Europe has pierced its aggressive way into China. China, belching with its congested population, has overflowed into Europe. On the whole, we have, I think, been treated better in China than the Chinese have been treated here. We have often been very rude to Ah Foong. Nevertheless he has gained his point: he has earned enough money to return to the Celestial Empire, to live there in affluence, and to be buried there with éclat. And when he has left Europe he has taken with him something more than English gold. A few of us have been in China. (I am not speaking of the missionaries—I regard them as a people apart.) What have we gained in China? A strange experience (to me a pleasant one), a pound of perfumed tea and a bale of flowered crêpe, for both of which we have paid right handsomely. We have been treated in the main politely; but, sooner or later, most of us are bowed out of China, if not by the Emperor, why, then, by the climate.
The Chinese have, at least, three religions—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism; but the funeral rites of the three sects are almost, if not quite, identical. There are several reasons for this. The three religions are much alike, and are all largely founded upon Indian Buddhism. Moreover, religion is a very second-class affair indeed in China. The priests are not at all an honoured class; they are usually treated with open contumely. There are no religious dissensions in China, it is not a matter of enough importance. The priests of two sects often live together in the chummiest way. Filial devotion is the real religion of China. All China is one huge family, and the Emperor is the “Great Father.” By the way, “Great Father” is what the North American Indians call God; and the Chinese consider their Emperor a god. How we human atoms ring our petty changes on a few poor thoughts! There is one more reason why all Chinese funerals are greatly alike. China is a land of ceremonials, and the smallest details of those ceremonials are prescribed by the Leke or Book of Rites. To disobey the least rule of this great national manual is a crime, and a severely punished one.
In two respects only does one Chinese funeral differ from another. The first is in the amount of money spent, and the second is in the period after death at which burial takes place.
The first ambition of every Chinaman is to have a splendid coffin. A poor Chinaman will half starve himself and his family for years that he may daily hoard a few cash toward the sum needed for the purchase of the coveted casket. When the coffin is really bought, it is brought home with great ceremony. It is given the place of honour in the house, and is regarded as the most valuable piece of furniture in the establishment. Often a pious son will sell himself into slavery that he may buy and present to his father an exceptionally handsome coffin. Such acts of filial piety rarely go unrewarded by the Government. The obedience of children to parents is so much the central idea of Chinese life, and upon it so largely depends the safety of the Chinese Government, that that Government, being one of the most astute and painstaking in the world, misses no opportunity of strengthening the idea of filial obedience in the Chinese mind, either en masse or singly. Among the poorer classes it is customary to buy a very thick coffin. No self-respecting Chinese family (and the Chinese are the most self-respecting of all the nations) will bury a parent until they can do so with more or less Mongolian magnificence; hence, in China, death by no means implies immediate burial. When a Chinaman dies his neighbours come in and help the women of the family to make the shroud. The body is put in its coffin, then the funeral ceremonies begin, if there is money enough. If there is not, the coffin is put back in its place of honour until the family finances look up. That is something that occasionally takes time in Europe. In China money is acquired more slowly; the coffined body often awaits adequately-ceremonied burial for twenty or thirty years. I need not, I think, dwell upon the grave necessity under such circumstances for a very thick, air-tight coffin. Often a Chinese funeral entails the additional expense of a long journey. A Chinaman will leave his father unburied rather than inter him anywhere but in the tombs of his ancestors, which may be in the most distant part of China, for Ah Foong is rather a traveller.
The day of the death or the day after, the relatives not living in the house and the friends come to pay the last duties or respect to the deceased. When the visitors arrive they are shown into a room in which are all the women and children of the establishment. These latter set up a dismal howl, in which the visitors join, or to which they listen sympathetically. When the tympanum of even a Chinese ear begins to ache, the guests are ushered into another apartment, where the men of the house give them tea and refreshment. The refreshment varies according to the means of the family. In the house of the rich it is a dinner. After the visitors have drank and eaten they are bowed out by one of the kinsmen of the dead.
FOOCHOW SINGING GIRLS. Page 169.
The dinner of Chinese affluence, wherever, whyever it is served, consists of five courses—
1. A very rich thick soup.