Sidelights on Chinese Life Part 17

The story-teller, or, as he is popularly called by the Chinese, "The Narrator of Ancient Things," is really the historian of the common people.

Without him, the history of the past, and the story of the great men that lived in ancient times, and the deeds of heroism, and the revolutions of dynasties, would all be lost in oblivion. The great ma.s.s of the Chinese are absolutely illiterate, and cannot read the books that contain the stories of the past. The story-teller comes in to supply the lack of learning, and he recounts the tales of great battles that were fought in the dawn of Chinese history, and he tells of the struggles that the Empire has had with the warlike tribes that lay along the northern frontiers of China, and in vivid word-painting he describes the heroes and sages that have played so mighty a part in the building up of the Middle Kingdom. It is entirely due to him that the past lives in the thought and imagination of the men of to-day, and that men's blood is fired and their pa.s.sions moved at the thought of the great deeds that their fathers in days gone by were able to accomplish.

These men are accustomed to come out every afternoon when the weather permits and take their positions in some well-known public resort, and recount their stories to the groups of people that very soon gather round to listen to them. Their favourite place is in front of some popular temple towards which the roads converge, and where incessant streams of people pa.s.s and repa.s.s without ever ceasing their flow. Some of these are always sure to stop awhile and listen to the stirring tales that never seem to lose their attraction for the Chinaman.

Some of the most popular of these are taken from a standard work, half fiction and half history, called _The Three Kingdoms_. This book contains a description of the times when three great rivals, occupying three different sections of the country, were contending for the mastery with each other (A.D. 221). It is written in a very delightful style, and is crammed full of adventures of the most exciting and romantic description from the first page to the very end.

The hero that s.h.i.+nes most conspicuously in this historical novel is Kung-Ming, the beau ideal general and warrior, and the audience is never weary of listening to the exciting stories of his adventures, whilst he was striving to uphold the falling fortunes of his royal master. One of these is exceedingly popular, as it deserves to be, since it ill.u.s.trates the fertility of Kung-Ming's mind in his ingenious devices in carrying on the war with the two rival leaders with whom he was contending.

On one occasion he had sent on a large army that he had collected to fight with a rival general who was nearly as able as himself, whilst he followed behind, hoping to reach it before the enemy came into contact with it. He was proceeding leisurely along, when he was suddenly disturbed by a rush of defeated soldiers who were flying in the utmost disorder as though pursued by a successful foe. He found to his dismay that these were his own men, who had been routed and dispersed by the opposing army; and so thoroughly had they been demoralized by their defeat that all the influence and prestige that he possessed had no power to stay their flight, or to induce them to gather round his standard and once more follow him to meet the enemy.

The panic indeed was so universal and the fear of the pursuing enemy so great, that he was deserted by every one excepting two of the most devoted of his followers, and with these he retreated to the city of Han-chung that lay some miles away in the rear. Entering into this, he ordered the city gates to be thrown wide open, whilst he and his two friends took up their position on the city wall with guitars in their hands, and there, as though they were celebrating a great victory, they sang songs and played the most lively airs on their instruments.

Before long the first ranks of the advancing foe appeared in the distance, and ere long the whole army, with banners flying and trumpets braying and with every sign of exultation, rapidly advanced in the direction of the city with the certainty of capturing it without a blow. As the troops drew near, what was their astonishment to find that the gates were flung wide open, whilst Kung-Ming, the redoubtable general, was seen playing the guitar on the walls of the town in full view of the whole army.

The general immediately ordered a halt of all the troops under his command, and rode forward with his staff to examine into this remarkable state of things. The city gates truly were thrown wide open, but not a soldier could be seen either there or upon the ramparts, neither was there any sign of defence whatsoever. All that could be seen was Kung-Ming sitting with a gay and festive air on one of the towers, tw.a.n.ging his guitar and singing one of the national songs of the time. As the general gazed in the utmost perplexity the notes of the music vibrated through the air, and the loud tones of Kung-Ming, heard above the highest strains, reached the listening soldiers as they stood to their arms.

There was something mysterious about these open gates, and the musical entertainment that could only have been prepared for the enemy. Kung-Ming had always been noted for the fertility of his resources, and now he had evidently thought out a deep-laid scheme to involve his enemies in utter ruin.

The general was a man of consummate ability, but he recognized that in military tactics he was no match for the man that was singing so blithely on the walls above him. Fearful lest his army should be involved in some terrible disaster by the wily foe with whom he had to contend, he gave orders to retreat, and every man under his command felt that he was not safe until some miles had been placed between him and the famous general who had been entertaining them in so strange and unlooked-for a manner.

Thus by this famous ruse Kung-Ming saved his town for his master, and at the same time gave him an opportunity of gathering together his forces for a new campaign with his enemies. The story has come down the ages, and to-day is perpetuated in the language in the well-known proverb, "Kung-Ming offered the empty city to his enemy," which is often applied to clinch an argument about something that is happening in daily life.

Another story is told that is always listened to with wrapt attention, and it is that of a Prince that ruled in the far-off distant times who was often in collision with the Barbarians that lived just outside the frontiers of the Empire. He was a valiant man and greatly beloved by his feudal barons and earls that owed him military service, and who were bound to call together their retainers and follow him to the field whenever they were summoned by him to active service.

After a time he came completely under the fascination of a beautiful concubine whom he had in his harem. Through her influence he neglected the duties of the State, and the greatest disorders prevailed throughout it.

The wild and warlike tribes across the border who used to be restrained by the firm hand of the Prince, now made incessant raids into his dominions and ravaged the lands of the people, and murdered or carried off into slavery many of the inhabitants, without any action being taken to punish the marauders or to protect the people against their inroads.

Several years went by and frequent appeals were made to their ruler to take up arms and drive back the robbers into the wilds and steppes of their native land, but the fatal influence of the court beauty had made him careless whether his people were protected or not. At length the predatory excursions of the Mongols and the Kins and the Huns, the roving migratory tribes that found China such a fruitful field for plunder and robbery, became so incessant and so destructive to his dominions that he was compelled to organize an expedition to drive them across the border.

Lighting the beacon fires throughout the State, which was the usual signal for the a.s.sembling of the feudal chiefs to repair to the capital with their various quotas of men and arms, there was soon a.s.sembled a formidable force prepared to follow their Prince wherever he desired to lead them against the enemies of their country. On the morning of the day on which the army was to start to punish the robbers who were desolating the northern districts of his dominions, a select body of the chiefs had an interview with their ruler, and they declared that not a soldier would obey the orders to march until he had consented to grant them one request, and that was that he should order the instant execution of the concubine who had wrought such injury to the State, and that her head should be handed over to them, so that they might be sure that she had really been put to death.

The Prince, who was desperately in love with the unfortunate woman, at first resolutely refused to do what they asked. As the very existence of the State, as they believed, depended upon its being granted, they were firm in their determination not to march against the enemy until the b.l.o.o.d.y deed had been carried out. After holding out for several days, and finding that the leaders were inexorable, the executioner was sent into the palace, and soon the head of the famous beauty was delivered to the barons, and the army took its march to avenge the wrongs that the wild and lawless tribes had so long inflicted upon the country.

The story-teller has an inexhaustible store of adventures, and romances, and love scenes, and great episodes in history upon which to draw. He has also the free use of his pictorial powers in drawing the scenes and pictures with which he would stir the imagination and the enthusiasm of his audiences. Many of these men are real artists in their profession, and they can hold their hearers spellbound whilst they give a realistic picture of some stirring event that happened ages ago, or of some great catastrophe in which a dynasty disappeared amidst scenes of carnage and bloodshed, and the new one came in to the sound of music and amidst the rejoicings of a nation. They are, however, a vulgar, dissipated set of men, and though they do occasionally get inspired with their subjects and rise to high flights of eloquence, there is not a single n.o.ble feature about them. It is not love for their art that makes them reproduce the comedies and tragedies of the past, but an irrepressible longing for the opium, which has put its leaden hues on their faces, and its fierce and unholy craving into their hearts.

There is another profession that ought to stand the very highest amongst all the honourable occupations that give men employment in this land, and that is the one that might in a rough and general way be called that of "interpreter of the G.o.ds." This individual occupies the position he does not by any human choice, but by the special selection of the idol for whom he is to act. A vacancy, say, occurs in a particular temple, and a man must be appointed who can report to the wors.h.i.+ppers the answers that the G.o.d has to give them to the particular pet.i.tions they have made to it.

Without such a man the idol is dumb. It has a mouth, but it cannot speak; it has eyes, but they look out of wooden sockets, and no tears of sympathy have ever been known to fall from them; and it has a face with human features, but no story, the most pathetic that was ever told in the hearing of man, has ever been known to cause it to be suffused with emotion or to touch the cold and pa.s.sionless features with a touch of pity.

The man that aspires to occupy this high position must go through a certain ordeal before he can be accepted by the temple authorities as the one whom the idol is willing to employ to be the medium by which it shall communicate its purposes to the people. A certain weird ceremony is performed in front of the G.o.d during some dark night, when only a candle or two show the idol surrounded by the mystery of darkness. Incantations are slowly chanted, and invocations made to the wooden image to inspire the man that stands motionless in front of it. The tap of a drum now and again sounds as a kind of ba.s.s note to the higher notes of the reciter of the vague and mystic language that is supposed to move the idol to a manifestation of its will.

After an hour or so of this monotonous dirge and occasional tapping of the drum, which is evidently meant to quicken the decision of the G.o.d, the man who has been as silent and as motionless as a statue begins to slightly sway from side to side. The taps on the drum now become more rapid and more vigorous, and ere long the wretched man becomes convulsed and falls on the ground as though he were in a fit.

The scene is ended, and the G.o.d, it is believed, has entered and taken possession of the man, and now whenever he speaks officially he does so as its inspired oracle, and his utterances are accepted as though they had been spoken by the idol itself.

One would naturally imagine that candidates for this exalted position would come from among men of culture and refinement, and that the highest in the land would eagerly desire a position where they would be so thoroughly in communication with the supernatural and be recognized by their countrymen as worthy of the highest places in the religion of the ma.s.ses. But this is not the case. No scholar would ever dream of demeaning himself and of rendering himself contemptible in the eyes of the literary cla.s.ses by consenting to become an interpreter of the G.o.ds. No respectable citizen would agree either for himself or for any member of his family to degrade himself by accepting such a position.

The men that actually are employed are opium-smokers who have lost their property in their indulgence of the popular vice, and as a last resort have come to the point of bearing the stigma and the disgrace connected with the office in order to get the gains that come to them when they are doing duty in the temple. If by some accident they should not have acquired the habit of opium-smoking, then it may be taken for granted that they are persons of no moral standing in the community--gamblers, loafers, or hangers-on to the outskirts of society, and such like.

Such are the men that a.s.sume the sacred office of being so inspired by the G.o.ds that they shall be qualified to carry messages from the invisible world to those who are in sorrow and distress, and who can find comfort only in the thought that the unseen powers are working on their behalf.

That their new position does not affect in the slightest degree their moral character is seen by the lives they lead after they have undergone the process of being specially inspired by the idols to qualify for the delicate office of interpreting their very thoughts to their wors.h.i.+ppers.

They are lazy and idle and profligate. Their leisure time, which is extensive, is spent in gambling and in occupations entirely unsuited to their sacred character. They have been known to make excursions during the darkness of the night when honest men are in their beds and dig up people's potatoes, or, if no obstacles occur, to despoil a farmer's henroost of all the birds in it. There certainly is a Nemesis that attends the irregular lives of these regular clergy of the idols, for they have not only an evil reputation, but according to popular report death invades their families until one after another is taken away and the home becomes extinct. That this happens often enough to warrant the tradition is quite evident to those who have studied the question. It is also a remarkable fact, that whilst these men who are the ministers of the idols are looked down upon with contempt, the G.o.ds who select and employ them are never censured by the public or considered to be involved in the evils of their servants.

It is a strange system that allows men of a low and depraved character to be the chief actors in the spiritual movements of a nation, but it is on a par with the fact that in the wors.h.i.+p of the idols, goodness or reformation in heart or life is never required from a single wors.h.i.+pper.

The bad man brings his offering without any promise that there will be a change in his life, and it is apparently accepted just as freely as that of another whose reputation stands high amongst all cla.s.ses of the community. This latter fact is a sufficient explanation of how it is possible for such men as now act as interpreters of the G.o.ds to be tolerated in the service of the temples at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL VILLAGE.]

CHAPTER XII

SCHOOLS, SCHOOL-MASTERS, AND SCHOOL-BOOKS

Chinese pa.s.sionately fond of education--Reverence for printed or written words--State makes no laws for the education of the people--The school-house and the school-master--System of teaching--Boys first learn sound of words--After years of study learn the meaning of each character--Small percentage of readers in China--One set of school-books in every school in the Empire--The _Three Word Cla.s.sic_--The "Four Books" and the "Five Cla.s.sics," with a.n.a.lyses.

There is no nation in the world that has a more pa.s.sionate and earnest desire for education than the Chinese. In the four great divisions into which all society has been roughly divided, the scholar is placed at the head of the list, as the one that is considered most worthy of honour.

Outside of official rank, the highest t.i.tle that the Chinese have in the whole of their language is bestowed upon the school-master. He may be a man so poor that he has hardly enough money to buy food for himself and his family, and his clothes may be of the plainest and the meanest description, and yet he has a t.i.tle given him that is never bestowed upon any of the three other cla.s.ses. A man might be a millionaire and rolling in wealth, but if he were simply a merchant or a tradesman, the coveted t.i.tle that the poorest scholar gets would never be given to him, even by the most loyal of his friends or by the meanest servant in his employ.

The reverence that the nation has for learning has induced a sentimental and what might seem to be a superst.i.tious regard for the mere written or printed word. Even that dead form is held to be so sacred that it may not be misused or treated with contempt or indifference. A very common sight in a Chinese street is to see a man with a basket slung over his shoulder on which is inscribed two large characters which mean "Have pity on the writing." His eyes are kept steadily on the roadway, and on any nook or cranny by the side, and he eagerly pounces on any sc.r.a.ps of paper, no matter how frayed or dirty, and places them in his basket. Occasionally he catches sight of a broken piece of pottery or a fragment of a rice bowl on which are some of the precious characters that were burnt into them when they were being manufactured. These also are picked up and reverently laid aside with the pieces of paper that have been rescued from the feet of the pa.s.sers-by.

You stop the man and you ask him what he means by picking up this rubbish on the street, and he tells you that he is employed by benevolent persons who cannot bear the thought of seeing the sacred characters that were invented by the sages and that had been the cause of China's greatness trodden under foot of men. And so he is gathering all that he can find on the streets, and at a certain time with due ceremony the whole will be burnt, and be thus saved from the dishonour that had been put upon them.

The devotion to education is not a mere sentimental one, but one that has covered this great Empire with schoolhouses, for in all the towns and cities and in all the larger villages even the people have established the common schools in which the children of the locality may receive an education. There are no such things as Government schools, neither are there private ones. It is true that rich men sometimes engage teachers for their sons and have the tuition carried on in their own homes, but what may be called the common schools of the country are managed and supported entirely by the elders or leading men in the various localities in which they exist.

The State takes no cognizance whatever of the educational efforts of the people, neither is it called upon to spend a cash in upholding the inst.i.tutions that are in existence for the teaching of the youth of the country. The people have from time immemorial taken these duties upon themselves, and they have willingly borne the responsibility of raising the funds that have been necessary for the successful carrying on of the schools.

The usual practice is at the close of the year for the leaders, say, of a village to meet together and discuss the question of the next year's school. They have already canva.s.sed the parents who have sons, and ascertained how many of them will attend and how much they are willing to contribute towards the teacher's salary. They are thus in a position to know whether they have sufficient funds to invite a first-cla.s.s man to take charge of the school, or whether they will have to be content with an inferior scholar instead.

This question being settled, the next point is to secure the school-master. If there happens to be one belonging to the village, or one connected in any way with the leading men, the difficulty is then very much simplified, but if an unknown man is to be engaged, then it may mean endless complications for a whole year. He may turn out to be an opium-smoker, or he may be a vagabond and rarely be seen within the walls of the school-house; for when once he is engaged the people have no redress whatever, but must tolerate all his misdeeds and pay him the salary agreed upon without a murmur or a complaint to him personally. Any attempt on the part of the villagers to compel him to carry out his contract faithfully would simply end in their being censured and fined by the mandarin for daring to a.s.sert themselves against one of the highly-privileged cla.s.ses in China. We will suppose, however, that a fairly respectable man has been obtained, and that all the arrangements for opening the school have been satisfactorily made. The usual time for the commencement of the school year is three or four days after the "Feast of Lanterns," which takes place about the middle of February.

The school-house is usually situated in a central part of the village, and consists of a school-room capable of accommodating twenty or thirty scholars, a small bedroom for the teacher, and a diminutive kitchen also for his special use. The managers provide him with a four-poster, a high oblong table and a few chairs, and also a mosquito-net to be used during the warm weather when those plagues of the East carry on their campaign with such unceasing vigour against all animal life. They also place a table and chair in the school-room, which are to be for his own exclusive use, but beyond these they leave the furnis.h.i.+ng of the place to the individual scholars, who bring their own stools and tables with them on the day that the studies begin. On the table are an inkstone, a diminutive water-bottle, two or three camel's-hair pens or brushes, a stick of Indian ink, and last, though not least, a good solid piece of bamboo with which the refractory and the indolent will frequently make acquaintance during the coming months of the session. There are also a miniature teapot and Lilliputian teacups, all deftly placed on a lacquer tray, ready for use whenever the master feels that he would like to refresh himself with a few sips of the popular beverage that "cheers but not inebriates."

The school life of a boy in China would seem to one who has not been brought up in Western methods as a dreary and intolerable one, and such as would take the heart out of any English lad and make him hate the very sight of books as long as he lived. The duties of the day begin at a very early hour, and with certain intermissions for meals last until the evening shades have entered the school-room and blurred the faces of the books so that the strange, weird-looking words cannot be recognized one from the other.

The little fellows have to rise as the dawn begins to fling its grey and trembling light across the darkness that clouds the earth, and to send its kindly messages into the homes of rich and poor. Feeling the terror of the master upon them, they quickly jump out of bed, and with no time to wash their faces or to brush their hair, they hurry along the various paths that lead to the school, where they find the teacher waiting for them, and with a frown upon his face if they should happen to be a few minutes late.

The lads never enter the school-room without a feeling of restraint. It is considered that a cold and haughty kind of bearing on the part of the master is essential in order to maintain the discipline of the school.

There is, therefore, very seldom if ever any feeling of affection or devotion between the scholars and him. To them he appears to have no kindliness of heart and no human sympathies, nor any lovable thought for any one of them. He is simply there as a kind of living machine to teach these youngsters this huge Chinese language, but as for sentiment or any tender feeling for them, that is utterly out of the question.

The method in which the studies are carried on is the very reverse of what is demanded and insisted upon in the home schools. There the great aim is to secure not only perfect order but as complete silence as possible. When there is anything like noise in the school-room it means that the lads are talking with each other and not studying their lessons. An English lad can best master these by thinking over them, and in silence committing to memory the various thoughts or problems that may be contained in the book he is called upon to study.

Now it seems impossible for any Chinese boy to impress upon his mind's eye the intricate and apparently meaningless strokes that make up the ordinary Chinese word. He seems to be able to do this only by bawling them at the very top of his voice. Efforts have been made to get the scholars in a school to learn them without raising their voices, but failure has always been the result. The consequence is, that silence amongst the lads is most displeasing to a Chinese school-master, and a stern, severe look from him will set them all off into shouts so deafening that only one great uproar can be heard resounding through the building, each lad seeming only to be contending with all the rest to see if he cannot outshout them all. The drudgery of learning to recognize the Chinese words is something that cannot be appreciated by a Western student. With English words, for example, each one is composed of so many letters, has a definite sound and definite meanings, and after a time, if a boy fails to remember any particular one, he simply spells it, and at once sound comes tripping back to his recollection. There is no such easy process to the grasping of the Chinese characters. Each one is a solemn, hard-featured picture that stands apart by itself and has no connecting link with any other one in the language. You cannot reason out what shall be the sound or meaning of any one word by a.n.a.logy, for each one is complete in itself and has a solitary ent.i.ty of its own. A page of Chinese print gives one the impression that one has lighted upon a series of cryptic puzzles that the inventor has made as intricate and involved as the complex and oblique mind of the Chinese could make them.

The Chinese school-masters throughout the country having realized that to grasp the sounds of these weird and unromantic figures and the meaning that lies concealed behind them would be an absolute impossibility for the youth of the country, have divided up the great attempt into two distinct efforts. The first thing, therefore, that a lad has to do when he goes to school is to shout out in all the various tones of the gamut the names of these ancient, h.o.a.ry-headed symbols, and at the same time to impress upon his memory the picture of each one, with its dots and curves and minute up and down strokes, that it shall be a living picture that his mind can call up at any moment that he hears its name p.r.o.nounced.