Village Life In China - free ebook by Arthur H. Smith

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Village Life In China

Arthur H. Smith

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Village Life in China

Village Life in China

TENTH THOUSAND Chinese Characteristics BY Rev. ARTHUR H. SMITH, D.D. For Twenty-six Years a Missionary of the American Board in China. With Sixteen Illustrations from Photographs, an index and a Glossary. 800, decorated cloth, $1.25 From The Independent. There is no glamour thrown over the race, neither is there failure to recognize those qualities that have made them so backward in civilization, so hostile to foreigners, so repugnant to many in our land. Everyone interested in China

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ARTHUR H. SMITH, D.D.

ARTHUR H. SMITH, D.D.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company Publishers of Evangelical Literature Copyright, 1899 by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY...

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Foreword

Foreword

These chapters are written from the standpoint of one who, by an extended experience in China, has come to feel a profound respect for the numerous admirable qualities of the Chinese, and to entertain for many of them a high personal esteem. An unexampled past lies behind this great race, and before it there may lie a wonderful future. Ere that can be realized, however, there are many disabilities which must be removed. The longer one is acquainted with China, the more deeply is this necessity f

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Acknowledgment.

Acknowledgment.

The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Rev. Harlan P. Beach for his invaluable criticisms and the kindly services rendered in the proof-reading and piloting of this new voyager through the press. For the use of original photographs from which engravings have been made, and are here published for the first time, the author and the publishers desire to acknowledge their obligations to Mr. Robert E. Speer, Mr. William Henry Grant, Albert Peck, M.D., Rev. W. C. Longden, and Miss J

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Glossary

Glossary

Boy , a term used by foreigners in China to denote the head-servant, irrespective of his age. Cash , Chinese copper coin with a square hole for stringing. The value of a single cash may be taken as one-thousandth of a Mexican dollar. The cash vary greatly in size. A “string” theoretically consists of a thousand cash, but in many regions has but five hundred. The latter variety is at present equal to one-third of a gold dollar. Catty , a Chinese pound, equal by treaty to one and one-third pounds

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I

I

There are in India alone over half a million villages. In all Asia, not improbably, there may be four times that number. By far the larger part of the most numerous people on the globe live in villages. The traveller in the Chinese Empire may start from some seaport, as Tientsin, and journey for several months together in the same general direction, before reaching its frontiers on the other side. In the course of such a tour, he will be impressed as only one who has ocular evidence can be impre

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II

II

It is nearly 500 years since the great raid of the nephew of Hung Wu, founder of the Ming Dynasty, from the southern capital of China, to what is now known as Peking, then called the state of Yen. The celebrated raider is popularly believed to have destroyed the lives of all those whom he met, and to have reduced to an uninhabited desert the whole region from the Yang-tzŭ River to Peking. This is described as “Yen Wang’s sweeping the North.” After this ambitious youth had dispossessed his nephew

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III

III

The Chinese is justly termed a poetical language. The titles of emperors, the names of men, the signs of shops, all have some felicitous meaning. It is therefore somewhat of a disappointment to discover that the names of Chinese villages, unlike those of cities, are not as a rule either poetical or significant. The drafts upon the language by the incessant multiplication of hamlets are too great to be successfully met. Nearly all Chinese surnames serve as the designation of villages, as in other

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IV

IV

The contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of their work in the street. Even in those cities which are provided with but the narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the presence of peripatetic vendors of every article that is sold, and by peripatetic craftsmen, who have no other shop than the street. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, and hundreds of other workmen as well, have their representatives in perpetual motion, to the

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V

V

In the northern part of China, although the streams are not so numerous as at the south, they form more of an obstruction to travel, on account of the much greater use made of animals and of wheeled vehicles. The Chinese cart is a peculiarly northern affair, and appears to be of much the same type as in ancient days. The ordinary passenger cart is dragged by one animal in the cities, and by two in the country. The country cart, employed for the hauling of produce and also for all domestic purpos

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VI

VI

On the Great Plain of North China the wells are generally shallow, ranging from ten to thirty feet in depth; one of fifty feet would be unusual, though they are occasionally much deeper. The well is a very important feature of the outfit of a Chinese village, though never the scene of ablutions as in India. To save the labour of carrying water, all the animals are led to the well to drink, and the resultant mud makes the neighbourhood, especially in winter, very disagreeable. Rarely have they a

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VII

VII

The Chinese have always divided themselves into the four classes of scholars, farmers, workmen, and merchants. Considering their singular penchant for trade, it is a surprise to find them putting traders at the foot of the list. If any one has an idea that the life of a Chinese dealer is an easy one, he has a very inaccurate idea indeed, and the smallest investigation of any specific case will be sufficient to disabuse him of it. Indeed there are not many people in China whose life is an easy on

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VIII

VIII

That the Chinese are extravagantly fond of theatrical representations, is well known to all who live in China. The Chinese trace the origin of the stage to the times of the Emperor Ming Huang, of the T‘ang Dynasty (died 762) who, under an alias, is supposed to be worshipped as the god of play-actors. It is a popular saying that if the players neglect to do homage to this patron, they will altogether fail in their representations, whatever these may be. With the history of the Chinese stage, we h

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IX

IX

The prominent place given to education in China renders the Chinese village school an object of more than common interest, for it is here that by far the greater number of the educated men of the empire receive their first intellectual training. While the schools of one district may be a little better or worse than those of another, there is probably no country in the world where there is so much uniformity in the standards of instruction, and in all its details, as in China. There are in the Ch

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X

X

When it is definitely decided that a pupil is to study for the examinations, he enters a high school, which differs in many respects from the ones which he has hitherto attended. The teacher must be a man of more than average attainments, or he can neither gain nor hold such a place. His salary is much greater than that given by the ordinary school. The pupils are much harder worked, being compelled to spend almost all their waking hours in the study of model examination essays. These are to be

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XI

XI

The process by which the inconceivably great numbers of Chinese temples came to be is not without an interest of its own. When a few individuals wish to build a temple, they call the headmen of the village, in whose charge by long custom are all the public matters of the town, and the enterprise is put in their care. It is usual to make an assessment on the land for funds; this is not necessarily a fixed sum for each acre, but is more likely to be graded according to the amount of land each owns

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XII

XII

The genius of the Chinese for combination is nowhere more conspicuous than in their societies which have a religious object. Widely as they differ in the special purposes to which they are devoted, they all appear to share certain characteristics, which are generally four in number—the contribution of small sums at definite intervals by many persons; the superintendence of the finances by a very small number of the contributors; the loan of the contributions at a high rate of interest, which is

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XIII

XIII

In many parts of China the farmer comes much nearer to independence as regards producing what he needs, than any class of persons in Western lands. This is especially the case where cotton is raised, and where each family tries to make its own clothing from its own crops. But even with the minute and indefatigable industry of the Chinese, this ideal can be only imperfectly reached. No poor family has land enough to raise all that it requires, and every family not poor has a multitude of wants wh

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XIV

XIV

Among the most characteristic examples of Chinese capacity for combination, are Loan Societies, which seem everywhere to abound. The object of these organizations is the same as that of similar associations elsewhere, but it may be doubted whether the Chinese methods of procedure are not unique. As in everything else Chinese, with a general similarity, there is such divergence in detail, that it is sometimes very difficult for natives of one district, even to comprehend the rules of the Loan Soc

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XV

XV

In a country where the poor are in such a majority as in China, and where the fields are altogether open, it is desirable if not necessary to have some plan by which property so unprotected can be effectively watched. In every orchard, as soon as the fruit begins to show the smallest sign of ripeness, the owner keeps some of his family on guard day and night, until the last apricot, plum or pear is removed from the trees. The darker and the more rainy the night, the more is vigilance required, s

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XVI

XVI

It is one of the eccentricities of the Chinese, that although they have developed elaborate philosophies, none of them have led them to confidence in the uniformity of nature. Polytheism has no basis for such a view. Thus it comes about that in an empire which is one of the most conspicuous examples of homogeneity the world has ever seen, neither the people nor their rulers have any fixed opinions as to the causes upon which the rain-fall depends. In the province of Shan-tung a great variety of

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XVII

XVII

There are parts of the wide province of Shan-tung, in which there are great sheets of clear and deep water much frequented by water-fowl, especially in the autumn and in the winter. In any Western land these districts would be the paradise of hunters, but here the ducks and the geese go their several ways in “peace and tranquillity along the whole road,” undisturbed by the gun of the sportsman or the pot-hunter. This is due to an old-time custom of the yamên in the Prefectural city contiguous to

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XVIII

XVIII

The Chinese share with the rest of the human race a desire to make a marriage ceremony an occasion of joy. One of the most frequent periphrases for a wedding, is the expression “joyful event.” It is in China preëminently true that the highest forms of “joy,” find expression in eating. While marriage feasts are no doubt to be found in all lands at all times, they are especially Oriental, and are characteristic of the Chinese. Owing to the extent and the intricate ramifications of Chinese relation

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XIX

XIX

If the foreigner who has lived in China long enough to take in its external phenomena, but not long enough to perceive the causes of them, were to explain to one of less knowledge his views as to the leading features of the change from one Chinese year to another as exhibited in the life of the Chinese, he would probably name (and with much plausibility) one or more of the following particulars. The customs of different parts of the wide empire doubtless vary, but probably there is no part of it

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XX

XX

No adequate understanding of the life of the Chinese is possible without some comprehension of the place therein of the bully, and conversely it might almost be said that a just apprehension of the character and functions of the Chinese bully is equivalent to a comprehension of Chinese society. So far as we know, the Chinese bully is a character peculiar to China. By this it is not of course meant that other lands do not have and have not always had their bullies, but that the mode in which Chin

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XXI

XXI

Many of the phenomena of village life which we shall have occasion to notice, are instances of the Chinese talent for coöperation. Perhaps no more important exemplification of this principle is to be found in Chinese society than that embodied in the local self-government of the small communities of which the greater part of the empire is composed. The management of the village is in the hands of the people themselves. At first this condition of affairs is liable to be mistaken for a pure democr

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XXII

XXII

There is a passage in one of the oldest Chinese Classics, the Book of Odes, which, in describing the palace of an ancient king, shows in a striking light the relative estimation at that remote time put upon boys and upon girls. After speaking of the dreams of the king, the poet adds a couple of stanzas, which, according to Dr. Legge’s translation, are as follows: Sons shall be born to him; they will be put to sleep on couches; They will be clothed in robes; they will have sceptres to play with;

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XXIII

XXIII

The Chinese are as practical a people as ever had a national existence, and we know of no reason to suppose that the Chinese ever had the least doubt that a substantial equality of the sexes in point of numbers is a condition of the continued propagation of the race. Certainly no race was ever more careful to keep itself propagated, or has ever met with greater success in the undertaking. Yet the Chinese are almost the only people boasting an ancient and developed civilization who despise their

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XXIV

XXIV

It is difficult to project ourselves backward to the times of our great-grandfathers when mails were carried on horseback, the postman leisurely knitting stockings as he rode. Yet however slow, measured by modern standards, the rural life of a century and more ago, it was a varied life, ultimately anastomosing with the great currents of the age. The rate of progress of thought has no necessary correlation to the versatility or the virility of mental processes. Our ancestors may perhaps have been

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XXV

XXV

The family is the unit of Chinese social life and, as we have often had occasion to observe, the Chinese Family is a highly complex organization, with many aspects which sometimes appear mutually contradictory. To the consideration of one of these polyhedral faces we now turn, asking the reader to bear well in mind that while what we have to say contains important truth, this is but one out of many points of view. The instability of the equilibrium of the Chinese family arises from its constitut

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XXVI

XXVI

To give a correct diagnosis of the inner causes of the disunity of Chinese social and family life without at the same time grossly misrepresenting both the Chinese character and society, is a hopeless undertaking. Merely to note even the most authentic and typical facts is to convey an impression which is incorrect because it is not proportional. Every family contains within itself the seeds of disunity, and if they do not in all cases produce their appropriate harvest, it is because they are me

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XXVII

XXVII

However inadequate or imperfect our survey of the life of the Chinese Village may have been, it must at least have shown that it has defects of a serious character. It is therefore a legitimate question how they are to be remedied, on the supposition that they can be remedied at all. It is certainly conceivable that there might be many remedial agencies set at work with varying degrees of success; but as a matter of fact, so far as we are aware, there is but one the friends of which have been st

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