Through China with a camera/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

THE CHINAMAN ABROAD AND AT HOME

Chinese Guilds—Hongkong Native Boats—Shopkeepers—Artists—Music Halls.

My experience of the Chinese was not wholly confined to their native land. Before travelling through China I obtained some knowledge of the people in the Straits of Malacca, Siam, Cambodia and Cochin China. Although it forms no part of my scheme to recount in detail my impressions of the Chinaman abroad, yet a brief outline of his condition and prospects as one finds him outside the limits of his own land may assist the reader in forming a fair estimate of his character and capacity. He has been regarded as a non-progressive type, moving like a planet in an orbit of his own, from which he may not diverge without disaster to the political and social system of his nation. The conclusion is not without reason, as in his own country he is fettered by ancient tradition and the stern rule of a despotic government. His sacred books are the classics of antiquity in which are stored the tests of all human knowledge; there he must find the light of his life to guide him in his career from birth to burial. He may not, and seemingly cannot, conceive of the existence of a brighter and better philosophy, where evolution and progress reign supreme. He is nevertheless charged with latent energy and intelligence, which, as we shall see only requires change of condition and fitting opportunities for their liberation. The Chinaman out of his own country, enjoying the security and prosperity which a more liberal administration confers, seems to develop into something like a new being. No longer chained to the soil, he finds wide scope for his energies and high rewards for his industry. In Singapore, I found him filling positions of honour and trust, figuring as a member of the Legislative Council, as a contractor, builder, handicraftsman and labourer, and so full of resource as to render his services indispensable to the European community, having indeed no equal among Asiatics. But the love of combination, of the guilds and unions in which all Chinamen delight, tempts him at times too far. His countrymen combine among themselves to get as much out of each other as they possibly can, and when practicable to monopolise trade and rule the markets; and feeling the strength of organisation, the societies so formed set up laws for themselves, for the rule and protection of their members, in defiance of the local government. The congsee, or guild, thus drifts from a purely commercial into a semi-mercantile, semi-political league, and more than once has menaced the power of petty states, by making efforts to cast off the yoke which rested so lightly on its shoulders. These societies are imitations of similar institutions existing in every province of the Chinese Empire, where the people combine to resist government oppression, and the peasantry unite in clans and guilds to limit the power of local officials and of their employees, and to promote their own commercial and social interests. Such societies are frequently the cause of local disturbances, when the Sam-sings, or fighting men, resist the interference of the police. The Sam-sings are thus described by an old Chinese resident. "They live by looting and are on the watch for any excuse for exercising their talents. Each hoey, or society, must have so many of them, but I don't know any means of ascertaining their numbers. They are a regular fighting people and are paid so much a month. If there is any disturbance these people go out in looting parties; whether ordered by the head men or not, I cannot say; perhaps they do it on their own account." I was present on one occasion in a village in Penang which had been sacked and burned by hired ruffians belonging to an opposing clan, and it required strong measures on the part of the Government to put down the faction fight. This sort of warfare, as we shall see when we reach the "Flowery Land", the Imperial Government in the south of China has, at times, been either unable or unwilling to suppress. This class of Chinese immigrants cast upon the shore of a friendly state do not unfortunately confine their attention to faction fights; they organise gang robberies and the wealthier Chinese are rarely, if ever, the victims of their raids; they indeed enjoy an immunity which would appear unaccountable if we knew nothing of native guilds. Chinese thieves are thorough experts at their profession, adopting the most ingenious devices to attain their infamous ends. I recollect a burglary which took place at a friend's house, when the thief found his way into the principal bedroom and deliberately used up half a box of matches before he could get the lamp to light; his patience being rewarded at last, he proceeded with equal coolness in the plunder of the apartment, not forgetting to search beneath the pillow, where he secured a revolver and a watch. These Chinese robbers are reported to be able to stupify their victims by using some narcotic known only to themselves. I have no doubt this was done in the case referred to by the agency of the Chinese house-servants, who perhaps introduced the drug into my friend's bed. The Malays have told me of cases, as they averred, where the cunning Chinese thief passes the doorway of the house to be pillaged, and tosses in a handful of rice impregnated with some aromatic drug. This drug soon sends the inmates off into deep repose, from which they seldom awake till long after the robber has finished his undertaking, and that in the complete and deliberate style which suits the taste of the Chinese; for I must tell you that they at all times object to vulgar haste, whatever be the business they are pursuing, and they prefer if possible to avoid sudden surprises and unexpected attacks. The slightest sound will make them take to flight, dropping their booty and their garments, if any, in order to facilitate escape. But when they have a daring robbery on hand they go quite naked, with the body oiled all over and the queue coiled into a knob at the back of the head and stuck full of needles on every side. The following adventure with a Chinese burglar befel an acquaintance of mine. About midnight as he lay awake in bed, with the lamp extinguished and the windows open to admit the air, he saw a dark figure, silhouetted against the sky, clamber over his window rail and enter the apartment. He lay motionless, till the intruder, believing all to be safe, had reached the centre of the room, and then sprang out of bed and seized him; both were powerful men, and a furious struggle ensued, but the robber had the advantage, for his only covering was a coat of oil, so that at last, slipping like an eel from the grasp of his antagonist, he made a plunge at the window and was about to drop over, when his pursuer caught him by the queue. The tail, stuck full of needles, and alas! a false one too, came away, and was left a worthless trophy in the hands of the European.

The Chinese guilds have been a fruitful source of trouble to the government of the Straits Settlements, but I believe that they are now well under control.

One element which operates successfully in maintaining order in China is the superstitious reverence which the Chinese have for their parents. Should a son commit a crime and abscond, his parents are liable to be punished in his stead. This law, even supposing it were put in force in a foreign land, would not affect the immigrants, as they seldom bring their wives or parents with them; and to this fact alone—that is, the absence of the strong family ties held so sacred by the race—we may attribute much of the difficulty encountered by our own authorities in dealing with the crime and vice of this section of the population. A few of the Chinese immigrants marry native women, but the majority remain bachelors. If any one perchance is unable to realise the hope of returning to his native village, if he should die on foreign soil, his friends expend the savings of the deceased in sending his body back to mingle with the dust of his forefathers in China. Thus we find a steady stream of the living and the dead passing to and fro between the Straits Settlements and the southern provinces of China.

The foregoing presents a somewhat sombre sketch of the Chinaman abroad, but it portrays some of the worst phases of his character, and applies most particularly to the "mauvais sujets" who have left their country for their country's good, and some of them, embracing the opportunities afforded for engaging in honest and remunerative labour, depart from their evil ways and become useful members of the community. On the other hand, there is a large and ever increasing body of patient, orderly and industrious labourers flowing southwards from the parent source, who meet with every inducement to settle in the undeveloped regions of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula; these men not only engage in tillage, but are the most successful traders in the East. The mercantile section have established for themselves connections in almost all the islands to which our foreign commodities are carried; their agents reside in Sumatra, Java, Borneo and on the Indo-Chinese mainland, collecting produce by barter with the natives, to whom they are not infrequently related by social, as well as commercial ties. In this way much of the produce shipped from the East passes through the hands of Chinese middlemen, or they forward it direct to their agents in Europe and America. The great majority of the Chinese who emigrate to the Straits Settlements are natives of the island of Hainan, or of the Kwangtang or Fukien provinces. Should they intermarry with the Malays, the children of such parents assume the dress and acquire the language of the father in addition to an English education in the Government schools. They also obtain commercial training under the compradors employed by European firms to deal directly with the natives in buying and selling produce, and the result of this is that a large percentage of the direct trade has passed into the hands of the Chinese. They have indeed adopted the philosophy of Bacon, which differs from that of Plato and Confucius, its sole aim being "to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man," while that of the Platonic and Chinese philosophy was "to raise us far above vulgar wants." The aim of the Baconian philosophy was "to supply our vulgar wants," and this is the business to which the immigrant from Cathay devotes his energies, when freed from the guidance of his sages, "which began in words and ended in words."^[1]

Having touched lightly on some points of character in the Chinese as one finds them abroad, I will now proceed to pass them in review as I saw them on their native soil in Hongkong. This spot, moored to our little island by an electric cable that sweeps half round the globe, rises like a political beacon out of the China Sea, and has by no means been without its influence in preventing the Tartar dynasty from foundering, in maintaining peace and casting the light of a higher civilisation over some dark corners of the Flowery Land. It stands alone on the fringe of the great continent of Asia, with its mixed population, its British rule, its noble European edifices and Chinese streets, its Christian Churches and Buddhist Temples, a Crown Colony of which we have no reason to be ashamed. The geographical position of the island, its climate, its mineral and material products are so well known as to require no comment at my hands, but its native population present some curious phases of life and character, and with these I propose to deal. On its hospitable shores we again find the Chinaman free to follow the lucrative channels of commerce and of labour. His industry, his thrift and his placid contentment with his surroundings cannot fail to impress the most casual observer. The city of Victoria with its solid granite buildings, its magnificent esplanade and palatial residences are the handiwork of this much maligned alien; by his labour the island rocks have been hewn and fashioned and reared into a city that has no equal in Eastern Asia. The initiative lay with the Government, with the British architects and designers, but the practical details and solid work are

_{The Kwangtung Slipper-Boat}

Chinese. Since 1843 when we hoisted our flag, the progress of the colony has experienced no serious check, and the native population, despite local disturbances caused by the influx of the scum of Chinese cities, has contributed in no small degree to its general prosperity. The natives, the best of whom still cling to their old superstitions, are in the mid-stage of evolution; their inborn prejudice against up-to-date foreign methods of dealing with crime and insubordination, and the not infrequent waves of zymotic disease, such as cholera and the black plague, rouse them to most determined resistance. They stubbornly refuse sanitation as a body, or as individuals. But of this we have examples much nearer home, in the centres of congested population in our large towns. The low-lying quarters of Hongkong, where the poorest and most depraved class of Chinese reside, present the most favourable conditions for the growth of zymotic disease, especially during the hot months of the year. Poverty, insufficient and unwholesome food, a humid atmosphere and temperature over 90 deg. in the shade, account in a great measure for the frequent visits of cholera and the black plague. These scourges of unsanitary humanity invariably limit their ravages to such localities as I have indicated, while the wealthier and more cleanly localities are free from the disease. Under these circumstances it is surprising to find, even among the educated Chinese, a rooted objection to our modern methods of sanitation and our treatment of disease; they regard the drastic operations enforced as utterly barbarous and quite unsuited to a cultured, if not cleanly people. There are of course many notable exceptions among the old resident natives, who have learned wisdom by experience, and who have aided the Government in dealing with their unruly countrymen. Many of the unlettered natives have a notion that England is a small settlement on the borders of China, and that we as a people are wholly engaged in commerce with that Empire, and that Hongkong represents our greatest possession. The floating population must not be overlooked. There are in Hongkong waters many thousands of such people, who make their homes in their boats, and earn their subsistence by fishing, or attending upon the ships in the harbour. These folk carefully study the indications of the weather, and can calculate with great shrewdness the near approach of a storm; they usually verify their own observations by ascertaining the barometrical changes from foreign ship-captains in port, and when they have settled in their own mind that a typhoon is at hand, they cross the harbour en masse, and shelter in the bays of Kowloon until the fury of the hurricane is past. The men in the boats are naked to the waist and bronzed with constant exposure, but the women are decently clothed and are pretty and attractive-looking. Some of them, if we may judge by their pale skins, their finely formed features and their large lustrous eyes are not of purely Chinese blood. The sedan chair, in use all over China by the official classes, was the favourite mode of conveyance in Hongkong, and afforded remuneration to a large number of stalwart coolies. This has been replaced by the jimricksha from Japan, a hand-cart on wheels with a man motor between the shafts. The change is not without significance, as the Japanese are destined by modes less gentle, if all the more sure, to drive their neighbours over paths of progress hitherto unexplored. I may here note that in a former work I made a fairly accurate forecast of the recent conflict between the Empires of China and Japan and its issue. The jimricksha men, who take the place of our cab-drivers, make it their study to find out the habits of European residents,

_{CANTON BOAT-GIRL}

_{CHAU-CHOW-FU FEMALE}

SO that a new-comer only requires to be about a week in the

place, and it is ten chances to one, should he dine out and hail the first vehicle to take him home, the coolie, without a word spoken on either side will land him at his domicile. Nay, more, they have learned something of his personal character, and whether they ought to trust him and accept the paper which he offers. It is customary in most transactions with the Chinese to pay them with an order on the Schrof, or Chinese cash- keeper, of the house to which one belongs, and the Schrof in honouring these cheques, whenever he has the opportunity, will discharge the debt in light dollars and charge full weight to his employer's account. This is the first sample of the system- atic squeezing and overreaching process which is the keynote of Chinese society over the whole land. The system is as minute as it is perfect in its ramifications.

Chinese shopkeepers are a class apart, and vie with each other in their display of costly wares, Canton silks, carved ivory, jewellery, porcelain and paintings. Entering a Cantonese shop, one is welcomed by the proprietor himself, a Kwang-tung gentle- man speaking English; his attire is a jacket of Shan-tung silk, dark crape breeches, white leggings and velvet embroidered shoes, and he displays all the ponderosity and ease of a pros- perous Chinaman. His assistants are dressed with equal care and stand behind ebony counters and glass cases, the latter of spotless polish and filled with curiosities. One side of the shop is occupied by rolls of silk and samples of grass matting, all labelled and priced; the floor above is taken up with a cleverly arranged assortment of bronzes, porcelain, ebony furniture and lacquered ware. These men, as a rule, are fine specimens of their race, generally fair in their dealings, and will supply the cheapest toy with as great politeness as if receiving an order for a ship-load of embroidered silks. In the market- place in the Chinese quarter the chief business of the day is concluded by about seven in the morning. Here the avenues are rendered picturesque by painted and gilded sign-boards, inscribed with Chinese or EngUsh characters, though the dealers are all of them Chinamen. Thus, Ah- Yet, Sam-Ching, Canton Tom and Cheap Jack announce that as ship compradors, they are prepared to supply poultry, beef, vegetables and groceries of the best quality at the lowest rates, and solicit a trial, or at least an inspection of their stalls. Such men keep monthly market-books for their customers, and these with each item supplied and price jotted down, are settled at the end of each month. Apart from the well-fitted shops of these useful mem- bers of society there are stalls which supply special commo- dities, preserved European provisions, fruit, fish and so forth. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the fishmonger's, whose establishment consists of a number of tanks or aquaria, filled with clear running water and teeming with living sea or river fish, for the most part reared in the Canton fish-breeding ponds and brought to market in water-boats. The purchaser stands over the tank, selects some finny occupant which he fancies, and this is at once caught and supplied to him. The fish are of great variety and beauty, as may be gathered from an inspection of Mr. Reeves' collection in the British Museum. Then at the butchers' stalls sundry delicacies are met with, unknown to the European palate, and in which the natives delight; rats strung up by their tails, temptingly plump, and festoons of living frogs, fattened for the epicure. Here and there one may see small ribs and legs, undoubtedly canine ; these are exceptional and are more commonly exposed for sale

in purely Chinese cities. As a rule the Chinese are not particular

_{Chinese curio Shop, Hong Kong}

as to the kind of food they eat, but they are cleanly

in their modes of preparing it, and we might well learn some valuable lessons from them in this branch of domestic economy ; thus they are skilled in making palatable and nutritious dishes out of odds and ends, and are far less wasteful and extravagant in the use of their food than we are. A number of the best European vegetables are sold in the Hongkong market; beef, mutton, fowls, eggs, fish and game are also to be procured at prices which seldom exceed what we pay for the same com- modities at home. Besides, there are about fifty different kinds of fruit, nearly half of them indigenous and peculiar to China.

Following the main thoroughfare, one notes the display of sign-boards, each one glowing in bold Roman letters with the style and title of some Chinese artist, such as " Chin-Sing, por- trait painter", '*Afong", "Ating" and many others, which make up the list of the painters and photographers of Hongkong. Some of the specimens of photographic art displayed in door- ways are fairly good, while others are the most hideous carica- tures of the human face that it is possible for the camera to produce. A Chinaman will not suffer himself to be posed so as to produce a profile or three-quarter face, his reason being that the portrait must show him to possess two eyes and two ears and that his round face is perfect as a full moon. The same observance of symmetry is carried out in the entire pose of the figure ; the face too must be as nearly as possible devoid of shadow, or if there be any shadow at all, it must be equal on both sides. Shadow they say should not exist, it is an accident of nature and therefore should not be portrayed, as it does not represent any feature of the face; and yet they all of them carry fans in order to secure that very shade so essen- tial to existence in the s6uth of China. They fail to recognise that, in conjunction with light, they are indebted to shade for the visible appearance of all things animate and inanimate which make up the Chinese Empire. These desultory notes would be incomplete were I to omit an account of the portrait and minia- ture painters of the Colony. They have no Academy or peri- odical exhibitions, in which one may inspect their work, it is therefore necessary to visit the studios. The walls of Ating's atelier are adorned with paintings in oil, and at one extremity of the apartment a number of artists are at work, producing large coloured pictures from small imperfect photographs. The proprietor has an assistant, whose business it is to scour the ships in port in search of patrons among the foreign crews. Jack desirous of carrying home a souvenir of his visit to the wonderful land of pigtails and tea, supplies a photograph of Poll or Susan, and orders a large copy to be executed in oils. The whole to be finished, framed and delivered in two days, and is not to exceed the contract price of four dollars, or about one pound sterling of our money. The work in this painting-shop, like many things Chinese, is so divided as to afford the maxi- mum of profit for the minimum of labour. Thus one artist sketches, another paints the face, a third does the hands, and a fourth fills in the costume and accessories. Susan is placed on the limner's easel and is covered with a glass bearing the lines and squares which solve the problem of proportion in the large work. A strange being the artist looks, he has just roused himself from a long sleep, and his clothes are redolent of the fumes of opium ; he peers through his large spectacles into poor Susan's black eyes, and measures out her fair proportions as he transfers them to the canvas, — then she is passed from hand to hand, until at last every detail has been produced with

pre-Raphaelite exactitude, and a glow of colour added to the

_{A VENERABLE STUDENT}

_{CHINESE ARTIST}

whole far surpassing nature. But let us examine the finished

picture. The dress is sky blue, flounced with green ; chains of the brightest gold adorn the neck, there are bracelets on the arms and rings on the fingers, gleaming with gems. The hair is pitchy black, the skin pearly white, the cheeks of vermilion and the lips of carmine ; as for the dress, it shows neither spot nor wrinkle, and is as taught, her lover would say, as the carved robes of a figure-head. Jack proudly hangs the picture above his bunk, but still, at times, he has his grave misgivings about the small hands and feet and about the rainbow-hued sailor's goddess into which Susan has been transformed. Ating's miniature work on ivory is conducted on the same co-operative and commercial lines, and is decidedly better than when the copies are enlarged. The paintings are always minute, but during my stay in the Colony I fell in with only one man who could venture with any success beyond a mere servile imitation of a photograph. He was a sort of genius in his way, and at the same time a most inveterate opium smoker ; when I first knew him, he was a good-looking dandy, in full work as a miniature painter, fond of good company and high living, a frequenter of music-halls and the gambling clubs of Victoria. He first smoked opium in moderation, but this habit gained upon him to such an extent, that when the hour for the pipe came on, no matter where he was, he had to rush off and abandon himself to the use of the drug, which soon brought him to his grave.

The lower quarter of the town to which I have alluded, em- braces '*Tai Ping Shan", or the Hill of Great Peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place; it is inhabited almost wholly by Chinamen; as for the women, they are numerous enough, but of the lowest type. There are strange hotels in this quarter, besides music- halls and lodging-houses, the haunts of vagabonds known to the police. I once accompanied an inspector of police on one of his periodical rounds through this region of darkness, and I should shrink from describing everything I saw there; but it proved to me that all that has been alleged of the immorality of this section of the native population is perfectly true. On the other hand, the more respectable part of the community had there many places of rational amusement, with which one could find no fault whatever. Among the largest music-halls, one may serve as a type of the great majority of the others. At the entrance there stood an altar, crowned with votive offer- ings dedicated to the god of pleasure, whose image surmounted the shrine. To the right and left of this hung scrolls, on which high moral precepts were inscribed, sadly at variance with the real character of the place. Half a dozen of the most fasci- nating of the female singers were seated outside the gate ; their robes were of richly embroidered silk, their faces were enam- elled, and their hair bedecked with perfumed flowers and dressed, in some cases, to represent a teapot, in others, a bird with spread wings on the top of the head. On the ground floor all the available space was taken up with rows of narrow compartments, each one furnished with an opium couch and all the appliances for the use of the drug. Here were girls in constant attendance, some ready to prepare and charge the bowl with opium, and others to strum upon the lute and sing sweet melodies to waft the sleeper off into dreamland, under the strangely fascinating influences which, ere long, will make him wholly their slave. On the first floor, reached by a flight of steps, there is a deserted music-room showing traces of

the revel of the preceding night, in faded garlands which still

_{CHINESE HOUSES, HONGKONG}

festooned its carved and gilded ceiling. There were two more

stories to the edifice, both of them partitioned off in the same way as the ground floor. At another house we visited we found a goodly company in the music-saloon; the interior had been freshly decked with flowers, festooned from the ceiling, or suspended in baskets made of wattled twigs, while mirrors, paint, gilding and all the skill of Kwang-tung art had been lavishly bestowed on the more permanent wall decorations. At a table spread with fruits and delicacies, sat a merry throng of Chinamen, young, middle-aged and old; hot wine in bright pewter pots was passing freely round the board, and the re- vellers were pledging each other in small cups of the steaming draught. We had dropped in upon a dinner-party, where, under the influence of native wine, melon seeds and pretty women, the guests were engaged in a noisy, but at the same time friendly, contest in the art of versification. Behind each guest, as is customary at such gatherings, a young girl sat; many of them might fairly claim to be called handsome, while all were prettily dressed in the fashionable silks of Canton; their hair was wreathed with flowers, and their faces painted until they resembled their native porcelain ware. An old Chinese merchant present, whom I knew, informed me that these women were all highly respectable. That might be the case; at any rate, he assured me that they were not infrequently carried off by the visitors and raised to the rank of second wives or concubines. Music was being performed in the four corners of the room by four independent female bands, each accom- panying the shrill piping voice of an old woman, who sang the adventures of a hero of romance, a personage famous alike for his prowess and his ardent and amorous heart.

1. Macaulay, vol. I, page 399.