VI
OUR CHINESE NEIGHBOR
The Misunderstood Chinese. The Chinese are the most misunderstood people in America, and the reason is probably found in the Celestials themselves. No author in writing about this myriad people feels that he can give an account of the Chinese in one province, or city, or village, that he is sure will hold good in another. The earliest bit of wisdom concerning the Chinese that I remember acquiring was the statement in an old geography that to write one’s name in Chinese characters was a sure way of winning their favor. I now know that I am no surer of winning the favor of a Chinaman by writing my name in Chinese characters than a Chinese would be of winning my favor by writing his name in English letters. But the writer of the old geography may have been acquainted with some place in China where what he states was true.
In our short account of these people we can catch but a fleeting glance, seeing little more than the curious Chinese himself, who, “when he wants to get a peep inside a house applies a wet finger to a paper window so that when the digit is withdrawn there remains a tiny hole through which an observant eye may at least see something.”
Unchanging China. What force was back of the movement that reached its height in 1892, when almost 40,000 of these people landed in America? What caused the first large migration from China to the United States? Today very few come. In 1911 but 5,657 Chinese entered, while 7,065 went back to China.
That the Chinese would require some powerful force to set this tide in motion, a few instances would indicate. The Chinese do the same thing in the same way today as their ancestors did it five hundred years ago. If a village street is so crooked that one must walk an extra mile, no one would think of straightening the street. If the village well was the source of water supply in the past centuries, the substitution of a pump would not be thought of, as it would be an insult to the past. They dislike even the most trivial changes; the altering of the time of the regular hour of meetings; a re-arrangement in the seating of their class rooms, or the transfer of a teacher, all disturb them. Because things used to be done in such and such a way is the reason that they ought to be done so now.
Old customs are followed, although the life has long since departed from them.
For example, “It is the custom in Mongolia for every one who can afford it to use snuff and offer it to his friends. Each man has a small snuff box which he produces whenever he encounters a friend; if the person with the snuff box happens to be out of snuff, that does not prevent the passing of the box, from which each guest takes a deliberate, though imaginary, pinch and returns it to the owner. To seem to notice that the box was empty would not be good form, and all is according to a well settled precedent.”
“In a country like China, which stretches through some twenty-five degrees of latitude, but in which furs are taken off and straw hats are put on according to a fixed rule for the whole Empire, in regions where the only heat in the house during the winter comes from the stove bed or k’ang, it is not uncommon for travelers who have been caught in a ‘cold snap’ to find that no arguments can induce the landlord of the inn to heat the k’ang, because ‘the season for heating the k’ang has not arrived.’” American street car companies and apartment house owners have at times taken a leaf from the Chinese in this particular. What could move this people to leave their home and seek a new world?
THE CHINESE IN AMERICA
What Caused Their Coming? The first large migration of the Chinese to America may be explained by two words, War and Gold.