Going To Market.
Chinese Market Scene.
Every village being thus surrounded with a ring of markets, each of these is also a cog in a wheel, playing into other wheels on each side of it. All those who attend a large market come to have a wide acquaintance with persons for great distances on each side of them, and the needs of all persons both buyers and sellers are adequately met.
The word which we have translated “market” (chi) denotes merely a gathering, and another character, (hui) is reserved for an assemblage of a much larger character, which is properly a fair. The number of persons who attend these fairs frequently rises to between ten and twenty thousand, giving a stranger the impression that the entire population of several counties must have been turned loose at once. Fairs are to be found in the largest Chinese cities, as well as in towns of every grade down even to small hamlets, though the proportion of towns and villages which support a fair is always a small one. It appears to be a general truth that by far the larger part of these large fairs owe their existence to the managers of some temple. The end in view is the accumulation of a revenue for the use of the temple, which is accomplished by levying certain taxes upon the traffic, and by the collection of a ground-rent. The latter is also a feature of the village market, the proprietor of each bit of ground appearing at each market to collect of the persons who have occupied his land, either a fixed amount, or a percentage upon their sale or supposed sales.
In the larger centres of population, it is common to find fairs held for a month or more at a time, and in some places there are several of these fairs every year, forming the centres of activity around which all the life of the place revolves. In such places the inhabitants make a good profit by renting buildings to the multitudes who come from a distance to sell and to buy, and where this is the case, when the fair is not in operation the city frequently appears to be nearly extinct. But trade no sooner begins, than countless thousands throng the lately almost deserted streets.
In order to make a fair a success, it is necessary that the managers should be men of enterprise and of sufficient business ability to deal with the many difficulties which are likely to arise. They exercise a certain supervision over everything, and are technically responsible for what goes wrong, though this responsibility they frequently evade. In order to attract a large attendance, it is generally necessary for fairs which are to last four days, to begin with a theatrical representation, which continues till the close. Sometimes, however, the players fail to appear, and in that case the whole fair may come to nothing. These large fairs are attended by merchants representing cities many hundred miles distant, and dealing in every article which is likely to attract customers.
As the means of transportation are very inadequate and locomotion is always slow and difficult, the merchants who go about from one fair to another for many months of the year, lead a life, or rather an existence, which is far from enviable. The half-month holiday with which the Chinese year begins is no sooner over than the large fairs begin also, and they continue with intermissions throughout the rest of the year. There is a brief interval for the wheat harvest, an event of the greatest importance to every class of the population, and the rainy season generally causes another interruption, often so serious a one as to upset all plans for two months or more.
The principal coöperative element in fairs lies in so arranging them as to dovetail into one another with least loss of time to the travelling merchants. The success generally attained is offset by many conspicuous failures, due to the Chinese thirst for gaining advantage over rivals, irrespective of the interests of others, which in matters involving coöperation, often results in disappointment. Thus, it is not uncommon to find that while the posters announcing a fair have been put up all through the country-side for an entire month, no one can tell when it is really to begin. That the day for beginning is “fixed” is a point of no consequence whatever, for with the exception of eclipses nothing in China is so “fixed” that it is not subject to alteration, and this exception may be thought to be due to the circumstance that eclipses are not under the supervision of the Chinese. We have known repeated instances in which persons who wished to attend a large fair, the date of which has been “fixed” for generations, have travelled many miles at great inconvenience, once and again, only to find that it was delayed owing to the fact that nobody had come, every one being apparently engaged in waiting for every one else. But infelicities like this are universal and constant in China, where punctuality is “a lost art.”