Sidelights on Chinese Life Part 16

CHAPTER XI

A CHAPTER ON SOME OF THE MORE SHADY PROFESSIONS IN CHINESE LIFE

The geomancer--Description of--Instances of his profession--Fung-Shuy--Laws of geomancy--The quack--His methods--Instances given--Disreputable character of the story-teller--Examples of his stories--Kung-Ming--The story of the prince and concubine--The interpreter of the G.o.ds--Mode of selection--Depraved character.

There are certain trades and professions in this Empire that are looked upon by the Chinese with respect, because they all represent an honourable attempt of men to earn their living in a straightforward and honest way.

As in England, some of these are looked upon with more respect than others, and men pride themselves, just as in the countries of the West, on the higher local standing that their trade or profession gives them in the eyes of the community. Outside of the Government officials, there are practically only two respectable cla.s.ses of professions, viz. the school-master and the doctor. There are of course others, such as the geomancer, the pettifogging lawyer, the priests, and members of the theatrical professions, and those who get their living in connection with the idols, but these are all looked upon with a suspicion that their morality is not of the highest, and consequently society refuses to accord to them the respect and honour that they spontaneously give either to the scholar or to the _bona fide_ medical man.

This chapter will be devoted to an account of some of the more well-known professions that belong to this doubtful category of professional men, and the first that I shall take is the geomancer. This man is a product of the beliefs that the Chinese have regarding the dead, and also with regard to the malign and evil spirits that are supposed to people the air and to be always on the lookout to bring sorrow and calamities wherever the unwary have not taken measures to frustrate their evil designs. In spite of their high-sounding beliefs that life and death are all arranged and settled by Heaven, the Chinese universally hold that the ground in which a man is buried has much to do with his happiness in the Land of Shadows, and also with his ability to benefit the members of his family that still remain in the land of the living.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TEA HOUSE.]

The study of this subject has become an exact science with the Chinese, and there are men that spend their lives in mastering its principles, and they become so familiar with them that they are constantly employed in pointing out the precise spots where the dead may be buried so as to secure the highest benefit both to them and to the living.

The poorest and the commonest amongst the people have not the means of engaging these professors of the geomantic art, neither have they the funds to buy expensive plots of ground where the "Fung-Shuy," as it is popularly called, works with a strong and imperial will to summon to itself the forces in nature that will secure wealth and fortune and worldly honours to all that are connected with it. Their homes are narrow and will barely suffice to accommodate the living, and so the dead have to be hurried away and laid in any piece of ground on the side of a hill that some benevolent individual may make them a present of.

Persons with any means and with a spare room where the dead may be laid for a few days, would never dream of burying any of their relatives without engaging a geomancer to examine all the available vacant plots of ground that may be in the market for sale, and in giving his professional opinion as to which of them would be likely to satisfy the feelings of the dead and bring the greatest prosperity to the home they had left behind them.

It would seem that according to the laws of geomancy, a low position where the soil is damp, and where the rains would be allowed to settle, is one of the very worst that could possibly be selected for the burial of the dead. It would mean that in the South, at least, before very long, white ants, captivated and allured by the scent of wood, would come in their myriads and attack the coffin. As they can do no work without moisture, the damp and sodden soil would supply them with an abundance of that, and the working members of the great army would continue their labours with a perseverance and an industry that would soon riddle the abode of the dead so that only the merest and flimsiest sh.e.l.l of the coffin would survive after the attacks made on it.

This it is believed the dead resent with a fierce and bitter feeling that seems to set them in the wildest hostility to the friends who are responsible for this state of things, and in the Land of Shadows they plan how they shall be revenged upon those who have shown so little feeling for them, as to bury them in such a position.

The professors of "Fung-Shuy" are careful to prohibit all permanently damp localities, or where the drainage is so imperfect that during the rainy season, when for weeks the annual rains pour down in more or less continuous torrents from the heavens, the grave must be thoroughly sodden with the wet. They know that then, unless the grave is dug in a situation where the water will easily drain off, the most disastrous results will happen to the coffin, such as would bring lasting mischief both to the living and the dead.

There are several things that according to geomantic laws are essential to the making up of a good grave or Fung-Shuy. The first of these is, it must be dry. Next, it must have a wide and if possible a charming outlook, for there is nothing that the dead dislike so much as to be confined in their view by high walls, or by mounds, or elevations that would limit them in looking at the landscape that stretches out before them in the distance.

Any proximity of large trees is considered to be specially obnoxious to the occupants of graves. It seems that the waving of the branches during a storm, and the sighing of the winds through them, produce such doleful sensations that the spirits are apt to get irritated, and by and by to vent their wrath by hurling calamities on the living.

The gentlemen that get their living by catering for the dead have all these things to keep in mind when they are in search of a place where the dead are finally to be laid. Proceeding to the hills with their large compa.s.s in hand, which is inscribed with cabalistic characters and lines and divisions that mark off the cardinal points with a precision that would be needed to guide an ironclad across the ocean, they cast their eyes across the landscape, and with the look of experts they take in at a glance the general features that combine to make any particular spot a Fung-Shuy, where the dead will have all the consolations that external circ.u.mstances can afford them. It would seem, indeed, as though these demanded very much what the living would like to have if they had the choice. A wide and extensive scenery with mountains in the distance, and hills standing as sentinels to the right and the left; also gra.s.sy mounds sloping down towards a stream that fills the air with its music as it travels on in graceful curves and loses itself amongst the ravines in the distance. These are the ideal elements that go to form a Fung-Shuy where a king might be laid with the certainty of finding complete rest.

Whether it is their training that has developed the artistic element in these geomancers or not it is impossible to declare definitely. There is one thing, however, that one may be quite sure of, and that is, they have the keenest instinct in at once pitching upon the most romantic and the most exquisite spots in a landscape as the places where they declare the dead may alone with safety be buried. As a result of this, one continually is struck with the way in which the graves have been constructed on points of a hill or a mountain, where the widest outlook may be observed from them. They may be looking over a wide expanse of fertile plains, or peering along some mighty ravines, or catching a vision of a far-stretching sea, but in each case they are there not by any accident, but in obedience to the decision of the geomancers, who selected them with a special view to the beauties of the location where the dead were to be buried.

There is one point on which all geomancers are agreed, and that is that wherever any natural object has the shape or appearance, say, of a man or of some of the more intelligent or powerful of the brute creation, you have there a collection of the strongest forces of nature which will all work for the welfare of everything that lies within their influence. Such objects as these make the finest Fung-Shuy, for there is nothing in the whole range of natural scenery that can in any way be compared to them.

On one occasion there was a civil war being carried on between two powerful clans. Scores on each side armed with guns and pitchforks, and any deadly weapon that could be got hold of, made fierce forays against each other, and inflamed with pa.s.sion risked their lives in their mad desire to kill their enemies. In one of the houses that lay on the borderland of the fight a man had recently died, and fearful lest the attacking party should set fire to the building and so burn the coffin with the corpse inside, a number of the relatives made a rush with it from the house, and in a cleft of the rock that went by the name of the "Crow's Beak," they placed the coffin in the narrow opening. It was so called because in the distance it exactly resembled the mouth of a crow as it looks when it is perched motionless on a branch. Hastily thrusting it into the very mouth of the bird, they flew down the narrow path that led to the village, and taking up their arms they again joined in the battle that was going on.

After hostilities had ceased and peace was proclaimed between the two parties, a geomancer was called to find a lucky spot in which they might bury the man who for the time being had been thrust with so little ceremony into the "Crow's Beak." He belonged to a well-to-do family, and they could afford to engage the services of such a man. On their way to a specified locality where a suitable place was likely to be obtained they pa.s.sed along the foot of the hill which contained the "Crow's Beak."

Casting his eyes up towards it, this gentleman caught sight of the coffin, and in the greatest excitement exclaimed, "There is no need of our proceeding any further, for you have already laid the dead in the finest Fung-Shuy that could be obtained in all this district. The coffin is in the very place of power, and if you value the comfort of your deceased relative and the honour and prosperity of your family you will not remove it from the place it now occupies."

This advice was attended to with the greatest possible care, and the strange spectacle was seen of a coffin perched up in this rift in the rock instead of being laid away in mother earth, where it would have been sheltered from the storms of wind and rain that now and again battered around it. Very singular to say, from the very day that the dead man was placed in the "Crow's Beak," prosperity seemed to come to the house he had left, and for many years wealth and honours flowed in without cessation upon his friends and relatives. As the sons grew up they became distinguished scholars and took high positions in the service of the Government. That in itself was enough to ensure that the family should be enriched, for the posts they held were so lucrative that fortunes must come to those in possession of them. The family finally became of such importance, and held so much landed property in the neighbourhood, that its influence became supreme in the whole of that region. All this was ascribed to the coffin in the "Crow's Beak," and the members of the clan guarded that with the most scrupulous care, lest any outsider should interfere with it or surrept.i.tiously displace it by the body of a person belonging to another clan, when the good fortune would pa.s.s away from the family and flow into that of another.

Whilst the geomantic art is a recognized one and is believed in by the whole of the nation, the professors of it are not held in the highest esteem by the community at large. There is so much room for lying and deception in their statements about the plots of land that they may recommend that it is felt by the public generally that their honour and their veracity are not of the highest character, and that when an opportunity is presented them of making money, they will seize upon it without any regard to the fact that they may be violating the principle of truth and equity.

The next person that I shall attempt to describe is the "quack" or strolling doctor.

If ever there was a people in the world that believed in doctors it is the Chinese, in fact they seem in themselves to be a nation where every one has more or less a knowledge of medicine. Learned and unlearned alike profess to be able to understand almost every disease that the Chinese race are subject to, and to have nostrums of their own that will cure those that are afflicted. It is this fatal facility for diagnosing disease and for suggesting remedies that crowds the medical profession with so many incompetent pract.i.tioners in this land.

The State takes no cognizance of the men who profess to keep society in good health, and then it is so easy to put on a long gown, look profound, and ape the airs of a literary man, and be transformed in the twinkling of an eye into a regular doctor, who is prepared to treat any disease under the sun, with the confidence of a President of the College of Surgeons in England. No study is required to be a doctor. There are certain traditions floating amongst society as to how a number of diseases should be treated.

These are stored up in the mind. Then there are well-recognized books that have been written in former days by famous physicians with prescriptions for an unlimited number of diseases, and there are also secrets how to treat special ailments that have been transmitted through several generations in some particular family, and are never allowed to leak out to the general public.

All these are sources to which the man who aspires to be a doctor can apply, and by a careful study of which he may get such a knowledge of the Chinese herbarium that he will be able to deal with simple and elementary cases with some degree of success. He must also have unbounded cheek, a fluent tongue, and a natural eloquence that will win its way to men's hearts and fill them with a confidence in his skill that they will never think of questioning his ability to deal with their particular ailments, no matter how difficult or complicated they may be. Of these three elements nearly every Chinaman has an abundant supply, so as a doctor he starts business with a stock-in-trade that are most valuable a.s.sets in dealing with the troubles of his countrymen.

But my business now is not with the regular pract.i.tioner, but with that medical species that is popularly known as the strolling doctor. And now let me give a description of a typical specimen of this Bohemian representative of the medical faculty in this land. In nine cases out of ten he is a degenerated member of the literary cla.s.s. He is a man of good ability and well versed in the cla.s.sical writings of China. He has always been wanting, however, in character, and consequently managers of schools became chary of engaging him as a teacher in any of them. His roving and unsteady habits really disqualified him for the long hours demanded of him in Chinese school life. He would teach a few days and gain the approbation of the parents by the scholarly way in which he would read and explain the profound statements of Confucius and Mencius, and then, to the great delight of the lads, he would wander away, impelled by the vagrant instinct that was in his very blood, and not appear in the school-room again for perhaps several weeks.

To add to his disqualifications he became an opium smoker. He was not induced to do this by a purely evil spirit, but rather because life was dreary and unsatisfactory, and he hoped in the solace and blandishments of that dangerous drug the monotony of life would be broken by an occasional glimpse into the realms of Elysium. The parents became still more opposed to the idea of sending their boys to a school that had him as their teacher, and so he found himself without employment and without any means of satisfying the craving that came upon him morning and evening, and which refused to be banished until the fumes of the opium had filled his brain with visions and dreams of such bewildering beauty that the pains and sorrows of earth seemed to have vanished, and he was in a realm where mortal feet had never trodden and sighing and tears were utterly unknown.

As he had no resources of his own to fall back upon and the doors of every school-house were shut upon him, the only means of making a livelihood now was to turn travelling doctor. This was a very simple proceeding, as it required but very little capital, for his whole stock-in-trade could be laid in for a few shillings. Besides a scanty supply of herbs, second-hand teeth, etc., he had to provide himself with a banner on which was inscribed the diseases he was able to cure, and the wide renown he had achieved wherever he went for the marvellous cases of recovery from dangerous sicknesses that had been affected by his patent medicines and by his skill in treating disease.

And now behold the man as he starts upon his travels, that will take him wherever the fortune of the day may lead him. His face is a sharp and a shrewd-looking one. His eyes are bright and piercing, but they are restless, and speak of a mind that is ill at ease and is continually discussing the question how the needs of life are to be met. One looking at him would not say that he was a bad man, but the opium pallor that rests upon his features would not incline one to put him down as a saint.

In spite of his bad luck and his low fortunes, it is evident that a sense of humour is strong within him, and that the comical side of life still appeals to him; for when he smiles it is not an artificial lighting up of the countenance, but a veritable flash from a heart that still knows how to laugh in spite of the misfortunes he has brought upon himself.

The travelling doctor does not care much for the cities. There are too many of the regular pract.i.tioners there who are called in regularly by their patients; still one does occasionally see one of them now and again pa.s.sing along the crowded thoroughfares, casting wistful glances at the open doors and the people that are lounging about them, in the hopes of picking up a case that may give him the means of providing himself with a meal and the money to pay his lodging-house bill during the night.

The places where they appear most in their element are in the country fairs, where great crowds of country b.u.mpkins and farmers and unsophisticated people gather either for business or for pleasure. Here he has no rival and no compet.i.tor, for the regular doctor would as much disdain to set up his stand in any such places as a first-cla.s.s doctor in London would wheel a barrow to some of the slums or great thoroughfares in it, and display his medicines to induce the public to patronize him.

Fortunately for the quack, the country abounds in just such gatherings.

The very large villages have one every second or fifth day. The farmers in the district know this, and they come with their produce and their cattle to sell to those who are in need of such. Young fellows, too, wishing for some change from the monotony of country life, come to get some enjoyment, for all kinds of entertainments are prepared by itinerant caterers for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the public, and for a few hours they forget the _ennui_ and mouldiness of their daily experience, and, having laughed at the funny things they have seen, they return with lightened hearts to their homes.

Every day in the year, in a large district, there are scores of fairs that the people in the neighbourhood can attend, and it is to these that the gamblers, and puppet shows, and Punch and Judys, and conjurors resort, in the certainty that there will always be a crowd ready to be entertained, and with none of the highly critical notions that the townspeople are accustomed to indulge in. The strolling doctor selects a suitable place where he can best display the various articles that he hopes will attract those who may be in need of his services. Perhaps it is under the great boughs of a banyan-tree that cast their leafy shade between the people and the great red-hot sun, or it may be on the steps of a temple, where the grim and solemn-looking idol looks out complacently on the crowd that gathers to listen to the eloquence of the doctor.

Gathered closely around him are his medicines that he is going to prescribe for his coming patients. These consist of dried roots, and withered-looking stalks cut from bushes on the hillside, and various kinds of gra.s.ses, that seem fit only to be swept into the gutter as useless rubbish. There is one little mound that he builds up with deft and careful fingers, as though he relied much upon its component parts for his success to-day. It is a gruesome sight, for on looking at it carefully, one finds it to consist of a considerable number of teeth in a pretty good state of preservation that have been extracted from patients in days gone by, and that have still sufficient vitality in them to enable them to do service in other people's mouths for some years to come.

Slowly the crowd gathers in the front of the doctor, who soon shows how profound is his knowledge of human nature by the way in which he captivates the attention of the rustics, who gaze at him with open mouths, and wonder what great scholar is this that has come with such a flow of eloquence, and such an amazing knowledge of medicine, to deliver men from diseases that the local doctors have not been able to cure.

Whilst he is talking, a man rushes up with face flushed and eyes congested, with both hands holding one side of his face. He is evidently in the greatest anguish, for, oblivious of what the crowd may think, he fills the air with his groans and breaks out into agonized cries that show the extreme pain from which he is suffering. With a piteous look up into the face of the quack, he slowly opens his mouth, and, pointing to the interior with mute but eloquent language that every one understands, he asks if he can do anything for him.

The doctor, with a complacent smile that shows that he perfectly understands the case and will instantly relieve him, whips up an old rusty pair of forceps that lies conveniently at hand, and before the man can realize what he is about to do, he has taken a grip of the offending molar and is dragging the patient about, howling and screaming because of the agony he is enduring, and at the same time holding on to the doctor's hand to try and get him to unloose his hold upon the tooth.

At last, after one tremendous pull, the man staggers back, and the quack, holding the forceps in the air with the tooth enclosed within its fangs, excites the admiration of the whole crowd, who with open mouths and wonder on their faces, express themselves delighted with the skill of the doctor.

This open-air dentistry has an immediate effect in instilling confidence in those who have witnessed it, for several people at once apply for the herbs that he has for sale, and a few others consult him upon the various complaints from which they are suffering.

The fees for these, however, are so small that he begins to feel that his receipts are so insignificant, that he is apprehensive whether he will have enough to pay even for his lodgings during the night, without considering the good round sum he will require for the purchase of the opium, without which he would have to spend the night sleepless and in the greatest possible agonies. In order to bring in the cash to meet these demands he determines upon a ruse. Amongst the crowd is a well-dressed farmer who is evidently absorbed in admiration at the eloquence of the doctor, and keeps his eyes fixed upon him as he discourses upon the virtues of his medicines. That he is well to do is manifest from the whole look of the man. Fixing his eyes upon him steadily for a few seconds, the doctor says, "My friend, I hope you will excuse the liberty I am taking with you, and not be offended at anything I may say to you. My knowledge of diseases and their symptoms enables me to see that you are on the verge of a very serious illness, and that unless you take speedy measures to avert it, your life will be in the greatest danger."

Every eye was now turned upon the countryman, and looks of sympathy begin to flash over their faces as each one fancies he can detect symptoms of the threatened disease. The man himself is paralyzed with terror, for the Chinese are an exceedingly superst.i.tious people, and are easily influenced by vague fears into a belief of what may be absolutely unreasonable and absurd. He trembles in every limb, and the perspiration breaks out in beads on his forehead. The people nudge each other, and point to these symptoms as evidence of the clearsightedness and ability of the doctor.

The latter, who feels that he is master of the situation, says to the trembling farmer, "Put out your tongue." The mere sight of the red healthy organ that is shot out in an agony of fear is quite enough to prove to any one who has half an eye for such things, that he is in the most robust health, but there is not one amongst these country b.u.mpkins that knows anything about tongues as indicators of disease. "You see, my friends,"

says the quack, taking the crowd as it were into his confidence, "how true it was when I declared that this poor fellow was on the point of having a very serious illness. Look at his tongue," and here every one gazes at it intently, as though he sees blue death in that exceedingly healthy organ, "and just mark how the symptoms of the coming disaster are plainly outlined upon it. He should see a doctor at once about his case, who, if he knows his profession only tolerably well, will be able to take such measures that the disease may be stopped. It will be rather expensive to have this done, for the particular medicine required in this case is a very rare one, and consequently a high price will have to be paid for it."

By this time the feelings of the farmer are wound up to the highest pitch. He already feels himself getting ill, and he can feel the grip of the disease fastening upon him by slow degrees. He has become so hysterical that he is ready to believe anything that this scamp says.

"Doctor," he cries out, "I quite believe what you say about my going to be ill, for I feel the disease you have spoken of has already begun to work upon me. Have you the medicine you just now spoke of as essential in my case? If you have, I need not apply to any one else. Why delay? Let me have it at once, so that I may take it and be relieved from the terrible feeling that oppresses me now."

The quack's eyes gleam with delight as he realizes that his little financial scheme has succeeded so well. "I certainly have the medicine,"

he said, "and I can give you a dose at once that will give you instant relief," and, taking up a folded paper that contained some white powder, he pours a few grains upon the man's extended tongue, and tells him to swallow it. Pausing for a short time after it had disappeared with a gulp down the man's throat, he asks him how he feels. "Very much better," he replies; "in fact I feel cured, for the distressing sensation that I had has almost entirely disappeared." A fee is paid by the farmer that makes the quack's heart leap for joy, whilst the farmer, with elastic steps and a radiant face, starts off for his home, to tell how he has been saved just in time from a calamity that might have imperilled his life.

The strolling doctor's profession, which is the last resort of the dissipated Bohemian literary man, is in some respects a picturesque and amusing method of getting a living. A book could be well written on this one subject alone, and if it were composed by one who could enter heartily into the spirit of the thing, it would be a most entertaining and amusing one. There is no doubt but that one would get from it a most realistic picture of the common life of the Chinese such as has never yet been written. The humorous and the grotesque would abound in it, and tragedy and comedy would follow each other in rapid succession as the experiences of these flotsam and jetsam of human society were recorded in it. Men write ponderous tomes upon China that generally are insufferably dry, and that give the West an idea that the Chinaman is an absurd, bizarre kind of individual, and that the main features about him are a pigtail and a pair of chopsticks. The fact of the matter is, he is brimful of wit and humour, and is just packed with as much human nature as one would meet with in any other part of the world. If the Chinese could only jump to the idea of having a Punch of their own it would be so filled with jokes and witticisms, though Oriental ones, that not even the famous English weekly would be able to surpa.s.s it for true wit and humour.

The next professional that I shall try to depict is the public story-teller. This man, as in the case of the strolling doctor, is almost always a man with a certain amount of talent, and with a literary cast of mind that has inclined him to study the ancient writings of China, but more particularly those that deal with fiction and romance. The literature of China is particularly rich in works of this latter description, and those who are fond of exciting adventures and hairbreadth escapes, and dark and mysterious plots, will find a large field in the countless models that have come down from the past for their satisfaction and entertainment.

A man sometimes becomes so saturated with the stories he has read that he feels himself competent to entertain a crowd, whilst he describes in a graphic and realistic manner the men and women that are depicted in some famous novel. Few men do this, however, unless they are driven by hard necessity; for a story-teller, though popular with the ma.s.ses, is not held in high respect, but is looked upon as a man who has failed in the more respectable walks of life, and has taken to this simply because it is the only way left him by which he can lead a lazy, indolent life, and earn just enough to supply him with opium and the small amount of daily food that his opium-drenched system will allow him to take.