Along River and Road in Fuh-Kien, China ... With a map and illustrations ... by the author

Front matter

AMOY, FROM KULANGSEU Along River # Road IN FUH-KIEN, CHINA. BY EDWIN JOSHUA DUKES. WITH A MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR. A MER f CAN TRACT SOCfETY, 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK CITY. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. AMOY FROM KULANGSEU .... Frontispiece. A CHINESE PEEP-SHOW. AN IDOL PROCESSION 27 BaARBER 33 WHEELBARROW 47 JINRIKSHA 53 BOAT-TOWING 65 NIA-TAU. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS . . . -73 ROOM IN MANDARIN'S HOUSE 83 GAMBLERS I2I MAP. TUNG-A-BE CHAPEL '57 MASTER MERCY, THE COOK. CHINESE PRISON- ERS WEARING THE CANGUE .... 163 CHINESE COURT-ROOM 2°5 BOYS' SCHOOL 253 CHINESE STUDENTS 257 CHINESE PUNISHMENTS 263 LONDON MISSION HOUSE, AMOY . . . . 3°3

Preface

. That China is a mysterious problem to all who interest themselves in its affairs is the only excuse for writing another book about it. To the Christian its religious state is a subject to be spoken of with bated breath. To the politician the condition of its government and people is one of the chronic disturbing elements in his specu lations. In the following pages the writer ventures to think he has pictured the people of that great and wonderful land in a light in which they have not often been seen by any but a traveller. The endeavor has not been to represent China from the special point of view of the politician, merchant, or missionary, but simply to describe the scenes of daily life as they appear to one moving to and fro among them. This book has no inten tion of being profound nor of explaining every thing.

It is consistent with its title, and presents the reader only familiar sketches. The chapters are, with one or two exceptions, compiled from notes made when travelling upon mission jour-

PREFACE.

. neys and from letters written to friends in Eng land. It has been the writer's hope that the effort to portray the Chinese as they are seen in their daily life may create in the minds of per sons interested in the religious welfare of Chiua a more intelligent sympathy with missionary work. This strange nation, who win their way to the front rank in commerce and easily outdo the Hindoo, Malay, and Saxon on their own soil, who have proved themselves the equals of Euro pean statesmen in diplomacy, who persevere steadily and earn a living in the face of every obstacle, taking "time for their fulcrum and pa tience for their lever, ' ' as Sir John Davis said of them, and who defy climatic differences, living with almost equal ease in the Torrid or Arctic Zone, must be destined to decide much of the future history of the globe.

A few years more and the "Chinese question" will be regarded as one to be discussed not merely by Irish obstruc tionists of cheap labor in California, or by gold diggers and sheep-farmers in Australia; it will become a great international problem, summon ing to its solution the wisdom and resources of the cabinets of Western countries and calling forth the united efforts of Christendom. Change and movement will be rapid in China, now that

PREFACE.

. 7 they are fairly begun. Outside nations will soon feel the pressure of the unwieldy mass of this Chinese race. The nation so long self-barred from international relations is being driven to seek alliances abroad. A people who lately scorned to know where England is, or France or Russia, is opening its eyes to see prospects of gain beyond its own borders. Already the Chi nese are pouring down a human torrent upon the countries and islands of the East. Cambodia, Burmah, Siam, and the entire Malay peninsula show signs of being overrun by the Chinaman, while tens of thousands are wending their way across the sea to Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Papua, the Philippines, the Celebes, and the Sandwich Islands. More slowly they stream northward, settling down upon the bleak steppes of Asiatic Russia and the green plains of Thibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria.

The unoccupied spaces of the lands of the rising sun lie before them. Peace fully but resolutely they are taking possession of sparsely-populated regions. It needs but a little of the spirit of the prophet to foretell that this generation shall not pass till it has seen great events in China. Nor is there any doubt in the minds of any one acquainted with the story of its Protestant missions that, happen what may politically, the Christian church is now so firmly

PREFACE.

. rooted there that every change will result in the wider opening of the doors for the heralds of the cross. Many of these familiar descriptions of life in China were written at Amoy, in the Fuh-kien province — a place concerning which very little has been said by writers on China. It was the people of that province whom the writer almost always had in his mind. Customs and manners differ in certain parts of the land as much as the languages of the southern half, but not enough, it is presumed, to prevent the Fuh-kienese from being typical, for the most part, of the Chinaman of Chili or Quantung, of Kansuh or Chikiang. By the kind permission of Mr. James Clarke, the chapter on "Feng-shui," originally written for the "Christian World Magazine," is reprinted here with only a few modifications and additions. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

A WALK IN THE STREETS. What is a street? Things suggested, but not said. A heathen temple. "Joss-houses." Buyers and sellers in the temple. Burden-bearers. A clothier's advertisement. Wandering in sheep-skins and goat-skins. The bootmaker's inconsideration for the favorite corn. Restaurants and sweet-stuff shops. Public theatricals. A pictorial genius. A " designing character." Ablutions in public. The omnipresent " miracle man." The barber. Mandarin procession. Sign-boards and mottoes. "No cheating here." English pictures in a Chinese street. Having eyes, they see not. On the way to chapel. Comedy and tragedy. Cash, the end and aim of existence 15

Chapter II. Travelling By Road And River

So-called " great roads." Private ideas concerning road-making. Locomotion in the north. The by-paths. Somewhat " unequally yoked." The " one-hoss shay." The " Pullman car" of Shanghai. Universal conveyance of Central China. A developed wheelbarrow. Sedan-chair. Chair-bearers. The Chinese "cabby" and his "fare." Undue hospitality. "Squeezing" the foreigner. A "contested election" of chair-bearers. Simple rules of conduct. Travelling by water. Passage junks. The mission junk. Shooting the rapids. More exciting than pleasant. Down the North River. Boats and pilots. A trusty leader CONTENTS. 10

Chapter III. Chinese Inns

An inn. What it is. What it is not. Simple habits of John Chinaman. Expenses of furnishing. An " imperial " hotel. A "people's cafe." An inhabitant of another sphere. The eternal topic. Refinements of civilization. Foreign ghosts. A laudable desire for information. " In season and out of season." Inns in the north. Sleeping accommodation in the south. What 's in a name? A night to be remembered, or perhaps forgotten. Multa in panto. Hindrances to repose. The warming-pan. Names of inns. Entertaining company. Opportunities of Christian work in inns . . . .78

Chapter IV. The Chinese New Year

Chinese holidays. No Sabbath. Preparations for New Year. The universal birthday. Aged infants. Respect for age. Similarity between the Hebrew and Chinese customs. Winding up accounts. Fear the gods, honor the king. Crackers. Early matins. The sacrifices. " Surrounding the furnace." The city on New Year's morning. Jack is as fine as his master. The " Book of Rites." Afternoon calls and four o'clock tea. New Year's gifts. The Chinese en fete. No work for a week. " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy " . 106

Chapter V. The Habits And Manners Of John Chinaman

Adverse views concerning the Chinese race. Missionaries the best judges. The buyer sold. Filial piety and respect. "Father-mothers" and "lion-tigers." Moderation of the Chinaman. Claims of rival deities. Courtesy, geniality, hospitality. Burden of the " proprieties." A Chinaman's estimate of the English. Confucian ethics. The dark side of Chinese life. Commercial integrity. No idea of the sacredness of truth. " It is naught, it is naught," saith the buyer, etc. Pilfering. A "high commission " court. Unjust judges. Universal immorality. The sphere of woman. Chinese women better off than other Orientals. The " upper ten " in China 1 CONTENTS. 11

Chapter VI. Diary Of

A MISSIONARY JOURNEY. The gospel boat. A village chapel. An embryo hymnologist. A pastoral visit. A " Sunday out." Providing for a journey. "Sold again!" Chinese bridges. Mosquitoes more pressing than polite. Lost on the way. A converted pawn-shop. Early risers. Salt-making. An unexpected pleasure. Advanced young women. Small feet. Country worshippers. A prophet's chamber. The nearer the church, the farther from God. Sabbath observance. The "city of grace and peace." Chapel destroyed by a mob. Dragons and demons guarding the temple. Progress of the work. Note. — Legend of the Great Bridge of Lo-iu 154

Chapter VII. Over The Hills Of Fuh-kien

Breaking fresh ground. Graves and monuments. A truly independent pastor. Self-support in the churches. A model chapel. Varieties of language. A quiet resting-place. Some exquisite scenery. Twelve days in Foochow, the " Happy City." The Episcopal Methodist Conference. Off again. Changes in temperature. A Chinese feast. Perilous paths. Morning worship. A Sunday in the clouds. Bad inns again. Settling the area of the Amoy language towards the north. Utter callousness of the heathen to Christian doctrine. Literally, a china town. A grewsome sanctuary. Computation of distance. There 's no place like home .... 1S9

Chapter VIII. Feng-shui

: THE BIGGEST OF ALL BUGBEARS. What Feng-Shui is. Feng-Shui doctors. Unquiet spirits. Fixing a site for the last home. Fair breezes and foul. Current influences. Disturbing elements. Use of pagodas. An international quarrel. The spirits object to railways and telegraphs. A haunted chapel. Unsettled remains. " Potted Chinaman." The autocrat at the sepulchre. Physician, heal thyself! The old love and the new. Opening up of coal-mines. Probable effects of development of the resources of China . CONTENTS. 12

Chapter IX. Schools And Colleges

Reverence for education. Chinese literature. Its ethical and moral excellence and influence. Signification of the words "learning" and "education." Men of letters. How many can read? Respect for the written character. "Fragments of science." Examinations the road to prosperity. A boys' school. The village dominie. College life. Vain repetitions. What subjects taught. Misleading notions as to academical degrees. Viceroy Yeh on preparation for official position. Men of one idea. Conferring degrees. Persevering candidates. " Purchasing to themselves a good degree." Signs of approaching change. English-speaking Chinese. Newspapers in China. The broad end of the wedge is getting in . . 240

Chapter X

A BUDDHIST MONASTERY. Heavenwards, but not to heaven. Buddhist monks, their origin and occupation. The " voluntary system " ad nauseam. Plan of Kushan. The local deities. The " vanities of the heathen." Leisurely printers. A very holy brother. Buddha's tooth. How big was Buddha? A Buddhist "Zoo." "Preserved fish." A story to be whispered. The tolling bell. " Where nature fails, art steps in." " I went away from there." Buddhist worship. A musical service. Forty stripes save one on popery 274

Chapter XI. Cremation Of

A BUDDHIST PRIEST. A novel funeral procession. Paper currency. Mourning dress. The cremation ground. "All sorts and conditions of men." The furnace. Mode of conducting the funeral service. Rather monotonous. Unceremonious treatment of the dead. Burial fees. Collecting the ashes. A monk "on the shelf" at last ! CONTENTS. 13

Chapter XII. The Missionary At Work

Notions of Christians at home as to missionaries. " Hat and stick and hymn-book too." Nearly 7,000 sermons without a convert. Instruction vs. exhortation. Natives as preachers. Preaching in the market-place. Christ and the idols face to face. The humorous aspect of idolatry. The idol-mender. Daily preaching services. Arrangements of a chapel. "Let the women keep silence in the churches." Behavior in church. An extraordinary interruption. Prepared hearts. Buddhist tract distribution. Omnivorous credulity. Chinese psalmody. Sunday-schools. Books in Roman letter .... 308

Chapter XIII. Our Chinese Brethren In Christ

The "rest and refreshment" of being a missionary deputation. Quality of converts. The love of Christ and the love of cash. " Passing rich on sixteen pounds a year." A Chinese bargain. Struggle for existence. Christian liberality. Peaceable, but very noisy. Living by faith. Speaking for Christ. " Philip findeth Nathanael." " Sheep without a shepherd." An "independent" church. Brother Tiap and his wonderful doings. The " Praise-God village." Fluency of Chinese speakers. The Emperor's Chinese hard to murder. Church members as evangelists. " The " apostle of the Chinese " . . -335 CHINA.

Chapter I

A WALK IN THE STREETS. I WELL remember the earnestness with which one of our most honored theological professors besought a class of students to cultivate the "his torical imagination" when reading the Bible or when preparing for the pulpit. ' ' Try to see the event for yourselves," he said; "let it happen over again as you describe it." In attempting to paint in broad outline the daily scenes of a missionary's life in China I can only entreat the reader to endeavor to exercise the "geographical imagination," and to see for him self, by the aid of imagination, the strange sights that meet the eye of the ordinary traveller or the "messengers of the churches" in this wonderful Eastern land. Let us begin with a walk through the streets, just such a walk as one would have to take on a Sunday afternoon in marching a mile through the town to conduct the service at a Christian chapel.

Put away, if you please, all the prejudices you have acquired from childhood in connection with that word "street." Do not think of a paved or gravelled road with a path on each side, and horses and carts pursuing their way, while foot passengers are looking into the shops with glazed windows or hurrying along the broad pavement. First, remember that throughout almost the whole of the country south of the Yang-tsze River there is scarcely to be found such a thing as a wheeled vehicle. In the north rude carts are made, which do their duty as best they can under the combined difficulties of unskilful construction of the carts themselves, the bad condition of the roads, the imperfect culture of the beasts of bur den, and, not least, the eccentricities of their own ers. But south of the Yang-tsze, with the exception of wheelbarrows for goods and passengers, the only vehicle is the sedan-chair in some of its vari ous stages of development.

Then imagine the streets as mere alleys and courts, and not at all what we mean by the word "street." Stretch out your arms, and reflect that in so doing, in an ordinary Chinese town, you would generally be able to touch the counters of the shops on both sides of the way. Many towns, of course, have a few streets twice, and even three times, that width, but they are the exception ; while on the other hand there is in every populous town an immense network of narrow alleys in which it is impossible for two persons to pass one another without mutual concession. The spectacle of a portly gentle man walking sideways for a few paces because he is a few inches less broad from front to back than he is from side to side is one that appears after a little time to be very natural and not at all humorous.

But before we go farther let me say that, in attempting a description of every-day life in a heathen country, it is quite necessary to pass over many things that would render the narrative more graphic and realistic. Some of these are often the very things in which the character of the people stands most clearly revealed, and which it is needful to know in order to have a true idea of what they are like. Although China is very far from being destitute of what we call civilization, yet the people are thoroughly Oriental in their habits as well as in their position, and it is impossible to Elver and Road Id China. walk for five minutes in the smallest village or the largest town without seeing much which had better not be put on paper. One is compelled to sum the matter up in some such phrases as these: that very few, even of the gentry, burden them selves with that product of Western refinement, the pocket-handkerchief ; that soap is almost un known and washing is not regarded as one of the necessary duties of life ; that in warm weather most Chinamen do not perspire under a needless quantity of clothing ; that the vast array of beg gars that obstruct the way at intervals regard their ghastly sores as so much stock in trade, to be ex hibited accordingly; and that the odors in every town without exception, and in most villages, are many and disagreeable.

The stroll we are about to take is through the town of Amoy, and we will turn our steps in the direction of "Little Customhouse Street," which is about a mile from the sea-shore. The street we are entering is " Facing Kwan-tai' s Temple Street." The name is not posted up at an angle of the wall, as with us, but over the wooden gate way which admits to the next ward of the town. The first object that attracts our attention is the exterior of the temple itself. To one who has associated the idea of pagan worship with what is grand and beautiful in its outward aspects, it is almost shocking to enter such a house as this con secrated to Kwan-tai. The word " temple," also, has been so sacred to us from our infancy through its connection in our minds with the worship of the living God, that to apply it to this dirty, unsightly shed, harboring not only the dust covered images of Kwan-tai and his attendants, but choice representatives of the various grades of the ragtag and bobtail of a heathen town, strikes us as a profanation of the term.

As a matter of fact, however, in China these places are not often spoken of as temples. The word commonly used both by merchants and missionaries is yoss-house. Its derivation is from the Portuguese Dios, which again is from the Latin Deus, God. Dios is cor rupted by the Chinese who speak that mongrel abomination, "pigeon-English," into yoss. They apply the same term to our Christian worship as to their own idolatrous customs. To burn incense sticks before an idol, or to go to church as the Christians do, is alike to "go do Joss." But could idolatry condemn itself more utterly in any other way than in permitting such a place as this to be used for worship ? It seems never to have been painted, washed, or swept since it was built. And what a crowd of half-dressed rascals! While some poor soul is lighting her sticks of in cense before the dirty idols and shaking out of the bamboo jar the fortune-telling slips, a roar and rattle of rapid and incessant chatter is kept up by the loafers who surround little tables made of a tray on the top of a basket, gambling with dice, tossing cash, getting their fortunes told, dictating a letter to a professional scribe, or haggling noisily over some matter of business.

It is a fact univer sally recognized that the joss-houses are frequented most by the worst characters of the town, and that schemes of wickedness are commonly hatched un der the noses of the gods. The little space in front of the building is occupied with movable stalls containing all kinds of goods. Most of these stalls are removed at night. Here are trays of cakes and sweetmeats, caps, purses, jade-stone bracelets, combs, pipes, lanterns, writing materials, little pictures in frames, portraits of women supposed to be beautiful, boots, umbrellas, native and foreign, paraffine-oil lamps, and a thousand odds and ends of trinkets the like of which one sees in England only at a bazar or a fair. From the front of Kwan-tai' s undignified resi dence we enter a very long street crowded with busy people.

The prospect of having to proceed for a long distance through such narrow streets and such a rabble of the unwashed is anything but exhilarating. In China it is always well not to be in a hurry, but particularly so in the main thoroughfares of a busy town. There seems to be no room at all to spare. Many persons are carrying heavy and bulky burdens that nearly block the narrow road, and compel those who do not care to be knocked down to retire precipitately into a shop-door to let the carriers pass. Here they come, one after another, trotting at a moderate pace, because they say it is easier to carry a heavy weight when running than when walking. There being no other means of transport than human hands and human shoulders, every variety of goods, bales of all sorts and sizes, are borne upon a pole across the hardened and distorted shoulders of the professional burden-bearers.

The scanty dress allows us to observe the splendid sin ews of these men, but their bent backs too often prove that they have suffered severely in their painful tasks. The coolie is a much-enduring beast of burden, but he pays down something of his life as well as of sweat for the miserable dole of cash which he earns with such labor. As we are noting these facts we hasten to avoid being hurt by an enormous box carried by four men, who have only four square yards of clothing among them, and who are glistening from head to foot with perspiration. The chest contains the stage properties of a band of strolling players, who ALONG RIVER AND RO.VD IN FUH-KIEN. 22 have probably been hired to make night hideous in some highly-favored quarter of the town. Be fore we get home we may possibly see a troupe performing their professional duties.

You will perceive that the streets are admira bly paved. The slabs of stone are not quite level, it is true. They have been worn into inequality by the footsteps of multitudes of the barefooted and the shod. But still these blocks, seven feet long, that extend from side to side, make a solid pavement. Immediately underneath is the sewer. That is why there is a space of an inch or less be tween each slab. The sewer, being open, gets thoroughly ventilated, and so retards the forming of poisonous gases ; and when there is a heavy shower the water runs off the path instantane ously and cleanses the drains. But who and what are these melancholy mortals who are meandering along covered with sheep -skins? They are what, when you see them, you call "sandwich-men." They are ex hibiting the wares purchasable at this clothier's shop on our left.

Instead of carrying advertise ment-boards and wandering up and down the street, a layer of lean mortality between two slices of wood, they wear upon their own backs the very goods which you are respectfully invited to in spect and to buy. Do not imagine that a Chinaman's mind feels any qualms at the thought that these garments have been for weeks upon the back of one of the unwashed. He is troubled by no such unpleasant reflections. But he would no doubt drive a harder bargain on the plea that they had been already much worn. These sheep-skins are very highly valued in winter by the country people. If you were rela ting to an agricultural audience in the south of China, aud in the north also to townspeople, the sufferings of the persecuted saints of old, it would never do to tell them that "they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins."

You would err as much as the Moravian missionaries did who first preached of the fires of hell to the Greenland ers. Those Arctic folk were immensely pleased with the prospect of going there, and the missionaries were naturally very much shocked at the result of their own preaching. And so to the Chinese mind the wandering about in sheep-skins and goat-skins does not at all imply that they were "destitute, afflicted, tormented." They would very much like to be persecuted to that degree. Many of the Chinese streets are devoted to shops provided with only one kind of goods. In the larger towns this is of course more commonly the case than in a comparatively poor town like Amoy. Canton, for instance, has its Paternostei Row filled with book-stores, its long lines of shops of jewelry, crockery, clothing, and bric-a-brac.

Here in Amoy we also have a Bootmaker Street and Basket Street, and streets almost wholly occupied with rice-sellers. But the street along which we are making our way has a little of everything. The shops are generally of the rudest order, as far as construction is concerned. A large proportion of them are no better than sheds or booths at a fair. None have glass windows. Very little glass is used anywhere in China, and especially in the south, where the heat is very great during the larger part of the year. The shops that make some degree of show are also very oddly mixed up with those of the commonest order. Here is an ironmonger's store, the counter next the road way being burdened with the most miscellaneous and rusty of keys, locks, wire, bolts, hammers, and other tools; while pendent chains and iron implements hang so thickly from the roof in front as almost to darken the interior.

Next is a hand some silk shop; beautiful skeins of every shade of color lie on the counter, and the well-dressed assistants are exhibiting materials which English ladies would delight to brood over for hours. Her£ we have a carpenter's workroom stuffed from floor to ceiling with tubs, pails, basins, chairs, and beds, all painted a bright red. Next to this is a cap factory and shop. Half of the employes are selling the goods, and the other half are moulding little black satin caps, lined with red flannel, to fit the back of the human cranium. The same is true of this boot shop; making and selling are going forward behind the same counter. But in this case I can assure you by painful experience that the Chinese artist who covers the human foot takes no account of its shape. He acts as though that part of your extremities which you treat with so much consideration and call your ' ' big toe ' ' were placed in the middle of the foot, with two small toes on each side of it.

Why the Chinese boot is made with a narrow-pointed end it is impossible to say. Perhaps the idea has never occurred to the makers that there is a phys iological reason why the same boot should not be worn with equal ease on either foot. But so it is; they do not distinguish between right and left in the matter of boots, and a week of suffering must be endured before the boot begins to adapt itself to the foot. There are plenty of refreshment-rooms on both sides of the way, from the sweet-stuff shop to the more extensive dining-room, where you may get a heavy meal of rice and sweet potatoes, with snacks of fish and other tasty dishes, for about three halfpence. In Amoy there are none of the splendid tea-drinking saloons that are to be found in Canton and many other large cities. There the people are very busy, and with not much cash to spare.

There is very little loitering and gos siping over the tea-table compared with the richer towns. But at every few steps you may come to an eating-house where you can sit on a form and with your chopsticks sweep the steaming rice from the bowl into your mouth. There is abundance also of odds and ends of edibles that are nameless to us and shall remain so — messes chiefly fried in nut-oil, tasting queer and smelling worse. The cooking-stove is lighted at the street-door instead of in a kitchen at the back of the premises. There is no chimney to carry off the smoke, but neither the neighbors nor the passers-by complain. Look ing down from the hillside upon the town with its houses closely packed together for miles, there is no such thing as a chimney to be seen. In the private houses the cooking is done in the little court around which the rooms are built; in the business premises, if there is no back yard, it is done in the street.

The Chinaman is a wonderful creature for enduring endless nuisances, re garding them as things that are and have been, and therefore still must be. We could scarcely have a better illustration of A CHINESE PEEP-SHOW AN IDOL PROCESSION. that last remark than this stage which has been thrown right across the main thoroughfare. We must either find our way round by a side street or creep uuder the stage as best we can. Fancy what it would be for a band of itinerant actors to erect a theatre in Cheapside, compelling all the traffic to turn aside for a whole day; and then consider that the street we are in bears about the same relation to the city of Amoy as Cheapside does to the city of London ! Yet the people do not complain. It is probable that not one in a hundred who turn aside because the road is blocked thinks that such a nuisance ought not to be al lowed.

It is much more likely that the inhabitants of the street are objects of envy because the theatre is brought to their very doors. Some shopkeeper in the street has invited the actors at his own expense, and his neighbors are much obliged to him for giving them an opportunity of seeing the play and hearing the drums beat, the bells ring, the cymbals clash, and the actors howl and screech without the trouble of leaving their shop-doors. Now that we have got away from the din of the play and the laughing crowd who watched us scrambling under the stage (even the actors stopped to see how we fared), let me introduce you to a native painter. This artist has made some small degree of fame in the town for the rapidity with which he draws and the excellent manner in which he groups his figures. To our eyes they appear either hideous or ludicrous.