The more mouths to eat so much the more meat.
The higher the rat creeps up the cow’s horn the narrower he finds it.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
ARCHITECTURE, DRESS, AND DIET OF THE CHINESE.
It is a sensible remark of De Guignes,[347] that “the habit we fall into of conceiving things according to the words which express them, often leads us into error when reading the relations of travellers. Such writers have seen objects altogether new, but they are compelled, when describing them, to employ equivalent terms in their own language in order to be understood; while these same terms tend to deceive the reader, who imagines that he sees such palaces, colonnades, peristyles, etc., under these designations as he has been used to, when, in fact, they are quite another thing.” The same observation is true of other things than architecture, and of other nations than the Chinese, and this confusion of terms and meanings proves a fruitful source of error in regard to an accurate knowledge of foreign nations, and a just perception of their condition. For instance, the terms a court of justice, a common school, politeness, learning, navy, houses, etc., as well as the names of things, like razor, shoe, cap, bed, pencil, paper, etc., are inapplicable to the same things in England and China; while it is plainly impossible to coin a new word in English to describe the Chinese article, and equally inexpedient to introduce the native term. If, for example, the utensil used by the Chinese to shave with were picked up in Portsmouth by some English navvy who had never seen or heard of it, he would be more likely to call it an oyster-knife, or a wedge, than a razor; while the use to which it is applied must of course give it that name, and would, if it were still more unlike the western article. So with other things. The ideas a Chinese gives to the terms hwangtí, kwanfu, pao, pih, and shu, are very different from those conveyed to an American by the words emperor, magistrate, cannon, pencil, and book. Since a person can only judge of what he hears or reads by what he knows, it is desirable that when he meets with western names applied to their equivalents in eastern countries, the function of a different civilization, habits, and notions should not be overlooked in the opinion he forms. These remarks are peculiarly applicable to the domestic life of the Chinese, to their houses, diet, dress, and social customs; although careful descriptions may go a good way in conveying just ideas, it cannot be hoped that they will do what the most cursory examination of the object or trait would instantly accomplish.
POPULAR ERRORS REGARDING FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
The notions entertained abroad on these particulars are, it need hardly be remarked, rather more accurate than those the Chinese have of distant countries, and it is scarcely possible that they can lose their conceit in their own civilization and position among the nations so long as such ideas are entertained as the following extract exhibits. Tien Kí-shih, a popular essayist of the last century, thus congratulates himself and his readers: “I felicitate myself that I was born in China, and constantly think how very different it would have been with me if I had been born beyond the seas in some remote part of the earth, where the people, far removed from the converting maxims of the ancient kings, and ignorant of the domestic relations, are clothed with the leaves of plants, eat wood, dwell in the wilderness, and live in the holes of the earth; though born in the world, in such a condition I should not have been different from the beasts of the field. But now, happily, I have been born in the Middle Kingdom. I have a house to live in; have food and drink, and elegant furniture; have clothing and caps, and infinite blessings: truly, the highest felicity is mine.” This extract well indicates the isolation of the writer and his race from their fellow-men; among the neighboring nations even the Japanese would have shown him his erroneous view. The seclusion which had been forced upon both these peoples, who closed their doors as the surest possible defence against aggression from foreign traders and sought in this fashion to remove all cause of quarrel, brought with it in time the almost equal dangers of ignorance and inability to understand their true position among the nations of the world.
Diagram of Chinese Roof Construction. (From Fergusson.)