Читать книгу As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home - Various - Страница 11

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The American is an interesting, though not always pleasant, study. His perfect equipoise, his independence, his assumption that he is the best product of the best soil in the world, comes first as a shock; but when you find this but one of the many national characteristics it merely amuses you. One of the extraordinary features of the American is his attitude toward the Chinese, who are taken on sufferance. The lower classes absolutely can conceive of no difference between me and the "coolie." As an example, a boy on the street accosts me with "Hi, John, you washee, washee?" Even a representative in Congress insisted on calling me "John." On protesting to another man, he laughed, and said, "Oh, the man don't know any better." "But," I replied, "if he does not know any better how is it he is a lawmaker in your lower house?" "I give it up," was his answer, and he ordered what they term a "high-ball." After we had tried several, he laughed and asked, "Shall we consider the matter a closed incident?" Many diplomatic, social, and political questions are often settled with a "high-ball."

It is inconceivable to the average American that there can be an educated Chinese gentleman, a man of real refinement. They know us by the Cantonese laundrymen, the class which ranks with their lowest classes. At dinners and receptions I was asked the most atrocious questions by men and women. One charming young girl, who I was informed was the relative of a Cabinet officer, asked me if I would not sometime put up my "pig-tail," as she wished to photograph me. Another asked if it was really true that we privately considered all Americans as "white devils." All had an inordinate curiosity to know my "point of view"; what I thought of them, how their customs differed from my own. Of course, replies were manifestly impossible. At a dinner a young man, who, I learned, was a sort of professional diner-out, remarked to a lady: "None of the American girls will have me for a husband; do you not think that if I should go to China some pretty Chinese girl would have me?" This was said before all the company. Every one was silent, waiting for the response. Looking up, she replied, with charming naïveté, "No, I do not think so," which produced much laughter. Now you would have thought the young man would have been slightly discomfited, but not at all; he laughed heartily, and plumed himself upon the fact that he had succeeded in bringing out a reply.

American men have a variety of costumes for as many occasions. They have one for the morning, which is called a sack-coat, that is, tailless, and is of mixed colors. With this they wear a low hat, an abomination called the derby. After twelve o'clock the frock-coat is used, having long tails reaching to the knees. Senators often wear this costume in the morning—why I could not learn, though I imagine they think it is more dignified than the sack. With the afternoon suit goes a high silk hat, called a "plug" by the lower classes, who never wear them. After dark two suits of black are worn: one a sack, being informal, the other with tails, very formal. They also have a suit for the bath—a robe—and a sleeping-costume, like a huge bag, with sleeves and neck-hole. This is the night-shirt, and formerly a "nightcap" was used by some. There is also a hat to go with the evening costume—a high hat, which crushes in. You may sit on it without injury to yourself or hat. I know this by a harrowing experience.

Many of the customs of the Americans are strange. Their social life consists of dinners, receptions, balls, card-parties, teas, and smokers. At all but the last women are present. At the dinner every one is in evening dress; the men wear black swallowtail coats, following the English in every way, low white vest, white starched shirt, white collar and necktie, and black trousers. If the dinner does not include women the coat-tails are eliminated, and the vest and necktie are black. Exactly why this is I do not understand, nor do the Americans. The dinner is begun with the national drink, the "cocktail"; then follow oysters on the half-shell, which you eat with an object resembling the trident carried in the ceremony of Ah Dieu at the Triennial. Each course of the dinner is accompanied by a different wine, an agreeable but exhilarating custom. The knife and fork are used, the latter to go into the mouth, the former not, and here you see a singular ethnologic feature. Class distinctions may at times be recognized by the knife or fork. Thus I was informed that you could at once recognize a person of the gentleman class by his use of the knife and fork. "This is infallible," said my young lady companion. If he is a commoner, he eats with his knife; if a gentleman, with his fork. This was a very nice distinction, and I looked carefully for a knife eater, but never saw one.

There is a vast amount of ceremony and etiquette about a dinner and various rules for eating, to break which is a social offense. I heard that a certain Madam—— gave lessons in "good form" after the American fashion, so that one could learn what was expected, and at my first dinner I regretted that I had not availed myself of the services of the lady, as at each plate there were nearly a dozen solid silver articles to be used in the different courses, but I endeavored to escape by watching my companion and following her example. But here the impossibility of an American girl resisting a joke caused my downfall. She at once saw my dilemma, and would take up the wrong implement, and when I followed suit she dropped it and took another, laughing in her eyes in a way in which the American girl is a prodigious adept; but completely deceived by her nearly every time, knowing that she was amusing herself at my expense, I said nothing. The Americans have a peculiar term for the mental attitude I had during this trial. I "sawed wood." The saying was particularly applicable to my situation. My young companion was most engaging, and presently began to talk of the superiority of America, her inventions, etc., mentioning the telephone, printing, and others. "Yes, wonderful," I replied; "but the Chinese had the telephone ages ago. They invented printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, and it would be difficult," I said, "for you to mention an object which China has not had for ages." She was amazed that I, a Chinaman, should "claim everything in sight."

There is a peculiar etiquette relating to every course in a dinner. The soup is eaten with a bowl-like spoon, and it is the grossest breach to place this in your mouth, or approach it, endwise. You approach the side and suck the soup from it. To make a noise would attract attention. The etiquette of the fish is to eat it with a fork; to use the knife even to cut the fish would be unpardonable, or to touch it to take out the bones; the fork alone must be used. The punch course is often an embarrassment to the previous wines, and is followed by what the French call the entrée. In fact, while the Americans boast that everything American is the best, French customs are followed at banquets invariably, this being one of the strange inconsistencies of the Americans. Their clothes are copied from the English, though they will claim in the same breath that their tailors are the best in the world. For wines they claim to be unsurpassed, producing the finest; yet the wines on their tables are French or bear French labels. Game is served—a grouse or perhaps a hare, and then a vast roast, possibly venison, or beef, and there are vegetables, followed by a salad of some kind. Then comes the dessert—an iced cream, cakes, nuts, raisins, cheese, and coffee with brandy, and then cigars and vermuth or some cordial. After such a dinner of three hours a Southern gentleman clapped me on the back and said, "Great dinner, that; but let's go and get a drink of something solid," and I saw him take what he termed "two fingers" of Kentucky Bourbon whisky—a very stiff drink. I often wondered how the guests could stand so much.

The dinner has no attendant amusement, no dancing, no professional entertainers, and rarely lasts over two hours. Some houses have stringed bands concealed behind barriers of flowers playing soft music, but in the main the dinner is a jollification, a symposium of stories, where the guests take a turn at telling tales. Story-tellers can not be hired, and the guest at the proper moment says (after having prepared himself beforehand), "That reminds me of a story," and he relates what he has learned with great éclat and applause, as every American will applaud a good story, even if he has heard it time and again. At one dinner which I attended in New York story-telling had been going on for some time when a well-known man came in late. He was received with applause, and when called on for a speech told exactly the same story, by a strange coincidence, that had been told by the last speaker. Not a guest interfered; he was allowed to proceed, and at the end the point was greeted with a roar of laughter. This appeared to me to be an excellent quality in the American character. I was informed that these stories, forming so important a feature of American dinners, are the product mainly of drummers and certain prominent men; but why men that drum are more skilful in story inventing I failed to learn. President Lincoln and a lawyer named Daniel Webster originated a large percentage of the current stories. It is difficult to understand exactly what the Americans mean.

The American story is incomprehensible to the average foreigner, but it is good form to laugh. I will relate several as illustrative of American wit, and I might add that many of these have been published in books for the benefit of the diner-out. A Cabinet minister told of a prisoner who was called to the bar and asked his name. The man had some impediment in his speech, one of the hundred complaints of the tongue, and began to hiss, uttering a strange stuttering sound like escaping steam. The judge listened a few moments, then turning to the guard said, "Officer, what is this man charged with?" "Soda-water, I think, your honor," was the reply. This was unintelligible to me until my companion explained it. You must understand that soda-water is a drink that is charged with gas and makes a hissing, spluttering noise when opened. Hence when the judge asked what the prisoner was charged with the policeman, an Irishman, retorted with a joke, the story-teller disregarding the fact that it was an impertinence.

A distinguished New York judge told the following: Two tenement harridans look out of their windows simultaneously. "Good-morning, Mrs. Moriarity," says one. "Good-morning, Mrs. Gilfillan," says the other, adding, "not that I care a d——, but just to make conversation." This was considered wit of the sharpest kind, and was received with applause. In their stories the Americans spare neither age, sex, nor relatives. The following was related by a general of the army. He said he took a friend home to spend the night with him, the guest occupying the best room. When he came down in the morning he turned to the hostess and said, "Mrs. ——, that was excellent tooth-powder you placed at my disposal; can you give me the name of the maker?" The hostess fairly screamed. "What," she exclaimed, "the powder in the urn?" "Yes," replied the officer, startled; "was it poison?" "Worse, worse," said she; "you swallowed Aunt Jane!" Conceive of this wretched taste. The guest had actually cleaned his teeth with the cremated dust of the general's aunt; yet he told the story before a dinner assemblage, and it was received with shouts of laughter.

I did not hear the intellectual conversation at dinner I had expected. Art, science, literature, were rarely touched upon, although I invariably met artists, litterateurs, and scientific men at these dinners. They all talked small talk or "told stories." I was informed that if I wished to hear the weighty questions of the day discussed I must go to the women's clubs, or to Madam——'s Current Topics Society. The latter is an extraordinary affair, where society women who have no time to read the news of the day listen to short lectures on the news of the preceding week, discussed pro and con, giving these women in a nutshell material for intelligent conversation when they meet senators and other men at the various receptions before which they wish to make an agreeable impression.

The American has many clubs, but is not entirely at home in them. He uses them as places in which to play poker or whist, to dine his men friends, and in a great measure because it is the "proper thing." At many a room is set apart for the national game of poker—a fascinating game to the player who wins. Poker was never mentioned in my presence that some did not make a joke on a supposed Chinaman named Ah Sin; but the obscurity of the joke and my lack of knowledge regarding American literature caused the point to elude me at first, which was true of many jokes. The Americans are preeminently practical jokers, and the ends to which they go is beyond belief. I heard of jokes which, if perpetrated in China, would have resulted in the loss of some one's head. To illustrate this, in the Spanish-American War the camps at Tampa were besieged with newspaper reporters, and one from a large journal was constantly trying to secure secret news by entertaining certain officers with wine and cigars; so they determined to get rid of his importunities, and what is known as a "job" in America was "put up" on him. He was told that Colonel—— had a detailed map of the forthcoming battle, and if he could get the officer intoxicated he doubtless could secure the map. This looked very easy to the correspondent, so the story goes, and he dropped into the colonel's tent one night with a basket of wine, and began to celebrate its arrival from some friends. Soon the colonel pretended to become communicative, and the map was brought out and finally loaned to the correspondent under the promise that it would not be used. This was sufficient. The correspondent hied him to his tent, wrote an article and sent the map to his paper in one of the large cities, where it was duly published. It proved to be what dressmakers call a "Butterick pattern," a maze of lines for cutting out dresses for women. The lines looked like roads, and the practical jokers had merely added towns and forts and bridges here and there.

The Americans are excellent parents, though small families are general. The domestic life is charming. The family is denied nothing needed, the only limit being the purse of the head of the family, so called, the real head in many cases being the wife, who does not fail to assert herself if the proper occasion opens. Well-to-do families have every luxury, and no nation is apparently so well off, so completely supplied with the necessities of life as the American. One is impressed by their business sagacity, their cleverness in finance, their complete grasp of all questions, yet no people are easier gulled or more readily victimized. An instance will suffice. In making my investigations regarding methods of managing railroads, I not only obtained information from the road officials, but questioned the employees whenever it happened that I was traveling. One day, observing that it was the custom to "tip" the porters (give money), I asked the conductor what the men were paid. "Little or nothing," was the reply; "they get from seventy-five to one hundred dollars a month out of the passengers on a long run." "But the passengers paid the road for the service?" "Yes, and they pay the salary of the porter also," said the man. With that in view the men are poorly paid, and the railroad knows that the people will make up their salaries, as they do. If you refused you would have no service.

This rule holds everywhere, in hotels and restaurants. Servants receive little pay where the patronage is rich, with the understanding that they will make it up out of the customers. Thus if you go to a hotel you fee the bell-boy for bringing you a glass of water. If you order one of the seductive cocktails you fee the man who brings it; you fee the chambermaid who attends to your room. Infinite are the resources of these servants who do not receive a fee. You fee the elevator or lift boy, or he will take the opportunity to jerk you up as though shot out of a gun. You fee the porter for taking up your trunk, and give a special fee for unstrapping it. You fee the head waiter, and when you fee the table waiter he whispers in your ear that a slight fee will be acceptable to the cook, who will see that the Count or the Judge will be cared for as becomes his station. When you leave, the sidewalk porter expects a fee; if he does not receive it the door of the carriage may possibly be slammed on the tail of your coat. Then you pay the cabman two dollars to carry you to the station, and fee him. Arriving at the station, he hands you over to a red-hatted porter, who carries your baggage for a fee. He puts you in charge of the railroad porter, who is feed at the rate of about fifty cents per diem.

The American submits to this robbery without a murmur; yet he is sagacious, prudent. I can only explain his gullibility on the ground of his innate snobbery; he thinks it is the "thing to do," and does it, and for this reason it is carried to the most merciless lengths. To illustrate. In the season of 1902, when I was at Newport, Mr. ——, a conspicuous member of the New York smart set, known as the "Four Hundred," lost his hat in some way and rode to his home without one. The ubiquitous reporter saw him, and photographed him, bareheaded, and his paper, the New York——, gave a column the following day to a description of the new fad of going without a hat. Thus the fashion started, and the amazing spectacle was seen the summer following of men and women of fashion riding and walking for miles without hats. This is beyond belief, yet it attracted no attention from the common people, who perhaps got the cast-off hats. Despite this, the Americans are hard-fisted, shrewd, and as a nation a match for any in the field of cunning.

I can explain it in no way than by assuming that it is due to overanxiety to do the correct thing. Their own actors satirize them, one especially taking them off in a jingle which read, "It's English, quite English, you know." It is said of the men of the "Four Hundred" that they turn up their trousers when it rains in London, special reports of the weather being sent to the clubs for the purpose; but I cannot vouch for this. I have seen the trousers turned up in all weathers, and found no one who could explain why he did so. What can you make of so contradictory a people?