Chinese pictures

A horseshoe-shaped excavation is made in a hillside facing south, the whole construction being faced with stone. There is in this mode of arranging graves a similarity to that adopted by the Etruscans.

So careful is the Chinaman about his burial, that the date and place of a funeral is not fixed until the geomancers have decided as to both. Sometimes the coffins with their inmates remain above ground for months, and even years, waiting for the professional decision as to a favourable day. In such cases, where the friends are able, every care is taken of them, incense being daily burned before them. It was no uncommon thing for Mrs. Bishop, on her journey in Sze Chuan, to have to sleep in a room where a coffin was stored, waiting the day of its interment, incense burning and other religious rites being daily performed in front of it. To prevent mischief owing to the retention of bodies above ground for so long a time, the coffins are built of very thick wood, the bodies are placed in lime, the joints of the coffin are cemented, and the whole covered with varnish.

Mukden is the capital of Manchuria, the Northern Province. In every province of the Empire the God of Literature stands highest in the Chinese Pantheon, and it is interesting to note that the God of War stands low, though in China, as in other countries, we know women are devoted to his worship. In no country of the world does literature stand in such high estimation; by means of it the poorest man may climb to the highest post in the Empire. Nothing so helps a man to a career as a knowledge of the literature of his country. Reverence for it has become a superstition, and societies exist for collecting waste paper and saving any writing from indignity by burning it in furnaces erected for the purpose in every town.

Another temple at Mukden, greatly frequented by mandarins. A group of them is seated in the centre. The temple is situated close to the city wall, which is shown in process of decay, the descending roots of the trees stripping off its facing, which lies and will continue to lie on the ground. It is an admirable illustration of the way things are allowed to go to ruin in China. The Chinese will undertake new works; they seldom repair old ones, and an aspect of decay is consequently frequently visible.

Found all over the country, and commonly known as “Joss Houses.” There is an idol in each of them. They are of interest as presenting a similar feature to the shrine and wayside crucifixes found all over Catholic countries in Europe.

A kind of banyan tree found in every village of the South and South Central Provinces of China. Its foliage covers an enormous extent of ground. The tree itself is an object of worship, and an altar for the burning of incense is always found beneath it.

A fine picture of an open-air altar outside Foochow City.

Wherever there is a magistrate there is a temple to Confucius, in which the magistrates do homage in memory of the Great Teacher. The tablet is inscribed with a number of his most important sayings having a bearing on the administration of justice. This great man has by his teaching dominated the laws, the teaching, the literature, and the whole social life of nearly half the human race for the last two thousand years. These shrines are absolutely taboo to the foreigner, a fact which was learned by the traveller only after she had entered it and, finding it absolutely empty, had made her photograph.

The manufacture of porcelain has for centuries made China celebrated. It may be of interest to refer to the fact that we owe the existence of our Worcester porcelain works to the attempt made by a chemist to produce porcelain in England similar to the Chinese. A great many temples in the Empire province of Sze Chuan have their fronts and roofs of this porcelain. They are most gorgeous in colour, and have the appearance of being jewelled.

The Chinese eat an enormous number of things which the Western turns from, or which he doesn’t know of. As a rule the Chinese are good cooks, and the food is wholesome, steaming being the favourite method. Rice is the staff of life to the masses, who eat it mixed with fried cabbage or some other flavouring ingredient. It is seldom eaten alone. So common and universal is rice eating that, while in French the equivalent of “How do you do?” is “How do you carry yourself?” and in Italian “How do you stay?” in Chinese the equivalent is “Have you eaten rice?”

City walls are a great feature of the country. The illustration is of a fort on one of the angles of the wall of Peking, the interest of it lying in the fact that the guns showing in the embrasures are dummies, being simply painted wood. Probably the cost of real guns went into the pockets of some official entrusted with providing the armament of the fort.

This fort is filled with carronades, old guns still kept there, though absolutely useless, being honeycombed with disuse and rust.

Many hundred years old, but as bronze castings they are reckoned to be amongst the finest in the world. And as astronomical instruments their results differ very little from those obtained by astronomers from appliances of the most modern construction.

Perhaps the most interesting and picturesque feature of the country is its city gates. There is a great family likeness between them, the usual fort-like building surmounting the wall where it is pierced by the gate. It is not a fort, however. In it are kept the gongs and other musical instruments by means of which are announced the rising and the setting of the sun. This is the gate which was blown up by the Japanese in their recent attack on and entry into the city. It is the largest and most important gate in Peking.

Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, is officially the second city of the Empire. In it are duplicated all the official boards, save one, that exist in Peking, the capital of the Empire. Thus Mukden possesses its Board of Rites and Ceremonies, of Punishments, etc., etc., just like Peking. Close to Mukden are the ancestral graves of the Manchu dynasty.

A most picturesque entrance to the city. These gates are closed at sunset and opened at sunrise, the gongs and other instruments notifying the hours of opening and closing.

One of the friendliest cities to the foreigner. The cry of “Foreign devil!” is never heard within its walls. The people have had time to learn how much they profit by the trade the foreigner brings, and by the efforts of the missionaries to ameliorate the condition of the very poor by their hospitals. Hangchow is a great centre of the silk trade. The whole city, which has a population of 700,000, and the principal street of which is five miles long, is surrounded by a wall faced with hewn stone, such as is shown in the photograph. It is pierced by many gates. It is a treaty port, two days’ journey from the great foreign settlement of Shanghai.

In contrast to Hangchow, though only two miles from a treaty port, it is believed that no foreigner has ever had the foolhardiness to enter this gate. It is a city of the fifth order only; but such is the hatred and detestation in which the foreigner is held, it would be almost certain death to him to enter it. This hatred of the foreigner is a very curious characteristic of the country. No one can tell how it has arisen, for though one can understand that the attempts of Western nations to force open the ports of the country, and the seizure of territory by certain of them, and perhaps the advent of the missionaries, are causes enough to provoke opposition and hatred, they do not account for its ferocity. The idea of the Chinaman and the Chinawoman is that the foreigner is a child-eater, that no children are safe within his reach, that he kills children that he may take their eyes and hearts to make into his medicines. This belief is so deeply rooted, that when the cry of “Foreigner!” is raised, in almost any city, the women will run into the streets, snatch up their children, and carry them for safety into their homes; and the cry raised is always “Foreign devil!” “Child-eater!” It may be noted that a similar suspicion exists over a great part of Central and Southern Europe towards the Jews, who are charged with murdering children to mingle their blood with sacrifices.

Hangchow is the city of silk, a wealthy and generally well-to-do city. Everything speaks to the visitor of silk. The country is covered by the mulberry tree, which grows in every available spot. There are thousands of hand-looms. In the picture given, the silk is being wound into a thread from the cocoons, which are thrown into a pan of hot water, kept hot by a small furnace; the ends of the threads are disentangled from the cocoon, four or five of them taken together are given a twist by the right hand, whilst the left winds the thread on to the wheel. This is the first step in, and the foundation of, all silk manufacture.

This particular house was at Mukden, in Manchuria. The main building is surrounded by a courtyard. The outer building contains the servants’ rooms. They live around the courtyard, the family occupying the central building. The windows of the servants’ rooms may be seen in the outer wall. The pillars of woodwork are highly decorated, and in the courtyard itself there is always a flower-garden. Comparing this simple house with a palace such as the English Legation, it will be seen that the latter is but an amplification of the ordinary house, the number of courtyards surrounding the chief dwelling being greater, but the principle of construction being the same.

Every good house has its guest hall, and every invited guest knows his place in it. A Chinaman is wretched in a foreign house because he does not know his place in it. Etiquette prescribes everything in China, and no matter who or what the visitor may be, he knows which chair to take. No matter who may be present, he is never disturbed or distressed; and when tea or pipes are introduced he enjoys them as though he were in his own house, and both host and visitor are perfectly at their ease.

On the Min or Fu River, above the point where it runs into the Upper Yangtze. The black-and-white architecture of the villages reminds one constantly of Switzerland and the Tyrol. As to the village, it is by no means lacking in organisation. Every village consists of a group or groups of families with their head men, and over the head men are the district magistrates. The family is the centre of everything. The members are bound together by the strongest ties, and the family is responsible for the individual. The people have quite a genius for self-government, and every village is self-governing, having its privileges, which no one dare interfere with.

An illustration of the Patriarchal system. When a son marries and brings home his wife, he literally brings her home—that is, to his father’s house; but a new gable is added to those in existence, and the house increased for the accommodation of the new family, a custom which has its counterpart in Italy and other parts of Europe to-day.

All through the Empire province of Sze Chuan, the western province of the Yangtze Basin, markets are held in the market street, specially reserved for the purpose. On market days the street is crowded by thousands of people, the tea and other shops are overflowing, and the noise and shouts of the bargainers are deafening. The shops are generally owned by farmers in the neighbourhood, who let them for the use of merchants on market day. On other than market days they are like deserted villages. No one is to be seen but the caretaker and his family, who are shown in the photograph with the inevitable dog and pig and buffalo. The building on the right is a temple.

A very important personage in China. He deals, however, with men’s shoes only. The women wear tiny satin or brocaded things which they mostly make and mend themselves. They are from two to three inches long, and with hard-working women in the fields the feet never extend four inches. The Chinese practice of binding the feet of girls is very old. It is, of course, only a fashion, but it has the sanction of great antiquity. A girl with her feet the normal shape would stand no chance of getting married. The binding process begins very early—between four and five generally, though sometimes it is postponed to a later date, when the process is much more painful. The four toes are doubled under the foot, and the large toe folded on the top. When bound together a sort of club-foot or hoof results, but the women manage to walk in spite of their deformity. To a western eye, the movement resembles a waddle rather than a walk.

In the great fertile plain of Sze Chuan, where four crops a year are taken off the ground, this is an enormous industry. The Chinese cannot afford any waste; everything must go back to the ground. We seek to get over the deterioration of the land by changing the crops. In China the same crops have been grown on the land for a thousand years, and it shows no signs of deterioration.

In which a bride of the upper classes is carried to her husband’s home. It is often a very beautiful thing, gorgeous with its embroidery in silk and colours. People who are not rich enough to have one of their own can hire them for the occasion. In China large families are the rule. If a mother dies, the women of the village suckle and bring up the child between them, and children are not weaned until they are from three to five years of age. Chinese women are very modest and kind-hearted, are faithful wives, and, according to their own notions, good mothers. In Sze Chuan there is no trace of infanticide, but it is practised in many parts of the Empire.

In travelling, the carriage of money is a great annoyance, owing to the smallness of its value and the large number of coins or “cash” necessary to make up an amount of any size. Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies. These cash have a square hole in the middle, and are strung together upon a piece of straw twist. Should the straw break, the loss of time in getting up the pieces is much more than the loss of the money. The Chinese are honest, very keen at a bargain, but when the bargain is made the Chinaman may be depended on to keep it.

These are often very fine structures in stone, wonderfully carved, or in wood highly decorated. It is not uncommon to enter a town under quite a succession of them. Very fine ones are often found at the entrance of very squalid villages. They are erections put up to honour widows who, faithful to the memory of their husbands, have remained widows, devoting themselves to good works and to the service of their parents-in-law, which is the great duty of every good wife. Permission of the Emperor has to be obtained for their erection. The various towns and villages take pride in their “widows’ arches.” It is not uncommon to find a shrine for the burning of incense beside the arch.

The military are usually dressed in picturesque but unserviceable, not to say grotesque costumes, the carnation red, beloved of the Chinese, and blue being the prevailing colours. They carry fans, and often paper umbrellas. They are ill-trained and indolent, lounging about the gates of the cities or the streets gambling and smoking. Their curse is that they have nothing to do.

The great system of irrigation at Sze Chuan was intended for the cultivation of rice only; but the great and terrible growth in the demand for opium has caused the cultivation of the poppy so to increase that it is encroaching on the rice lands.

This may be regarded as the saddest and most terrible fact as regards the future of China.

The use of opium is of comparatively recent date, but the growth and spreading of the habit has been most rapid.

At the first, both local and government officials did their best to stop it and to stamp out the culture of the poppy; but although laws were passed making death the penalty for its cultivation they became a dead letter, until to-day it is estimated that eighty per cent. of the men and fifty per cent. of the women, in one or two populous provinces, are opium smokers. They do not all smoke to excess. There are moderate smokers as we have our moderate drinkers; but all through the province of Sze Chuan the opium shops are as thick as the gin shops in the lower parts of London.

It is not necessary to dilate on the effects of opium when freely indulged in. They are too well known. China’s only hope is to emancipate herself from the vice that is eating away her manhood. But will she be able to do it?