DINNER PARTY IN THE GARDEN OF A MEMBER OF THE HANLIN COLLEGE,—WHITE CLOTH SPREAD IN COMPLIMENT TO EUROPEANS.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.
The streets, although wide for a Chinese city, are very narrow in comparison with English streets, being only eight feet at the widest, and extraordinarily crowded. Passing through them is a continual pushing through a crowd of foot-passengers; of sedan-chairs, carried by coolies, with sometimes one or two men running before to clear the way, and if it be necessary beat back the crowd; of mules, donkeys, or ponies, with loads; and of numbers of carrying-coolies, a bamboo across their shoulders, and from either end a basket hanging by strings. Everything that can be done in the streets is done in them: pedlars go by with great quantities of goods for sale; men are mending broken china with little rivets after a fashion in which the Chinese are great experts; here is a barber shaving a man's head, there are two women menders, on little stools very neatly dressed, pursuing their avocation; here is a man working at an embroidery-frame, there a cobbler mending shoes; here some pigs, there some chickens; here a baby in a hen-coop, there a pussy-cat tied to a shop-counter; and in the evenings street preachers, in the afternoons vast crowds pouring out from theatres. At night, in going out to dinner we used always to pass at least three street preachers. These men wear official caps, and are as a rule, I believe, reading or expounding the Sacred Edicts. There is always a little crowd listening, though often a very small one. In the better streets every attention is paid to decency; in the lesser streets none is apparent. At the street corners there are often large tanks full of water, as a precaution against fire. These are invariably grown over with weed. A vast army of coolies is every day going down the steep flights of steps to the river to bring water, which drips from the buckets as it is carried along. Another army is carrying out the sewage of the city to be used as manure. A very soft coal is used for fuel; and baskets of coal are constantly being carried in, two dangling from a pole across a coolie's shoulders. The coal-dust, and the smoke, and the drippings, and the bustling crowd, all make the streets rather an unpleasant place to walk in. Yet, although every one told me it was impossible for an English lady to walk in them, I felt it was impossible for me to live in Chungking unless I did; for in summer no one could walk out till sunset, and then the gates are closed; so after showing myself about as much as I could in a sedan-chair with the curtains up—unlike the other ladies, who all kept theirs down in those days—I determined to attempt a walk, with my sedan-chair, of course, following behind to show I had some claim to respectability.
MORNING TOILETTE.
In a few minutes two or three hundred men and boys were following me. As long as they kept behind and did not press upon me, it did not so much matter; but the boys have a knack of clattering past, and then turning round to stare into one's face in the most insulting and annoying manner. And I felt I could not go back home with all this rabble following, as of course they would all try to press into our house after me, and then there would probably be a row. So I turned into the official residence of the principal magistrate of the city, hoping that the guardians of his gate might stop both me and my following, as I supposed it would be their duty to do, and then I might somehow detach myself. Into the first courtyard every one has a right to go; but as we proceeded farther, soldiers came up and remonstrated with me. "Well, do your duty—shut us out," I said. "Do shut the people out, and then I won't go any farther." But they did not do their duty; and so, not seeing what else to do, I set up the camera and photographed the crowd and the soldiers, not doing their duty and turning them out. After that I got into my chair; and the people, curiously enough, satisfied that that was what I had come out for, dispersed, and I arrived at home unattended. But many a walk since then have I taken through these same streets; and the people have got so accustomed to the sight of me, that they now do not turn round to look.
One of the most fatiguing things about Chinese life is the presents. Whatever you do, you ought to take or send a present. Every lady who goes out to dinner takes a present to the hostess; and at a certain period of the dinner all sorts of things are done up in a heterogeneous mass for each guest to take home to her children, if she has any; whilst the hostess pays all her friends' chair-coolies, and the guest tips the hostess's servants, especially the cook, who has a great title of honour in China. If ladies care to call, they generally bring presents too, rolled up in a handsome, coloured handkerchief. The most curious present I have received at a dinner party was a white cat, that could hardly see out of its eyes. The general present seems to be sponge-cakes or fruit.
