Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

The great aid that this man gets in his introduction of new ideas amongst the women no doubt is Christianity. This has worked a perfect revolution in family life wherever it has been received. Not only is the condition of the women ameliorated, but their position is distinctly elevated. They are not left to the tender mercies of heathen society to be treated with the indignities to which they are constantly liable. The Church is always behind them to stand out in their defence when any wrong is going to be inflicted on them. A new power has come into the land that demands rights for them that no legislation in the past and no tradition has ever dreamed of asking.

In addition to all this, there are the new methods that a faith in the gospel has developed. The custom that amounts almost to a law in China is that young women shall not be seen on the streets. They must remain indoors till they are married, and afterwards till they are getting on in years. One of the most remarkable features about the streets and roads is the few women that are seen upon them. Elderly women, with perhaps girls under ten, and slave women, are to be met with, but maidens and young married wives are a rare sight either on the public thoroughfares or on the by-ways in the country places.

The morals of China, in spite of the high ideals that have been transmitted by the sages, and that have permeated into every section of the people, are not sufficiently elevated to permit women the freedom that they have in Christian lands. Now Christianity has already begun to work a remarkable change in delivering the women of China from the bondage that an idolatrous system had imposed upon them. Whether young or old they are required to attend church on Sundays. No distinctions are allowed. The young girl of eighteen, that would never be seen out of the doors for years, the newly-married wife, the maiden that has just been betrothed, in common with elderly ladies whose sons and daughters are grown up, and the old grandmothers that travel as they like, all are expected to attend at the regular services, and no dispensation excepting absolute necessity will be given to allow them not to be present.

Sunday at present is the happiest day in the week for the Christian women. They get out of their narrow, confined houses into the sunlight. They meet large numbers of their own sex in the church. They see new faces and get fresh ideas, and broader views of life. They look at the various styles of dresses, and the result is that on the morrow, when the peddler comes round, he will get orders for new kinds of materials that they would never have dreamed of had they not seen how pretty and becoming they looked on the women they had met in the church.

But listen! there is the blast of a conch shell, blown by a man whose lungs are sound, and who knows how to manipulate it so that he shall produce the greatest volume of noise, and send it echoing along the street. No need to ask who the man is, for every one is perfectly aware that it is the pork peddler who is drawing near, and now every housewife who is preparing dinner begins to count her cash to see if she can afford the luxury of pork to-day.

Pork to a Chinaman is what beef is to an Englishman. Excepting in the ports and in those centres where Europeans congregate, beef is but very rarely seen. In the interior of China, pork shops abound in every city in the Empire, but one would have to look long before he could find a beef shop. By a thoroughly conservative and orthodox Chinese the killing of cattle in order to sell their flesh for food is considered highly immoral. He would tell you that these animals help in the tilling of the soil, that therefore they are the producers of the food of the nation, and as a matter of gratitude for their services they should be saved from the indignity of being slaughtered for food. That is the way in which an orthodox Confucianist would talk when the question of eating beef might be the subject of conversation.

There are no such metaphysical discussions with regard to the pig, or indeed any other animal that is used for food. Swine have precisely the same animal properties that they have in any other country, and those brought up in this extreme Eastern land might be transported to the cabins of the Irish and they would never discover that a “furriner” had invaded their homes.

As a domestic animal the pig has the same unpleasant habits that he has in the British Isles. He likes to wallow in the mud, and feed on garbage and other insanitary matter that a horse or a cow would absolutely refuse to touch. He is on the whole a quiet and inoffensive animal, and in his restless peregrinations after food he does not care to interfere with the comfort or liberty of his neighbours. But let his usual meal time come round, and if his mistress has neglected to fill his trough with something strengthening, he will squeal and grunt and make such a fuss and a disturbance that for the peace of the household speedy steps will have to be taken to satisfy his hunger.

Were it not for his low and ungentlemanly habits, the pig would doubtless have been the national emblem of the Chinese, instead of the mysterious and inscrutable dragon, and poets would have sung his praises, and artists would have immortalized him in their paintings. There was too little romance, however, about him to allow of such an honour being put upon him, but there is no question that he is the most popular animal in the whole of the eighteen provinces. The only word in the language for flesh meat is one that means pork, and throughout the four hundred millions of people, the one popular dish that makes all eyes glisten about meal times is the one that is composed of some preparation of the succulent flesh of this animal.

The pork peddler, as already intimated, is known by the powerful blasts that he blows from a sea shell. His outfit is of the simplest. It consists of two baskets, on one of which a board is spread, and the pork is laid out in a dainty fashion so as to tempt the intending purchasers to buy what they want. In the other are thrown odds and ends, for the peddler has really no need for it, as its main idea is to form a kind of balance so that he may be able to carry his load with comfort from the bamboo pole that rests on one of his shoulders.