Chinese character

“ But the Chinese are all more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character, are really "cultured"—they are the most polite men I have ever traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the wheels of society run smoother. ”

“ And we may here remark that the number of a people and the size of its territory have absolutely no bearing on the estimate which we ought to form of its character. Who would say that the Chinese are the most interesting and commendable nation on the surface of the globe? They are certainly the most ancient and most populous; their code of precise and formal morality is the most exact and clear that philosophers could ever dictate, and succeed in giving as law to a great people. ”

“ THE first knowledge which we acquire of the Chinese is derived from our servants. Unconsciously to themselves, and not always to our satisfaction, they are our earliest teachers in the native character, and the lessons thus learned we often find it hard to forget. But in proportion as our experience of the Chinese becomes broad, we discover that the conclusions to which we had been insensibly impelled by our dealings with a very narrow circle of servants are strikingly confirmed by our wider knowledge, for there is a sense in which every Chinese may be said to be an epitome of the whole race. ”

“ A character uniting a happy association of ideas has the same effect upon the eye of the Chinese, as a general theorem expressed in symbols has on a mathematician; but in both cases a man must be learned to feel the beauties of the concise expression. Even in speaking the language has few expletives. "English good, Chinese better,"—"to-day go, to-morrow come,"—"sea no bound, Kiang no bottom;"—"well, not well;"—are modes of expression in which an European will not find much elegance. ”

“ The very soil of Chinese life seems entangled in the roots of its speech. The manifold illustrations which crowd its annals of personal experience, the lines of tendency which converge upon a tragic climax, moral character as the very core of the principle—all these are flashed at once on the mind as reinforcing values with an accumulation of meaning which a phonetic language can hardly hope to attain. ”

“ Thieves of a most dexterous kind, and rogues of every description, are plentiful in China, because she has a swarming population to give them birth,—but they are not numerous enough to affect a general estimate of the national character.”
The imperfections of human language render it a difficult matter to give a description, at once short and correct, of national character. Thus it is both true and false to say that the Chinese possess a high degree of fortitude. ”

“ It is true but misleading, to say that they have ``no word or written character for patriotism, but 150 ways of writing the characters for good luck and longlife.'' For while the Chinese may have little love for country, they have an intense devotion to their own customs. ”

“ And perhaps, if this matter was examined to the bottom, it would appear that the calm and patient turn of the Chinese, on which they so much value themselves, and which distinguishes the nation from all others, is in reality the source of the most exceptionable part of their character; for it has been often observed by those who have attended to the nature of mankind, that it is difficult to curb the more robust and violent passions without augmenting, at the same time, the force of the selfish ones. ”

“ CHINESE SHOPS—THE GOD OF RICHES—CHINESE SHOP-KEEPERS—CHINESE WATCHMEN. The Chinese have an antipathy to everything like symmetry in the decoration of an apartment. Anyone, on seeing the inside of their rooms, would say that diversity is their only motto; in everything, however, relating to costume and the exteriors of their habitations, the Chinese restrict themselves to fixed rules, which impart the most monotonous character to their apparel and architecture. People following the same profession, and having the same social habits, are dressed uniformly, and housed uniformly. ”

“ That the Chinese are imbued with religious ideas is indicated in the very names of the streets already mentioned, whereby, though in a singular fashion, they commemorate and glorify certain attributes of character. The idea which seems most deep-rooted in their minds is that of retribution according to conduct. The maxim most frequent in their mouths is that good actions bring their own reward, and bad actions their own punishment. ”

“ The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is apparent in all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviolability of custom has not made their life heavy, but shaped it to the utmost adroitness for their own purposes. We are now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we see pervading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their appropriate beverage. Like that, too, it is all domestic,—never wild. The social genius, fluttering on the wings of compliment, pervades every thing Chinese. ”

“ I have in mind, as I write, a piece of Chinese porcelain, on which the sage or poet sits with his book and long pipe; a lovely and elegant lady peeps over his shoulder, and close at hand plays an impish child. I do not think that the Chinese who conceived it expected that poet to write bad verses, or, if a sage, to compose worthless philosophy. On the contrary, to love with devotion, to be learned, to have children, are ideas which have shaped the harmony of Chinese life. ”

“ Compare these characteristics with the universal black hair and black eyes of men and women throughout China, exclusive of a rare occasional albino; with the long, flowing, loose robes of officials and of the well-to-do; with their slow and stately walk and their rigid formality of position, either sitting or standing. To the Chinese, their own language seems to be the language of the gods; they know they have possessed it for several thousand years, and they know nothing at all of the barbarian. ”

“ And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart, the most dastardly cowardice completes the description of that of the Chinese.
Unimproved as their arts is their learning. Though their language consists of few words, it is almost impossible for a stranger to attain the art of speaking it. And what a European learns ere he is seven years old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. ”

“ Contemplative, gentle, and metaphysical in their habit of thought, the Chinese have reflected profoundly and worked out many riddles of the universe in ways peculiarly their own. Realization of the value and need to us of a more definite knowledge of the mental processes of our Oriental brothers, increases wonderfully as one begins to comprehend the richness, depth, and beauty of their thought, ripened as it is by the hidden processes of evolution throughout the ages. ”

“ LOVE OF NATURE IN CHINA
It is a mistake to regard the Chinese as essentially a prosaic race, caring only for material things and nothing at all for what we should call things of the spirit. If they have less power of artistic creation than the Japanese—and even that may be doubted—they are quite as sensitive as the people of any other race to the magic of beauty in either nature or art; and especially do they—like our own Ruskin—take a vivid delight in the loveliness of mountain scenery. ”

“ The Chinese are fond of historical and moral romances, which, however, are founded on reason and not on imagination, as are the Hindu and Persian tales. Their subjects are not submarine abysses, enchanted palaces, giants and genii, but man as he is in his actual life, as he lives with his fellow-men, with all his virtues and vices, sufferings and joys. But the Chinese novelists show more skill in the details than in the conception of their works ”

“ The proverbial philosophy of the Chinese is on a scale commensurate in every way with other branches of their voluminous literature. Most Western proverbs, maxims, household words, etc., are to be found embedded therein; sometimes expressed in strictly identical terms, at other times differing only in point of local colour. Thus the Chinese say (e.g.) ―
One actor does not make a play. ”

“ His enthusiasm is now all for the Chinese; its perfection of material and form, its dazzling beauty of colour, the artistic fitness of its decoration, engage his admiration more and more. Alien to his imagination as it is in conception, it nevertheless fascinates him ever more surely as he grows more familiar with it. The European china of his early collecting days pleases him no longer. ”

“ Nature whispers in the ear of the tired, overworked Chinaman, “Rest is the superlative form of happiness. To be idle is to be in paradise.”
The Chinese bind the feet of their women not out of cruelty; they do it partly out of a deformed, over-civilised, national vanity, but still more out of a tender kindness. ”

“ But, aside from this, almost every department of mental productiveness is represented in China by hosts of works, ancient and modern: in history, in biography, in geography and ethnology, in jurisprudence, in the grammar and lexicography especially of their own tongue, in natural history and science, in art and industry, in the various branches of belles-lettres, as poetry, romance, the drama, the Chinese have produced in abundance what, tried even by our own standard, is worthy of high respect and admiration. ”

“ Among the Anglo-Saxon race it is a lost art, or rather it is an art that was never discovered. But the Chinese listens patiently, attentively, even cordially, while you are exposing to him his own shortcomings, assents cheerfully, and adds, "I am in fault, I am in fault." ”

“ Even to this day superficial writers cannot deny themselves the pleasure of dwelling on what to their minds are the oddities and absurdities of Chinese life: and so we have humorous descriptions from their pens of how everything in China is distorted and "upside down"—the writers forgetting that some of the salient features of our own civilisation must be quite as ridiculous when looked at from the Chinese standpoint. ”

“ Under such a load as this, it would seem unreasonable to hope for the continuance of a race of human beings, but we very soon discover that the Chinese have contrived to make their ceremonies, as they have made their education, an instinct rather than an acquirement. ”

“ Now without committing myself to exaggeration or misdirection as to the practical value of these treasures, I dare assert that the old pride, arrogance, and exclusiveness of the Chinese are readily intelligible to any one who has faithfully examined the literature of China and hung over the burning words of her great writers. I do not flatter myself that all the extracts given will be of equal interest to all readers. I have not catered for any particular taste, but have striven to supply a small handbook of Chinese literature, as complete as circumstances would permit. ”

“ Indeed I may say here that the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul. That is the true explanation of the insensibility of the Chinese to the physical discomforts of unclean surroundings and want of refinement. ”

“ There has been too much of a disposition to think of the Chinese as a mass, almost as we would regard immense herds of cattle or shoals of fish. Why not rather think of the Chinese as an individual, as a man of like passions with ourselves? ”

“ It is a constant wonder to Occidentals, by what motives the Chinese are impelled, in their irrepressible thirst for literary degrees, even under all the drawbacks and disadvantages, some of which have been described. These motives, like all others in human experience are mixed, but at the base of them all, is a desire for fame and for power. ”

“ In fact, consideration for an individual's feelings is one of the great Chinese virtues. The Chinese loves his home and his family. He is sen­timental about his children and his old parents. He loves his own bit of ground and his own roof, even if it is poor, and he never forgets his own people. ”

“ Thus, if those grand large characters, which look so terrific in our eyes, though they delight the Chinese, are really so difficult to learn, at least the people have the most ample opportunities of studying them, almost in play, and of impressing them ineffaceably on their memories."—A Journey through the Chinese Empire, vol. ”

“ A Chinaman is taught by precept and example to venerate his parents and to give them divine honors after death. Should a Chinese child be disobedient he would be punished severely by the bamboo or other instrument, and he would bring on himself the wrath of all his family. ”

“ In short the real Chinaman is a person with the head of a grown-up man and the heart of a child. The Chinese spirit, therefore, is a spirit of perpetual youth, the spirit of national immortality. Now what is the secret of this national immortality in the Chinese people? You will remember that in the beginning of this discussion I said that what gives to the Chinese type of humanity—to the real Chinaman—his inexpressible gentleness is the possession of what I called sympathetic or true human intelligence. ”