Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

At this juncture the gentleman said to the mother, “How is it that you have in a very short time deceived your son three times by telling him that something will happen that you know cannot possibly occur? Are you not afraid of teaching him to be a liar? He will find out in time that what you say cannot be relied upon, and then he will lose faith in you and learn to regard lying as a thing of no importance.”

The woman’s face became suffused with smiles, and then she broke out into laughter, which for some time she could not suppress. “Oh,” she said, “I did not think of all the terrible things that you talk of so seriously. I merely wanted to keep the little fellow quiet. I knew that he would not obey me if I simply asked him to be a good boy, and so I thought I would frighten him. Everybody uses this plan in China, and I don’t see that there is any harm in it.”

Another exceedingly injurious habit that is learned in the home is swearing. It seems an incredible thing, but it is no doubt a fact that every one swears in China, without distinction of sex or position in society. The rough coolies that one meets with on the roads interlard their ordinary conversation with the foulest expressions, but only let two of them fall out with each other, and there will be such a torrent of obscenity and such a bombardment of one another by filthy epithets that one recoils with disgust at the degrading terms that flow from their lips.

You are standing talking to a fine, scholarly gentleman. His home near by is a perfect mansion as compared with the hovels that press up against the wall that surrounds his property. You are charmed with his manner, so elegant and refined is he in his conversation with you. His talk, too, is high toned, and shows that he has been imbued with the ethics of the great sage Confucius, who drew a wonderful picture of the ideal man, that he called “The son of a King,” and that he has been studying his lineaments so that he might copy him in his own life.

All at once two coolies come along with a steady run, bearing between them a great heavy pig, that squeals and grunts with pain from the ropes that cut into its feet. The road is rough and uneven, and they make a false step and bump heavily against the scholar, who falls to the ground. The transformation that takes place in this refined and gentlemanly person is instantaneous and amazing. His company manners have fled, the picture of the ideal man has vanished from his brain, and he now stands on the level of the most profane coolie, that has never read Confucius, and has never studied etiquette of any kind. The language that flows from him is obscene and so filthy, and of such a Sodom and Gomorrah character that you turn away from him in absolute loathing as a man that would pollute and contaminate you by his very presence.

Two women have a difference, and, like all Chinese quarrels, it has to be fought out in the open street, where every one can hear and decide for himself the merits of the case. They begin with a few desultory remarks, not very highly complimentary, and with just sufficient edge in them to show that each of them means war to the knife, and that they are now fleshing their swords for the real encounter that is imminent. By and by a single word is shot like a poisoned arrow by one of them that inflames the other to madness. The flood-gates are now open, and there pour from the lips of each a perfect cataract of foul and obscene language, that makes many of the bystanders, whose minds are stored with these very terms, actually shudder with a vague sense of abhorrence.

Now all this is learned in the home. The first notes of this terrible language were first heard from father and mother, but mainly from the latter. In her anger and passion she will hurl epithets at her daughter that will describe her as one of the vilest of her sex, whilst the boys, from the awful terms she uses about them, might be the very refuse and offscourings of the earth. The little ones can say nothing, but they store up in the innermost recesses of their minds these awful phrases, to be used as the years go by when passion stirs up the fiercest elements of the heart into wild bursts of fury.

And thus the years go by for both boys and girls, with nothing very eventful in the lives of either, until they are about eight. The Chinese are not an idle race of people, and as soon as the little ones can put their hands to anything, their small services are utilized for the general benefit of the home. If they are poor, the boys go out and gather grass and fallen twigs to be used as firewood, whilst the girls help as far as they can in the ordinary duties of the household.

Their main occupation, however, is play, and the most of their hours are devoted to that. Chinese children develop slowly. Neither in intelligence nor in physical development are they at all equal to the boys and girls in England, so up till they are ten years of age it is considered that their services are of no material value to the family, and that their time is best spent by doing nothing but running wild.

At about eight preparations are made for the lad to go to school. Terms are made with the school-master of the nearest school, a certain number of books splashed and dotted over with mysterious-looking hieroglyphics are bought, and one morning at early dawn, just as the pale grey light begins to colour the landscape, the little fellow finds his way along the silent road to the school-house. Here for six or seven years he will spend the best part of his days in the study of books that contain the ideals of the nation.