THE CHINAMAN IN FORMOSA.
" TT is difficult to describe the Chinese without caricaturing
them." So says Mr. Campbell N. Moody, the author of a charming book, "The Saints of Formosa" (Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 3s. 6d. net). The great differences between the European and the Chinese are self-evident— resemblances are apt to be overlooked—yet the painter of
eastern word portraits must dwell a little on resemblances if he is to arouse the sympathy of the European critic ; indeed, he must do sb if he is to give him any insight whatever into the mind of the men to whom he is striving to introduce him. "Many of the people," he says, "are more akin to the average European than to the Chinaman as commonly portrayed. To a stranger all Chinese are the same—yellow, flat-nosed, almond- eyed. But a European living among them forgets the colour and queue, and discovers that eyes are of varying shades and form. One man is found to have a very Chinese face; another has a Roman nose ; a third has a Grecian cast of countenance ; a fourth is just like a Scotohman. Some are swarthy, some pale." The same variety of type is to be found when we are brought into close contact with Chinese character. At first it seems as though all of them are "stolid, slow, patient, self-con- trolled, shrewd, difficult to fathom, hard to outwit, all adepts at polite, indirect, workmanlike speech, all fond of making money, diligent, and economical." These qualities may be prevalent, but their opposites abound. There are plenty of Chinamen who are "quick, vivacious, active, easily angered, easily offended, reb.dily moved to tears. Others are placid, slow, indolent, ready to sit and talk the livelong day." Their astonishing bravery, of which the European has heard so much, is not universal, and, unlike Europeans, the men who are without it are also without shame on the subject, and confess themselves without embarrassment to be "timor- ous and cowardly." They have unemotional faces, yet they often betray emotion in a manner that startles the foreign looker-on who has not been able to decipher the signs of a brewing storm. "It is like a dash of rain in a day of fine weather." Our author has seen the Chinese in Formosa reduced to tears by recitations of their own ballad literature, which abounds in stories of filial piety, and "it is no very uncommon thing to see men and women lose control of themselves when parting with their friends."
In the matter of industry Mr. Moody does not exalt the Chinaman above the Western, though he admits that he is capable on occasion of very long stretches of uninter- rupted labour. He has, on the other hand, an immense pleasure in sitting still, and can enjoy this form of recreation for a period long enough to prove something like torture even to the laziest of Englishmen. " Chinese are industrious," we read, " but they do not sit so close to their tasks as we do, and their life is so free and independent that they may be said to have ' no ruler chiding their delay.' " A Chinaman will work far into the night if for any reason there is a pressure of work. The streets of a Chinese town echo at midnight with the cries of the hawker, "who is going his rounds with meat balls, oyster fritters, and twisted doughnuts burning hot." The carpenter, who has been at work since dawn, will buy his wares. The shopkeeper is still passing goods over the counter, the tinsmith is still hammering his metal into shape. " The Chinese at times work late, as did our forefathers, but not so hard as moderns with fixed hours do." The Chinaman has not—so our author gives us to understand—the same concentration as the Western man. He likes work, and is not so anxious as we are to get it done and be rid of it, but "he chats while his hands are busy, and he frequently pauses to take half a dozen whiffs from his shallow-bowled tobacco pipe." Ordinary working hours, however, are not so very long. " There are no rigid rules nor precise terms of labour." There are few public holidays, and, of course, no Sundays, but "many a young fellow makes a holiday for himself as often as the humour seizes him." Surely it is only in the East that an acquaintance can drop in upon a busy family and say, " As I have nothing to do I will relate the matter minutely that you may understand and judge." The hard-and-fast rules of the Westerner are disagreeable to the Chinese. "In Singa- pore a Chinese postmaster in a branch office complained to me that it was irksome to be in British employ, for rules were strict; one offence might mean dismissal, and if customers who had no money got stamps for nothing he had himself to bear the loss." Mr. Moody gives the Chinese a very good character for generosity, and denies the charge of ingratitude so commonly made against them. "A ferryman often takes a small fee, often nothing at all, from a needy passenger. On countless occasions I myself have crossed free of charge, the. ferryman obstinately refusing on the grounds that they or their friends have received medicine at the Christian hospital."
When Mr. Moody tells us of the missionary side of his experience he is not less interesting than when he speaks of more general subjects. A Church service in Formosa is graphically described. Religious decorum is irksome to Chinese converts, and hours of divine service are seldom dull, even for the least spiritually gifted. The worshippers assemble in a sort of guest-chamber, where they smoke and gossip to the preacher, who welcomes each newcomer with a cup of tea. When the gong sounds they troop together into the hall, and the service begins. The younger children wander about and play together or rush to the windows to gaze at a passing procession. A postman will often come in and interrupt the proceedings by delivering letters, and the women cannot be kept from chatting. Not uncommonly the preacher is exhorted to make haste, as the weather looks threatening, and worshippers from a distance would like to get home before the rain. It all sounds rather undevotional, but Chinese converts are the most hopeful in the heathen world. Sanctimoniousness and unction are unknown. Religion is a matter of common life. No one seems to be either proud or ashamed of being religious. Our author has much to say in favour of their free-and-easy manner of worship. Western decorum is, he thinks, desirable, but wholly modern. He quotes a good many precedents for what we should call ill behaviour in church on the part of our immediate forefathers. The parish records of Scotland long after the Reformation furnish him with several amusing instances of disorder in church :-
"In 1723 it is reported in Keith 'that A. G. and J. R. had been guilty of unseemly behaviour in laughing and throwing clods and stones in time of worship, and of cutting and giving one another apples in church.' In 1727 at Fordyce women for grappling together during divine service (are condemned) to be fined.' In 1721 Court of Regality passes ' Act against dropping stones and divits from common loft on people below.' "
But to return to " The Saints of Formosa." Mr. Moody gives a very curious picture of a Chinese servant, in the employ of the mission, known as Brother Brush (brother, sister, uncle, and aunt are titles familiarly prefixed to names in China according to age and sex.) Originally he was a tinsmith by trade, then a sawyer ; but Chinese sawyers work in pairs, and he could never get on with his companion. A born critic, he got out of patience with all those who could not work so well as himself. He disliked them if they did not attain to his standard of skill and industry, and desired to retain the keenness of his own sense of contempt. On one occasion "he disinterred from a heap of shavings a fine beam that had been first spoiled
and then backed to pieces, and he laid the chopped wood under his bed as a testimony against the workers. His daily reports and censures were unpleasant to bear." But if he was a critic he was an excellent workman, and could turn his hand to anything. When he gave up the saw and took a
place as cook he knew nothing about the culinary art, but he grudged no trouble to learn, often missing his own meals in his anxiety to produce good food for his employers. He loved economy as men love an art, and never wearied of rehearsing his successful contrivance. On the other hand he was not grasping, and would refuse a tip with immovable independence. He was a completely disinterested person. His faith in his own powers was infinite, and an amusing story is here given of how he set to work to mend an American organ. He worked for ten hours on end in company with his employer. After it was put together again " I owned that I had felt timorous about pulling the organ to pieces, especially when at one stage it gave forth ominous cracking sounds. Yes, I observed your fear,' he rejoined, but I am at home in that sort of work, and had no misgiving.' He had never seen an organ before. But Chinese excel in cool self-reliance and dogged perseverance." These qualities, our author believes, will one day take the Chinaman very far in surgery. Towards his employers Brother Brush's conduct can only be described as perfect. In his domestic relations be is less attractive.
While devoted to his children, he scolded his wife all day long, but she never seemed to mind or to take any great notice of his admonitions, continuing to do just as she liked.
Women in the Formosan Church play a great part.
We are introduced by our author to one or two elderly Chinese women, the most entertaining of whom goes by the name of "Aunt Late." She and Uncle Late outdo each other in economy, with the result that relations between them and their son are less ideal than such relations usually are between Chinese parents and children. Aunt Late gives away what she scrapes together to her poorer neighbours, taking apparently an equal delight in saving and in giving. Her good works are secret because Uncle Late cannot bring himself to do more than wink at them, open participation offending against his ideal of eco- nomy. Economy and generosity are frequently found together among Chinese more frequently, we should imagine, than in the West. The generosity of the closed hand is rare here, where carelessness accompanies kindness in nine cases out of ten. Economy is, of course, a dangerous passion. It leads at times to cheating, but we gather that criminal excess in this unlovely virtue is not so common as one might expect, and among the Christian Chinese it seems to be very rare. The great effect of Christian teaching upon Chinese character seems to be that converts become conspicuously disinter- ested. We should greatly like a few sketches of educated Chinese from Mr. Moody's pen. There is a " Mr. Flourishing Yellow," an educated Chinese Christian, who is again and again respectfully alluded to in these pages. The attraction of his strange name and the momentary glimpses we are allowed of his pleasant personality make us long for his further acquaintance.
They strike us as strange saints, these godly Chinese of Formosa. They are certainly the antitypes of St. Francis, who is still the typical saint of the West. Slow to give, slow to take, thrifty, methodical, and industrious, they love their children and honour their parents, and are ready to die for a faith which would seem to regulate rather than to inspire their lives. No doubt Christianity, like wisdom, is justified of all her children.
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