Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them

by Mrs. Archibald Little

It was in this strain Europeans in the East meditated. But on returning to China in the autumn of 1897, I found in Shanghai evidences of progress and reform on all sides. A Chinese newspaper, generally spoken of in English as Chinese Progress, was being issued regularly, and newspapers edited by friends of its editor were coming out in Hunan and even in far-away Szechuan. The Chinese "Do-not-bind-feet" Society of Canton had opened an office in one of the principal streets of Shanghai, and was memorialising Viceroys, as also the Superintendents of Northern and Southern trade. Directly on arrival I received an invitation to a public dinner in the name of ten Chinese ladies, of whom I had never heard before. It was to be in the large dining-hall in a Chinese garden in the Bubbling Well Road, the fashionable drive of Shanghai, and by degrees I found all my most intimate friends were invited. We agreed with one another to go, though wondering a good deal what the real meaning of the invitation was, and why we were selected. The hall is a very large one, sometimes used for big balls, with rooms opening off it on either side; and after the English ladies had laid aside their wraps in a room to the right—one or two Chinese gentlemen, who had evidently been superintending the arrangement of the dinner, encouraging them to do so—we asked where our Chinese hostesses were. They were already assembled in the rooms opening off the hall to the left, and I still remember the expression of intense anxiety on the Chinese gentlemen's faces as they saw us leave them and advance to join their womenkind, none of whom spoke any English, nor knew anything of English ways and manners. At first the Chinese ladies did not exactly receive us; but when we began to go round and bow to each lady in turn, after the Chinese fashion, one after another stood up and smilingly greeted us. Then those of us who could talked Chinese, and one or two of the Chinese ladies began to move about, exhibiting the ground-plan of a proposed school for the higher education of Chinese young ladies. And thus gradually we began to understand what it was all about. But on that occasion it was the English ladies who were frivolous, the Chinese who were serious. For they were so elaborately dressed, so covered with ornaments, English ladies were always breaking off and saying, "Oh, do allow me to admire that bracelet!" or "What lovely embroidery!" whilst the Chinese ladies very earnestly pointed at their ground-plan, and looked interrogations. It gradually came out that it was the Manager of the Telegraph Company and his friends who were bent upon starting this school; that this being a new departure they thought it well for the ladies interested to confer with the ladies of other nations accustomed to education; and that, considering who was likely to be helpful, they had asked a few missionary ladies, and all the officers and committee of the T`ien Tsu Hui ("Natural Feet Society"), thinking that the foreign ladies, who had started that, must be interested in helping Chinese women.

Presently we were summoned to dinner by an intimation, "Chinese ladies to the left, foreign ladies to the right!" "Because of the fire," was added sotto voce, for Chinese, in their often triple furs, have naturally a horror of fires; but we refused to be thus summarily separated, as we sat down about two hundred women to a dinner served in the foreign style, with champagne, etc., and were rather alarmed to find our hostesses allowing their little children to drink as freely of champagne as of their own light Chinese wines.

MR. KING, MANAGER OF THE CHINESE TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND FOUNDER OF HIGH SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS.

That dinner was the beginning of an interchange of civilities between foreign and Chinese ladies such as had never occurred before. The daughter of Kang, commonly called the Modern Sage, after the title given to Confucius, was naturally one of these ladies. She wore Manchu dress, which puzzled us, as she is Cantonese. Her father had never allowed her feet to be bound, and she had herself written an article against binding, which had appeared in a Chinese newspaper; thus she, like several other Chinese ladies, considered the dress of the Manchus, who never bind feet, the most convenient. The relations of Mr. Liang, editor of Chinese Progress, were also present. At the subsequent meetings some of the Chinese ladies pleaded earnestly that Europeans should take shares in the school. They did not want their money, they said, but feared that unless there were European shareholders their Government might seize all the funds. The European ladies, however, could never quite satisfy themselves as to the various guarantees necessary. There were, indeed, many difficulties about starting this new school, as may be seen by the following letter, written by two Chinese lady doctors, who had been asked in the first instance to undertake its management. They had been educated in America, where they had passed all the necessary examinations very brilliantly; and it was the idea of the lustre they had thus conferred upon their own nation in a foreign land, that had first led a wealthy ship-owner, running steamers on the Poyang Lake, to conceive the idea of a school for girls. It had been warmly taken up by the late tutor of the ladies of the Imperial Household, who had been dismissed from his post because of his radical notions, and was thus free to devote himself to advancing education generally. The Manager of the Telegraph Company then became the leader, and the prospectus of the school was published in the North China Herald, with the names of the two Chinese lady doctors as its managers. On which they wrote the following letter to the editor, which, as I afterwards ascertained, was bonâ fide written by themselves, not at foreign instigation. They even refused to accept any corrections, saying if they wrote it at all it must be their own letter. It is so striking as the composition of Chinese women, that I am sure I shall be pardoned for giving it in extenso.

"Sir,—In your issue of December 24th appeared a translation of the prospectus of a school in Shanghai for Chinese girls; and since our names were given to the public as would-be teachers, we hope you will permit a word of much-needed explanation. If you, Mr. Editor, give such welcome to this sign of progress as is expressed in your editorial, then much more should those of our own people, who may be prepared to appreciate its possibilities. Yet the joy might not be without alloy.

"Several months ago the prospectus was brought to us as yet in an unfinished state, and parts of the first and last clauses referring to the establishment of Confucianism did not appear. Had these been there, we should not have allowed our names to go down as teachers. In making this statement, we realise that we only escape the charge of 'narrow-mindness' by the fact that we decidedly are not foreigners. We love our native China too much to fail to realise the truth in your admission 'that a slavish adherence to Confucianism alone has done far too much to limit and confine the Chinese mind for centuries,' and it is because we are not hopeful of the result 'when reverence for Confucianism is to be combined with the study of Western languages and sciences' that we cannot lend ourselves to the project as it seems to be drifting. It was with the express understanding that there should be entire religious liberty, that we consented to take up this work, and religious liberty would admit all who found moral and spiritual support in Confucianism to avail themselves of it. The tablets, that Confucianism cherished, might be set up by its supporters near the school, but not in the grounds: as might Christian churches be opened, if friends were found to build them. Such a course would conserve liberty of conscience.

"Now, according to the prospectus published in that very excellent Chinese journal The Progress, twice a year sacrifices are to be made in this school to posthumous tablets of Confucius and such worthy patrons of the school as may be honoured by a place in its pantheon. Had the statement been made that twice a year days would be set apart as memorial days to these distinguished personages, upon which occasions their lives should be reviewed to us in a manner to inspire young girls by their examples, no one would join more heartily in paying honour to their memory than ourselves. But the idea of sacrifice to human beings seems too blind in the light of this nineteenth century for any participation on our part. We have seen other countries, and learned of the sages of other lands; and although it may be only because of prejudice, yet we can truly say that we honour none as we do our own Confucius. But honour to the best of human beings is not unmixed blessing when it creates an idol and holds the eyes of the devotees down to earth. We do not think it the sentiment that will make the education of women successful or even safe. The educational institutions for women during the time of the Three Dynasties were not of the excellent things that Confucius sought to reestablish. Had he done so, how could he have uttered such words as these?—'Of all people girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar to them, they lose their humility. If you maintain your reserve, they are discontented' (see Legge's Classics). Alas that we have no record that the Master ever turned his attention to a remedy for such a sad state of affairs!

"One there was who never spoke in disparaging tone to or of women. Only His sustaining counsel could give us courage to start out upon the pathway, slippery as it must needs be in the present stage of China's civilisation, along which educated women must needs pick their way. We do not feel that we should be doing our country-women best service in starting them out with only a Confucian outfit.