Chinese Sketches

H >> Herbert A. Giles >> Chinese Sketches





A DINNER-PARTY

It is a lamentable fact that although China has now been open for a
considerable number of years both to trade and travellers, she is
still a sealed book to the majority of intelligent Europeans as
regards her manners and customs, and the mode of life of her people.
Were it not so, such misleading statements as those lately published
by a young gentleman in the service of H.I.M. the Emperor of China,
and professing to give an account of a Chinese dinner, could never
have been served up by half-a-dozen London newspapers as a piece of
valuable information on the habits of Chinamen. There is so much that
is really quaint, interesting, and worthy of record in the social
etiquette observed by the natives of China, that no one with eyes to
see and ears to hear need ever draw upon his imagination in the
slightest degree. We do not imply that this has been done in the
present instance. The writer has only erred through ignorance. He has
doubtless been to a Chinese dinner where he "sat inside a glass door,
and cigars were handed round after the repast," as many other brave
men have been before him,--at Mr Yang's, the celebrated Peking
pawn-broker. But had he been to more than that one, or taken the
trouble to learn something about the subject on which he was writing,
he would have found out that glass doors and cigars are not natural
and necessary adjuncts to a Chinese dinner. They are in fact only to
be found at the houses of natives who have mixed with foreigners and
are in the habit of inviting them to their houses. The topic is an
interesting one, and deserves a somewhat elaborate treatment, both for
its own sake as a study of native customs, and also to aid in
dispelling a host of absurd ideas which have gathered round these
everyday events of Chinese life. For it is an almost universal belief
that Chinamen dine daily upon rats, puppy-dogs, and birds'-nest soup;
whereas the truth is that, save among very poor people, the first is
wholly unknown, and the two last are comparatively expensive dishes.
Dog hams are rather favourite articles of food in the south of China,
but the nests from which the celebrated soup is made are far too
expensive to be generally consumed.

A dinner-party in China is a most methodical affair as regards
precedence among guests, the number of courses, and their general
order and arrangement. We shall endeavour to give a detailed and
accurate account of such a banquet as might be offered to half-a-dozen
friends by a native in easy circumstances. In the first place, no
ladies would be present, but men only would occupy seats at the
square, four-legged "eight fairy" table. Before each there will be
found a pair of chopsticks, a wine-cup, a small saucer for soy, a
two-pronged fork, a spoon, a tiny plate divided into two separate
compartments for melon seeds and almonds, and a pile of small pieces
of paper for cleaning these various articles as required. Arranged
upon the table in four equidistant rows are sixteen small dishes or
saucers which contain four kinds of fresh fruits, four kinds of dried
fruits, four kinds of candied fruits, and four miscellaneous, such as
preserved eggs, slices of ham, a sort of sardine, pickled cabbage, &c.
These four are in the middle, the other twelve being arranged
alternately round them. Wine is produced the first thing, and poured
into small porcelain cups by the giver of the feast himself. It is
polite to make a bow and place one hand at the side of the cup while
this operation is being performed. The host then gives the signal to
drink and the cups are emptied instantaneously, being often turned
bottom upwards as a proof there are no heel-taps. Many Chinamen,
however, cannot stand even a small quantity of wine; and it is no
uncommon thing when the feast is given at an eating-house, to hire one
of the theatrical singing-boys to perform vicariously such heavy
drinking as may be required by custom or exacted by forfeit. The
sixteen small dishes above-mentioned remain on the table during the
whole dinner and may be eaten of promiscuously between courses. Now we
come to the dinner, which may consist of eight large and eight small
courses, six large and six small, eight large and four small, or six
large and four small, according to the means or fancy of the host,
each bowl of food constituting a course being placed in the middle of
the table and dipped into by the guests with chopsticks or spoon as
circumstances may require. The first is the commonest, and we append a
bill of fare of an ordinary Chinese dinner on that scale, each course
coming in its proper place.

I. Sharks' fins with crab sauce.
1. Pigeons' eggs stewed with mushrooms.
2. Sliced sea-slugs in chicken broth with ham.
II. Wild duck and Shantung cabbage.
3. Fried fish.
4. Lumps of pork fat fried in rice flour.
III. Stewed lily roots.
5. Chicken mashed to pulp, with ham.
6. Stewed bamboo shoots.
IV. Stewed shell-fish.
7. Fried slices of pheasant.
8. Mushroom broth.
Remove--Two dishes of fried pudding, one sweet and the other salt,
with two dishes of steamed puddings, also one sweet and one
salt. [These four are put on the table together and with them
is served a cup of almond gruel.]
V. Sweetened duck.
VI. Strips of boned chicken fried in oil.
VII. Boiled fish (of any kind) with soy.
VIII. Lumps of parboiled mutton fried in pork-fat.

These last four large courses are put on the table one by one and are
not taken away. Subsequently a fifth, a bowl of soup, is added, and
small basins of rice are served round, over which some of the soup is
poured. The meal is then at an end. A _rince-bouche_ is handed to each
guest and a towel dipped in boiling water but well wrung out. With the
last he mops his face all over, and the effect is much the same as
half a noggin of Exshare diluted with a bottle of Schweppe. Pipes and
tea are now handed round, though this is not the first appearance of
tobacco on the scene. Many Chinamen take a whiff or two at their
hubble-bubbles between almost every course, as they watch the
performance of some broad farce which on grand occasions is always
provided for their entertainment. Opium is served when dinner is over
for such as are addicted to this luxury; and after a few minutes,
spent perhaps in arranging the preliminaries of some future banquet,
the party, which has probably lasted from three to four hours, is no
longer of the present but in the past.




FEMALE CHILDREN

A great deal of trash has been committed to writing by various
foreigners on the subject of female children in China. The prevailing
belief in Europe seems to be that the birth of a daughter is looked
upon as a mournful event in the annals of a Chinese family, and that a
large percentage of the girls born are victims of a wide-spread system
of infanticide, a sufficient number, however, being spared to prevent
the speedy depopulation of the Empire. It became our duty only the
other day to correct a mistake, on the part of a reverend gentleman
who has been some twelve years a missionary in China, bearing on this
very subject. He observed that "the Chinese are always profuse in
their congratulations on the birth of a _son_; but if a girl is born,
the most hearty word they can afford to utter is, 'girls too are
necessary.'" Such a statement is very misleading, and cannot, in these
days of enlightenment on Chinese topics, be allowed to pass
unchallenged. "I hear you have obtained one thousand ounces of gold,"
is perhaps the commonest of those flowery metaphors which the Chinese
delight to bandy on such an auspicious occasion; another being, "You
have a bright pearl in your hand," &c., &c. The truth is that parents
in China are just as fond of all their children as people in other and
more civilised countries, where male children are also eagerly desired
to preserve the family from extinction. The excess in value of the
male over the female is perhaps more strongly marked among the
Chinese, owing of course to the peculiarity of certain national
customs, and not to any want of parental feeling; but, on the other
hand, a very fair share both of care and affection is lavished upon
the daughters either of rich or poor. They are not usually taught to
read as the boys are, because they cannot enter any condition of
public life, and education for mere education's sake would be
considered as waste of time and money by all except very wealthy
parents. Besides, when a daughter is married, not only is it necessary
to provide her with a suitable dowry and trousseau, but she passes
over to the house of her husband, there to adopt his family name in
preference to her own, and contract new obligations to a father- and
mother-in-law she may only have seen once or twice in her life, more
binding in their stringency than those to the father and mother she
has left behind. A son remains by his parents' side in most cases till
death separates them for ever, and on him they rely for that due
performance of burial rites which alone can ensure to their spirits an
eternal rest. When old age or disease comes upon them, a son can go
forth to earn their daily rice, and protect them from poverty, wrong,
and insult, where a daughter would be only an additional encumbrance.
It is no wonder therefore that the birth of a son is hailed with
greater manifestations of joy than is observable among western
nations; at the same time, we must maintain that the natural love of
Chinese parents for their female offspring is not thereby lessened to
any appreciable degree. No _red eggs_ are sent by friends and
relatives on the birth of a daughter as at the advent of the first
boy, the hope and pride of the family; but in other respects the
customs and ceremonies practised on these occasions are very much the
same. On the third day the milk-name is given to the child, and if a
girl her ears are pierced for earrings. A little boiled rice is rubbed
upon the lobe of the ear, which is then subjected to friction between
the finger and thumb until it gets quite numb: it is next pierced with
a needle and thread dipped in oil, the latter being left in the ear.
No blood flows. Boys frequently have one ear pierced, as some people
say, to make them look like little girls; and up to the age of
thirteen or fourteen, girls often wear their hair braided in a tail to
make them look like little boys. But the end of the tail is always
tied with _red_ silk--the differentiating colour between youths and
maids in China. And here we may mention that the colour of the silk
which finishes off a Chinaman's tail differs according to
circumstances. Black is the ordinary colour, often undistinguishable
from the long dresses in which they take such pride; _white_ answers
to deep crape with us, and proclaims that either the father or mother
of the wearer has bid adieu to this sublunary sphere;[*] _green_,
_yellow_, and _blue_, are worn for more distant relatives, or for
parents after the first year of mourning has expired.

[*] The verb "to die" is rarely used by the Chinese of their
relatives. Some graceful periphrasis is adapted instead.

We will conclude with a curious custom which, as far as our inquiries
have extended, seems to be universal. The first visitor, stranger,
messenger, coolie, or friend, who comes to the house where a new-born
baby lies, ignorant that such an event has taken place, is on no
account allowed to go away without having first eaten a full meal.
This is done to secure to the child a peaceful and refreshing night's
rest; and as Chinamen are always ready at a moment's notice to dispose
of a feed at somebody else's expense, difficulties are not likely to
arise on a score of a previous dinner.




TRAVEL

Books of travel are eagerly read by most classes of Chinese who have
been educated up to the requisite standard, and long journeys have
often been undertaken to distant parts of the Empire, not so much from
a thirst for knowledge or love of a vagrant life, as from a desire to
be enrolled among the numerous contributors to the deathless
literature of the Middle Kingdom. Such travellers start with a full
knowledge of the tastes of their public, and a firm conviction that
unless they can provide sufficiently marvellous stories out of what
they have seen and heard, the fame they covet is not likely to be
accorded. No European reader who occupies himself with these works can
fail to discover that in every single one of them invention is brought
more or less into play; and that when fact is not forthcoming, the
exigencies of the book are supplemented from the convenient resources
of fiction. Of course this makes the accounts of Chinese travellers
almost worthless, and often ridiculous; though strange to say, amongst
the Chinese themselves, even to the grossest absurdities and most
palpable falsehoods, there hardly attaches a breath of that suspicion
which has cast a halo round the name of Bruce.

We have lately come across a book of travels, in six thin quarto
volumes, written by no less a personage than the father of Ch'ung-hou.
It is a very handsome work, being well printed and on good paper,
besides being provided with numerous woodcuts of the scenes and
scenery described in the text. The author, whose name was Lin-ch'ing,
was employed in various important posts; and while rising from the
position of Prefect to that of Acting Governor-General of the two
Kiang, travelled about a good deal, and was somewhat justified in
committing his experiences to paper. We doubt, however, if his
literary efforts are likely to secure him a fraction of the notoriety
which the Tientsin Massacre has conferred upon his son. He never saw
the moon shining upon the water, but away he went and wrote an ode to
the celestial luminary, always introducing a few pathetic lines on the
hardships of travel and the miseries of exile. One chapter is devoted
to the description of a curious rock called the _Loom Rock_. It is
situated in the Luhsi district of the Chang-chou prefecture in Hunan,
and is perfectly inaccessible to man, as it well might be, to judge
from the drawing of it by a native artist. From a little distance,
however, caves are discernible hollowed out in the cliff, and in these
the eye can detect various articles used in housekeeping, such as a
teapot, &c.; and amongst others a _loom_. On a ledge of smooth rock a
boat may be seen, as it were hauled up out of the water. How these got
there, and what is the secret of the place, nobody appears to know,
but our author declares that he saw them with his own eyes. We have
given the above particulars as to the whereabouts of the rock, in the
hope that any European meditating a trip into Hunan may take the
trouble to make some inquiries about this wonderful sight. The late Mr
Margary must have passed close to it in his boat, probably without
being aware of its existence--if indeed it does exist at all.

We cannot refrain from translating verbatim one passage which has
reference to the English, and of which we fancy Ch'ung-hou himself
would be rather ashamed since his visit to the Outside Nations. Here
it is:--

"When the English barbarians first began to give trouble to the
Inner Nation, they relied on the strength of their ships and the
excellence of their guns. It was therefore proposed to build large
ships and cast heavy cannon in order to oppose them. I
represented, however, that vessels are not built in a day, and
pointed out the difficulties in the way of naval warfare. I showed
that the power of a cannon depends upon the strength of the
powder, and the strength of the powder upon the sulphur and
saltpetre; the latter determining the explosive force forwards and
backwards, and the former, the same force towards either side.
Therefore to ensure powder being powerful, there should be seven
parts saltpetre out of ten. The English barbarians have got rattan
ash which they can use instead of sulphur, but saltpetre is a
product of China alone. Accordingly, I memorialised His Majesty to
prohibit the export of saltpetre, and caused some thirty-seven
thousand pounds to be seized by my subordinates."




PREDESTINATION

Theoretically, the Chinese are fatalists in the fullest sense of the
word. Love of life and a desire to enjoy the precious boon as long as
possible, prevent them from any such extended application of the
principle as would be prejudicial to the welfare of the nation; yet
each man believes that his destiny is pre-ordained, and that the whole
course of his life is mapped out for him with unerring exactitude.
Happily, when the occasion presents itself, his thoughts are generally
too much occupied with the crisis before him, to be able to indulge in
any dangerous speculations on predestination and free-will; his
practice, therefore, is not invariably in harmony with his theory.

On the first page of a Chinese almanack for the current year, we have
a curious woodcut representing a fly, a spider, a bird, a sportsman, a
tiger, and a well. Underneath this strange medley is a legend couched
in the following terms:--"Predestination in all things!" The
letterpress accompanying the picture explains that the spider had just
secured a fat fly, and was on the point of making a meal of him, when
he was espied by a hungry bird which swooped down on both. As the bird
was making off to its nest with this delicious mouthful, a sportsman
who happened to be casting round for a supper, brought it down with
his gun, and was stooping to pick it up, when a tiger, also with an
empty stomach, sprang from behind upon the man, and would there and
then have put an end to the drama, but for an ugly well, on the brink
of which the bird had dropped, and into which the tiger, carried on by
the impetus of his spring, tumbled headlong, taking with him man,
bird, spider, and fly in one fell career to the bottom. This fable
embodies popular ideas in China with regard to predestination, by
virtue of which calamity from time to time overtakes doomed victims,
as a punishment for sins committed in their present or a past state of
existence. Coupled with this belief are many curious sayings and
customs, the latter of which often express in stronger terms than
language the feelings of the people. For instance, at the largest
centre of population in the Eighteen Provinces, there is a regulation
with regard to the porterage by coolies of wine and oil, which
admirably exemplifies the subject under consideration. If on a wet and
stormy day, or when the ground is covered with snow, a coolie laden
with either of the above articles slips and falls, he is held
responsible for any damage that may be done; whereas, if he tumbles
down on a fine day when the streets are dry, and there is no apparent
cause for such an accident, the owner of the goods bears whatever loss
may occur. The idea is that on a wet and slippery day mere exercise of
human caution would be sufficient to avert the disaster, but happening
in bright, dry weather, it becomes indubitably a manifestation of the
will of Heaven. In the same way, an endless run of bad luck or some
fearful and overwhelming calamity, against which no mortal foresight
could guard, is likened to the burning of an _ice-house_, which, from
its very nature, would almost require the interposition of Divine
power to set it in a blaze. In such a case, he who could doubt the
reality of predestination would be ranked, in Chinese eyes, as little
better than a fool. And yet when these emergencies arise we do not
find the Chinese standing still with their hands in their sleeves (for
want of pockets), but working away to stop whatever mischief is going
on, as if after the all the will of Heaven may be made amenable to
human energy. It is only when an inveterate gambler or votary of the
opium-pipe has seen his last chance of solace in this life cut away
from under him, and feels himself utterly unable any longer to stem
the current, that he weakly yields to the force of his destiny, and
borrows a stout rope from a neighbour, or wanders out at night to the
brink of some deep pool never to return again.

There is a charming episode in the second chapter of the "Dream of the
Red Chamber," where the father of Pao-yu is anxious to read the
probable destiny of his infant son. He spreads before the little boy,
then just one year old, all kinds of different things, and declares
that from whichever of these the baby first seizes, he will draw an
omen as to his future career in life. We can imagine how he longed for
his boy to grasp the manly _bow_, in the use of which he might some
day rival the immortal archer Pu:--the _sword_, and live to be
enrolled a fifth among the four great generals of China:--the _pen_,
and under the favouring auspices of the god of literature, rise to
assist the Son of Heaven with his counsels, or write a commentary upon
the Book of Rites. Alas for human hopes! The naughty baby, regardless
alike of his father's wishes and the filial code, passed over all
these glittering instruments of wealth and power, and devoted his
attention exclusively to some hair-pins, pearl-powder, rouge, and a
lot of women's head-ornaments.




JOURNALISM

Were any wealthy philanthropist to consult us as to the disposal of
his millions with a view to ensure the greatest possible advantages to
the greatest possible number, we should unhesitatingly recommend him
to undertake the publication of a Chinese newspaper, to be sold at a
merely nominal figure per copy. Under skilled foreign guidance, and
with the total exclusion of religious topics, more would be effected
in a few years for the real happiness of China and its ultimate
conversion to western civilisation, than the most hopeful enthusiast
could venture to predict. The _Shun-pao_, edited in Shanghai by Mr
Ernest Major, is doing an incredible amount of good in so far as its
influence extends; but the daily issue of this widely-circulated paper
amounts only to about four thousand copies, or one to every hundred
thousand natives! Missionary publications are absolutely useless, as
they have a very limited sale beyond the circle of converts to the
faith; but a _colporteur_ of religious books informed us the other day
that he was continually being asked for the _Shun-pao_. Now the
_Shun-pao_ owes its success so far to the fact that it is a pure money
speculation, and therefore an undertaking intelligible enough to all
Chinamen. Not only are its columns closed to anything like
proselytising articles, but they are open from time to time to such
tit-bits of the miraculous as are calculated to tickle the native
palate, and swell the number of its subscribers. Therefore, to avert
suspicion, it would be necessary to make a charge, however small,
while at the same time such bogy paragraphs as occasionally appear in
the columns of the _Shun-pao_ might be altogether omitted.

Our attention was called to this matter by a charming description in
the _Shun-pao_ of a late balloon ascent from Calais, which was so
nearly attended with fatal results. Written in a singularly easy
style, and going quite enough into detail on the subject of balloons
generally to give an instructive flavour to its remarks, this article
struck us as being the identical kind of "light science for leisure
hours" so much needed by the Chinese; and it compared most favourably
with a somewhat heavy disquisition on aeronautic topics which appeared
some time back in the _Peking Magazine_, albeit the latter was
accompanied by an elaborate woodcut of a balloon under way. There is
so much that is wonderful in the healthy regions of fact which might
with mutual advantage be imparted to a reading people like the
Chinese, that it is quite unnecessary to descend to the gross, and too
often indecent, absurdities of fiction. Much indeed that is not
actually marvellous might be put into language which would rivet the
attention of Chinese readers. The most elementary knowledge, according
to our standard, is almost always new, even to the profoundest scholar
in native literature: the ignorance of the educated classes is
something appalling. On the other hand, all who have read their
_Shun-pao_ with regularity, even for a few months, are comparatively
enlightened. We heard the other day of a Tao-t'ai who was always
meeting the phrase "International Law" in the above paper, and his
curiosity at length prompted him to make inquiries, and finally to
purchase a copy of Dr Martin's translation of "Wheaton." He
subsequently complained bitterly that much of it was utterly
unintelligible; and judging from our own limited experience of the
translation, we think His Excellency's objection not altogether
groundless.

Of the domestic life of foreigners, the Chinese, with the exception of
a few servants, know absolutely nothing; and equally little of foreign
manners, customs, or etiquette. We were acquainted with one healthy
Briton who was popularly supposed by the natives with whom he was
thrown in contact to eat a whole leg of mutton every day for dinner;
and a high native functionary, complaining one day of some tipsy
sailors who had been rioting on shore, observed that "he knew
foreigners always got drunk on Sundays, and had the offence been
committed on that day he would have taken no notice of it; but," &c.,
&c. They have vague notions that filial piety is not considered a
virtue in the West, and look upon our system of contracting marriages
as objectionable in the extreme. They think foreigners carry whips and
sticks only for purposes of assault, and we met a man the other day
who had been wearing a watch for years, but was in the habit of never
winding it up till it had run down. This we afterwards found out to be
quite a common custom among the Chinese, it being generally believed
that a watch cannot be wound up whilst going; consequently, many
Chinamen keep two always in use, and it is worth noticing that watches
in China are almost invariably sold in pairs. The term "foreign devil"
is less frequently heard than formerly, and sometimes only for the
want of a better phrase. Mr Alabaster, in one of his journeys in the
interior, was politely addressed by the villagers as _His Excellency
the Devil_. The Chinese settlers in Formosa call themselves "foreign
men," but they call us "foreign things;" for, they argue, if we called
you foreign men, what should we call ourselves? The _Shun-pao_
deserves much credit for its unvarying use of _western_ instead of
_outside_ nations when speaking of foreign powers, but the belief is
still very prevalent that we all come from a number of small islands
scattered round the coast of one great centre, the Middle Kingdom.