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

by Trumbull White

PORTER'S CHAIR.

Although the Chinese have the compass, they are without the knowledge necessary for taking nautical observations, so they either hug the land or steer straight by their compass[their compass] until they reach some coast with which they are familiar. In these circumstances it is easy to understand why the loss of junks and lives on the Chinese coast every year is so great. The immense number of people who live in boats on the rivers in southern China, render the terrible typhoons which sweep the sea and land especially destructive. For the most part these boat-people are not of Chinese origin but are remnants of the aborigines of the country. That the race has ever survived is a constant wonder, seeing the hourly and almost momentary danger of drowning in which the children live on board their boats. The only precaution that is ever taken, even in the case of infants, is to tie an empty gourd between their shoulders, so that should they fall into the water they may be kept afloat until help comes. They are born in their boats, they marry in their boats, and die in their boats.

The Chinese calendar and the festivities that accompany different seasons and anniversaries, are peculiarly interesting and different from our own, but space forbids any detailed account of them. The four seasons correspond to ours, and in addition to the four seasons the year is divided into eight parts called “joints,” or divisions, and these are again subdivided into sixteen more called “breaths,” or sources of life. There are forty festivals of China which are celebrated with observances generally throughout the empire and are considered to be important. They do not occur at regular intervals, and there is no periodical day of rest and recreation corresponding at all to our Sunday. The festivities of the new year exceed all others in their prominence and continuance, and in the universality and enthusiasm with which they are observed. “The Feast of Lanterns” and “The Festival of the Tombs” are two of the most interesting of Chinese festivals. The ninth day of the ninth month is a great time for flying kites. On that day thousands of men enjoy the sport and immense kites of all grotesque shapes fill the air. Theaters are very common in China, but the character and associations of the stage are very different from those of western lands and are very much less respected. Actors are regarded as an inferior class. Females do not appear upon the stage, but men act the part of female characters. Gambling is very common in China and is practiced in a variety of ways. Its ill effects are acknowledged, and there are laws prohibiting it, but they are a dead letter. There are many kinds of stringed and reed instruments used by the musicians of China. Bells, also, are very numerous, and excellent sweet toned bells are made. A careful watch is kept over the efforts of composers by the imperial board of music, whose duty it is to keep alive the music of the ancients and to suppress all compositions which are not in harmony with it. It is difficult for western ears to find anything truly beautiful in Chinese music.

The medical art of China is not of a sort to win much admiration from us. The Chinese know nothing of physiology or anatomy. The functions of the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and brain are sealed books to them and they recognize no distinction between veins and arteries and between nerves and tendons. Their deeply rooted repugnance to the use of a knife in surgery or to post-mortem examinations prevents the possibility of their acquiring any accurate knowledge of the position of the various organs. They consider that from the heart and pit of the stomach all ideas and delights proceed, and that the gall bladder is the seat of courage. Man’s body is believed to be composed of the five elements, fire, water, metal, wood, earth. The medical profession in China is an open one, for there are no medical colleges and no examination tests to worry the minds of would-be practitioners. Some doctors have prescriptions as valuable and of the same sort as those prepared from herbs and vegetables by many an old woman in our own country settlements. On the other hand, some of the most ridiculous remedies are given, such as tiger’s teeth, gold and silver leaf, and shavings of rhinoceros horns, or ivory. Fortunately for the people inflammatory[inflammatory] diseases are almost unknown in China, but small-pox, consumption, and dysentery rage almost unchecked by medical help; skin diseases are very prevalent, and cancer is by no means uncommon. Of late the practice of vaccination has begun to make its way among the people.

There are hosts of superstitions among the Chinese people, and their beliefs regarding spirits and the influence of the dead, of sorcerers, and of devils, are myriad. These superstitions pervade every rank of society, from the highest to the lowest. The general term applied to the whole system of superstition and luck is fung-shwuy, and the practitioners and learned men in this science are called upon to determine what action shall be taken in all sorts of circumstances.

There are benevolent societies in China corresponding in variety and almost in number to those of Christian lands. There are orphan asylums, institutions for the relief of widows, and for the aged and infirm, public hospitals and free schools, together with other kindred institutions more peculiarly Chinese in their character. In some parts of China schools for girls exist, taught by female teachers. In most places, however females are seldom taught letters, and schools for their benefit are not known. Foreigners in establishing them invariably give a small sum of money or some rice for each day’s attendance, and it is thought that these schools could not be kept together in any other way.

The Chinese describe themselves as possessing three religions, or more accurately three sects, namely, Joo keaou, the sect of scholars; Fuh keaou, the sect of Buddha; and Tao keaou, the sect of Tao. Both as regards age and origin, the sect of scholars, or as it is generally called, Confucianism, represents pre-eminently the religion of China. It has its root in the worship of Shang-te, a deity associated with the earliest traditions of the Chinese race. This deity was a personal god, who ruled the affairs of men, rewarding and punishing as appeared just. But during the troublous times which followed the first sovereigns of the Chow dynasty, the belief in a personal deity grew dim, until when Confucius began his career there appeared nothing strange in his atheistic teachings. His concern was with man as a member of society, and the object of his teaching was to lead him into those paths of rectitude which might best contribute to the happiness of the man, and to the well-being of the community of which he formed a part. Man, he held, was born good and was endowed with qualities, which when cultivated and improved by watchfulness and self-restraint, might enable him to acquire godlike wisdom. In the system of Confucius there is no place for a personal god. Man has his destiny in his own hands to make or mar. Neither had Confucius any inducement to offer to encourage men in the practice of virtue, except virtue itself. He was a matter-of-fact, unimaginative man, who was quite content to occupy himself with the study of his fellow men, and was disinclined to grope into the future. Succeeding ages, recognizing the loftiness of his aims, eliminated all that was impracticable and unreal in his system, and held fast to that part of it that was true and good. They clung to the doctrines of filial piety, brotherly love, and virtuous living. It was admiration for the emphasis which he laid on these and other virtues, which has drawn so many millions of men unto him and has adorned every city of the empire with temples built in his honor.

CHINESE EMPEROR, KING OF COREA, AND CHINESE OFFICIALS.

Side by side with the revival of the Joo keaou, under the influence of Confucius, grew up a system of a totally different nature, which when divested of its esoteric doctrines and reduced by the practically minded Chinamen to a code of morals, was destined in future ages to become affiliated with the teachings of the sage. This was Taoism, which was founded by Lao-tzu, who was a contemporary of Confucius. The object of his teaching was to induce men, by the practice of self-abnegation, to reach absorption in something which he called Tao, and which bears a certain resemblance to the Nirvana of the Buddhists. The primary meaning of Tao is “the way,” “the path,” but in Lao-tzu philosophy it was more than the way, it was the way-goer as well. It was an eternal road; along it all beings and things walked; it was everything and nothing, and the cause and effect of all. All things originated from Tao, conformed to Tao, and to Tao at last returned. It was absorption into this “mother of all things” that Lao-tzu aimed at. But these subtilties, to the common people were foolishness, and before long the philosophical doctrine of the identity of existence and non-existence assumed in their eyes a warrant for the old Epicurean motto, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” The pleasures of sense were substituted for the delights of virtue, and to prolong life the votaries began a search for elixirs of immortality, and charms. Taoism quickly degenerated into a system of magic. To-day the monopoly which Taoist priests enjoy as the exponents of the mysteries of nature, inherited from the time when they sought for natural charms, makes them indispensably necessary to all classes, and the most confirmed Confucianist does not hesitate to consult the shaven followers of Lao-tzu on the choice of the site for his house, the position of his family graveyard, or a fortunate day for undertaking an enterprise. Apart from the practice of these magical arts, Taoism has become assimilated with modern Confucianism and is scarcely distinguishable from it.