Chinese Sketches

H >> Herbert A. Giles >> Chinese Sketches


Such, then, are a few of the absurdities which pass muster among the
credulous people of China as the result of deep scientific research;
but whether the educated classes--more especially those individuals
who devote themselves in the course of their official duties to the
theory and practice of _post mortem_ examinations--can be equally
gulled with the gaping crowd around them, we may safely leave our
readers to decide for themselves.




INQUESTS, NO. II

Section IV. of the valuable work which formed the basis of our
preceding sketch, is devoted to the enumeration of methods for
restoring human life after such casualties as drowning, hanging,
poisoning, &c., some hours and even days after vitality has to all
appearances ceased. We shall quote as before from our own literal
translation.

"Where a man has been hanging from morning to night, even though
already cold, a recovery may still be effected. Stop up the
patient's mouth tightly with your hand, and in a little over four
hours respiration will be restored. _Or_, Take equal parts of
finely-powdered soap-bean and anemone hepatica, and blow a
quantity of this--about as much as a bean--into the patient's
nostrils.

"In all cases where men or women have been hanged, a recovery may
be effected even if the body has become stiff. You must not cut
the body down, but, supporting it, untie the rope and lay it down
in some smooth place on its back with the head propped up. Bend
the arms and legs gently, and let some one sitting behind pull the
patient's hair tightly. Straighten the arms, let there be a free
passage through the wind-pipe, and let two persons blow
incessantly into the ears through a bamboo tube or reed, rubbing
the chest all the time with the hand. Take the blood from a live
fowl's comb, and drop it into the throat and nostrils--the left
nostril of a woman, the right of a man; also using a cock's comb
for a man, a hen's for a woman. Re-animation will be immediately
effected. If respiration has been suspended for a long time, there
must be plenty of blowing and rubbing; do not think that because
the body is cold all is necessarily over.

"Where a man has been in the water a whole night, a recovery may
still be effected. Break up part of a mud wall and pound it to
dust; lay the patient thereon on his back, and cover him up with
the same, excepting only his mouth and eyes. Thus the water will
be absorbed by the mud, and life will be restored. This method is
a very sure one, even though the body has become stiff.

"In cases of injury from scalding, get a large oyster and put it
in a basin with its mouth upwards somewhere quite away from
anybody. Wait till its shell opens, and then shake in from a spoon
a little Borneo camphor, mixed and rubbed into a powder with an
equal portion of genuine musk. The oyster will then close its
shell and its flesh will be melted into a liquid. Add a little
more of the above ingredients, and with a fowl's feather brush it
over the parts and round the wound, getting nearer and nearer
every time till at last you brush it into the wound; the pain will
thus gradually cease. A small oyster will do if a large one is not
to be had. This is a first-rate prescription.

"Where a man has fallen into the water in winter, and has quite
lost all consciousness from cold, if there is the least warmth
about the chest, life may still be restored. Should the patient
show the slightest inclination to laugh, stop up his nose and
mouth at once, or he will soon be unable to leave off, and it will
be impossible to save him. On no account bring a patient hastily
to the fire, for the sight of fire will excite him to immoderate
laughter, and his chance of life is gone.

"In cases of nightmare, do not at once bring a light, or going
near call out loudly to the sleeper, but bite his heel or his big
toe, and gently utter his name. Also spit on his face and give him
ginger tea to drink; he will then come round. _Or_, Blow into the
patient's ears through small tubes, pull out fourteen hairs from
his head, make them into a twist and thrust into his nose. Also,
give salt and water to drink. Where death has resulted from seeing
goblins, take the heart of a leek and push it up the patient's
nostrils--the left for a man, the right for a woman. Look along
the inner edge of the upper lips for blisters like grains of
Indian corn, and prick them with a needle."

The work concludes with an antidote against a certain dangerous poison
known as _Ku_, originally discovered by a Buddhist priest and
successfully administered in a great number of cases. Its ingredients,
which comprise two red centipedes--one live and one roasted--must be
put into a mortar and pounded up together either on the 5th of the 5th
moon, the 9th of the 9th moon, or the 8th of the 12th moon, in some
place quite away from women, fowls, and dogs. Pills made from the
paste produced are to be swallowed one by one without mastication. The
preparation of this deadly _Ku_ poison is described in the last
chapter but one of Section III. in the following words:--

"Take a quantity of insects of all kinds and throw them into a
vessel of any kind; cover them up and let a year pass away before
you look at them again. The insects will have killed and eaten
each other until there is only one survivor, and this one is
_Ku_."

In the next chapter we are informed that spinach eaten with tortoise
is poison, as also is shell-fish eaten with venison; that death
frequently results from drinking pond-water which has been poisoned by
snakes, from drinking water which has been used for flowers, or tea
which has stood uncovered through the night, from eating the flesh of
a fowl which has swallowed a centipede, and wearing clothes which have
been soaked with perspiration and dried in the sun. Finally,

"A case is recorded of a man who tied his victim's hands and feet,
and forced into his mouth the head of a snake, applying fire at
the same time to its tail. The snake jumped down the man's throat
and passed into his stomach, but at the inquest held over the body
no traces of wounds were found to which death could be attributed.
Such a crime, however, may be detected by examination of the bones
which, from the head downwards, will be found entirely of a bright
red colour, caused by the dispersion of the blood; and moreover,
the more the bones are scraped away, the brighter in colour do
they become."

It is difficult to speak of such a book as "Instructions to Coroners"
with anything like becoming gravity, and yet it is one of the most
widely-read and highly-esteemed works in China; so much so, that
native scholars frequently throw it in the teeth of foreigners as one
of their many repertories of real wonder-working science, equal to
anything that comes from the West, if only foreigners would take the
trouble to consult it. To satisfy our own curiosity on the subject we
bought a copy and translated it from beginning to end; but our readers
will perhaps be able to determine its scientific value from the few
quotations given above, and agree with us that it would hardly be
worth while to learn Chinese for the pleasure or profit to be derived
from reading "Instructions to Coroners" in the original character.




CHRISTIANITY

The extraordinary feeling of hatred and contempt evinced by the
Chinese nation for missionaries of every denomination who settle in
their country, naturally suggests the question whether Christianity is
likely to prove a boon to China, if, indeed, it ever succeeds in
taking root at all. That under the form of Roman Catholicism, it once
had a chance of becoming the religion of the Empire, and that that
chance was recklessly sacrificed to bigotry and intolerance, is too
well known to be repeated; but that such an opportunity will ever
occur again is quite beyond the bounds, if not of possibility, at any
rate of probability. Missionary prospects are anything but bright in
China just now, in spite of rosily worded "reports," and annual
statistics of persons baptized. A respectable Chinaman will tell you
that only thieves and bad characters who have nothing to lose avail
themselves of baptism, as a means of securing "long nights of
indolence and ease" in the household of some enthusiastic missionary
at from four to ten dollars a month. Educated men will not tolerate
missionaries in their houses, as many have found to their cost; and
the fact cannot be concealed that the foreign community in China
suffers no small inconvenience and incurs considerable danger for a
cause with which a large majority of its members has no sympathy
whatever. It would, however, be invidious to dwell upon the class of
natives who allow themselves to be baptized and pretend to accept
dogmas they most certainly do not understand, or on the mental and
social calibre of numbers of those gentlemen who are sent out to
convert them; we will confine ourselves merely to considering what
practical benefits Christianity would be likely to confer upon the
Chinese at large. And this we may fairly do, not being of those who
hold that all will be damned but the sect of that particular church to
which they themselves happen to belong; but believing that the Chinese
have as good a chance as anybody else of whatever happiness may be in
store for the virtuous, whether they become Christians or whether they
do not.

In the course of eight years' residence in China, we have never met a
drunken man in the streets. Opium-smokers we have seen in all stages
of intoxication; but no drunken brawls, no bruised and bleeding wives.
Would Christianity raise the Chinese to the standard of European
sobriety? Would it bring them to renounce opium, only to replace it
with gin? Would it cause them to become more frugal, to live more
economically than they do now on their bowl of rice and cabbage,
moistened with a drink of tea, and perhaps supplemented with a few
whiffs of the mildest possible tobacco? Would it cause them to be more
industrious than--e.g., the wood-carvers of Ningpo who work daily from
sunrise to dusk, with two short intervals for meals? Would it make
them more filial?--justly renowned as they are for unremitting care of
aged and infirm parents. More fraternal?--where every family is a
small society, each member toiling for the common good, and being sure
of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease.
More law-abiding?--we appeal to any one who has lived in China, and
mixed with the people. Would it make them more honest?--when many
Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner
deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian
nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name. Should we not
run the risk of sowing seed for future and bloody religious wars on
soil where none now rage? To teach them justice in the administration
of law would be a glorious task indeed, but even that would have its
dark side. Litigation would become the order of the day, and a
rapacious class would spring into existence where lawyers and
barristers are now totally unknown. The striking phenomenon of extreme
wealth side by side with extreme poverty, might be produced in a
country where absolute destitution is at present remarkably rare, and
no one need actually starve; and thus would be developed a fine field
for the practice of that Christian charity which by demoralisation of
the poorer classes so skilfully defeats its own end. We should rejoice
if anything could make Chinamen less cruel to dumb animals, desist
from carrying ducks, geese, and pigs, hanging by their legs to a pole,
feed their hungry dogs, and spare their worn-out beasts of burden. But
pigeon-shooting is unknown, and gag-bearing reins have yet to be
introduced into China; neither have we heard of a poor heathen
Chinaman "skinning a sheep alive." (_Vide Daily Papers of July_ 12,
1875.)

Last of all, it must not be forgotten that China has already four
great religions flourishing in her midst. There is _Confucianism_,
which, strictly speaking, is not a religion, but a system of
self-culture with a view to the proper government of (1) one's own
family and of (2) the State. It teaches man to be good, and to love
virtue for its own sake, with no fear of punishment for failure, no
hope of reward for success. Is it below Christianity in this?

_Buddhism_, _Taoism_, and _Mahomedanism_, share the patronage of the
illiterate, and serve to satisfy the natural craving in uneducated man
for something supernatural in which to believe and on which to rely.
The _literati_ are sheer materialists: they laugh at the absurdities
of Buddhism, though they sometimes condescend to practise its rites.
They strongly object to the introduction of a new religion, and
successfully oppose it by every means in their power. They urge, and
with justice, that Confucius has laid down an admirable rule of life
in harmony with their own customs, and that the conduct of those who
approximate to this standard would compare not unfavourably with the
practice, as distinguished from the profession, of any religion in the
world.




ANTI-CHRISTIAN LYRICS

The following inflammatory placard, which was posted up last year at a
place called Lung-p'ing, near the great tea mart of Hankow, will give
a faint idea of native prejudice against the propagation of
Christianity in China. The original was in verse, and evidently the
work of a highly-educated man:--

Strange doctrines are speedily to be eradicated:
The holy teaching of Confucius is now in the ascendant.
There is but one most sacred religion:
There can be but one Mean.
By their great virtue Yao and Shun led the way,
Alone able to expound the "fickle" and the "slight;"[*]
Confucius' teachings have not passed away,
Yet working wonders in secret[+] has long been in vogue.
Be earnest in practising the ordinary virtues:
To extend filial piety, brotherly love, loyalty, and
considerateness, is to benefit one's-self.
Be careful in your speech,
And marvels, feats of strength, sedition, and spirits,[:] will
disappear from conversation.
I pray you do not listen to unsubstantiated words:
Then who will dare to deceive the age with soft-sounding phrases.
Our religion is for all who choose to seek it;
But we build no chapels to beguile the foolish.
Our true religion has existed from of old, up to the present day,
undergoing no change.
Its true principles include in their application those of the middle
and outside nations alike.
Great is the advantage to us!
Great is the good influence on this generation!
Of all religions the only true one,
What false doctrine can compare with it?
The _stillness_ and _cleanliness_ of Buddhism,
The _abstruseness_ and _hollow mockery_ of Taoism--
These are but side-doors compared with ours;
Fit to be quitted, but not to be entered.
These are but by-paths compared with ours;
Fit to be blocked up, but not to be used.
How then about this one, stranger than Buddhist or Taoist creed?
With its secret confusion of sexes, unutterable!
More hurtful than all the dogmas of the other two;
Spreading far and wide the unfathomable poison of its mysteries.
Herein you must carefully discriminate,
And not receive it with belief and veneration.
Those who now embrace Christ
Call him Lord of heaven and earth,
Worshipping him with prayer,
Deceiving and exciting the foolish,
Dishonouring the holy teaching of Confucius.
I laugh at your hero of the cross,
Who, though sacrificing his life, did not preserve his virtue
complete.
Missions build chapels,
But the desire to do good works is not natural to them.
The method of influencing the natures of women
Is but a trick to further base ends.
They injure boys by magical arts,
And commit many atrocious crimes.
They say their religion is the only true one,
But their answers are full of prevarication.
They say their book is the Holy Book,
But the Old and New Testaments are like the songs of Wei and
Cheng.[!]
As to the people who are gradually being misled,
I compassionate their ignorance;
As to the educated who are thus deceived,
I am wroth at their want of reflection.
For these men are not of us;
We are like the horse and the cow;[@]
If you associate with them,
Who will expel these crocodiles and snakes?
This is a secret grievance of the State,
A manifest injury to the people!
Truly it is the eye-sore of the age.
You quietly look on unconcerned!
I, musing over the present state of men's hearts,
Desire to rectify them.
Alas! the ways of devils are full of guile!
But man's disposition is naturally pure.
How then can men willingly walk with devils?
You, like trees and plants, without understanding,
Allow the Barbarians to throw into confusion the Flowery Land.
Is it that no holy and wise men have appeared?
Under the Chow dynasty, when the barbarians were at the height of
their arrogance,
The hand of Confucius and Mencius was laid upon them!
Under the T'ang when Buddhism was poisoning the age,
Han and Hsi exterminated them.
Now these devils are working evil,
Troubling the villages and market-places where they live.
Surely many heroes must come forward
To crush them with the pen of Confucius.
Turn then and consider
That were it not for my class[#]
None would uphold the true religion.
I say unto you,
And you should give heed unto me,
Believe not the nonsense of Redemption,
Believe not the trickery of the Resurrection.
Set yourselves to find out the true path,
And learn to distinguish between man and devil.
Pass not with loitering step the unknown ford,
Nor bow the knee before the vicious and the depraved.
Wait not for Heaven to exterminate them
To find out that earth has a day for their destruction.
The shapeless, voiceless imp--
Why worship him?
His supernatural, unprincipled nonsense
Should surely be discarded.
Ye who think not so,
When the devils are in your houses
They will covet your homes,
And they will take the fingers and arms of your strong ones
To make claws and teeth for imps.
They excite people at first by specious talk,
Not one jot of which is intelligible;
Then they destroy your reason,
Making you wander far from the truth.
You throw over ancestral worship to enjoy none yourselves;
Your wives and children suffer pollution,
And you are pointed at with the finger.
Thus heedlessly you injure eternal principles,
Embracing filth and treasuring corruption,
To your endless shame
And to your everlasting misfortune.
Finally, if in life your heads escape the axe,
There will await you the excessive injury of the shroud.[$]
Judging by the crimes of your lives,
Your corpses will be cast to scorpions and snakes.
The devils introduce this doctrine,
Which grows like plants from seeds;
Some one must arise to punish them,
And destroy their religion root and branch.
Hasten, all of you, to repent,
And walk in the way of righteousness;
We truly pity you.
A warning notice to discard false doctrines!

[*] The fickle nature of men's minds, and slight regard for the true
doctrine.

[+] Forbidden by Confucius.

[:] Avoided by Confucius as topics.

[!] Licentious.

[@] The Chinese say horses prefer going against, cows with, the wind.

[#] The _literati_.

[$] Missionaries are said to keep the corpses of converts concealed
from public view between death and interment, that the absence of
the dead man's eyes may not be detected.




CONCLUSION

"Surely it is manifest enough that by selecting the evidence, any
society may be relatively blackened, and any other society relatively
whitened."[*] We hope that no such principle of selection can be
traced in the preceding pages. Irritation against traducers of China
and her morality[+] may have occasionally tinged our views with a
somewhat rosy hue; but we have all along felt the danger of this bias,
and have endeavoured to guard against it. We have no wish to exalt
China at the expense of European civilisation, but we cannot blind
ourselves to the fact that her vices have been exaggerated, and her
virtues overlooked. Only the bigoted or ignorant could condemn with
sweeping assertions of immorality a nation of many millions absolutely
free, as the Chinese are, from one such vice as drunkenness; in whose
cities may be seen--what all our legislative and executive skill
cannot secure--streets quiet and deserted after nine or ten o'clock at
night. Add to this industry, frugality, patriotism,[:] and a boundless
respect for the majesty of office: it then only remains for us to
acknowledge that China is after all "a nation of much talent, and, in
some respects, even wisdom."[!]

[*] Spencer's Sociology: The Bias of Patriotism.

[+] "The miseries and horrors (?) which are now destroying (?) the
Chinese Empire are the direct and organic result of the moral
profligacy of its inhabitants."--_Froude's Short Studies on Great
Subjects_.

[:] "Every patriotic Chinese--and there are millions of such."--_Dr
Legge to London and China Telegraph_, July 5, 1875.

[!] Mill's Essay on Liberty.