"The men dressed for dinner,” said a Chinese once, describing an evening he had spent among foreigners; “then the order was given and the women stripped,” that is took off their wraps when the music began, only everything is “ordered” in China, “and each man seized a woman in his arms. He pushed her forward, he pulled her back,” graphic illustrations were given, “he whirled round and round and she had no will of her own. And it was all done to horrible music.”
Everything is in the point of view, and that is how, at least one Chinese gentleman saw a waltz. I used to wonder what he said of the musical comedy that from time to time is presented by a wandering company in the dining-room of the Wagons Lits Hotel. They displayed upon a tiny crowded stage, for the edification of Chinese and foreigners alike, for the room was crowded with Chinese both of the old and of the new order, such a picture of morals as Europeans take as a matter of course. We know well enough that such scenes as are depicted in “The Girl in the Taxi” are merely the figments of an exuberant imagination, and are not the daily habits of any class either in London or Paris. But what do the Chinese think? All things are necessary and good, I suppose, but some are difficult to explain. Thirteen years ago the Boxer tragedy, now the musical comedy full of indecencies scarcely veiled.
Truth to tell, it was a very interesting thing for a new-comer like me to sit in that hotel watching the people, and listening to the various opinions so freely given by all and sundry. From all parts of the world people come there, tourists, soldiers, sailors, business men, philanthropists'—men who were working for the good of China, and men who were ready to exploit her. And then the opinions as to the safety of the Europeans in China that were expressed! Here, in the security of the Legation Quarter, I collected those opinions as I wanted to go into the interior, and I was by no means anxious to risk my life.
To arrive at any decision was very difficult. In the Treaty Ports there may be some unanimity, but once outside it seemed that every man had his own particular opinion of China and the Chinese, and all these opinions differed widely.
“Safe,” said a man who had fought through the Boxer trouble; “safer far than London. They had to pay then, and they won't forget, you can take your oath of that.”
“Like living on a volcano,” said another. “No, I shall never forget the Boxer trouble. That's the kind of thing that is graved on your mind with hot irons. Do it again? Of course they'll do it again. A docile people, I grant you, but they're very fiends when they're aroused. They're emotional, you know, the French of the Far East, and when they let themselves go———” He paused, and I realised that he had seen them let themselves go, and no words could describe the horror of it. “Would I let my wife and children live in one of the hu t'ungs of Peking? Would I? How would they get away when the trouble commenced?”
The chances are they couldn't get away. The hu t'ungs of Peking are narrow alley-ways running out from the main thoroughfares, and the houses there are built, Chinese fashion, round courtyards and behind blank walls, hidden away in a nest of other buildings, and the difficulty of getting out and back to the armed Legation Quarter, when a mob were out bent on killing, would be enormous.