China Revolutionized - John Stuart Thomson

At all the great treaty port cities and colonies, such as Hongkong, Shanghai, Canton, Macao, Tientsin, etc., the stranger is accosted by crowds of rickshaw coolies, venders, fortune-tellers, flower sellers, etc., urging his patronage. Efforts are being made to limit this noise, which is at present like the reception that a football hero gets when he wins a game. The Chinese think we like the attention, because so many of us smile, and if one looks cross, a native wit will call out: “Don’t ask Honorable Sad-Face to ride; he has just lost his white mother-in-law, and must demurely walk behind her ghost.”

The first motor-car used in China was brought to Hongkong by an American dentist in 1900. It was a storage electric vehicle, as the authorities prohibited for a while the use of gasoline on account of the fire risk. Gasoline cars and launches are now used throughout the treaty ports, but kerosene engines are preferred in motor-boats. Kerosene can be procured anywhere in China, but gasoline is procurable only within a limited area.

As a foreign steamer enters a port, a fleet of sanpans throw out hooks and grapple with the ship. This picturesque nuisance the authorities are trying to stop, on account of the danger to life which is involved. The hotel runners, gamblers, and venders desire to be over the rail before any passengers leave. The health authorities desire to stop the irrepressible boarders as much as the harbor masters do. The boarders shout out to their countrymen: “You there! Throw over a fastened rope; we want to kotow to you on board, and leave you some of our money in a little game.” Over the rope goes, despite the frantic mate, who is a white man, and like ants, the agile Chinese clamber up the sides of the big trans-Pacific or Suez liner.

Peking, Haukau, Tientsin, Shanghai, Ningpo, Hongkong and other cities of China all have fine race courses, club-houses and stables. In hot Hongkong the racing, gymkana and polo meets occur from September to April. Szechuen and Mongolian ponies, Australian and Indian horses are used, but few American or British, the cost and insurance risk for the latter being too great. Every white man, singly or in clubs, goes in for the “king of sports”, and from a military point of view this interest in racing is very advantageous. The betting is generally on the French method of Paris Mutuels, where those who bet on the winning animal divide the pool, less eight per cent. for club expenses. The Chinese are beginning to understand the horse, and mafoo-jockeys and trainers are being developed. Up and down the China coast the owners ship their champion racers, and the interport rivalries are keen in this, and every other sport. The main ambition is for the owner to ride his horse as a “gentleman-jockey” in the crowning Derby event, and quite a few Hebrew and Parsee owners enter their horses in a widening sporting fraternity, which not long ago was limited to Saxons, and which may yet include Chinese gentry. The stocky Mongolian pony, weighing fifteen hundred pounds, only covers the mile in two minutes and eight seconds, and being hard of mouth and stubborn, he is as likely as not to cover the mile the opposite way to that which has been prescribed by the stewards! Not only has Hongkong two very fine golf courses, but Canton, Macao, Hankau, Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, and other treaty ports have excellent courses famous for their novel bunkers of tombstones, etc., and club-houses. During most of the year at Hongkong the game is played on the Wong Nei Chong course shortly after daylight, as after eight o’clock the overhead sun is too hot for that exercise which is essential if one expects to keep “fit” in the Orient.

The mountain palaces of Hongkong; clouds almost cover the great peaks. Note gate house, covered chairs; extensive verandas. Hongkong’s architecture dominates the New China; it is a heavy adaptation of the Renaissance, with massive verandas added.

Race meet at the Jockey Club, Wong Nei Chong Valley, Hongkong. The cosmopolitan crowd: Hindus, Portuguese, Britons, Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Parsees, etc. Note the famous mat-shed for the “Hoi Polloi” in the background. These immense structures are erected overnight, with matting and bamboo.