Across China on Foot, Edwin John Dingle [ebook pc reader TXT] 📗

which the foreigner must observe in moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent invitations to use a chair—how is it all Orientals can do this, and not one European out of fifty?

Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and secure peace. This is the "Exorcism of Great Peace." Simultaneously comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is often felt that the first visit to the house after the birth of the child should be made by a "lucky" person, for the child's whole future career may be blighted by meeting with an "ill-starred" person. No outsider will enter the room where the birth took place for forty days. On the anniversary of a boy's birth the relatives and friends bring presents of clothes, hats, ornaments, playthings, and red eggs. The baby is placed on the floor—the earth, which is the first place he touches; he is born into a hole in the ground—and around him are placed various articles, such as a book, pencil, chopsticks, money, and so on. He will follow the profession which has to do with the articles he first touches.[AV]

This was the fortieth day, and so my visitant honored me by thrusting his contemptible presence upon me, and he would not go until late at night, when a man with a diseased hip and one eye—and a ghastly thing at that—called to see whether I could treat him with medicine.

Hsiakwan in days to come will probably have a big industry in brick and tile making. Fifteen li from the town, on the Chao-chow side, many people now get their living at the business, and one could easily dream of a "Hsiakwan Brick and Tile Company Limited," with the children's children of the present pioneers running for the morning papers to have a look at the share market reports, with light railways connected up with the main line, which has not yet been built, and so on, and so on.

Hsiakwan is perhaps the busiest town on the main trade route from Yün-nan-fu to Burma. Tali-fu, although growing, is only the official town, of which Hsiakwan is the commercial entrepôt. It was here that I stayed one Sunday some time after this, at one of the biggest inns I have ever been into in China. It had no less than four buildings, each with a paved rectangular courtyard which all the rooms overlooked. A military official, who was on his way to Chao-t'ong to deal with the rebellion, of which the reader has already learnt a good deal, was expected soon after I arrived. My room was already arranged, however, when the landlord came to me and said—

"Yang gwan, you must please go out!"

Now the yang gwan, as was expected, stayed where he was, smiled in magnanimous acquiescence, invited the proprietor—a stout, jolly person with one eye—to be seated, and remained quiet. Again and again was I told that I should be required to clear out, and give up the best room to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions been reversed, stared vacantly and woodenly into a seemingly bewildering infinite, and timidly remarked, "O t'ing puh lai." Knowing then that my "hearing had not come," he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their meaning. The best room, therefore, continued to be mine.

Soon after the official came, and my dog began by mauling his canine guardian, tearing away half his ear; and in the middle of the night one of my horses got loose and had a stand-up fight with a mule attached to the official party, laming him seriously; and as the foreigner emerged in his night attire to prevent further damage, he encountered the mandarin himself, and pinned him dead against the wall in the dark, after having stepped on his corn. My pony had pulled several morsels of flesh from the mule's carcase. The yang gwan certainly came off best, and the following morning, as the Chinese gwan with his retinue of six chairs and about one hundred and fifty men departed, the yang gwan smiled a happy farewell which was not effusively reciprocated.

As I came out of the inn I met a Buddhist priest, worn with general dilapidation and old age, with a huge festering wound in the calf of his leg, so that he could hardly hobble along with a stick—he was probably on his way to the medical missionary at Tali-fu for treatment. This spiritual guide was certainly on his last legs, and has probably by this time handed over the priestly robes and official perquisites to more vigorous young blood.

Hsiakwan's High Street reminded me of the main street of Totnes, with its arch over the roadway, and the scenery might have deluded one into the belief that he was in Switzerland in spring, as he gazed upon the glorious spectacle of snow-covered mountains with the world-famed lake at the foot. Tali-fu deserves its name of the Geneva of West China.

In the chapter devoted to Yün-nan-fu I have referred to the military of Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here. Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.

In the famous temple ten li from Tali-fu is an effigy to the Yang Daren who figured conspicuously during the Mohammedan Rebellion. My men somehow got the false information that he was a native of Tong-ch'uan-fu, so they all went down on their knees and bumped their heads on the ground before the image. This Yang, however, was such a brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a soldier he was indomitable. The temple in which he is deified is called the Kwan-ïn-tang,[AW] and there is no place in all China where Kwan-ïn is worshipped with such relentless vigor. Some years ago, so the wags say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-ïn saved the city by transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path. The amazement of the rebels at the sight of a woman performing such a feat made them wonder what the men could be like, so they turned tail and fled. The story is believed implicitly by the residents of the city, and the priests, with an open eye to the main chance, work upon the public imagination with capital tact. I saw the stone in the center of a lotus pond, over which is the structure in which the Kwan-ïn sits, not as a weight-lifting woman, but as a tender mother, with a tiny babe in her arms, and none in the whole of the Empire enjoys such favor for being able to direct the birth of male children into those families which give most money to the priests. Women desiring sons come and implore her by throwing cash, one by one, at the effigy, the one who hits being successful, going away with the belief that a son will be born to her. When the deluded females are cleared out, the priest, divesting himself of his shoes, and rolling up his trousers, goes into the water, scoops up the money and uses it for his personal convenience—sometimes as much as thirty thousand cash.

FOOTNOTES:

[AT]