The Human Race

by Louis Figuier

“Gambling, which paralyzes labour, is one of the permanent causes of their pauperism, but there is another, still more disastrous—dissipation. The thin varnish of decency and restraint with which Chinese society is covered, conceals a widespread corruption. Public morality is only a mask worn above a deep depravity surpassing all that is told in ancient history, all that is known of the dissipated habits of the Persians and Hindoos of our own day.

“Drunkenness, as understood in Europe, is one of the least of their vices. The use of grape wine was forbidden, centuries ago, by some of their emperors, who tore up all the vine trees in China. This interdiction having been taken off under the Manchú dynasty, grapes are grown for the use of the table, but the only wine that is drunk is rice wine or samchow. A spirit as strong as our brandy is extracted from this as well as from coarse millet seed. It induces a terrible form of intoxication. The abuse of it by our soldiers in the Chinese campaign caused a great deal of fatal dysentery in the army.

“The tea-houses also sell alcoholic liquor, but the eating-houses and the taverns drive the largest trade in it.

“We cannot speak of the process of the manufacture of tea, nor of the vast amount of labour it employs: the subject properly belongs to southern China; we will only say that the use of tea is as common in the north as in the south. The moment you enter a house, tea is offered to you—it is a sign of hospitality to do so. It is given to you in profusion; the moment your cup is empty, a silent attendant fills it, and your host will not permit you to mention the subject of your visit till you have drunk a certain quantity. The tea-houses are as numerous as cafés and taverns in France; the elegant manner in which they are furnished, and their high charges, distinguish some from others. The rich trader and the idle man of fashion, not caring to mix with the grimy handed workman or the coarse peasant, only frequent those houses that have a fashionable reputation. Tea-houses can be recognized by the large range at the end of their rooms, fitted up with huge kettles and massive tea pots, with ovens and stoves supplying with boiling water immense caldrons as big as a man. A singular kind of time-piece is placed above the range; it is made of a large moulded bar of incense divided off by equidistant marks, so that the lapse of hours can be measured by its combustion. The Chinese can thus literally use the expression, “consuming the time.” Morning and evening the rooms are full of customers, who for two sapecas, the price of entrance, can sit there and discuss their business, play, smoke, listen to music, or amuse themselves by looking at the feats of tumblers, jugglers, and athletes. For the two sapecas they have also the right to drink ten cups of tea (certainly extremely small ones), with which, on trays covered with cakes and dried fruits, a crowd of waiters keep running to and fro.

“One day,” says a letter of M. X., a French officer in the 101st Regiment of the Line, “we determined to dine à la chinoise in a Chinese eating-house. Our coolies arranged beforehand that the price was to be two piastres a head, a large sum for this country, where provisions are so cheap. As a preparation for dinner, we had to thread our way through a labyrinth of lanes, crowded with dens in which crouched thousands of ragged beggars, poisoning the atmosphere with their exhalations. At the entrance to the open space in front of the eating-house stood a quantity of heaps of refuse, composed of old vegetable stalks, rotten sausages, and dead cats and dogs, and in every hole and corner a mass of filth as disagreeable to the nose as to the eye. It required a strong stomach to retain an appetite after running the gauntlet of such a horrible mess. A few tea drinkers and card players were seated at the door, and seemed to care very little for the pestilential character of the neighbourhood. We tried to be equally courageous, and after admiring two immense lanterns which adorned the entrance, and the sign inscribed in big letters, ‘The three principal Virtues,’ we ventured to hope that honesty would prove one of them, and that the tavern keeper would give us our money’s worth.

“Our entry into the principal room created a little excitement, for, accustomed as the Chinese are to see us, we still, in the quarters of the town where Europeans seldom venture, cause a certain amount of curiosity, not unmixed with alarm. Two square tables surrounded by wooden benches, on which had been placed, as a particular favour, some stuffed cushions, had been prepared for us. The waiters thronged round us with red earthen tea-pots, and white metal cups; there were no spoons; boiling water was poured on a pinch of tea leaves, placed at the bottom of the cups, and we were obliged to drink the infusion through a small hole in the lid. When we had got through this ordeal like regular Chinamen, we called for the first course, which consisted of a quantity of wretched little lard cakes, sweetened with dried fruit; and for hors-d’œuvre, a kind of caviare made of the intestines, the livers, and the roes of fish pickled in vinegar, and some land shrimps cooked in salt water; these were really nothing but large locusts. This dish, however, found in most warm countries, was not at all bad. We did not get along very well with the first course, which was immediately followed by the second. The waiters placed on the table some plates, or rather saucers, for they were no bigger, and some bowl-shaped dishes, full of rice dressed in different ways with small pieces of meat arranged in pyramids on top of it. Chop-sticks accompanied these savoury dishes. What were we to do? Nobody but a regular Chinese can help himself with these two little bits of wood, one of which is usually held stationary between the thumb and the ring finger, while the other is shifted about between the fore and middle fingers. The natives lift the saucers to their lips, and swallow the rice by pushing it into their mouth with the chop-sticks, but we tried to accomplish this in vain, and all the more so, that our fits of laughter prevented us from making any really earnest attempt. It was, however, impossible for us to compromise the dignity of our civilization by eating with our fingers like savages, and happily one of our number, with more forethought than the rest, had brought with him a travelling case holding a spoon, and a knife and fork. We then each in turn dipped the spoon into the bowls before us, with an amount of suspicion, however, that prevented the proper appreciation of the highly flavoured messes they contained. At last some less mysterious dishes, in quantity enough to satisfy fifty people, made their appearance; chickens, ducks, mutton, pork, roast hare, fish and boiled vegetables. White grape wine and rice wine were at the same time handed to us in microscopic cups of painted porcelain. None of the beverages were sweet, not even the tea, but to make up for it they were all boiling hot. The meal was brought to a close by a bowl of soup, which was really an enormous piece of stewed meat swimming about in a sea of gravy.

121.—CHINESE SITTING-ROOM.

“Satiated rather than satisfied, we should have preferred some more Chinese dishes; some swallows’ nests, or a stew of ging-seng roots, but it appears that such delicacies as these must be ordered for days beforehand, and paid for by their weight in gold. We swallowed a glass of tafia, a liquor which is becoming quite fashionable in Chinese eating-houses, and lighting our cigars looked about us. The day was drawing to a close; the tavern rooms, which were at first nearly empty, were filling with customers, who after furtively scanning us, betook themselves to their usual occupations. The waiter kept calling out in a loud voice the names and the prices of the dishes that were ordered, and these were repeated by an attendant standing at the counter behind which sat the master of the place. Some shop-keepers were playing at pigeon fly; one held up as many of the fingers of both hands as he thought fit, his antagonist had to guess immediately how many, and to hold up simultaneously exactly the same number of his own. The loser paid for a cup of rice wine.