The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

The male analogue of the women’s compressed feet in the shaven forepart of the head and the braided queue. The custom of thus treating the hair was imposed on the people by the first emperor of the present dynasty, in 1644. Up to that time the Chinese had allowed the hair to grow long, and were in the habit of drawing it up into a tuft on the top of the head. The introduction of the queue at the bidding of the Manchoorian conqueror was intended as a badge of conquest, and as such was at first unwillingly adopted by the people. For nearly a century the natives of outlying parts of the empire refused to submit their heads to the razor and in many districts the authorities rewarded converts to the new way by presents of money. As the custom spread these bribes were discontinued, and the converse action of treating those who refused to conform with severity, completed the conversion of the empire. At the present day every Chinaman who is not in open rebellion to the throne, shaves his head with the exception of the crown where the hair is allowed to grow to its full length. This hair is carefully braided, and falls down the back forming what is commonly known as the “pig tail.” Great pride is taken, especially in the south, in having as long and as thick a queue as possible, and when nature has been niggardly in her supply of natural growth, the deficiency is supplemented by the insertion of silk in the plait.

The staff of life in China is rice. It is eaten and always eaten, from north to south and from east to west, on the tables of the rich and poor, morning, noon, and night, except among the very poor people in some of the northern non-rice producing provinces where millet takes its place. In all other parts the big bowl of boiled rice forms the staple of the meal eaten by the people, and it is accompanied by vegetables, fish and meat, according to the circumstances of the household. Among many people, however, there is a disinclination to eat meat, owing to the influence of Buddhism. The difference in the quality and expense of the food of the rich from that of the poor, consists principally in the concomitants eaten with the rice or millet. The poor have simply a dish of salt vegetables or fish, which costs comparatively little. The rich have pork, fowls, eggs, fish and game prepared in various ways.

Before each chair is placed an empty bowl and two chop-sticks, while in the middle of the table stands the dishes of food. Each person fills his basin from the large dishes, or is supplied by the servants, and holding it up to his chin with his left hand he transfers its contents into his mouth with his chop-sticks with the utmost ease. The chop-sticks are held between the first and second, and the second and third fingers, and constant practice enables a Chinaman to lift up and hold the minutest atoms of food, oily and slippery as they often are, with the greatest ease. To most foreigners their skillful use is well nigh impossible. To the view of the Chinese the use of chop-sticks is an evidence of superior culture; and the use of such barbarous instruments as knives and forks, and cutting or tearing the meat from the bones on the table instead of having the food properly prepared and severed into edible morsels in the kitchen, evidences a lower type of civilization.

The meats most commonly eaten are pork, mutton, and goat’s flesh, beside ducks, chickens, and pheasants, and in the north deer and hares. Beef is never exposed for sale in the Chinese markets. The meat of the few cattle which are killed is disposed of almost clandestinely. There is a strong and almost universal prejudice against eating beef, and the practice of doing so is declaimed against in some of the moral tracts. Milk is hardly used at all in the eighteen provinces, and in many places our practice of drinking it is regarded with the utmost disgust.

It must be confessed that in some parts of the country less savory viands find their place on the dinner table. In Canton, for example, dried rats have a recognized place in the poulterers’ shops and find a ready market. Horse flesh is also exposed for sale, and there are even to be found dog and cat restaurants. The flesh of black dogs and cats, and especially the former is preferred as being more nutritive. Frogs form a common dish among the poor people and are, it is needless to say, very good eating. In some parts of the country locusts and grasshoppers are eaten. At Tien-tsin men may commonly be seen standing at the corners of the streets frying locusts over portable fires, just as among ourselves chestnuts are cooked. Ground-grubs, silkworms and water-snakes are also occasionally treated as food. The sea, lakes, and rivers abound in fish, and as fish forms a staple food of the people the fisherman’s art has been brought to a great degree of perfection. The same care as in the production of fish is extended to that of ducks and poultry. Eggs are artificially hatched in immense numbers, and the poultry markets and boats along the river at Canton are most amazing in their extent.

THE SEAT OF THE WAR.

The funerals of grown persons, and especially of parents, are as remarkable for burdensome ceremonies, extravagant manifestations of grief and lavish expense, as those of children are for their coldness and neglect. Candles, incense and offerings of food are placed before the corpse, and a company of priests is engaged to chant prayers for the departed spirit. An abundance of clothing is deposited with the body in the coffin and various ceremonies are performed during several days immediately after that, and on every subsequent seventh day, closing with the seventh seven. When the coffin is carried out for burial, men and women follow in the procession clothed in coarse white garments, white being used for mourning.

Inasmuch as the coffin must remain in the hall for forty-nine days, naturally they are prepared with a great deal of care. Very thick planks are used in its construction, cut from the hardest trees, caulked on the outside and cemented on the inside, and finally varnished or lacquered. Sometimes a coffin containing a body is kept in the house for a considerable length of time after the forty-nine days have expired, while arrangements are being made for a burying place and other preliminaries are attended to. The lids being nailed down in cement they are perfectly air-tight.

The notions which Chinamen entertain concerning the future life rob death of half its terrors and lead them to regard their funeral ceremonies and the due performance of the proper rites by their descendants as the chief factors of their future well being. Among other things the importance of securing a coffin according to the approved fashion is duly recognized, and as men approach old age they not infrequently buy their own coffins, which they keep carefully by them. The present of a coffin is considered a dutiful attention from a son to an aged father.