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called “Pigeon English,” which is the exclusive medium of communication between natives and foreigners at the open ports. I found merchants who had been for a score of years residents of China, and could neither reed nor speak the first word of Chinese. Ask a native to pronounce the word “business,” and he will produce a sound that more resembles “pigeon” than anything else, and hence the term “Pigeon English.” This dialect, which has to me a most comical sound, consists of but a few hundred words, and one can learn it so as to be understood in a very short time. Many natives think it pure English, and if one seeks foreign employment he will sometimes take lessons from a native professor for a few days, who advertises to teach “Red-haired talk” It is a mixture of English, French and Portuguese, stirred up with a plentiful sprinkling of Chinese, and forms a hodge-podge which shocks people of very strict literary notions. It dispenses with pronouns and surplus words, is remarkably laconic and especially convenient for a traveler to learn who cannot stay long enough in the country to acquire a more elegant or polished language. I go into a shop and ask “John” for some article, he replies sententiously “got” or “no got,” which he jerks out with a good natured grin that always makes me laugh. Before became proficient in the language I one day told a servant at the hotel to go up to my room ang bring the book I was reading yesterday. He started but stirred not, evidently not understanding my request. A friend translated my message thus: “Go topside and catchee one piecee bookee, all same read yesterday.” Off he started like a shot. Built in the wall, just outside the door of every shop is a little recess where the proprietor, Chin chin Joss, or burns the sacred Joss-sticks to ensure a good trade. I go into Toe-Shing’s shop, here in Hong Kong, where I have made extensive purchases, and inquire how business is. He replies, “No good pigeon, I, Chin-chin Joss, he catches melican man, all the same you muchee buy.”
The Chinese currency in dealing with foreigners is, like that of the Japanese, exclusively Mexican dollars. They have no coin of their own, except copper cash, value one-tenth of a cent, and you will sometimes meet Coolies loaded down with this coin in strings of 100 or 1,000. Tea is purchased in the interior with cash, and steamers up
