Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

by Mrs. Archibald Little

In family life Chinese solidarity has its inconveniences, but it altogether prevents that painful spectacle to which people seem to have hardened their hearts in England, of sending their aged relatives to the workhouse instead of carefully tending them at home as the Chinese do, or of one brother or sister surrounded by every luxury, another haunted by the horror of creditors and with barely the necessaries of life. If you are to help your brother, you must, of course, claim a certain amount of authority over his way of life. In China the father does so; and when he dies, the elder brother sees after and orders his younger brother about; and the younger brother, as a rule, submits. In each of those large and beautiful homesteads in which Chinese live in the country, adding only an additional graceful roof-curve, another courtyard, as more sons bring home more young women to be wives in name, but in reality to be the servants-of-all-work of their mothers, and the mothers of their children—in each of these harmonious agglomerations of courtyards, it is the eldest man who directs the family councils. Thus, when a man dies, the deciding voice is for his eldest brother, not for his eldest son; than which probably no custom could tend more to conservatism, for there never comes a time when the voice of youth makes itself heard with authority.

Not only are all the members of a family thus knit together by mutual responsibilities, but families are again thus knit. It is the village elders who are responsible if any crime is committed in the district. It is they who have to discover and bring back stolen articles; it is they who have to quiet disturbances and settle disputes about boundaries. The principle of local self-government has in the course of centuries been perfected in China, where all that Mr. Ruskin aims at appears to have been attained centuries ago: village industries, local self-government, no railways, no machinery, hand labour, and each village, as far as possible each self-sufficing family, growing its own silk or cotton, weaving at home its own cloth, eating its own rice and beans, and Indian corn and pork. Schools are established by little collections of families, or tutors engaged, as the case may be. In either case the teacher is poorly paid, but meets with a respect altogether out of proportion to his salary. It is all very ideal; but the result is not perfect, human nature being what it is. In many ways, however, it appears a much happier system than our English system, and perhaps in consequence the people of China appear very contented. As a rule in the country each family tills its own bit of ground, and—where opium has not spread its poisonous influence—has held the same for centuries. The family tree is well known, and Chinese will tell you quietly "We are Cantonese," or "We are from Hunan," and only careful inquiry will elicit that their branch of the family came thence some three centuries ago.

COUNTRY HOUSE IN YANGTSE GORGES.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.

In the towns the guilds represent family life on a larger scale. A man comes from Kiangsi, let us say, to Chungking, over a thousand miles away, and having probably spent months on the journey. He has brought no letters of introduction, but he straightway goes to the guild-house of his province, with its particularly beautiful green-tiled pagoda overlooking the river, a pale-pink lantern hanging from the upturned end of each delightful roof-curve, and there, making due reverence, he relates how he is So-and-so, the son of So-and-so, and straightway every one there knows all about him, and can easily ascertain if his story be correct. Here are friends found for him at once, a free employment agency, if that is what he is after, or a bureau of information about the various businesses of the city, their solvency and the like. Here is a lovely club-house, where he can dine or be dined, have private and confidential conversations in retired nooks, or sit with all the men of his province sipping tea and eating cakes, while a play is performed before them by their own special troupe of actors, who act after the manner of their province. I do not know who first started the legend that Chinese plays last for days, if not weeks. But it is not true, any more than that green tea is rendered green by being fired in copper pans and is poison to the nerves. Tea is green by nature, though it may be rendered black by fermentation, and is always fired in iron pans; and weak green tea as drunk in China is like balm to the nerves compared to Indian tannin-strong decoctions. In like manner Chinese plays are really short, though they make up in noise for what they lack in length.

KIANGSI GUILD-HOUSE IN CHUNGKING.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.

If occasion needed, the guild would see after the newcomers funeral, even give him free burial if the worst came to the worst. And though we reckon the Chinese people such an irreligious race, and the guild-houses are naturally only frequented by men, chiefly by merchants (for the Chinese are a nation of traders), yet in every guild-house there is a temple. And before every great banquet part of the ceremony of marshalling the guests to their seats (and a very stately ceremony it is) is pouring a libation of wine before an altar in the banqueting-hall, before which also each guest bows in turn as he passes to the place assigned him.