Chinese society

“ Our industrial and commercial civilization has been both the effect and the cause of certain more or less unconscious beliefs as to what is worth while; in China one becomes conscious of these beliefs through the spectacle of a society which challenges them by being built, just as unconsciously, upon a different standard of values. Progress and efficiency, for example, make no appeal to the Chinese, except to those who have come under Western influence. ”

“ Their literature, superstitions, system of education, ancestral worship, culture, and modes of thinking are Chinese. Society is organized on Confucian models, and the rights of parents over children, and of elder over younger brothers, are as fully recognized as in China. ”

“ The Necessity of Nationalism. An abstract theorist might observe that the Chinese, finding their loose-knit but stable society surrounded by compact and aggressive nations, might have solved the question of the perpetuation of Chinese society in the new environment by one of two expedients: first, by nationalizing, as it were, their non-national civilization ”

“ The whole social and political organization of the Chinese is based, in a far more real sense than in the West, on the family. The supreme duty is that of the child to its parent; on this the whole Chinese moral system is built up. Filial piety, according to the teaching of Confucius, is the very foundation of society; the nation itself is but one great family, and the authority of the government itself is but an extension of the paternal authority, to which all its children are bound to yield implicit obedience. ”

“ More fraternal?—where every family is a small society, each member toiling for the common good, and being sure of food and shelter if thrown out of work or enfeebled by disease. More law-abiding?—we appeal to any one who has lived in China, and mixed with the people. Would it make them more honest?—when many Europeans confess that for straightforward business they would sooner deal with Chinamen than with merchants of certain Christian nationalities we shall not take upon ourselves to name. ”

“ While on the other side of the globe civilisation has been handed from nation to nation, and a civilised race has become barbarous and a barbarous race civilised, the Chinese, without making any very great advance, have steadily proceeded along a path of progress, and at the present time they possess a very carefully organised system of society. ”

“ Confucianism in modern China owes its position not so much to its prospects as to the fact that it has provided a frame of reference, however obsolescent, for the political struggle. Hence, through the tumultuous modern period, the Chinese have been strengthened by a philosophy which emphasized the separateness and stability of each institution in society, and which did not make them lose all with the fortunes of a single supreme organization. ”

“ They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian’s Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s Business. ”

“ In fact, the chief end of a woman in China is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of the woman's natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in China is to live as a good daughter a good wife and a good mother. ”

“ The principles of general morality, and especially of duty towards one's neighbour, the restrictions of law, and even the conventionalities of social life, upon all of which the Chinaman is more or less nourished from his youth upwards, remain, when accidental differences have been brushed away, upon a bed-rock of ground common to both East and West; and it is difficult to see how such teachings could possibly turn out a race of men so utterly in contrast with the foreigner as the Chinese are usually supposed to be. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The culture of China is changing rapidly, and undoubtedly rapid change is needed. The change that has hitherto taken place is traceable ultimately to the military superiority of the West; but in future our economic superiority is likely to be quite as potent. I believe that, if the Chinese are left free to assimilate what they want of our civilization, and to reject what strikes them as bad, they will be able to achieve an organic growth from their own tradition, and to produce a very splendid result, combining our merits with theirs. ”

“ And yet, when due allowance is made for environment, and for hereditary peculiarities of many strange kinds—for which, of course, the individual is in no way responsible—it may not be too bold an assertion that the Chinese are a people who only need a little real leadership on Western lines to become a truly great nation. ”

“ The Chinese are, like ourselves, quite capable of appreciating the refinements of learning and the pleasures of the intellect; only—and in their eyes this is a merit—they measure both by their own standards. One of the real curses of wealth in China lies in a feature of their domestic organisation. There is not a petty merchant or insignificant mandarin around whom does not crawl a swarm of lazy servants—parasitic maggots, and nothing better. ”

“ I have already had occasion to observe that the natural disposition of the Chinese should seem to have suffered almost a total change by the influence of the laws and maxims of government, an influence which, in this country more than elsewhere, has given a bias to the manners, sentiments, and moral character of the people ”

“ American Influence in the Far East—Officials and the Boycott—Interview with President Roosevelt—Riot in a British Concession—Ex-territoriality—Two Ways to an End—A Grave Mistake—The Nan-chang Tragedy—Dangers from Superstition
So far from being new, an anti-foreign spirit is the normal state of the Chinese mind. Yet during the year past it has taken on new forms, directed itself against new objects, and employed new methods. It deserves therefore a conspicuous place among the new developments in the China of the twentieth century. ”

“ We find, too, that the men who show such qualifications in a conspicuous degree are almost sure of rapid advancement; nor do they fail to earn the respect and affection of the people whom they rule, for there is no one quicker than a Chinese to realise when he is well governed, and perhaps no one more appreciative.
The social organisation of China, especially for an agricultural people, is in many respects thoroughly sound. ”

“ But I am convinced that modern education is very quickly changing this state of affairs, which was connected with Confucianism and the family ethic. Many Chinese have been trained in business methods in America; there are Colleges of Commerce at Woosung and other places; and the patriotism of Young China has led men of the highest education to devote themselves to industrial development. The Chinese are no doubt, by temperament and tradition, more suited to commerce than to industry, but contact with the West is rapidly introducing new aptitudes and a new mentality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity — the real Chinaman — is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity — the progressive or modern Chinaman. ”

“ Mere education in the science of the west, mere contact with western civilization, commerce, railways, telegraphs, mines, etc., can not be expected and are not calculated to regenerate China, because they have no direct moral or spiritual value, and the Chinese seem never to have been profoundly moved by other than moral and spiritual forces. ”

“ When an English banker declares (as he has declared) that the word of a Chinese is as good as his bond, he is paying a compliment not so much to the character of the Chinese people (who as individuals are no more though perhaps no less trustworthy than average Englishmen) , as to the fundamental soundness of the Chinese social system. If that system is subverted, through the efforts either of foreign advisers or of Chinese reformers, the moral results may be disastrous beyond conception. Let there be evolution by all means ”

“ In short what I want to call the attention of the people of Europe and America to, just at this moment when civilisation seems to be threatened with bankruptcy, is that there is an invaluable and hitherto unsuspected asset of civilisation here in China. The asset of civilisation is not the trade, the railway, the mineral weath, gold, silver, iron or coal in this country. The asset of civilisation of the world to-day, I want to say here, is the Chinaman,—the unspoilt real Chinaman with his Religion of good citizenship. ”

“ More than one fourth of the people of the earth are Chinese, and their country at the present time is more primitive, in the scarcity of railways, telegraphs, public utilities, and every provision conducing to comfort and common-sense living, than any other land pretending to civilization. It is a fact that outside of Shanghai, Canton, Pekin and Tientsin, the people do not want many of the products of the outer world ”

“ They came to think themselves the nation, the "middle kingdom," the centre of the world, and to look upon all foreign races as "outer barbarians." Whatever we may think of this national conceit now, there can be no question that, up to a recent period, the Chinese were justified in their high opinion of themselves, and their contempt for all other races, languages and laws. ”

“ It is a matter of surprise that the most hard-worked class of the Chinese race is that class which is most envied, and into which every ambitious Chinese strives to raise himself — to wit, the official. The number and variety of transactions with which a Chinese official of any rank must occupy himself, and for the success of which he is not only theoretically but very practically responsible, is likewise surprising. ”

“ It is certain that anything like a full and sincere observance of the Chinese rules of life would result in a community of human beings far ahead of the "pure men" dreamt of in the philosophy of the Taoists.
As has already been either stated or suggested, the Chinese seem to be actuated by precisely the same motives which actuate other peoples. They delight in the possession of wealth and fame, while fully alive to the transitory nature of both. They long even more for posterity, that the ancestral line may be carried on unbroken. ”

“ Shopkeepers may occupy the path with tables exposing their wares, and itinerant stall-keepers do not hesitate to appropriate a "pitch" wherever trade seems likely to be brisk. The famous saying that to have freedom we must have order has not entered deeply into Chinese calculations. Freedom is indeed a marked feature of Chinese social life ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without suggesting for a moment that Peking fashions will take the place of Paris fashions, or that the Englishman will grow a queue, I do suggest that there are many precedents in history for expecting that such a moral force as the Chinese reverence for parents, or such an immoral position as the Chinese contempt for the working-man, will not be without its effect on the Western world. ”

“ Or do the Chinese people enjoy in real life the recognition which should be accorded to them by the terms of the Confucian Canon?
Every one who has lived in China, and has kept his eyes open, must have noticed what a large measure of personal freedom is enjoyed by even the meanest subject of the Son of Heaven. Any Chinaman may travel all over China without asking any one's leave to start, and without having to report himself, or be reported by his innkeeper, at any place at which he may choose to stop. ”

“ It must not be supposed that an able Chinaman, when he masters our culture, becomes purely imitative. This may happen among the second-rate Chinese, especially when they turn Christians, but it does not happen among the best. They remain Chinese, critical of European civilization even when they have assimilated it. They retain a certain crystal candour and a touching belief in the efficacy of moral forces; the industrial revolution has not yet affected their mental processes. ”