LETTER XXIII
Peking, 7th March 1866.
My last letter to you was dated 8th February, on which day the festivities of the Chinese New Year began with the feast of Tsao, the god of the hearth. This, of course, is inaugurated with popping of fireworks and banging of cannon. Tsao is of all the spirits the one most intimately connected with the family, and every year, eight days before the New Year, he goes to heaven to make his report. Now as in every family there must always be some little secrets which it is not desirable should be known in heaven, it is essential that something should be done to prevent Tsao’s tongue from wagging too freely, so offerings are made to him of barley-sugar, that his mouth may be sticky! At the same time, upon either side of his niche, which stands in the kitchen, are pasted posters of red paper, the one bearing the words “Go to heaven and make a good report,” the other “Come back to your palace and bring good luck.” The niche is then burnt, and the god rises to heaven to come back on New Year’s Day, against which time a new niche is prepared for him.
As the New Year approaches, the principal amusement in the streets is flying kites. These are admirably made, and represent all manner of birds, beasts, and fishes. There are some which even represent centipedes, but I have not seen those. In the tail of the kite is placed a sort of Æolian harp, such as I once told you the Chinese attach to their pigeons. I cannot tell you what a strange effect these weird-looking monsters humming high up in the air present. The Street of Lanterns, too, begins to make a great show. Lamps of every variety of shape, from a bouquet of flowers to a fiery dragon, are exposed for sale and bought in quantities.
On New Year’s Eve the houses are cleaned up and put in order. Characters of good omen are pasted on all the door-posts; from the window-sills little strips of red paper stamped like lace flutter in the wind. An altar is erected in the courtyard with candles and offerings, while crackers and fireworks are let off all night to chase away all the evil Spirits that have been about during the year, and especially the Spirit of Poverty.
The 15th of February was the Chinese New Year’s Day. It was a bright, fine day, and the people were all figged out in the best raiment available, either from their own wardrobes or those of the pawnbrokers, whose chests must have been emptied of every article of smart clothing for the occasion. All the shops were shut, but not empty; for from many of them there issued the most infernal clatter that ever stunned human ears. I looked into one, my curiosity getting the better of my manners, and there I saw a number of respectable middle-aged bourgeois sitting in a circle, and each with a clapper, gong, cymbals, or drum, beating for dear life with the gravest of faces. This was exorcising devils, and, if devils have ears, ought to be a successful plan. The streets are full of people paying complimentary visits to their friends, a ceremony which is nowhere so universally observed as in China. Outside the Chien Mên, one of the gates leading from the Tartar into the Chinese city, is a small yellow-tiled Imperial temple to Kwan-Ti, the god of war. This is crowded with worshippers on New Year’s Day. High and low flock to pay their respects and draw their lot for the year. Outside the temple were a couple of priests doing a brisk trade in tracts and joss-sticks. Armed with a bundle of the latter, which are whisked about in flames, to the great peril of European beards, the devout advance and perform the ko̔to̔u before the altar with three kneelings and nine knockings of the head. They then draw nearer to the altar, and from a sort of cup which stands upon it draw at random a slip of bamboo with certain characters upon it. This is exchanged according to its inscription for a piece of paper which is handed to the votary for a few cash by an attendant priest, and which contains his fortune for the year. The people who took part in this ceremony were excessively devout in their demeanour; there was no symptom of levity or indifference; they were imploring the protection of a divine being for the coming year, with superstition if not with piety. The richer worshippers were making offerings of pigs and sheep as sacrifice.
I don’t recollect whether I ever mentioned to you the Liu Li Chang, a street of booksellers and curiosity shops, and one of my favourite lounges here. It is one of the lions of the New Year. A very amusing fair is held there. It is perfectly thronged with people, and a very gay scene. Toys and artificial flowers are the best things sold; some of the former are capital. Lifelike models of insects, tiny beasts and birds, tops, kites of all shapes, and above all some little figures of European soldiers and sailors—caricatures of the late war—that were irresistibly comic. One man was selling a capital toy—two little figures, jointed, and so contrived that by pulling a horsehair which is not seen they begin to fight and go through every motion of desperate wrestling. There were some jugglers, but rather a low lot. One man was having bricks smashed on his head—a somewhat alarming performance, for which, however, he seemed none the worse. Then there was a combat between sword and spear, after the manner of Savile House in old days, which ended in sword getting a kick in the stomach and a poke in the ribs, which well earned a sixpence. A peep-show represented views taken in China and Europe, of which the exhibitor was as ignorant as his audience: he described St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Bay of Naples as places of repute in the Lew Chew Islands; and I really should be ashamed to tell you what was painted on the reverse of the view of St. Paul’s. A temple of the Chinese Æsculapius in one corner of the fair was crowded with visitors, who were pressing round the stall of a venerable gentleman whose stock-in-trade was a bushel or two of teeth and a picture representing the treatment of every variety of disease in diagrams. The teeth he had extracted were mostly sound! Fortune-tellers were casting up chances, and wise men reading destinies in all the courts, which were piled high with votive tablets from grateful patients. As to the walls, the tablets on them were three deep. The crowd were uniformly civil to us, but oh, the garlic of them! It was high jinks for the beggars, who were more than usually offensive and pertinacious, especially the women with sick babies, who would insist on wishing one a Happy New Year in every key. It’s no use being pitiful, for if you give to one you will have a tail of a hundred at your heels.
The New Year’s festivities last for a fortnight or so; it is an endless succession of feasting and fireworks until the Feast of Lanterns, twelve days after New Year’s Day. The latter is quite a bright scene with all the lanterns and transparencies, but it sounds much more than it is.
I must tell you something about the Chinese travellers who are going to Europe, and whom you will see or hear about. Mr. Hart, the Inspector-General of Customs, is going home on leave, and the Chinese Government have ordered his Chinese secretary, with his son and three young Chinamen, students of European languages, to accompany him. Pin Chun, the gentleman in question, has been raised to the Clear Blue Button, third grade, and made an honorary chief clerk in the Foreign Office on the occasion. His son has been made a clerk in the Foreign Office. It is a great pity that the Chinese did not choose a more intelligent and younger man than Pin Chun, who is sixty-four years old, and a shocking twaddle. He and his son are, from what I have seen and heard of them, quite incapable of forming just appreciations of what they will see. Then, for their first mission to Europe, although it has no official character, they should have chosen a mandarin of more importance than Pin, whose reports will have but little weight with the lettered class of Chinese; indeed, these are jealous of his promotion, and consider that his distinction is too cheaply earned. The reason of Pin’s having been chosen is that he is a connection by marriage with one of the ministers of the Chinese Foreign Office. He is said to be very popular in Pekingese society, so at any rate, when he comes back, what he has seen will be talked about in the “highest circles”; and he is personally acquainted with the Prince of Kung, who proposed the mission to him at a wedding breakfast. Pin has no official character as envoy. He is told to travel and write down all about the “hills and streams” of the countries he visits, and he will be trotted about to every object of interest. I only hope that he will not be too much lionised. It would be misinterpreted here, where people would say at once, “See what great people we are; when a private traveller among us goes to your country he is received with the respect which you know is due to a superior intelligence, but your barbarian ministers even are not received here,—of course our Emperor is great and powerful, and you are only here on sufferance.”
I must leave off. I am just starting to Tientsing to see Saurin off, alas! and when I come back it will be to almost entire solitude.
Perhaps I have spoken rather too slightingly of Pin Chun’s mission. It is a small thing in itself, but we all look upon it as the first step towards permanent missions in Europe and better relations here.