Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Early Migrations.

Absorption of the Aborigines.

These men of the Stone and Metal Ages are no doubt still largely represented, not only amongst the rude hill tribes of the southern and western borderlands, but also amongst the settled and cultured lowlanders of the great fluvial valleys. The "Hundred Families," as the first immigrants called themselves, came traditionally from the north-western regions beyond the Hoang-ho. According to the Yu-kung their original home lay in the south-western part of Eastern Turkestan, whence they first migrated east to the oases north of the Nan-Shan range, and then, in the fourth millennium before the new era, to the fertile valleys of the Hoang-ho and its Hoeï-ho tributary. Thence they spread slowly along the other great river valleys, partly expelling, partly intermingling with the aborigines, but so late as the seventh century B.C. were still mainly confined to the region between the Peï-ho and the lower Yang-tse-Kiang. Even here several indigenous groups, such as the Hoeï, whose name survives in that of the Hoeï river, and the Laï of the Shantong Peninsula, long held their ground, but all were ultimately absorbed or assimilated throughout the northern lands as far south as the left bank of the Yang-tse-Kiang.

Survivals—Hok-lo; Hakka; Pun-ti.

Beyond this river many were also merged in the dominant people continually advancing southwards; but others, collectively or vaguely known as Si-fans, Mans, Miao-tse, Paï, Tho, Y-jen[479], Lolo, etc., were driven to the south-western highlands which they still occupy. Even some of the populations in the settled districts, such as the Hok-los[480], and Hakkas[481], of Kwang-tung, and the Pun-ti[482] of the Canton district, are scarcely yet thoroughly assimilated. They differ greatly in temperament, usages, appearance, and speech from the typical Chinese of the Central and Northern provinces, whom in fact they look upon as "foreigners," and with whom they hold intercourse through "Pidgin English[483]," the lingua franca of the Chinese seaboard[484].

Confucianism.

Nevertheless a general homogeneous character is imparted to the whole people by their common political, social, and religious institutions, and by that principle of convergence in virtue of which different ethnical groups, thrown together in the same area and brought under a single administration, tend to merge in a uniform new national type. This general uniformity is conspicuous especially in the religious ideas which, except in the sceptical lettered circles, everywhere underlie the three recognised national religions, or "State Churches," as they might almost be called: ju-kiao, Confucianism; tao-kiao, Taoism; and fo-kiao, Buddhism (Fo = Buddha). The first, confined mainly to the educated upper classes, is not so much a religion as a philosophic system, a frigid ethical code based on the moral and matter-of-fact teachings of Confucius[485]. Confucius was essentially a social and political reformer, who taught by example and precept; the main inducement to virtue being, not rewards or penalties in the after-life, but well- or ill-being in the present. His system is summed up in the expression "worldly wisdom," as embodied in such popular sayings as: A friend is hardly made in a year, but unmade in a moment; When safe remember danger, in peace forget not war; Filial father, filial son, unfilial father, unfilial son; In washing up, plates and dishes may get broken; Don't do what you would not have known; Thatch your roof before the rain, dig the well before you thirst; The gambler's success is his ruin; Money goes to the gambling den as the criminal to execution (never returns); Money hides many faults; Stop the hand, stop the mouth (stop work and starve); To open a shop is easy, to keep it open hard; Win your lawsuit and lose your money.

Although he instituted no religious system, Confucius nevertheless enjoined the observance of the already existing forms of worship, and after death became himself the object of a widespread cult, which still persists. "In every city there is a temple, built at the public expense, containing either a statue of the philosopher, or a tablet inscribed with his titles. Every spring and autumn worship is paid to him in these temples by the chief official personages of the city. In the schools also, on the first and fifteenth of each month, his title being written on red paper and affixed to a tablet, worship is performed in a special room by burning incense and candles, and by prostrations[486]."

Taoism.

Taoism, a sort of pantheistic mysticism, called by its founder, Lao-tse (600 B.C.), the Tao, or "way of salvation," was embodied in the formula "matter and the visible world are merely manifestations of a sublime, eternal, incomprehensible principle." It taught, in anticipation of Sakya-Muni, that by controlling his passions man may escape or cut short an endless series of transmigrations, and thus arrive by the Tao at everlasting bliss—sleep? unconscious rest or absorption in the eternal essence? Nirvana? It is impossible to tell from the lofty but absolutely unintelligible language in which the master's teachings are wrapped.

But it matters little, because his disciples have long forgotten the principles they never understood, and Taoism has almost everywhere been transformed to a system of magic associated with the never-dying primeval superstitions. Originally there was no hierarchy of priests, the only specially religious class being the Ascetics, who passed their lives absorbed in the contemplation of the eternal verities. But out of this class, drawn together by their common interests, was developed a kind of monasticism, with an organised brotherhood of astrologers, magicians, Shamanists, somnambulists, "mediums," "thought-readers," charlatans and impostors of all sorts, sheltered under a threadbare garb of religion.

Buddhism.

Buddhism also, although of foreign origin, has completely conformed to the national spirit, and is now a curious blend of Hindu metaphysics with the primitive Chinese belief in spirits and a deified ancestry. In every district are practised diverse forms of worship between which no clear dividing line can be drawn, and, as in Annam, the same persons may be at once followers of Confucius, Lao-tse, and Buddha. In fact such was the position of the Emperor, who belonged ex officio to all three of these State religions, and scrupulously took part in their various observances. There is even some truth in the Chinese view that "all three make but one religion," the first appealing to man's moral nature, the second to the instinct of self-preservation, the third to the higher sphere of thought and contemplation.

Fung-shui and Ancestry Worship.

But behind, one might say above it all, the old animism still prevails, manifested in a multitude of superstitious practices, whose purport is to appease the evil and secure the favour of the good spirits, the Feng-shui or Fung-shui, "air and water" genii, who have to be reckoned with in all the weightiest as well as the most trivial occurrences of daily life. These with the ghosts of their ancestors, by whom the whole land is haunted, are the bane of the Chinaman's existence. Everything depends on maintaining a perfect balance between the Fung-shui, that is, the two principles represented by the "White Tiger" and the "Azure Dragon," who guard the approaches of every dwelling, and whose opposing influences have to be nicely adjusted by the well-paid professors of the magic arts. At the death of the emperor Tung Chih (1875) a great difficulty was raised by the State astrologers, who found that the realm would be endangered if he were buried, according to rule, in the imperial cemetery 100 miles west of Pekin, as his father reposed in the other imperial cemetery situated the same distance east of the capital. For some subtle reason the balance would have been disturbed between Tiger and Dragon, and it took nine months to settle the point, during which, as reported by the American Legation, the whole empire was stirred, councils of State agitated, and £50,000 expended to decide where the remains of a worthless and vicious young man should be interred.

Owing to the necessary disturbance of the ancestral burial places, much trouble has been anticipated in the construction of the railways, for which concessions have now been granted to European syndicates. But an Englishman long resident in the country has declared that there will be no resistance on the part of the people. "The dead can be removed with due regard to Fung Shui; a few dollars will make that all right." This is fully in accordance with the thrifty character of the Chinese, which overrides all other considerations, as expressed in the popular saying: "With money you may move the gods; without it you cannot move men." But the gods may even be moved without money, or at least with spurious paper money, for it is a fixed belief of their votaries that, like mortals, they may be outwitted by such devices. When rallied for burning flash notes at a popular shrine, since no spirit-bank would cash them, a Chinaman retorted: "Why me burn good note? Joss no can savvy." In a similar spirit the god of war is hoodwinked by wooden boards hung on the ramparts of Pekin and painted to look like heavy ordnance.

In fact appearance, outward show, observance of the "eleventh commandment," in a word "face" as it is called, is everything in China. "To understand, however imperfectly, what is meant by 'face,' we must take account of the fact that as a race the Chinese have a strong dramatic instinct. Upon very slight provocation any Chinese regards himself in the light of an actor in a drama. A Chinese thinks in theatrical terms. If his troubles are adjusted he speaks of himself as having 'got off the stage' with credit, and if they are not adjusted he finds no way to 'retire from the stage.' The question is never of facts, but always of form. Once rightly apprehended, 'face' will be found to be in itself a key to the combination-lock of many of the most important characteristics of the Chinese[487]."

Islam and Christianity.

Of foreign religions Islam, next to Buddhism, has made most progress. Introduced by the early Arab and Persian traders, and zealously preached throughout the Jagatai empire in the twelfth century, it has secured a firm footing especially in Kan-su, Shen-si, and Yunnan, and is of course dominant in Eastern (Chinese) Turkestan. Despite the wholesale butcheries that followed the repeated insurrections between 1855 and 1877, the Hoeï-Hoeï, Panthays, or Dungans, as the Muhammadans are variously called, were still estimated, in 1898, at about 22,000,000 in the whole empire.

Islam was preceded by Christianity, which, as attested by the authentic inscription of Si-ngan-fu, penetrated into the western provinces under the form of Nestorianism about the seventh century. The famous Roman Catholic missions with headquarters at Pekin date from the close of the sixteenth century, and despite internal dissensions have had a fair measure of success, the congregations comprising altogether over one million members. Protestant missions date from 1807 (London Missionary Society) and in 1910 claimed over 200,000 church members and baptized Christians, the total having more than doubled since 1900[488].

The above-mentioned dissensions arose out of the practices associated with ancestry worship, offerings of flowers, fruits and so forth, which the Jesuits regarded merely as proofs of filial devotion, but were denounced by the Dominicans as acts of idolatry. After many years of idle controversy, the question was at last decided against the Jesuits by Clement XI in the famous Bull, Ex illa die (1715), and since then, neophytes having to renounce the national cult of their forefathers, conversions have mainly been confined to the lower classes, too humble to boast of any family tree, or too poor to commemorate the dead by ever-recurring costly sepulchral rites.

The Mandarin Class.

In China there are no hereditary nobles, indeed no nobles at all, unless it be the rather numerous descendants of Confucius who dwell together and enjoy certain social privileges, in this somewhat resembling the Shorfa (descendants of the Prophet) in Muhammadan lands. If any titles have to be awarded for great deeds they fall, not on the hero, but on his forefathers, and thus at a stroke of the vermilion pencil are ennobled countless past generations, while the last of the line remains unhonoured until he goes over to the majority. Between the Emperor, "patriarch of his people," and the people themselves, however, there stood an aristocracy of talent, or at least of Chinese scholarship, the governing Mandarin[489] class, which was open to the highest and the lowest alike. All nominations to office were conferred exclusively on the successful competitors at the public examinations, so that, like the French conscript with the hypothetical Marshal's bâton in his knapsack, every Chinese citizen carried the buttoned cap of official rank in his capacious sleeve. Of these there are nine grades, indicated respectively in descending order by the ruby, red coral, sapphire, opaque blue, crystal, white shell, gold (two), and silver button, or rather little globe, on the cap of office, with which correspond the nine birds—manchu crane, golden pheasant, peacock, wild goose, silver pheasant, egret, mandarin duck, quail, and jay—embroidered on the breast and back of the State robe.

Theoretically the system is admirable, and at all events is better than appointments by Court favour. But in practice it was vitiated, first by the narrow, antiquated course of studies in the dry Chinese classics, calculated to produce pedants rather than statesmen, and secondly by the monopoly of preference which it conferred on a lettered caste to the exclusion of men of action, vigour, and enterprise. Moreover, appointments being made for life, barring crime or blunder, the Mandarins, as long as they approved themselves zealous supporters of the reigning dynasty, enjoyed a free hand in amassing wealth by plunder, and the wealth thus acquired was used to purchase further promotion and advancement, rather than to improve the welfare of the people.

They have the reputation of being a courteous people, as punctilious as the Malays themselves; and they are so amongst each other. But their attitude towards strangers is the embodiment of aggressive self-righteousness, a complacent feeling of superiority which nothing can disturb. Even the upper classes, with all their efforts to be at least polite, often betray the feeling in a subdued arrogance which is not always to be distinguished from vulgar insolence. "After the courteous, kindly Japanese, the Chinese seem indifferent, rough, and disagreeable, except the well-to-do merchants in the shops, who are bland, complacent, and courteous. Their rude stare, and the way they hustle you in the streets and shout their 'pidjun' English at you is not attractive[490]." But the stare, the hustling and the shouting may not be due to incivility. No doubt the Chinaman regards the foreigner as a "devil" but he has reason, and he never ceases to be astonished at foreign manners and customs "extremely ferocious and almost entirely uncivilised[491]."

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