeyed are lost in the distance.

In looking at this moving panorama there is one thing that is strikingly conspicuous, and that is the good-natured, easy, tolerant way with which they treat each other on the street. It would seem as though every man, the moment he got on it, had determined that forbearance shall be the word that should guide his conduct in his treatment of every one that he meets.

Just think of it: a roadway of five or six feet wide, along which constant cross currents of people, of all kinds and conditions, are travelling, and yet no collisions, or at least so rarely that they are not enough to be quoted. Business men, clerks, coolies, opium-smokers, thieves and vagabonds, country b.u.mpkins and elegant and refined scholars, all with an instinctive sense of the rights of others, yield to the necessities of the road, and bear with infinite good nature whatever inconveniences may arise, and treat each other with patience and courtesy.

As we have been watching the motley crowds pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing before us, the man with the kitchen has been doing a roaring business. Customers have come and gone with most pleasing succession, and the heap of cash that he has received in payment for the savoury bowls of rice has grown into a little mound, and as he looks at it his eyes glisten with pleasure.

All at once there is a sudden and mysterious change in his att.i.tude.

Instead of standing with a benevolent look upon the group sitting on their haunches round his eating-house, he becomes agitated, and hastily bidding his customers to hurry up, he begins to make preparations for an immediate move. The men gulp down their rice, the bowls are hurriedly piled up on the dresser, and before one can hardly realize what is taking place the kitchen has been shouldered, and he has disappeared at a jog-trot amid a stream of people that have engulfed him and his belongings.

Whilst we are wondering what it is that has caused this sudden panic and collapse in a business that was so prosperous, we hear the clang of the slow and measured beatings of gongs. Higher, too, than the voices around us there comes trailing on the air, as though unwilling to leave the locality from which it started, the sound of the word I-O in a crescendo note, but which finally dies away in a slowly decreasing volume till it finally vanishes in silence. There is now an agitated movement amongst the crowds in the street before us. Some seem full of hesitation, as though undecided what to do; others a.s.sume a perplexed air and look about for some opening into which they may escape. A sedan chair, that comes lumbering up with the shouts that the bearers usually indulge in to get the people to make way for them, comes up, but no sooner is the sound of I-O heard than the men hastily retrace their steps and disappear in the opposite direction from which they were coming.

The beating of the gongs, and the prolonged wailing sound I-O, in the meanwhile advance rapidly in our direction, when all at once, all indecision on the part of the pa.s.sers-by vanishes, and every man flattens himself up against the outstanding shop counters, drops his queue that has been twisted round his head, lets fall his hands by his side and a.s.sumes a look of humility and respect. The centre of the street is in a moment deserted, and there bursts into view a mandarin with his retinue.

The first members of it who come swaggering down the empty lane are the men that fill the air with the sound of I-O, in order to warn the crowds ahead of the coming of the great man. They are a most villainous-looking set of men, and seem as though they might have been picked up out of the slums and gutters for the special duty of to-day. At first sight one is inclined to burst into a loud fit of laughter, for to a Westerner they have a most comical and ludicrous appearance. Each one has a tall hat on his head, shaped very much like a fool's cap, but set on awry to meet the contingencies of their tails that are twisted round their heads. This makes them look like clowns that have come on to the street from some neighbouring circus to amuse the populace. A closer look at them, however, soon dispels that idea, for in their hands they carry long rattans, which they wield menacingly as though waiting for a chance to let them fall heavily on the shoulders of some unwary one who is transgressing the rules of the road and thus showing disrespect to his Excellency. They have a truculent look as they furtively glance over the silent walls of human beings that line the roadway, and a discontented, sullen frown overcasts their faces as they find no chance to use their despotic power on the person of any unfortunate one.

Immediately behind them comes another set of men, quite as evil-looking, with chains in their hands. These have a proud and haughty mien, as though the supreme authority of the town rested in their hands. Should any one be unwise enough to dispute that for a moment, he would find himself instantly bound and shackled, and bundled off to prison, where ample time would be given him to review his temerity.

Coming closely behind these scamps, the luxurious chair of the mandarin, carried by eight bearers, fills the vacant s.p.a.ce in the street. He is the mayor of the town, and for all practical purposes the supreme power in it.

He is an ideal-looking official, for he is large and ma.s.sive in appearance, whilst he has that stern and uncompromising look that is supposed to be necessary in any magistrate who would hope to keep his subjects in order. He has a stern and forbidding aspect, as though he were on his way to the execution ground to have some criminal decapitated. This is the kind of air that the mandarins put on when they appear in public.

In the course of many years' experience, I have never once seen any one of them, from the highest to the lowest, with a smile on his face or a look of sympathy for the people whilst he was being carried officially through the streets. In a few seconds the procession has pa.s.sed by, and the human stream again flows along its ancient channel, and the life of the street is once more resumed.

We saunter along again closer to humanity than the most crowded city in the West, except on some great festival, could let one have. The sensation is not in every respect a pleasant one. The ancient odours of China a.s.sert themselves and will be felt, whilst the aroma of unwashed garments and persons that never used a bath, gives a delicate taint to the air that is purely Oriental.

But whilst moving slowly on and carefully guarding lest our feet should trip against the uneven slabs of stone with which the road is so badly paved, a strange procession of men catches our eye and at once arrests our footsteps. We count them one by one, and there are just ten of them, as gruesome and unsavoury a collection of human beings as could be made were the whole city to be ransacked to find their equal.

They are beggarmen, and are taking advantage of the privilege allowed them by a custom that goes back into the remote past, of soliciting alms from the shopkeepers on the days of the new and full moon. They are perambulating the streets and visiting every shop that lies in their way, and almost demanding from each their accustomed toll of one cash each. A cash, I may remind the reader, is the one-thousandth part of two shillings.

They walk in a string, each man behind the other. The leading one in this particular set is an old man, with wrinkled face and hair turned to grey.

His clothes are in rags and tatters, and so dirty that one would not care to touch them even with a long pole. He is a thorough gipsy in look, and there is a vigour about his sharp-set features and a flash in his coal-black eyes that show him to be a person of considerable independence of thought.

Close behind him is another with his hand resting on his shoulder, and depending upon him to guide him through the streets. He is quite blind, and it is most pathetic to see how he raises his head up towards the sky, as though the sun in some mysterious way could impart light to the deep sockets where his eyeb.a.l.l.s ought to be. Following close on his heels is a jolly musical beggar, whose soul, amidst all his dirt and squalor, is touched with the spirit of music. He has an old banjo, with two strings, that he uses in his profession, and as he moves along his fingers strike the chords, and the first notes of a Chinese ballad sound out with a lilt that for a moment seems to relieve the tragic look that this weird procession has.

Behind this Orpheus of the band come several ragam.u.f.fin degraded specimens of the begging fraternity, the last of whom holds a bamboo stick, which a blind man, who brings up the rear, holds in his left hand to act for him in the place of eyes. As each one comes to the shop door the owner stands ready with a cash for each one, which he hastily puts into his hand and motions him on.

There is no attempt to evade this poor-rate which custom has decided shall be paid. Were any man so mad as to defy the unsavoury crowd, he would soon be brought to his senses in a way that he would not forget for many a long day. They would stand around his counter till the cash was paid, and they would in turns appeal to his pity, and then call down the imprecations of Heaven upon his head because of the hardness of his heart.

No one in the meantime would dare to come near his shop. His customers would be so terrified by the dirt and smells of the diseased and unwashed crowd that they would take their custom for the time being elsewhere, and when, finally worn out by the noise and disorder at his door, he gave the cash, he would find perhaps that some of his wares had been so damaged by the mere presence of these filthy beggars, that he had lost far more than he would have gained if he had come out victorious in his contest with them.

It is only on two days in the month that the beggars are allowed the privilege of collecting their tax from the shopkeepers, for these latter have originally compounded with their king for a regular payment, which prevents them from being annoyed with their visits at any other time. As soon as the amount has been settled a printed form, with the picture of a gourd on it, is pasted over the door, and no beggar will dare to approach it for the purpose of asking alms. There are many specimens of humanity in China that, through dest.i.tution and in the bare struggle for existence, have to go through want and hunger and intense suffering both of mind and body, but for real degradation and acute acquaintance with the pains and penalties of poverty there is no one to be compared with the beggarman in this land. The beggar in the West is a royal personage when compared with him, clothed in purple and fine linen, and living sumptuously. He is often able to lay by money, and cases have been not infrequent that when he has died sovereigns and bank-notes have been found st.i.tched in various parts of his garments.

Such an experience in China is absolutely unknown. A beggar here is really poor, and always close up to the border line across which is starvation.

Besides, he is nearly always diseased. A beggar, except he is a wandering minstrel, would fail to charm the solitary cash that is usually thrown at him, unless he had some glaring disease that would excite pity. The stock-in-trade of the begging fraternity is some hideous sore, or twisted legs or sightless eyes, or some abnormal deformity that disqualifies the person from gaining a living by manual labour. And then, too, the hovel into which he crawls when night drives him from the streets is something unspeakable for its wretchedness and discomfort. The beggars' camp is filthy, and so unsavoury that it may never be pitched within the precincts of the city, but is always erected in some open s.p.a.ce outside its walls, where its smells and abominations may not contaminate the rest of society.

As we wander aimlessly along, only anxious to witness the sights that an Oriental town gives in such striking contrast to the cities of the West, we come upon a street where there is an unusual bustle, and a sound of many voices and loud tones, as though men were quarrelling. One accustomed to Chinese life would never make the mistake of imagining from these signs that there was any trouble going on. They are simply evidences of increased activity. The Chinese are fond of noise and high-toned speaking, and clash of voice, and bawling to each other. They have absolutely never properly learned the art of whispering. Two men are carrying a heavy burden on a common bamboo pole through the streets, and they shout in a rhythmical strain that can be heard a hundred yards in the distance. A play is being performed, and from the very beginning to the end, the drum keeps beating and the cymbals clash, and drown the actors' voices at those points where it would be supposed the greatest silence would be required.

And so in many other things, it would seem as though noise were an essential for the performance of any effective work in China.

The sounds we hear are evidences that we have come upon one of the busiest streets in the town. It is the fish market for the whole city, and as we move slowly along it we begin to understand how it is that such loud tones caught our ear a minute or two ago. Here are great brawny fellows with sleeves tucked up, and the sea breezes, as it would seem, blowing on their faces. In loud voices, as though they were trying to outbellow the roar of the storm where the fishes were caught, they cry up the superior quality of the catch they are displaying for sale. Others are chaffering with their customers, for no true Chinaman ever gives the price that is first asked of him, and with jest and banter he gradually comes down to the sum which he finally means to take.

The very best fish in the whole town are to be found in this street, for the moment that the fishing boats come in from sea, the very choicest of their catch is hurried off by men who are interested in the trade and brought to the dealers here. It is interesting to stroll along and watch the ingenious way in which the fish is presented in the most attractive way to the various kinds of purchasers.

Here is a heap of the less expensive kind such as the poorer cla.s.ses can afford to buy. They look like magnified sprats, and a man stands by and continues to sprinkle them with salt water, and he does this in such a deft way that they present a sparkling appearance as though they had just been brought out of the sea and were fresh and full of life. Close by are some splendid mackerel that were caught this morning, and they lie with a stiff and dignified air, as though they resented being laid out here to the public gaze. Some of them have already been cut into slices and customers are trying to beat down the dealer to a more reasonable price.

It is noticeable that the most of those who are bargaining for the fish have brought their own steelyards to weigh their purchases, as they evidently have no faith in the honesty of the one belonging to the shop.

Further on we notice a young shark, that seems very much out of place, and altogether plays a mean and inglorious part for an animal that takes so conspicuous a place amongst the dwellers in the sea. Close beside it is a native fish that evidently has been too long out of the water to add to its market value, and so it has to be doctored to induce customers to look upon it with favour. To carry out this idea, it has been cut in two, and the ends have been ingeniously smeared with pig's blood to make it appear to the uninitiated that it has only just ceased to live, and the red streaks show where its own life-blood has just ceased to ebb out. Yet this simple and childlike deception is plain to every one that comes to buy, and no one is taken in by it. It is one of the devices of the trade, that some clever scamp invented in the past when the forefathers of the race were more ingenuous and more easily taken in than men are to-day, and so the trick is kept up, in order that the inventor of it, wherever he may be to-day, may not "lose face" in the eyes of his descendants.

After we emerge from this busy and unsavoury market, where the odour of decaying fish mingles with the national and purely Chinese exhalations of the drains, which here are peculiarly foul, we turn into a narrow street, where the pa.s.sengers are few, and the shops have a dull, semi-respectable look about them. They have no counters outside of them, and so the whole street, which is about five feet in width, is entirely available for foot pa.s.sengers. We discover to our astonishment that every shop in it sells shoes. It is in fact the great centre of the shoe trade for the town, and also for the country districts for many miles outside of it.

At first sight it would seem that this placing of a considerable number of shoe shops side by side would interfere with the trade of each, but the Chinese think differently, and the result has proved that they are right.

Instead of diminishing the business of each it has had actually the very opposite effect. When people want shoes, they have not to wander all over the city in search of a shoemaker. They make their way to this particular street, the first shop that takes their fancy they step into, and they are soon served with what they require.

This plan is especially serviceable to the countryman, who looks upon the town very much as a country b.u.mpkin does at home, when he leaves his fields and green lanes for the busy streets of a great city. He wants a pair of shoes, say, for his wedding day, and the village shoemaker has not sufficient style to suit him for such a great occasion. He must go away to the great city where the latest fashions in shoes are to be found, and where he can purchase a pair that will be the envy of every young man who shall attend the joyful ceremony. But how amid the maze of narrow streets shall he find a shop where he shall be able to make his selection? He would be lost in the windings and intricacies of the labyrinths along which the streams of human life pour incessantly the livelong day, and in inquiring for such he might be recognized as a greenhorn by some sharper, who would soon relieve him of his spare cash. The fact that the shoe shops are all in one street renders it easy for him to inquire his way there, where without delay he will be served with the very article he requires.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET SCENE.

_To face p. 194._]

In our stroll through the city, there is one feature about it that has been most noticeable, and that is its freedom from rows and disorders. It contains fully two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and yet there is not a single policeman patrolling any of its streets during either the day or the night. No doubt this is due in a large measure to the law-abiding character of the Chinese. They are essentially peacemakers, for not only do they avoid breaking the peace themselves, but they also exert themselves most vigorously to put an end to any row that may be started amongst others. The result is the disgraceful scenes that often disfigure the streets of the West are of very rare occurrence in any of the cities of this great Empire.

There is no doubt but that one potent reason for this is the absence of the public-house. Fortunately that is an unknown inst.i.tution in this land, and consequently the mad excesses and wild disorders and terrible rows both in private and on the public streets that are the result of the use of alcohol are never seen anywhere throughout the country.

Whilst we have been sauntering around, we have noticed one particular kind of building that differs from all the others about it. It is not a private dwelling-house, and yet it has none of the signs that it is a shop, where goods of some special description may be purchased. Its front is not open like those next door to it so that the public can see what is going on inside. Its aim, indeed, seems to be to conceal from the pa.s.sers-by the movements of the people within, whilst at the same time intimating that any one that likes to enter may do so freely.

Every window is closed up so that one can get no glimpse of what is going on behind them. The door, indeed, stands wide open, but hanging about two feet in front of it is a bamboo screen that effectually guards the secrets of the house. Any attempt to peer inside will be ineffectual, for the utmost that can be seen beyond the sentinel screen is the posts of the door that are but the outer works of the fortress beyond.