During the late war in China, the common people soon found that the English, in their ignorance of Chinese customs, did not trouble themselves whether the tails hung down their backs or were twisted round their heads. Accordingly, Oriental-like, they took advantage of this ignorance, and, though they would lower their tails for the meanest official who happened to pass near them, they made no sign even when an English general came by. However, one of the English officers discovered this ruse, and every now and then one of them used to go through the streets and compel every Chinaman to let down his tail.
The tail is never entirely composed of the hair of the wearer. Sometimes it is almost wholly artificial, a completely new tail being fixed to a worn-out stump, and, as a general rule, the last eighteen inches are almost entirely made of black silk. Besides being a mark of fashion, the tail is often utilized. A sailor, for example, will tie his hat to his head with his tail when the wind rises, and a schoolmaster sometimes uses his tail in lieu of a cane.
Absurd as the tail looks when worn by any except a Chinese or Tartar, it certainly does seem appropriate to their cast of countenance, and it is to be doubted whether the Tartar conquerors did not confer a benefit instead of inflicting an injury on the Chinese by the enforcement of the tail.
The hair of the women is not shaven, but on the contrary, additions are made to it. While they are unmarried, it hangs down the back in a long queue, like that of the men; but when they marry, it is dressed in various fantastic forms. There is a very fashionable ornament in China, called the “butterfly’s wings.” This is a quantity of false hair made in fanciful imitation of a huge butterfly, and fastened to the back of a woman’s head. Fashions, however, vary in different parts of China, and even in the same locality the women are not tied to the absolute uniformity which distinguishes the hair of the men. One mode of hair-dressing which is very prevalent makes the hair look very much like a teapot, the long tresses being held in their place by a strong cement made from wood shavings. Another mode of hair-dressing which prevails in Northern China is thus described by Mr. Fleming: “Here it is dressed and gummed in the form of an ingot of sycee silver, which is something in shape like a cream-jug, or an oval cup, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, with a piece scooped out of the edge at each side, and with bright-colored flowers fastened by, or stuck about with skewers and pins, that stand out like porcupine quills. Though their necks be ever so dirty, and their faces not much better, yet the hair must be as exquisitely trimmed and plastered, according to the local rage, as that in a wax model seen in a London barber’s shop-window.”
In the accompanying [illustration] two women are shown, who render aid to each other in arranging their hair after the “teapot” fashion. In the households of Chinese women, dressing-cases are considered almost the chief requisites of life. In the drawers are the combs, pins, and paint for the cheeks and lips, and the white powder which is rubbed into the skin. This powder is made from white marble, which is broken small with a hammer, and then thrown into a tub in which revolve two stones turned by a buffalo, just like the wheels which are used in making gunpowder. The coarsely ground mass is then transferred, together with water, to a second mill, in which it is reduced to a mixture like cream. This creamy substance is then levigated in a succession of tubs, the sediment of which is taken out and returned to the mill, and the remainder is allowed to settle, the superfluous water drawn off, and the sediment pressed, while still moist, into cakes.
When used it is not only rubbed on the skin, but actually worked into it with string, which is placed on the hands in a sort of cat’s-cradle, and worked backward and forward until the required effect is produced. This powder is also used to give rice a factitious whiteness. The coarser portions are employed for making whitewash and whitening mortar.
Many of the Chinese of both sexes are remarkable for the great length to which they allow their nails to grow. This is supposed to be a sign of rank or literary occupation, inasmuch as the nails would be broken by any laborious work. For this purpose, they are kept carefully oiled to prevent them from being brittle, and are further preserved by being enclosed in tubes which slip over the end of the finger. These tubes are sometimes of bamboo, sometimes of silver, and a few of the most precious minerals.
The feet of the Chinese women are often more strangely decorated than their heads. A vast number of the women have their feet cramped by bandages into a state which renders them little better than mere pegs on which to walk, or rather totter. It is not only the rich who are thus deformed, but the poorest often have their feet cramped. The operation is begun at a very early age, so that the feet of the full-grown woman may not exceed in size that of a child of five or six. Bandages are bound firmly round the foot in such a way as to force it into an arched shape, the heel being pressed forward and the ball of the foot backward, while the four middle toes are bent under the foot, and so completely squeezed into its substance that they almost lose their identity. In fact, the member is made artificially into a club-foot, which, repugnant as it may be to European eyes, is the delight of the Chinese, who call it metaphorically by the name of “golden lily.”
CHINESE WOMAN’S FOOT AND MODEL OF A SHOE.
(From my collection.)