Chinese Sketches | Page 9

unsatisfactory relations
which exist as a rule between master and servant. That the latter almost
invariably despise their foreign patrons, and are only tempted to serve

under them by the remunerative nature of the employment, is a fact too
well known to be contradicted, though why this should be so is a
question which effectually puzzles many who are conscious of treating
their native dependants only with extreme kindness and consideration.
The answer, however, is not difficult for those who possess the merest
insight into the workings of the Chinese mind; for just as every
inhabitant of the eighteen provinces believes China to be the centre of
civilisation and power, so does he infer that his language and customs
are the only ones worthy of attention from native and barbarian alike.
The very antagonism of the few foreign manners and habits he is
obliged by his position to cultivate, tend rather to confirm him in his
own sense of superiority than otherwise. For who but a barbarian would
defile the banquet hour "when the wine mantles in the cups" with a
/white/ table-cloth, the badge of grief and death? How much more
elegant the soft /red/ lacquer of the "eight fairy" table, with all its
associations of the bridal hour! The host, too, at the /head/ of his own
board, sitting in what should be the seat of the most honoured guest,
and putting the latter on his /right/ instead of his left hand! Truly these
red-haired barbarians are the very scum of the earth.
By the time he has arrived at this conclusion our native domestic has by
a direct process of reasoning settled in his mind another important point,
namely, that any practice of the civilities and ceremonies which
Chinese custom exacts from the servant to the master, would be
entirely out of place in reference to the degraded being whom an
accidental command of dollars has invested with the title, though
hardly with the rights, of a patron. Consequently, little acts of gross
rudeness, unperceived of course by the foreigner, characterise the
everyday intercourse of master and servant in China. The house-boy
presents himself for orders, and even waits at table, in short clothes --an
insult no Chinaman would dare to offer to one of his own countrymen.
He meets his master with his tail tied round his head, and passes him in
the street without touching his hat, that is, without standing still at the
side of the street until his master has passed. He lolls about and
scratches his head when receiving instructions, instead of standing in a
respectful attitude with his hands at his side in a state of rest; enters a
room with his shoes down at heel, or without socks; omits to rise at the

approach of his master, mistress, or their friends, and commits
numerous other petty breaches of decorum which would ensure his
instant dismissal from the house of a Chinese gentleman. We ourselves
take a pride in making our servants treat us with the same degree of
outward respect they would show towards native masters, and we
believe that by strictly adhering to this system we succeed in gaining,
to some extent, their esteem. Inasmuch, however, as foreign
susceptibilities are easily shocked on certain points ignored by
Chinamen of no matter what social standing, we have found it
necessary to introduce a special Bill, known in our domestic circle as
the Expectoration Act. Now it is a trite observation that the Chinese
make capital soldiers if they are well commanded, and what is the head
of a large business establishment but the commander-in-chief of a small
army? The efficiency of his force depends far more upon the moral
agencies brought to bear than upon any system of rewards and
punishments human ingenuity can devise; for Chinamen, like other
mortals, love to have their prejudices respected, and fear of shame and
dread of ridicule are as deeply ingrained in their natures as in those of
any nation under the sun. They have a horror of blows, not so much
from the pain inflicted, as from the sense of injury done to something
more elevated than their mere corporeal frames; and a friend of ours
once lost a good servant by merely, in a hasty fit, /throwing a sock at
him/. We therefore think that, considering the vast extent of the
Chinese empire and its innumerable population, all of whom are
constructed mentally more or less on the same model, their language
and customs are deserving of more attention than is generally paid to
them by foreigners in China.

LITERATURE
It is an almost universally-received creed that behind the suicidal
prejudices and laughable superstitions of the Chinese there is a
mysterious fund of solid learning hidden away in the uttermost
recesses--far beyond