CHINESE WOMEN AND CHAIR-BEARERS.
To face p. [218].
With each one of these entertainers is a maid, who supports her as she sways along on her little feet, and who sees that she does not try to run away from her master. If the girl is popular and in much demand she has a sedan chair and two bearers; if a very young girl, she is carried on the shoulders of a strong, husky coolie. Many of them lead pitiful lives, and a singing girl’s only hope of escape is to become the secondary wife or concubine of a rich man; then, if she should be so fortunate as to bear a son for her husband she would hold an honourable position, and nothing could be said against her because of her former life.
A Chinese gentleman is out to dinner practically every night, or else he is entertaining friends. He sleeps until noon, goes to his particular club for amusement and to meet his friends in the afternoon, and returns to his home in the wee sma’ hours of the night. The wife or wives stay at home and take care of the house and children. No Chinese lady ever dines at a restaurant; in fact, no Chinese lady ever eats at the same table with her husband; he would “lose face” if he ate with a woman. Although a lady is never seen dining in public, she frequently gives dinner parties to her friends and relatives. The courtyards are then filled with the chattering chair-bearers, who, squatting on their haunches as only an Eastern servant can, drink innumerable cups of tea served by the servants of the hostess. The guests are met at the entrance to the women’s quarters by the lady of the house, and a great many bows are made, varying in depth according to the rank of the guest.
Each guest has a maid, who from time to time brings her mistress a vanity box, from which is extracted powder and rouge; and she, like her frailer sister, the sing-song girl, applies a little more white to her already whitened nose, or rouges her cheeks, or touches a little red paint to the lower lip. Paint and powder are not confined to the women of the amusement class, as the Chinese lady (that is, the younger ones; older women do not make up at all) paints her face more than is beautiful to foreign eyes. Even the hands are not forgotten, and within the palms the rouge brush is used. The hands of a Chinese lady are beautiful—long, slender, and delicate, looking as helpless as a flower. In the olden time long fingernails were worn as a mark of ladyhood, and were often covered with jade or gold, telling plainly that the wearer belonged to the leisured class and did not need to toil. In fact, the whole expression of a Chinese lady is helplessness. From her exquisitely coiffured head, with its mass of pearl and jade, to her tiny feet, on which she sways instead of walks, she impresses one as a dainty piece of jewellery, too fragile for real life. The small feet accentuated this, but now they are passing, and the new woman of China is not binding her daughter’s feet.
BOUND FEET OF CHINESE WOMAN.
To face p. [221].
The curse of footbinding does not fall so heavily upon women who may sit and embroider, or if needs must travel can be borne upon the shoulders of their chair-bearers; but it is upon the poor girl, whose parents hope to have one in the family who may better their fortunes by a rich marriage, and, hoping thus, they bind their feet. If this marriage fails and she is forced to work within her household, or, even worse, if poverty compels her to work in the fields, or add her mite gained by most heavy labour to help fill the many eager mouths at home, then she should have our pity. We have seen the small-footed woman pulling heavy boats along the tow-paths, or leaning on their hoes to rest their tired feet while working in the fields of cotton. To her each day is a day of pain, and this new law forbidding the binding of the feet of children will come as a blessing from the gods. But it will not pass at once, as so many now loudly proclaim; it will take at least three generations: the children of the present children will quite likely all have natural feet. The people in the country, far from the noise of change and progress, will not feel immediately that they can wander so far afield from the old ideas of what is beautiful in their womenkind.
The most noticeable thing about a Chinese woman, poor as well as rich, is her hair: it is jet-black, and made shiny and smooth with a paste until not a strand is out of place. At certain times of the year small wreaths are made from tiny yellow flowers and placed around the knot at the back. The hair is never untidy, and the artistic disorder of the hair of the foreign woman is secretly much disliked by the Chinese. The late Empress-Dowager once gave the wife of a foreign Minister a set of combs as a present. The Minister’s wife was delighted, as the gift was enclosed in an elaborate silver box, and she did not see the subtle suggestion in the present, over which the Chinese of the province chuckled for many a day.
A party of Chinese ladies presents a very gay appearance. They wear silk or satin, nearly always brocaded and often heavily embroidered. In the winter, as the houses are not heated, many furs are worn, but almost entirely, except in the case of sable, as linings for the silken coats. One garment is put on over the other until the right degree of warmth is obtained. Instead of speaking of degrees of cold, the Chinese say it is three-coat weather or five-coat weather. The children are clothed in wadded garments, so thick that the overdressed babies look like little round balls and can scarcely move. In the summer the ladies wear delicate gauzes over their undergarments of grass-linen.
Nearly every province in China has its own customs and peculiarities in dress as well as in everything else, but they all agree on the rich reds and blues, the purples and mauves for the making of their jackets, while their wide, skirt-like trousers are often of a much deeper colour than the jacket and trimmed with a wide band of black. The mixture of tints sounds most incongruous to foreign ears, but Chinese women have the faculty of weaving the most clashing hues into a work of harmonious art. Except in the case of an old lady, black is seldom worn, and as white is the colour of mourning, it is seen only on occasions of sorrow. A Chinese lady can never understand why European babies are dressed in white. Children are the symbols of happiness, and it seems to them most inappropriate to garb them in sorrow’s colours. All the gayest and brightest colours of China’s dye-pots are made to produce the clothing for China’s children.