Title: Intimate China: The Chinese as I have Seen Them

Author: Mrs. Archibald Little

Year Published: 1899

“The streets, although wide for a Chinese city, are very narrow in comparison with English streets, being only eight feet at the widest, and extraordinarily crowded.  Passing through them is a continual pushing through a crowd of foot-passengers; of sedan-chairs, carried by coolies, with sometimes one or two men running before to clear the way, and if it be necessary beat back the crowd; of mules, donkeys or ponies with loads; and of numbers of carrying coolies, a bamboo across their shoulders, and from either end a basket hanging by strings.  Everything that can be done in the streets is done in them: peddlars go by with great quantities of goods for sale; men are mending broken china with little rivets after a fashion in which the Chinese are great experts; here is a barber shaving a man’s head, there are two women menders, on little stools very neatly dressed, pursuing their avocation; here is a man working at an embroidery-frame, there a cobbler mending shoes; here some pigs, there some chickens; here a baby in a hen-coop, there a pussy-cat tied to a shop counter; and in the evenings street preachers, in the afternoons vast crowds pouring out from theatres.”

page 80

This is one of the best descriptions of Chinese streets I’ve read.

“One of the most fatiguing things about Chinese life is the presents.  Whatever you do, you ought to take or send a present.  Every lady who goes out to dinner takes a present to the hostess…the most curious present I have received at a dinner party was a white cat, that could hardly see out of its eyes.  The general present seems to be sponge-cakes or fruit.”

page 82

Advice for expats circa 1899.  Love it!

“A man quaintly said to me, ‘Whenever I want to know what men really are, I consider what they have made of their women.’  We may also learn something by considering what men say they admire in women.  And for this purpose a few extracts from the Peking Gazette, the oldest newspaper in the world…

May 2nd, 1891.  The Viceroy at Canton submits an application which he has received from the elders and gentry of the district of Shun-teh, asking permission to erect a memorial arch to an old lady who has seen seven generations of her family, and is at present living under the same roof with four generations of her descendants.  The lady, whose maiden name was Lin, is the mother of the distinguished General Fang Yao, and is in her eighty-second year.  She has six sons, forty grandsons, one hundred and twenty-one great-grandsons, and two great-great-grandsons.  Her life has been one of singular purity and simplicity, fully entitling her to honour bestowed by law upon aged people of distinction.”

page 164-165

I’m speechless.

The Book can be found here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under 2009, Old China Books, Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.