The face of China

by E. G. Kemp

FUNERAL PAGODA

The last three days of the journey to the capital are comparatively uninteresting across the plain, but we saw a quaint wedding journey as we left the hill country. First came four musicians, making a noise extremely like a bad performance on the pipes. Next rode the bridegroom, heavily adorned with scarlet and pink rosettes and sashes; his pony also decorated with scarlet, followed by a couple of men riding. Then came the scarlet wedding sedan-chair, sadly dilapidated by age and neglect, conveying the bride. She was followed by a finely dressed woman, riding, and one or two other people. Lastly came the bride’s furniture—a very meagre supply of two chests and small boxes. We reached her destination before she did, and found the village awaiting her. In the street was a table spread as an altar, on which were two vases full of wild camellias, a vase of incense, and a tray containing three bowls of rice, one bowl of pork, with chopsticks standing erect in it, and two small bowls of spirit. In front of the table was a mat for prostration, and at each side of the street a bench with a red mat over it. When the cortège arrived we were among the onlookers, which seemed by no means acceptable to the people. After waiting for a few minutes and exchanging greetings, the whole party retired into the house, the bride being most carefully lifted out of her chair in as secret a manner as possible. We were much disappointed to see nothing of the ceremony, but Mr. Ku told us that evidently they had no intention of doing anything whilst strangers were looking on, so we had reluctantly to withdraw. As we heard that the wedding lasts three days, and that the guests are expected to sit and talk and eat each day from about 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., we comforted ourselves with the thought that it was better to see nothing than to endure that, and went away to our two-storied inn (the second that we have met), where we inhabited the attic with the fowls. This inn was so costly that our coolies had to go elsewhere, as we paid the exorbitant price of 2½d. each for board, bed, and bedding. Needless to say, the first and last items were of no use to us.

In one village we saw an interesting tall paper pagoda meant to be burnt at a funeral. It was painted mainly red. Throughout the empire it is customary to see extraordinary paper horses, servants, &c., as part of the requisites for a rich person’s funeral. They are burnt at the grave, and are supposed to go to the other world with the spirit of the deceased, for his use. It is only rich people, who possess horses, servants, &c., for whom they are provided. As white is the colour of mourning in China, these models are made of white paper on light bamboo frames. Not infrequently I have seen a white cock in a basket on a coffin that is being taken to the grave, as the white cock is called a “spiritual” or “divine” fowl and is supposed to guide the spirit of the dead. These customs are already being superseded amongst the educated Chinese, and they are following our European plan of having flowers at funerals.

In the Viceroy Chang Chih-Tung’s interesting book, “China’s Only Hope,” he arrives at a curious conclusion upon this point. He says: “Although they [Europeans] have no such things as ancestral halls and tablets of deceased relatives, in lieu of these they place the photographs of their dead parents and brothers [note the absence of sisters!] on the tables in their houses and make offerings of them. And while they make no sacrifices at the tombs of their ancestors, they repair their graves and plant flowers upon them as an act of worship.”

Ancestral worship is so much the most important part of religion in China, that the foregoing account of our habits is meant to dispel an injurious prejudice against us.

There was one compensation in leaving the mountains and crossing the hot and dusty plain: the larks were singing as blithely as in England, the cranes were thoroughly busy over their livelihood, and squirrels were frisking in the trees. Villages are far more plentiful, and there is much more traffic on the road as the capital is approached. There are large fields of beans, and they are the sweetest-scented harvest there is, to my thinking.

The day we reached Yünnan Fu was one long aggravation, as the head coolie had made up his mind that we should not arrive that day, declaring that one hundred li (about twenty-six miles) was too far. We also had made up our minds that we should arrive, so we started an hour earlier, or, more correctly speaking, we got up an hour earlier. For the first time our men kept us waiting, and when at last they were ready to start they crept like snails. In vain we urged them on and held out promises of a pork feast in the evening. They stopped perpetually, and out of the first seven hours of the day they spent two hours resting. Finally, they were told that if they did not go on immediately and quickly they would forfeit the feast entirely, and then they almost ran, saying that the city gate would be shut. We thought that this was their usual excuse, but as we neared the walls in the fast-closing twilight a gun sounded which filled us with misgivings. My friend’s chair had gone in front, contrary to our usual custom, as she was much the lighter load, and her coolies were apt to run away with her! When she reached the gateway she was in time to see the big gates slowly swing to, and to hear the bolt shut, after which the keys are at once carried to the magistrate’s office. By the time we had all arrived we found that it would be possible to have the gates reopened by sending in a visiting-card to the magistrate along with our military escort. The power of a visiting-card is very great in China, and we had the satisfaction of winning the day after a great twelve hours’ tussle with our men. It would be hard to say whether an Englishman or a Chinaman is the keener to get his own way!

CHAPTER XX
Yünnan Fu

The approach to Yünnan Fu is really lovely, and pagodas and tall temples surmounting the walls give it an imposing air. It is much the most important city in the province, and is following hard in the wake of Chengtu in the matter of progress. As regards improvements, new schools, barracks, a mint, and a railway station have sprung up within the last few years, not to mention street lamps and foreign-looking police, a French hospital and a French post-office. The French have been gradually pushing their way here, but not altogether successfully. The railway station exists, but no railway. According to the contract it ought to have been already completed, but owing to the extreme unhealthiness of the districts through which it passes a great many of the engineers have either died or been incapacitated for work, so that the railway is not likely to be completed for several years to come. In fact, they can only work on it at certain times of the year, in consequence of malaria. The French post-office also exists, but has been shut by order of the authorities, and the relations between French and Chinese authorities are decidedly strained. The presence of the French in the city has sent up the price of everything. In fact, many ordinary commodities are double the price they were a few years ago.