Regarding the foreign custom, written of by Kipling and others, of the troubled or exiled ones of the treaty ports taking copiously to liquor for consolation, a wit remarked: “A corkscrew will never pull a man out of sorrow.”
The Manchu soldiers read little, and have been under the impression that others are like them. The “braves” on guard at the Ta Ping gate of Canton had been in the habit of extorting many a “cumshaw” from humble-looking citizens before they were allowed to go on their business. They caught a Tartar in 1910, when they seized a modern editor, who aired his complaint in his newspaper, which was read in due time by the Military Prefect Lo. What occurred between Lo and his old-fashioned braves was not reported, but the braves for many months before the revolution of 1911 saw in every passer-by an editor. Up to the time of free types, complaint had been smothered at the yamens.
Revolutionary spies had gone ahead of new appointees to distant provinces and impersonated them with a recitation of their record. In August, 1911, the Peking Gazette recited that the cabinet would in future despatch a photograph in a sealed envelope to the governors, so that “they could pick out the man who fitted the record by physiognomy as well as memory”.
Back in the 80’s the famous Szechuen pioneer, Archibald Little, dunned the ears of the Tsung Li Yamen (Foreign Board) at Peking for permission to open the whole Yangtze River from Shanghai to Chungking to steamer service. “Yes,” said the humorously evasive board at last, “you may run your steamer, but you know that a modern steamer will cut the unwieldy junks down. Therefore all sailing craft will tie up to the bank of the great river two days of each week, and give the terrible Fung-kwei (foreign) steamer full reign on the Yangtze, but on those two days of the week only. For five days of the week the steam craft must in reciprocation, tie up to the bank.” This would require weeks longer to ascend the river than could be done by tracking and sail, and Mr. Little’s plan for fast steamer service was effectually disposed of by the wily Manchu Board, which boasted that it “never denied a foreign request”.
Two trains of coolies meet, and words or a jostle precipitate a combat. After it is all over, and your men take up again the arms of your chair, you remark that although your leader’s clothes are nearly ripped off, he is laughing about it. In astonishment, you ask him why, and he replies: “You should see the fellow I tackled; he hasn’t any left.”
In the country parts, if you hand a cigar to a man at an inn, he thinks it is proper manners to pass it to every one, to take a puff, just as he would do with a pipe.
The Chi Feng Pao, a native paper of Peking, reported that in the month preceding the great 1911 revolution, even the house servants of the Court had not received their wages for months, and that one morning this anonymous placard was found placed on the comptroller’s door: “Not even a shadow of our pay to be seen yet. Why?”
A Chinese merchant, who was disgusted that all his heirs died upon birth, called at a life insurance office at Tientsin, and asked if “they could insure a well and proper birth”, for if so, he would gladly take out a policy. He supposed that was what the new American life insurance meant.
A Hakka woman of the south was seldom given chicken by her husband, who complained of the expense. She obtained his permission, however, to purchase a fowl for the god in the Taoist temple. The husband came home, found his wife eagerly eating the bird, and shrieked out: “How is this? I bought it for the god, not for you.” She replied: “I offered it to the god, who ate all he could of it. I am only eating the remainder, thanks to the god, and not to you, for that.”
It is the custom for the mandarins who go into a country inn, to hang out a red card, stating that “This inn is full”. A rejected guide replied: “Rather the mandarin is full.”