One day a Chinaman walked into my study in the free and easy way with which people enter each other’s houses in this land, with a basket of eggs in his hand. He was a complete stranger to me, but he talked as glibly to me as though he had been well acquainted with me. He told me that he had brought me a present, that the eggs had been laid by his own fowls, and that though they were too small a present to be accepted by one so much higher than he was, he hoped that I should still condescend to take them from him. “But I do not know who you are, and moreover I do not see why you should make me any present at all.” “Oh, I merely wished to do myself the honour of meeting with you, for I have heard others speak with great respect of you, and my wife and I thought that a few eggs from my own farm, though not worthy of your acceptance, would be a little token of the respect in which we hold you.”
In spite of all his professions of devotion and esteem for myself, I felt convinced that he had some favour to ask of me; but, true to the peculiarity of the Chinese mind, he kept it at first in the background, and after talking with him for about an hour, and after I had hinted that I had an engagement that would compel me to leave him, he began to stammer out that he was in great trouble with some persons in his village, and as he knew that I had great influence, he had come to me to help him out of his difficulty. The secret was now out, and the basket of eggs and the hour’s conversation about everything in the world, except the one subject that he had come miles to discuss with me, were but oblique methods of leading up to the one important thought that was filling his mind.
The Chinese as a rule are a highly shrewd and thoughtful people. They are keen observers of human life as well as of the natural world that lies around them. It is very striking to notice with what intelligence the uneducated countryman, who has never had any education, and whose life has been spent in labours that never call forth any effort of the imagination, will describe the leaves of the different kinds of trees, the habits and lives of a great variety of birds in the region around, and the peculiarities of insect life which they have never studied scientifically, but simply with that keen power of observation which the Chinese seem intuitively to possess.
In spite of all this it is quite safe to say that the Chinese mind is wanting in lucidity, and in the ability of grasping an idea with the same readiness that a Westerner does. This is specially the case with the uneducated, and therefore with the great mass of people. You tell a coolie, for example, to take a letter to the post-office. He has gone there perhaps a dozen times before. He stands and gazes at you with a perplexed look, as though you had told him to go to New Zealand. Knowing this peculiarity of the Chinese mind, you repeat your order, and you ask him if he knows where the post-office is? The blank look becomes more confirmed, and he says, “I’ll inquire of some one where it is.” As you feel anxious about your letter, you say, “Now tell me what I have asked you to do.” “Asked me to do?” he exclaims, and the dense look deepens on his face. “Yes, I have asked you to take this letter to the post-office, the place where you have often gone before. Do you know where it is?” “I’ll inquire,” he says briskly, as though it was just beginning to dawn upon him that he had some idea where the post-office was. He moves away, and you have doubts in your mind whether your letter may not go astray and never be posted, when the coolie returns with hasty steps and with an anxious look on his yellow face, and inquires of you, “Did you say that I was to take this letter to the post-office?” “I did, and I hope you understand now where it is.” “I’ll inquire,” he says, and vanishes.
This singular feature in an otherwise intelligent mind is a continual source of irritation to a foreigner, who has never had any experience of such turbidity of thought in matters that seem to him to require no exertion to grasp at once. You say to a man, for example, more for the purpose perhaps of having something to say than anything else, “How old are you?” A blank look of amazement comes over his countenance, much as though you had asked him if he had committed murder. “Do you mean me?” he asks. “Yes, I mean you; how old are you?” “How old am I?” and now the idea seems to have filtered into his brain, and the vacant, dazed look is replaced by a slight smile that ripples over his face, and he tells you his age. It is no exaggeration to say that all over this great empire, wherever the above questions have been put, the same comedy has invariably been gone through in getting a reply to them.
This haziness of thought is especially annoying to the medical men who are in charge of general hospitals, where all classes of people come for treatment. One day a woman came to one of these to consult the foreign physician about her health. She was tall and severe-looking, with a face that forbade any attempt to trifle with her. She was evidently a person that never indulged in a joke, for the lines on her countenance were hard as though they had never been relaxed by any of the pleasantries or humours of life. You could fancy her being a hard-working, industrious housewife, but one that neither husband nor children would ever approach excepting with a certain diffidence and restraint.
Coming to her turn to be treated, the doctor said to her, “What is your name?” This question always seems to paralyze a Chinaman, so that he never answers it at once. The woman’s face was at once convulsed with amazement, and her eyes became staring as she gazed intently on the doctor. “You mean me?” she asked with every line livid with emotion. “Yes, I mean you,” he said; “what is your name?” “You mean my name?” she cried, and she struck her breast with her open hand to make sure that she was the person he meant. “Yes, I mean you; so answer me quickly, as I have no time to waste.” “I have no name,” she answered, with a pathos that seemed to tremble through her voice. “No name!” he said. “What do you mean? You must have a name, everybody has some name or other.” “I have no name,” she answered deliberately, whilst she slowly shook her head as if to give emphasis to her statement. “May I ask,” said the doctor, with a smiling face, “what people generally call you?” “They do not call me anything, for I have no name,” she protested. “Well, when you were a girl what did your mother call you?” “She called me ‘Pearl,’” she said, and now a flash of sunlight came into her face, as no doubt a vision of by-gone days rose before her. “Very well,” said the doctor, “I shall put your name down as ‘Pearl’ in my register,” though if he had only persevered a little longer he would no doubt have got the one by which she was commonly known amongst her neighbours.
One of the reasons that has led the foreigner to entertain the idea that the Chinaman is incomprehensible arises from the fact that he seems to be an absolute bundle of contradictions. It is the existence of totally diverse qualities in the same person that has made one feel that after an intimate knowledge of him for many years there are still surprises in his character that show the complex nature of his being, and the difficulty of predicting what he will do in the future under any circumstances. He would be a daring man indeed that would take upon himself the rôle of prophet about any individual, no matter how well he might be acquainted with him.
CHINESE EATING RICE AND DRINKING SAMSHU (WHISKY).