Traveller tales of China; or, The story-telling Hongs

Front matter

TRAVELER TALES

OF CHINA

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH

Preface

In this volume I have aimed, after the manner of the " Zigzag Stories," to give a view of the social life of Russian China and China ; to make an instructive book, which should picture the new way around the world by the Siberian railway, and the new ports of the East in Manchuria and on the Yellow Sea. This is the second volume of the new series of "Traveller Tales," written after the manner of the "Zigzag" series, which sought to illustrate the manners and customs of nations by folk-lore tales and travellers' narratives, in a progressive manner.

Many of the interpolated stories in this volume are " Jataka " legends, which means that they were parables imputed to Buddha, but which were written to make clear his teachings a century or more after his death. These tales are the folk-lore of Buddhism, and are well known in Buddhist countries, and illustrate the manners and customs of the people of the past and present.

The book seeks to make clear to young people the new conditions, as well as the old traditions, of the Chinese people. China is the waking giant of the world, and the Trans-Siberian railway and ports of Manchuria seem likely to be associated

VI PREFACE

in the near future with important and progressive commercial events.

I am indebted to Harper Brothers for permission to use a story which appeared in the Magazine, and one which was published in a holiday number of the Weekly, both stories being furnished to them as original contributions.

I have followed many suggestions in the text of Le Tour du Monde to secure the use of the fine illustrations. Being an enthusiastic advocate of Froebel primary schools, I have pictured the beginning of kindergarten schools in China, which work I hold to be a prophecy of the education which is likely to find a large place in developing the new thought of the empire.

H. B.

CONTENTS lAPTER PAGE

I. Strange Things to Be Seen in China — Jataka

Tales — The Boxers — American Tea -farms . 11 TL The New Way around the World by Russia —

A elATAKA Tale — Confucius . . . .45

III. Ghost Thanks — A Story of Ginseng ... 58

IV. The Silent Mystery of the Fung Shui — Ances-

tor Worship 84

V. China, the Wonderful 93

YI. Tae- ping -WANG, Who Thought Himself a Messiah — A Jataka Story 102

VII. Secret Corea — The Hermit Xation — How They

Travel There 110

VIII. Manchuria, the Province of Destiny — Ginseng, THE Wonderful Herb That Healed Diseases AND Arrested Death . . . . . .115

IX. A Very Strange Story 117

X. Opium and Opium Smuggling 127

XL The Trade Cities . . . . . . .136

XII. The Opium Smoker 144

XIII. The Silks of Antwerp — The Town where the

Insane Go Free — The Kinderplatz . . . 175

XIV. The Great Asian Tea Fair of Ni.tni -Novgorod 204 'XV. A Desert Inn 214

XVI. The Siberian Railroad — The New Way around

XVIT. The Amoor — Manchuria, the Province of Destiny 231 XVIII. The Death Lamasary, or the Human God and the

"Prayer-flags" 244

CONT£Nr.b

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. The New Parts of the World .... 250

XX. The Corea Ginseng « . 254

XXI. The House Spirits of Corea 257

XXII. The Capital OF THE Celestial Empire — Mysteries 262

XXIII. The Dowager — A Queen "An" Indeed. . . 269

XXIV. The Wonderful Trees of China .... 276 XXV. -The Pearl River and Canton — Chinese Jugglers

XXVI. Opium — The Monster Coverlet .... 308

XXVII. The Kindergarten in Foochow . c . . 322

XXVIII. ToNQUiN .329

XXIX. Home — The Mystery Made Clear . . .345

XXX. The Incredibility of the Buddhist Legends . 349

XXXI. A Xew Port of the World 359

I

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Li Hung Chang Fronth

Chinese Cemetery

View on a River near Canton.

Tiger Island, Entrance to the Canton River

Propitiatory Offerings for Departed Relatives

A Chinese Guardian Deity ....

The Horse God, Temple near Shanghai

A Street Juggling Performance

A Prisoner Wearing the Cangue

Gang of Prisoners Wearing the Cangue

Pagoda and Village on the Canal near Canton

Court in Front of Private Residence of a Wealthy

Chinaman . - . .

Typical View on Canal or Creek Sampans and Jinrikishas The Great Wall of China A Tartar of the Chinese Army A Mandarin Paying a Visit of Ceremon Boudoir and Bedchamber of a Lady of Rank Apartment in a Mandarin's House, near Nanking

Dyeing and Winding Silk in China

Chinese Punishment of the Rack . . = . .

Punishment of the Bamboo

An Itinerant Doctor at Tien-Tsin

Rice Sellers at a Chinese Military Station

Kite -FLYING in China on the Ninth Day of Ninth Moon

Chinese Color • Bearer .......

Feeding Silkworms and Sorting the Cocoons in China Steamer on the Amoor

PAGE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Heavy Sailboat on the Amoor A Chinese Farm on the Amoor

Ghiliaks

A Devotee Consulting the Sticks of Fatb

Ghiliak Fishing - boats ....

A Ghiliak Fali Day .....

Ghiliaks Sacrificing the Bear

Wheelbarro\v for Carrying Passengers

Show - room of a Lantern Merchant

Earthen Jar Shop and Blacksmith Shop

Playing Dan ho .

Itinerant Restaurant ....

Cap vender's Shop, Canton

Dinner - party at a Mandarin's House -

A Chinese Lady with Bound Feet .

A Woman of Tonquin . . . .

Wellington Street, Hong kong

Tonquin Barber Treating the Ear

A Doc - hoc . o . .

City Hall at Hong kong .

An Itinerant Barber .

Malefactors ....

Hong - kong, from Kow - loon

Sha

347 351 355 357

Chapter I

STRANGE THmCrS TO BE SEEN IN CHINA — JATAKA TALES— THE BOXEES —AMERICAN TEA-FAEMS

" You and your son are about to visit China," said a Chinese agent of an old and established hong in Canton. " China is a ghost land. Let me tell vou a secret of Chinese life ; all people there think they see spirits — the spirits of their ancestors. Now, the good Chinese see bright spirits. Associate with such, and avoid those who talk of dark spirits. In China the people worship their ancestors, and it is those who think that they are visited by the bright spirits of good ancestors who have real worth."

The speaker was Ah Hue, or Ah Hue-Ling. He had made a reputation for honorable dealing as an agent of the tea trade. He spoke English well, and was something of a philosopher. He seemed to see the truth of life, rather than to reason about it.

Mr. Barnard was a tea merchant. He lived near Winthrop, Mass., on one of the hills overlooking the Rumney Marsh. His family had long conducted a tea house in Boston, and he had invited Ah Hue to visit him that he might better gain information in regard to the trade in China. His son Charles, who was finishing his education, had resolved to go into business with his father.

To better prepare his son for the business of the importation of tea for his wholesale house, Mr. Barnard planned to take his son to China by the way of St. Petersburg and the Siberian railway to Manchuria, and the new Golden Horn of the far East. Ah Hue was to go with them.

Ah Hue-Ling had become the charm and delight of the Barnard family, for he told Chinese tales of people who saw bright ghosts, and were happy. Mrs. Barnard and her little daughter, Lucy, thought these folk-tales of the Flowery Kingdom almost as good as those of Germany.

" Now, Ah Hue-Ling, tell us a wonder tale, and take Mr. Barnard out of his business cares," Mrs. Barnard would say.

Ah Hue would sit down on the edge of the divan and lean over, and pussy, perhaps, would play with his pig-tail, as it hung over the edge of the divan.

There was one story that he used to tell that all liked to hear, although it was rather uncanny. It was of Sing Ling, the " merchant man."

SING LING, WHO SAW SOMETHING STRANGE

" Ah,'- would say Ah Hue-Ling, " Sing Ling was a crafty one, and a wonder happened to him, and it was all in this way :

" Sing Ling had a partner in business named Oi, and they were journeying from Hong-kong to Canton among the junks.

" They had done a good business on the island of Kong, and the partner Oi had given the purse that contained the profits of it to Sing Ling to keep until they should arrive at Canton.

"■ How bright the air was ! How the sails rose and shone like walls ! How the flowers bloomed in the gardens ! How the gables and dragons of the summer-houses glistened in the distance along the way !

SING LING, WHO SAW SOMETHING STRANGE 15

" A thought came to Sing Ling.

" It was a wicked one.

" He had the purse.

" What if his partner Oi were to be drowned among the junks ? The purse would be his. No one would know.

" The thought became a suggestion, and the wicked vision grew, and became a desire.

'' Now Oi liked to stand on the edge of the stern of the boat and watch the junks. He did so on this excursion, and often on a plank that reached out beyond the rail.

" Sing Ling saw that he would only have to tilt the rail, and his partner would fall into the deep water, and then all the contents of the purse would be his. No one would know — wicked Sing Ling !

" He watched his opportunity to give the board a tilt, —

" ' A wicked look around he stole, And many a think he thunk, And many a wicked smile he smole, And many a wicked wink he wunk.'

'' A moment came when no one seemed to be looking. Sing tilted the plank, and Oi threw up his hands and fell into the water. Sing Ling did not look after him ; he shut his eyes, and the boat passed on, and presently it stopped at a landing, and there was a great confusion in the people rushing away.

'- Sing Ling had the whole purse now. Oi, as he thought, was gone forever, and was happy with his ancestors.

" Ah, no, no ! That night Sing had the purse under his couch, and just as he was going to sleep with a burning conscience, it began to rattle, rattle.

" Sing leaped up, and before him stood Oi ; his partner looked dreadful ; a bad conscience makes fearful ghosts.

" ' Carry my gold to my mother,' said the ghost.

" The next night the same thing happened again, but Oi looked angrier than before.

" ' Carry my gold to my mother,' said Oi, ' and I will never come again.'

" ' I will,' promised Sing, shaking.

" He carried the gold to Oi's mother, and told her that Oi had fallen overboard. He was happy, for he thought that he would never be arrested for the crime, and no one but himself w^uuld ever know. He did not know that a secret knowledge of guilt makes a hypocrite and ruins the soul, and is sure to be revealed.

" But after a little he saw Oi again. It was on the street in open day. He ran to him.

" ' Oi, Oi,' said he, ' you promised me that if I would carry the gold to your mother you would never appear to me again.'

" ' I never have appeared to you ; I am Oi, and not a ghost. I fell overboard — why did you not rescue me ? '

" Here was an unexpected witness to his guilt. Oi had not been drowned, and the ghost that Sing had seen nights had been created by his imagination out of his bad conscience, which furnishes the warp and woof for such beings.

" Then Sing saw that Oi saw his true character, for all life is self-revealing, and he fled to America and now he uses a pickaxe in the dark, dark mine. We see ourselves in ghostland."

He would add :

'' I never would tell that story again ; don't ask me. It is bad people w^ho see bad ghosts, and it is bad people w^ho tell bad stories. Ask me only to tell you tales of bright ancestors who come to us for good. ' Ghost thanks,' I call such, spirits of people whom we once helped, and who come to us to help us out of gratitude."

His story illustrates the kind of superstition that fills China, and it teaches much in regard to the dark ghostland of Chinese fancy.

SING LING, WHO SAW SOMETHING STRANGE 19

Mr. Barnard and Charles were studying this journey when Ah Hue made the quoted remark that the character of a Chinaman might he found l)y the kind of spirits that he thought he saw. It is a truth of Hfe, a man who sees good in others is usually a good man. A man who tells his friends that he comes from a good city, or neighbourhood, or town, is going to a good neighbourhood, or city, or town. A man sees in others what he is himself.

Mr. Barnard unrolled a new map of China.

" Russian China," said he, " is to be a province of great influence in the future. Destiny is there. The great point of connection of the Eastern and the Western world is to be Manchuria."

Charles entered the room and caught the last remark. He had been studying Russian China, and saw there a new map of the world's progress.

" The Trans-Siberian railroad," he said to his father, " must change the world's travel. Why, father, look upon the new map. Here is the Siberian railway ; it connects with the Amoor, but look — let a branch of that railway run up to Behring Straits, and what may happen ? Those straits are only a ferriage — before the end of the century one may go from America to Paris by land."

" They may do that in twenty years or perhaps ten from now," said Ah Hue.

Mr. Barnard studied the map. Charles stood by his chair. They bent their eyes on the line of the Siberian railroad in silence.

" Will we follow the route on the map on our journey ? " asked Charles.

The route on the map, which was a French chart, was England, Paris, Vienna, to St. Petersburg, hence to Moscow, Nijni Novgorod, Irkoask, Shetinsk, and by the lakes and the great river Amoor and the ocean sea to Vladivostok, Shanghai, and by rail to Pekin. They would go to Canton and Hong-kong from Pekin.

Charles had an intimate companion, Louis Forbes, who was familiarly called ''Lou." He was a poor boy, but had character, clear vision, and a strong purpose in life. He wished to be taken into the tea house and to learn the trade.

Mr. Barnard saw the making of a true merchant in him. He had been thinking of asking him to accompany the party on the Russian China journey. He believed in educational travel, in the educational travel that begins a business career rather than ends it.

This boy Louis Forbes — '' Lou " — had come to visit Charles, and he entered the room as the father and son and Ah Hue stood studying the French map.

" The great struggle of the civilizations of the world is to be between the Anglo-Saxon race and the Slav," said Mr. Barnard, " and the power will dominate that best obeys the spiritual laws of life. The world is destined to be governed by the highest law ; that which is best for the people will survive."

" China is a waking giant," said Lou.

" And Russian China is to change the map of the world," said Charles, " and Vladivostok or Port Arthur is likely to be its port, or one of its ports, unless a new railroad city shall connect the Behring Straits with Paris and the English Channel and London."

Mr. Barnard listened to the two boys with much interest, as they studied the French map together.

"I have decided to go to Russian China," said he to Lou.

" I wish I might be able to make such a journey," said Lou. <' What an advantage it would give me in the tea trade I I will make the journey if I am prospered, some day," he continued, " after I have earned the money for travel. I want to see the new East."

SING LING, WHO SAW SOMETHING STRANGE 23

" I wish you might go with us," said Charles. " You are to enter our trading house."

" You shall go," said Mr. Barnard. " I shall need trained clerks in my business, and if you will accept my invitation, I will try to help train you to become one of them."

He added : " You and Charlie have studied together ; you are both to enter my business house together, and I would have you make the journey to Russian China together. It would be likely to be to my advantage to have you do so.

" So, Lou, with your parents' consent, I will take you with us, and defray all of your expenses."

" I thank you out of my heart," said Lou, " but I would dislike to begin life by being dependent on the friendship of another. True friendship accepts no gifts. I have paid for my own education, and I have not had a dollar for it that I have not earned."

" It is that spirit in you that makes me desire the more to train you for my business. I do not want men who are willing to be dependent, in my business. Such men do not make business grow. You would go with us, not as Charlie's friend, but as a future worker in my firm, and the money that I will spend on your journey will be well invested in you for me.

" The time has come for merchants to train their clerks for intelligent service by giving them educational travel."

It was soon arranged that Lou should go with Charles to Russian China.

Ah Hue-Ling was a bright man as well as a story-teller. He not only knew Chinese folk-lore well, and the wonderful tales of the Chinese ghostland, those which were associated with ancestor worship, but he also told Chinese fables and quoted Chinese proverbs, and, strangely enough, sought tales of spiritual powers wherever he went. He knew the Jataka Buddhist stories.

He had been brought up in the hongs, where he had studied

English. He had read Dickens and the most notable English scientific books.

Charles had a business mind. He was not greatly interested in folk-lore, but Lou was, so Lou and Ah Hue exchanged stories.

WONDER TALES OF THE BUDDHISTS (THE JATAKA STORIES), THE OLDEST FOLK-LORE STORIES

The Talmud contains the folk-lore tales of the Jews, the tales of the rabbis ; the " Arabian Nights Entertainments " comprise many of the folk-lore tales of the East, Desert Tales, Caravan Tales, legends of the Caliphs. The legendary tales of the Buddha, or folk-lore of Ind, are perhaps the oldest of all of this class of stories. These were more than five hundred in number, and according to the tradition they were suggested by Buddha himself.

This last claim would be impossible, but they were suggested by the early Buddhist mind. Many of them, like those of the Talmud, are very interesting parables of life.

The great collection of Buddhist folk-lore stories is called " The Jataka Book."

Let us give you a specimen of One of these Jataka Tales, most of w^hich relate to rebirth, or reincarnation, as all people in these countries are believed to be born again, either as animals, a higher order of men, or of celestial beings.

THE LION THAT BRAYED

Once upon a time when Brahma-datta was monarch of Benares, a Buddha was born of humble parents. He worked in the fields.

It was in the days of the hawkers or the travelling peddlers ; these journeyed from place to place carrying their goods on donkeys.

WONDER TALES OF THE BUDDHISTS 27

Now there was a certain hawker who was very greedy and covetous, and sought to accumulate money in every way, without regard to justice or honor.

He liked to feed his donkey in fields of green barley ; it made the animal sleek and nimble to feed in barley fields.

The greedy hawker so pastured his donkey by a stratagem. When he came to a village he took the little animal into a stable and bound over him a lion's skin, and turned him into the nearest field of barley.

When the watchman of the town saw the animal in the field, he cried out :

'' A lion ! a lion ! "

None dared to molest him. The lion was a sacred beast and the monarch of all beasts ; so the donkey would have his fill in the dewy nights, and start on his way refreshed and fattened in the morning.

One day the crafty hawker stopped at a certain town, and dressed the donkey in the lion's skin, and turned him loose in a barley field. ^

" A lion I " exclaimed the keepers of the town. " A lion in the barley ! "

" A lion ! a lion ! " exclaimed the people.

They were bold people, and notwithstanding the lion was a sacred beast, they resolved to scare him away.

The future Buddha, being then a tiller of the fields, advised this course. He was a wise man then.

The people assembled with all kinds of instruments that would make a noise or cktter. They went forth to the barley field, shouting, ringing bells, and blowing horns.

The supposed lion gazed upon them with a look of great surprise.

Then all the people shouted and sounded their gongs, and blew their horns.

They advanced and shouted again. The mock lion began to tremble and bow his head.

Then they shouted again and made such a clatter that the donkey gave a deep and earth-penetrating bra^.

The people were very much astonished to hear a lion bray.

" He is only an ass," said the future Buddha. " This is not a lion roaring, nor a tiger, nor a panther, 'tis a foolish ass that brays."

The people then attacked the poor animal who had thus betrayed himself. They beat him, and broke his bones and carried off the lion's skin.

The hawker stole out to see how the donkey had fared. He found the innocent animal dying, and said :

'' Long might the ass in a lion's skin have fed on the barley green, but he brayed."

The poor donkey heard the " poem," and died at the sound of his own epitaph.

An ass in a lion's skin is sure to bray.

Such were the tales that Ah Hue began to relate before the journey began, and evening by evening before the journey and during the travelling he was asked to relate some new Jataka tale.

Some of the stories were associated with strange images to be found in the decaying temples. These pictured history.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH CHINA ? — THE

BOXERS

Ah Hue had been a doctor. He wore spectacles with great rims, and when he put his spectacles on, and with it a doctor's face, he looked very wise. The tea merchants and their families had a Travellers' Club, which studied the trades of China.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH CHINA? 31

Of all the members of this " Travellers' Study Club of China," Lucy was one of the brightest, and seemed to absorb the most. When the club had had its session, she would go to Doctor Ah Hue to ask if what the club had been studying were true.

'' Let me put on my spectacles," he would say, " and we will talk over the matters."

" You know about these things," said Lucy. " They guess ; I believe what you say."

Doctor Ah Hue felt greatly complimented by Lucy's confidence in him. When she expressed this confidence, he would rise up in his silk robes, take down his great-bowed spectacles from his face, and bow — he seemed to bow to the four corners of the earth.

" Ah Hue," said Lucy, to the large Chinese doctor one day ; " Doctor Ah Hue, there are some things that I do not know ! "

Ah Hue looked very much surprised.

" You know everything," she said.

Ah Hue arose, circled his silk robe, and bowed.

" Not everything," he said, " but what would you ask me now?"

" There have been missionaries in China for a thousand years. You say that the teachings of Christ are the highest and best of all that have been given to mankind — why have your people not received them ? "

" My people say that ' religions are many, but reason is one, and that all mankind are brothers.' Now that is not quite true, for reason is limited, — the dog cannot tell how it is the astronomer calculates an eclipse, and the astronomer himself cannot conceive how the laws of the eclipse came into being. Truth lies in the intuitions, as Christ taught."

"Oh, doctor, I am not able to follow you in such things as these ; what I wish to know is why your people treat the missionary teachers so badly — why they kill them."

" Why did your people kill my people in China towns in Oregon and California years ago ? "

" I do not know. What I wish to learn is what made the Boxers Boxers."

" I can answer my little girl plainly and truly.

'-' Suppose China should learn the arts of war, and become a warlike nation. She could put into the field ten million men. Now suppose she were to manufacture the finest brandy in all the world, and send it to the United States. Do you understand ? "

" I understand."

" And suppose the brandy should degrade your people, ruin their lives, and that your Congress should pass an act that China should not import the ruinous liquor to the United States. You would say that your Congress had done right."

"Yes, Doctor Ah Hue."

" Yes, of course. But suppose that China, having grown rich and powerful, were to declare, ' It is my right to trade where I please and in any commodity. It is the right of trade. I only ask from other nations the same port rights that I give to other nations.' Now suppose that she sends her brandy to Boston and New York, and with it a navy to enforce its sale. New York resists, but the Chinese navy compels her to accept the brandy. New York destroys the brandy, and the navy takes Long Island for her Hong-kong, and so enforces the ruinous liquor on America. How would your people regard China ? "

" They would say that they worshipped markets rather than God."

" Well, my little girl, England acted in much that way toward China, in enforcing opium upon our people, and that act of injustice began to make Boxers, — Chinamen who looked upon white people as ' foreign devils.'

" You have heard of Tonquin. The French by a treaty gained a concession there. Tliey encountered the Black Flags, as the

A CHINESE GUARDIAN DEITY (Image at a Temple Entrance near Sliaflghai^

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH CHINA? 35

pirates were called. They fought the Black Flags, but after the war they annexed Tonquin. The Chinese people, having lost Hong-kong and Tonquin, began to fear for their country. Would not an American have done so under like circumstance ? "

" Yes, Ah Hue."

" Next came Germany. Some of the Catholic priests had sought to take the government of the people of their missions into their own hands. This created jealousy. In 1897, two German priests were killed by the Chinese. Two weeks after the crime, German ships appeared in Kiaochou Bay. The German legation in China made many demands on China, as a reprisal for the murder of the two priests, among them that the Germans should have the sole rights to the coal mines in the province of Shantung. The alarm in China grew — English in Hong-kong, French in Tonquin, and German influence in Shantung. The Boxers grew in number — they represented resistance to foreign aggression.

" Then Italy, in 1899, made an effort to secure the Chinese port of Sanmoon. The Chinese government put its foot down firmly.

" China said ' No.' The war with Japan showed China her weakness ; there was terror everywhere, and the secret society. Boxers, who proclaimed resistance to all foreign influences, grew."

" But our missionaries did not seek their lands, but only their welfare ; they preached peace and brotherhood, and all that is best for the souls of all men."

" True, true, but the innocent often bear the cross for the guilty. The work done by your true missionaries will never die. The work of one like Morrison will live with the stars. But does my little girl see what made the Boxers Boxers ? "