Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

But the tragedy had only begun with the death of the unfortunate conspirator. Revolution is a word of such a dread import in China, that it can be expiated only by the death of the offender and by every member of his family. As the general was a noted man, the Emperor decided that four generations on the father’s side and four on the mother’s, in all eight generations of absolutely innocent people, should be slaughtered without any trial and without any opportunity of defending themselves.

The murderous edict was at once drawn up and signed by the vermilion pen, and soldiers were sent out post haste to execute the decree, lest any of the unfortunate victims should escape. And so it came to pass that eight generations of people, without distinction of age or sex, were set upon and ruthlessly murdered. The old man whose footsteps were tottering to the grave, and the baby still in its mother’s arms; the matron in the midst of her family, and the young girls full of spirits and with the expectation of many happy years before them, without a moment’s warning were hacked and stabbed to death, until not a single member of the clan was left alive to tell the tale.

A Chinese family is in some respects a very interesting sight. The parents in this land are passionately fond of their children, especially the boys, and deny themselves for their sakes, and indulge them to such an extent that many of the lads when they grow up become anything but a credit to their homes. In the well-to-do families, the sons go to school from the time they are seven or eight till they are fifteen or sixteen, when, if they are not planning to be scholars, arrangements are made for them to go into business, and they become clerks or book-keepers or assistants in shops.

When the home is a poor one, the lads begin their life at a very early age; there is no schooling planned for them. As soon as they can handle a rake, they are sent out to collect firewood for the home. By and by, as they grow in strength, a pair of baskets and a bamboo carrying-pole are given them, and their life as coolies may be now said to have begun. The coolie in China may be said to be the unbought slave that does the rough and menial work of the Empire, and in large numbers of cases performs the labours that the beasts of burden do in our home lands.

The girls until they are five or six are allowed to run about the house and amuse themselves with the simple enjoyments that childhood is so ingenious in inventing. After that comes the serious business of foot-binding, when for several years they have to endure the most agonizing pains during the hideous process of maiming and distorting the feet, a procedure that nature never ceases for a single day to protest against. There is no question but that whilst this cruel custom is so dreadful that there is no language strong enough to condemn it, it has undoubtedly had the effect of developing in the woman’s character a heroic fortitude, and a power of endurance that enables her to bear up against many of the ills and trials that women are called upon to suffer during the course of their lives.

From the standpoint of the West, a girl’s life in China is a very monotonous one. She has no dolls to while away her idle moments. She never goes out to school, where she might meet other girls and give free play to her exuberant spirits on the playground, or enjoy the fun and jollity that girlhood knows so well how to appreciate. She may never take a walk, or stroll out in the moonlight, or ramble along the seashore, or race up and down the hillside. Her place is in the home, in the stuffy, ill-ventilated rooms, where she eats out her heart in the dreary monotonous life to which custom condemns her, and where her sole view of the great world outside is through the narrow doors through which, when no one is looking, she may catch a glimpse of the moving panorama that passes by them.

No wonder that the one day that to her is full of romance and poetry is that on which the troupe of actors erect their boards right in front of her house, and perform some comedy that fills every one with fits of laughter, and lets her see a phase of life that she never dreamt existed until these merry rogues acted it with such realistic power before her. The passion for theatricals in China is a symptom of the unrest and absolute weariness at the intolerable sameness that characterizes heathen life in this land.

After a careful study of the family life of this great people, one reluctantly comes to the conclusion that it is anything but a happy one. The main cause for this is the absence of mutual love when the married life begins, and the lower position that the woman occupies in the estimation of the men everywhere. That there are happy homes where hearts are knit to each other by true devotion and affection is undoubtedly the case, but they are the exception and by no means the rule.

One very unpleasant evidence of this is the frequency with which wife-beating is carried on by all classes. The Chinese, who adopt ten when they wish to give any idea of comparative numbers, declare that in six or seven families out of ten the husbands regularly beat their wives. Sixty or seventy per cent of the husbands treating their wives in this rough and brutal manner is a terrible commentary upon the home life of the Chinese, and yet no one, as far as my observation goes, ever expresses any condemnation of the custom. It seems to be considered as an inalienable right that has come down from the ancient past, before the civilization of the sages had begun to touch their forefathers with their humane teachings, and with the intense conservatism of the Chinese, the husbands continue to exercise it, whilst the great public looks on and takes no step to stop the barbarous custom.

That the wives have never consented to this unwomanly and savage treatment is evident from the fact of the large numbers of suicides amongst them that occur annually in any given area that one may select at random. A village is startled with the report that a woman has thrown herself into a well. Some one happening to pass by at the moment observed the poor creature with flushed face and flaming eyes throw herself headlong into it. At once every one is mad with excitement. The women run shouting and screaming to each other, expressing their loud commiseration; the men move along with sphinx-like faces to see if help can be rendered, and the dogs tear about yelping and barking and having free fights with each other.