The face of China

by E. G. Kemp

It may seem strange to people at home to hear that travellers habitually swoop down on missions, often without even giving notice beforehand, and are invariably welcomed with courtesy and kindness. Travelling in China would be a much more difficult matter than it is if it were not for the ungrudging helpfulness and hospitality of the missionaries. Those to whom we had been directed were unable to take us in, on account of illness, but had made arrangements for us to be entertained at the Friends’ mission, and helped us in many other ways.

CITY GATE, CHENGTU

CHAPTER XV
Chengtu

Chengtu is unquestionably the cleanest city in China, and probably is the most progressive and enlightened of any purely native city. The streets are broad and well kept, and the foreigner can walk anywhere without the slightest fear of molestation. At almost every street corner there is a policeman, and many of them have sentry-boxes. They are neatly dressed in a sort of European uniform, and are decidedly clean and civil. They wear a kind of small black sailor-hat, and the smarter ones wear black thread gloves of native manufacture and carry stout walking-sticks. Altogether, they are the best type of police we met. There are no beggars with their hideous whine and incomparable dirt. This is a magnificent triumph for the head magistrate, as a few years ago they numbered twenty thousand in Chengtu; but he was determined to put an end to the system, and has entirely succeeded. We met a large school of boys neatly dressed, and were told that these were the children of the beggars, whom he had collected into a large school, where they are taught trades at the expense of the municipality.

On the day of our arrival a kind friend offered to take us round the city. For the first time since leaving Shanghai, we found we could go on a real shopping expedition, and we had a glorious afternoon of it. It would be hard to find a more fascinating place than Chengtu for shopping. The curio shops had much that was attractive, though nothing of any great value. We were told that we must proceed with great caution if we wished to get things at a reasonable price; and fortunately we were able to discuss in an unknown tongue, which was a great advantage to us in dealing with the shopkeepers. Our method of procedure was as follows:—firstly, to look with interest at all the things we did not want, such as a baby’s feeding-bottle or old beer-bottles; secondly, to point out all the flaws in anything that we did want, turning up our noses till they were nearly out of joint; thirdly, to ask the prices of many things, and to exclaim “Ai-ah” in an incredulous tone on hearing the price of the things that we wanted to purchase. Then we named a price about five times below what was asked. Finally we left the shop and strolled away up the street, while our kind friend further discussed the matter with the shopkeeper, we having previously arranged with him in English how high we were willing to go. On an average we got the things at about half the price named originally, but sometimes we got them considerably cheaper. There was not much old china to be seen, but a few bronzes and a good deal of interesting brass, mostly modern. Chengtu is a great place for the manufacture of horn things, especially lanterns, which are most ingeniously constructed. The sheets of horn are joined by being melted together, and Hosie gives a most interesting description in his trade report of the way that these and other things are made in Chengtu. There is a great manufacture of masks, and of whole heads of the same kind, which are painted brilliant colours, especially pink. In another street it is interesting to watch the sacred money being made. Outside each shop a tree trunk is set up about six feet high; the top of it is carved to form a mould, the shape of a silver shoe. Into this the paper—made from bamboo or rice straw—is beaten into shape with a hammer by a man standing upon the counter in order to reach up to it. The basket-shops, too, are most enticing, and here they make the largest baskets I have ever seen, about four feet high and about two yards in diameter. This is the place from which loofah comes; it is the inside of a peculiar kind of melon. Chengtu is the great trade centre, too, for spices and musk, furs, &c., which come from Tibet; but the great trade of the place is in silks, as in the days of Marco Polo—and these were brought to the house another day for us to see. The figured crêpe de Chine was beautiful, and the shades were different from those to be seen at home. I got a lovely figured brocade at about 3s. 9d. per yard, and crêpe de Chine at 1s. 6d. You can see these silks being woven in numbers of the dark-looking houses, and the design is made by a person sitting above the loom, almost in the roof. Another charming industry is that of ribbons and braids, which are made on the most ingenious little machines. The people sit outside their doors working at them, as you see the women with their lace bobbins in European countries.

The people seem a poor, cheerful, thrifty folk, and there is an air of prosperous activity throughout the whole city. Many parts of it are extremely picturesque, and there are beautiful trees of various kinds shading the wide thoroughfares. In the evening our attention was attracted by tall poles, with lights placed so high up that they could have been of no possible use to anybody. We found that they were put up by pious persons to light the “orphan spirits”—that is to say, to show the way home to people who had died away from their own city.

The following day we visited the famous Buddhist monastery, enclosed by a wall above which rose lofty trees. Passing through the fine entrance, we faced a large gilt Buddha in a narrow shrine; back to back with this, and divided off by a thin partition, was another figure of the Buddha, facing the court. Here the Abbot received us most courteously, and sent for his secretary to show us round. The accompanying diagram shows the ordinary sort of arrangement both of temples and monasteries. The temples generally form a group of buildings separated from one another by courts one behind the other in a straight line, the principal buildings forming the ends, and minor buildings running along the sides of the courts. The hall of meditation of the monks was an imposing room with seats along the walls, on which the monks sit cross-legged, looking very much like Buddhas. Everything was beautifully clean in the dining-hall, which was filled with long tables, on which three bowls and a pair of chopsticks were placed at intervals for each monk. In the kitchen we saw an enormous boiler, where over a bushel of rice is cooked for each meal, to supply the appetites of a hundred and fifty monks. A large wooden fish acts as a gong for summoning the monks to meals, and another gong is used to summon them to tea.

PLAN OF MONASTERY, CHENGTU