In the Boxer days Pei-t’ang was scarcely second to the British legation as a place of refuge against the bloodthirsty besiegers; on Easter Sunday, at least, it rivals even in mere picturesqueness any temple in the capital. Red silk interspersed with Maltese crosses in imperial yellow wrapped the pillars; artificial flowers—where real ones are so cheap and so plentiful—added to the Oriental garishness of the interior; the mingled scent of incense and crowded Chinese made the scene impressive not merely to the sight. Mats on the floor held more worshipers than did the benches. The women sat on one side, the flaring white head-dresses of the nuns forming a broad front border to the sea of smooth, oily Chinese coiffures. Near the center hundreds of “orphan” boys in khaki made a great yellow patch. In front, at the foot of the choir-stalls backed by the gorgeous altar, the assemblage was gay with French and Belgian officers in full bemedaled uniform, with a scattering of European women—there are other Catholic churches in Peking that are not so far away for most foreigners—their prie-dieus conspicuous in rich silk covers. Even the raised place at one side, theoretically reserved for Caucasians, was crowded with Chinese, hardly a dozen more of whom could have been driven into the church with knouts or bayonets. Yellow faces, high above any casual glance, peered from behind the pipes of the big organ. Chinese acolytes in red wandered to and fro, swinging censers; the music, while not unendurable, was screechy enough to prove the unseen choir of the same race, boys echoing men, with the organ filling in the interstices. Children ran wild among the rather orderless throng; some of the congregation stood throughout the service; large numbers of Chinese men kept their caps on. But a thousand Chinese fervently crossing themselves at the requisite signals from the altar, where two Chinese priests in colorful robes worthy at least a bishop functioned on either side of the white-haired European in archiepiscopal regalia, had about it something no less striking than anything Buddhism has to offer. On week-days old Chinese women, just such bent, shrouded figures as may be seen in any cathedral of Europe, come from the maze of hutungs about Pei-t’ang to bow their heads in silent prayer in its perpetual twilight, with gaudy saints and images of here and there a somewhat Chinese cast of countenance looking down upon them.
Preparations for the Chinese New Year began on the twenty-third of the twelfth moon with the burning of the kitchen god still to be found in nearly every home. Some of our neighbors, especially those whom lack of a courtyard drove out into the hutung for this ceremony, did it half furtively, as if they were pretending, at least when foreigners looked on, that this was only an ordinary wad of waste-paper. But we knew that before he was torn down incense had been burned before the flimsy, smoke-dulled god, with a little straw or kaoliang for the horse that is shown waiting for him, and even our neighbors admitted that they stuck a bit of something sweet on his lips before sending him to heaven, by the fire route, to report on the actions of the family during the year. A little opium serves this purpose still better, or best of all is to dip the whole half-penny lithograph in native wine just before the burning, that the god may be too drowsy or too drunk to tell the truth when he reaches headquarters.
Mei Lan-fang, most famous of Chinese actors, who, like his father and grandfather before him, plays only female parts
In the vast compound of the Altar of Heaven
Over the wall from our house, boats plied on the moat separating us from the Chinese City
Just outside the Tartar Wall of Peking the night-soil of the city, brought in wheelbarrows, is dried for use as fertilizer