Читать книгу Sidelights on Chinese Life - J. Macgowan - Страница 5

A JOKE.

To face p. 17.

In whatever direction one likes to take the Chinaman, he seems to have an hypnotic power that secures, if not favour, at least attention. An English mother takes her little girl, a delicate, fragile little morsel, with blue eyes and golden hair, and she puts her into the arms of one of her coolies to amuse and care for her. He is about as ugly-looking a specimen as you could pick out. He has large, uncouth features and hair unkempt, and the general air of a rowdy. You would naturally suppose that the refined-looking little mortal would shrink from him, but nothing of the kind happens. Her eyes glisten, and she jumps into his arms with alacrity, and by and by you will see her with one arm round his neck and looking with pleasure into his face, full of the most perfect content.

There is no doubt but that one secret of the extraordinary power that the Chinese undoubtedly have is the very large amount of genuine human nature with which as a race they are endowed. The Chinaman is a person that is full of fun. It would seem as though a sense of humour lay at the basis of his character and tinged everything with its subtle influence. A joke with the Chinaman is a solvent that disperses anger and drives away passion from the heart, and makes the broad, uncouth faces shine with a light, like sunbeams playing upon the rugged sides of a hill. If the Chinese had been a nation of sombre, gloomy people, without a gleam of humour in their natures, they would have been a positive peril to the world. As it is, the genial strain that is the woof and warp of the Celestial’s being makes him a person that can win his way into the hearts of strangers, and slowly dissipate the prejudice that they at first have, because of his homely and unattractive features, and the yellow hue that tinges his skin with a most inartistic colour.

He can be very cruel when the passion is upon him, but under ordinary circumstances he is full of kindness and sympathy, and he will exercise these qualities in such a genial way that one’s heart feels drawn out towards him. When one gets beyond the outside formalities and into the inner life of the people, and beyond the crust of selfishness that heathenism has caused to gather round their hearts, one discovers a fund of possible human virtues that under the influence of Christianity will expand and develop so that the nation that the world has been accustomed to look upon with a smile, and as simply an ingenious puzzle that the West has never been able to put together, will turn out to be amongst the most fascinating and most attractive of the peoples of the earth.

There is one feature about the Chinaman that, from a Western point of view, is a most disappointing one, and that is his apparent inability to be thorough. The watchword of the West is “thorough,” and in every department of life the aim is to do everything as perfectly as human hands or brains can make them. Now in China there is no such ideal motive anywhere to be found. A workman, for example, will make some exquisite work of art, and yet he will finish off some part that is not obvious to the eye in the most slovenly and inartistic manner. You order a hardwood table, to be inlaid with pearl, and after weeks of patient toil and most elaborate workmanship, that will bear the keenest investigation, you find the legs, or perhaps the underside of the table, finished off in a slovenly, careless way, more suited to an article that was intended to be used in the kitchen. One is being continually provoked by Chinese workmen bringing in things, that have been ordered, without proper finish. You remonstrate with them, and they look at you with amazement. They are amused at your being annoyed at something which the turbidity of the Yellow brain never discovers as being at all wrong. A broad smile illumines their faces, and they say, “Oh, well, never mind, for after all it is a matter of no importance; let it go.”

This tendency of the Chinese mind is visible in every direction. You arrange with a builder for some work to be done. You impress upon him that the matter is urgent. You give him your reason for thinking this, and he agrees with you, and you finally settle with him a near day when he will have his workmen assembled and operations will be begun. As the Chinaman’s brain is apt to work slowly, and it is difficult to get him to grasp a consecutive statement of any length, you go over the whole thing to him once more, and finally you make him repeat in his own words the ideas you wish him to carry out. Everything now seems plain, and although doubts will flash through your brain, you dismiss them at once as unreasonable, and you look with certainty to the contract being carried out.

The day arrives and you proceed to the spot, expecting to see a hive of busy workmen, but not a soul turns up. You send for the builder, and you ask him how it is that he has broken his agreement with you. He smiles and looks amused that you should be in such a hurry. He cannot understand it, for the difference of a day or two, or a week even, is such a trivial matter in this land, that the Chinese are constantly wondering why a foreigner gets excited if a thing is not done at the precise time that has been agreed upon.

The fact is the great Eastern Sun is in his eyes, and his rays have entered into his blood, and the languor of the Orient is upon him, so that time marches by and he feels that he dare not attempt to keep step with it. To be efficient and thorough means intensity, but that the Chinese race will not attempt. Some writers have predicted that a day may come when, inspired by a spirit of war, they will flash their swords in a wild conquest of the West. This is a dream that will never be realized. Both by instinct and by ages of training, the Chinese are essentially a peace-loving people. The glory of war is something that does not appeal to them. Trade, and commerce, and money-making, and peaceful lives are the ideals of the race. No sooner is a clan fight begun, or a war with another nation, than the air at once resounds with the cry, “Mediate,” “Mediate.” Mediation is in the very blood of the nation, and the man who is a successful mediator is one that wins a golden reputation for himself.

What the West has to fear is not the warlike spirit of the Chinese, which has never been a very important factor in their past history, but their numbers. They are a people that multiply rapidly, but through the operation of Fung-Shuy and other endless superstitions, the resources of China have never been allowed to be developed so as to support the huge population. Large numbers of people have consequently been compelled to go abroad to earn a living.

These, as far as the native populations have been concerned, have rarely been desirable immigrants, but this is especially the case with the great nations of the West. The Chinese are a strong race, and can live in comfort, and even luxury, on incomes that would mean starvation to American or Australian workmen. The battle of the future with the Yellow race will not be fought on any battlefield, but in the labour markets of the nations that they would invade.

SOME CHINESE BOYS.

To face p. 21.