The face of China

by E. G. Kemp

After passing through most beautiful scenery for five days, we came to a comparatively dull part of the country. Still, there were plenty of interesting things to look at, and continually something fresh which we had never seen before. The women wear very prettily embroidered clothes (worked in a sort of cross-stitch), though often appallingly dirty; and the clothes of the little children are lavishly decorated with delightful designs of butterflies and animals, and monsters, besides having worked pockets. I actually saw a toddler with a pocket-handkerchief, but I am convinced he did not know the proper use of it. If only there were not such a terrible dearth of these everywhere! I presented some to Liu as a New Year’s gift, but the result was not altogether satisfactory, as the gift did not include lessons in the use of them.

It was only at the close of five days’ journey from Wanhsien that we met the first beasts of burden (other than human ones). They were all cattle, and there were quite large numbers of them, neatly shod with straw sandals like those which the men wear. The crops were much more advanced here, and we even saw a field of beans in full flower. There is a good deal of corn, some peas and sugar-cane, but most of the land is devoted to the growing of rice, and is under water at the present season of the year. These fields are not large, and on each narrow little bank enclosing them there is a fringe of beans planted. The mandarin oranges grow extremely well, and are of a most lovely colour. The trees are often so heavily laden that they look as if they would break under the strain. Every wayside stall has quantities of oranges for sale at a merely nominal price. One cannot but suppose they are indigenous, and they certainly require little or no cultivation. The houses in this part look very pretty with their lath and plaster walls and overhanging eaves, but they are bare and dreary inside, as they rarely have any windows; what little light penetrates comes from the door and from holes in the roof. The high-road has a most curious way of running straight through the houses (mostly restaurants), as seen in the accompanying sketch, in which also it may be noticed that the smoke issues from cracks in the walls. Chimneys are conspicuous by their absence throughout the empire. I think this may be the reason why photographs of Chinese towns look so unreal to us. Sometimes you think as you pass through a doorway that you are entering an inn, whereas it proves to be a village street, completely covered in by mats, stretched on rods from roof to roof, and making the streets quite dark in broad daylight.

The people seem friendly and good-tempered, and we passed one day through a district where nearly all the women had unbound feet; but this is the only one I have ever come across in north, south, east, or west. Even the women working in the fields have bound feet, and it is astonishing how fast they are able to get about and what an amount of work they do. To be sure, they often carry little stools to sit on while they are weeding or planting in the fields. Sometimes they have a baby tied on their backs, but not infrequently this duty is relegated to the children, and you may see a toddler of not more than four or five years old carrying another nearly as large as himself, and trying to soothe its cries by swaying to and fro.

SZECHWAN HIGHWAY

We found it most important to keep to the regular daily stages while travelling in the interior, but sometimes this is impossible, and then the most villainous inns have to be faced. We were delayed by rain, which made the roads extremely slippery and difficult. My men fell no fewer than three times one day, and on one occasion they flung the chair heavily on its side, smashing the windows; happily, I escaped with only scratches. The glass windows should have been replaced at their expense, but, fortunately for their purses, I felt that it was safer to be without windows after such an experience.

On the slippery days we usually began by walking, and as we skirted the hillsides, gradually climbing upwards, for the greater part of the way the sounds of labour rising from the valley reached us clearly. Often a heavy hoar-frost lay on everything, and the sun had been up for some hours before it had power to dispel it. Nevertheless, fellow-travellers found it strong enough to warrant the putting up of European umbrellas. Certain foreign articles are increasingly used by the Chinese, and the umbrella is a special favourite. We, on the other hand—delighted with novelty and picturesqueness—had taken to Chinese umbrellas, which were certainly much prettier, though rather heavy. The enamelled basin is especially attractive to the Chinese, and is perhaps the most used of all foreign articles. A pair of English boots may frequently be seen fastened on to the luggage—I think they are too precious to be used on the high-road and are reserved for the cities—and we have met soldiers wearing European gloves as a curious addition to their very unofficial-looking dress.

Yesterday our men found it so warm that they entirely uncovered their right arms and shoulders, like the images of the Buddha. When the people want to take their coats off, they take off three, four, or five together, like a plaster, and put them on in the same way.

In this district the irrigation is done by means of large wheels worked like a treadmill by two or three men at a time, and there are great numbers of these wheels to be seen; but, as is so commonly the case, the custom is purely local, and we only saw them for a day or two. It seems to me as if it were specially characteristic of China to have customs and appliances confined to the most limited areas, outside which they are not to be seen. This adds very much to the interest of slow travelling, as it keeps you constantly on the watch, and you are rewarded by always seeing something fresh. The trying thing about it is that if you do not buy the thing you want directly you see it, most likely you will never have another chance.

It is amusing to watch the harvesting of the peanuts which is now going on. Owing to the clayey nature of the soil, it is impossible to sieve them as in Shantung, so whole families establish themselves in a field, attended by their poultry and pigs, which are picketed out over the surface of the ground. This has been already dug up and cleared by the gatherers, but the family gleans what has been overlooked, and the poultry and pigs again glean what they may have left. Little Chinese children sit in baskets, but at a very tender age they begin to share the toils of their elders. It is astonishing to see the loads of salt, coal, or firewood which some of these tiny creatures manage to carry with a manly energy. There must be a good deal of country life in this district, for there are numbers of nice-looking farms situated on the hilltops (as in the sketch of “Sunlight and Mist”), surrounded by haystacks and vegetable gardens and clumps of the useful bamboo. The bamboo seems to be used for every possible purpose, and many of the implements made from it are as ingenious as they are simple. Take, for instance, the rake; one end of the bamboo rod is split, the ends bent, and a tiny bit of plaiting spreads the prongs out fan shape. A greater variety of baskets, too, is made from bamboos than I have ever seen elsewhere, and they are used for a much larger number of purposes than at home.