Mandarin

“ Again and again came the birdlike notes, until in the distance they ceased in a silvery echo.
“Call her!” shouted the mandarin, rushing to the door.
The old man bowed excitedly.
“Call her! Get her!” cried the mandarin, turning fiercely on the old farmer.
“What can I do?” he mumbled pathetically. “She is gone. You do not understand, she moves as the kin deer, she is as wild as the pheasant.”
The mandarin returned to the doorway and remained for a long time in moody silence. Presently he turned to the farmer.
“Let it be known that Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, will depart.” ”

“ The mandarin poured out the licker, and, whilst he was pouring mine, such a infernal racket arose outside the door that I turned around and looked, but couldn't see nothing for the curtains, and the noise quieted down all of a sudden. Them Chineses is always squabbling amongst theirselves. ”

“ What strange Oriental mystery had caught her in its web? What intrigue had she but half unearthed?
“Bah!” She took a strong grip on herself. “It is nothing. This place, it gives me strange ideas.”
“These banners on the wall?” She spoke in the casual tone of an inquisitive visitor. “Are they also very old?”
“Many are very old.” The mandarin was smiling again. “These were made by rich Chinese ladies who wish to have the gods be very good to them. They are all made by hand, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Worth many dollars, very, very many dollars, each one of these.” ”

“ Foreign intercourse in any shape is the bugbear of the mandarin, as being the one standing danger threatening abolition of himself and his privileges, of which the two most dearly prized are robbery and cruelty. ”

“ He summarized the chief characteristics of the proper style thus: that words should be employed which the people who commonly use Mandarin can understand; that sentences should conform to the [263] model of the spoken language; and, concerning both of these requisites, that such care should be taken as to brevity, the order of words and clauses, the connective particles, and the evident movement of thought as expressed, that the Chinese would recognize in it a people’s book; and yet one that is free from undignified colloquialisms and localisms. ”

“ Barrow, that a puppet-show was one species of entertainment given to Lord Macartney and his suite at the Emperor’s palace of Gehol in Tartary.
China—Plate 26
Plate XXVI.
A MANDARIN’S PAGE. We have not much to observe with respect to the annexed figure. He is the page or body servant of a mandarin, to carry his papers, his writing apparatus, the cushion on which he sits, or lays his head; he takes care of his areca-box and his tobacco pipe, attends him on all occasions, fans him while asleep; and, if report speaks truth, serves him for other unworthy purposes. ”

“ Always at night the mandarin selected a native house and turned the inhabitants out that we might use it for our own accommodation. I suppose his authority as a governor allowed him to do such arbitrary things, for even the fierce Tartars humbly submitted to his will. Sometimes we passed the night at villages, where there may be always found comfortable inns; but wherever we slept Nux and Bryonia by turns guarded the slumbers of us three Americans, while the withered little imp of a Chinaman who rode with Mai Lo upon his elephant performed the duty of guarding the mandarin. ”

“ To go further and reveal facts which will presently become the reader's in the logical unfolding of this chronicle, the mandarin was none other than Tsan Ti, discredited guardian of the Honam joss house, situated on an island suburb of the city of Canton. He of the slant, [Pg 2] lawless gleaming eyes was Sam Wing, the mandarin's trusted and treacherous servant.
A Chinaman, like his Caucasian brother, is not always proof against temptation when the ugly opportunity presents itself at the right time and in the right way. ”

“ Throughout the region of the Yangtsze Valley, as it has now come to be called, and from thence northwards, we " come into the range of the great dialect, popularly known as ' Mandarin,' which sweeps round behind the narrow strip of coast occupied by the various dialects above mentioned, and dominates a hinterland constituting about four-fifths of China proper." ”

“ Each man goes to the rostrum to speak, and each has much to say. Soon another impression deepens—that the Northerners with their clear-cut speech and their fuller voices have an advantage over the Southerners of the kind that all public performers know. The mandarin language of Peking is after all the mother-language of officialdom, the madre linqua, less nervous and more precise than any other dialect and invested with a certain air of authority which cannot be denied. ”

“ For it must be noted that a considerable proportion of words much used in Chinese ports, and often ascribed to a Chinese origin, such as mandarin, junk, chop, pagoda, and (as I believe) typhoon (though this is a word much debated) are not Chinese at all, but words of Indian languages, or of Malay, which have been precipitated in Chinese waters during the flux and reflux of foreign trade. ”

“ There is, as a rule, only one guest-chamber, with one long kang or couch on which to lie, and since the Chinese are none too clean in their persons you would find such quarters most unpleasant, besides laying yourselves open to robbery. In the big towns you will at once ask for the residence of the mandarin, and this letter which I shall entrust to you will certainly obtain a lodging under a fine roof and with comfortable surroundings, unless, of course, the mandarin happens to be bigoted, and hates all foreign devils. ”

“ Of these dialects the most important is the so-called Mandarin or Pekingese, the dialect of the North and the official language of the country, for it is the one which all government officials are required to learn and use. It therefore holds the position in respect to other dialects that the French formerly held in Europe as the Court tongue, or language of diplomacy and officialism.
Historically, China enjoys the distinction of being the oldest continuing nation in the world. ”

“ In their own minds they had never realised the existence of English officials in China, and now there appeared a veritable Englishman speaking Chinese fluently, and versed in the use of chopsticks and all other points of etiquette. This Petching meng, or Pekin mandarin, moreover, was attended, besides the rest of his retinue, by a most imposing literate, whose huge round spectacles gave him an aspect of wonderful wisdom, and commanded the greatest respect from his countrymen at Bhamô. ”

“ If it is a general truth that a Chinese would be more likely than not to give some other than the real reason for anything, and that nothing requires more skill than to guess what is meant by what is said, this nowhere finds more perfect exemplification than in Chinese official life, where formality and artificiality are at their maximum. When a whole column of the "leading journal" of China is taken up with a description of the various aches and pains of some aged mandarin who hungers and thirsts to retire from His Majesty's service, what does it all mean? ”

“ Mandarin is quite unpretentious in its general appearance. The inhabitants raise fine sweet oranges and other produce, which they bring down in little boats to market; this is the most perceptible stir made by any of its residents. Like many other localities in the State, historic records of tragic events, extending back to the Indian wars, are yet remembered by some of its old citizens. ”

“ The two French gentlemen created mandarins by the emperor, Messrs. Vanier and Chaigneau, carried me in their galley up to Hué the capital, where, before my visit of ceremony to the mandarin of strangers, I communicated by letter the principles on which my business would be conducted. The minister's answer, professing the utmost fairness on the part of government, was perfectly satisfactory. In my audience of that minister, on the 4th July, I presented, according to custom, a few European articles, more of curiosity than of intrinsic value ”

“ It is usual for the people, while including the dialects of so wide a territory under the designation kwan hwa, to distinguish them from local names; e. g. Shantung kwan hwa, the mandarin spoken in Shantung ”

“ It is desirable that this word be expunged from all works on China and eastern Asia, and the proper words officers, authorities, magistrates, &c., be used instead. Every officer, from a prime minister to a constable or tide-waiter, is called a mandarin by foreigners, partly because those who write do not know the rank of the person, and partly from the common custom of calling many things in China by some peculiar term, as if they were unlike the same things elsewhere. ”

“ A Shanghai man, for instance, is unintelligible to a Cantonese, and so on. All officials are obliged, and all of the better educated merchants and others endeavour, if only for business purposes, to learn something of the dialect spoken at the court of Peking; and this is what is popularly known as "Mandarin." The written language remains the same for the whole empire ”

“ We had been here somewhere about ten days when the Chinese governor came on board, attended, as is the custom in China, by a numerous suite of lesser mandarins and their retainers. Chefoo is an important military command, as well as one of the chief naval ports in the empire; hence the governor is a high military mandarin. From the governor downwards they were all dressed pretty much alike. The mandarins were distinguishable only by a button, worn on the top of their mushroom hats. ”

“ When two mandarins of equal rank find [186] themselves face to face in their sedan-chairs, those attendants among their retinues who carry the enormous wooden fans rush forward and insert these between the passing chairs, so that their masters may be presumed not to see each other and consequently not be obliged to get out.
No subordinate can ever meet a higher mandarin in this way; the former must turn down some by-street immediately on hearing the approaching gong of his superior officer. ”

“ Chinese mandarin in California, becoming acquainted with the fact that American women could read and write and be trusted with accounts, replied, with a warning shake of the head, 'If he readee, writee, by and by he lickee all the men.' Does this apprehension possibly extend beyond the Celestial Empire? ”

“ The correlative deities of the mandarins are only of equal rank, yet the fact that they have been apotheosized makes them their superiors and fit objects of worship. Chinese mandarins rotate in office, generally every three years, and then there is a corresponding change in Hades. The image in the temple remains the same, but the spirit which dwells in the clay tabernacle changes, so the idol has a different name, birthday, and tenant. The priests are informed by the Great Wizard of the Dragon Tiger Mountain, but how can the people know gods which are not the same to-day as yesterday? ”

“ Some of the common people, as well as mandarins generally, enter upon some course of action, the express object of which is to save the luminary from its dire calamity, or to rescue it from the jaws of its greedy enemy. Mandarins must act officially, and in virtue of their being officers of government. Neither they nor the people seem to regard the immense distance of the celestial object as at all interfering with the success of their efforts. ”

“ The curse of China and the main reason why her remarkable people, who once deserved to be compared with the ancient Romans, have sunk to the degraded condition in which we find them at present, is the mandarinate, which she has the misfortune to consider one of her chief glories. ”

“ It is, therefore, all the more cheering when we find, as is frequently the case, retiring or transferred mandarins followed by the good wishes and affection of the people over whom they have been set to rule. ”

“ The mandarins say to themselves: ‘Why should we undertake what we can never accomplish? Why should we sow that others may reap?’... They take no interest in the affairs of the district; as a rule, they are suddenly transplanted into the midst of a population whose dialect even they do not understand. Dependence on interpreters.When they arrive in their mandarinates they usually find interpreters, who, being permanent officieals and interested in the affairs of the place, know how to make their services indispensable; and these in reality are the absolute rulers of the district. ”

“ The object of the Mandarins in enjoining upon the Linguists that one of them should accompany foreigners in their walks or boating excursions was from the best of motives—that these should not lose their way or become involved in collisions with the people arising from ignorance of one another's language. It was the duty of a Linguist to distribute amongst the Factories any Government proclamations having reference to [52] their affairs, relating to vessels at Whampoa or the 'receiving ships' at Lintin. ”

“ Don't trouble yourselves to accuse him further," continued the mandarin to the bystanders; "he most certainly is a wizard. Quick, now, with the press-boards!"
The words were hardly out of his mouth when all the jailers rushed off to get the instruments of torture, with the ferocity of wolves and tigers. They soon came hurrying back like a swarm of bees, and grasping the old man violently, laid him by the heels, pulled his legs apart, and were just about to apply the torture when the magistrate was seized with a sudden fit of dizziness. He felt his eyes become dim ”

“ During my forty years' residence in the capital I had become well acquainted with Chang's brilliant career; but it is only within the last three or four years that I have had an opportunity to study him in personal intercourse, having been called to preside over his university and to aid him in other educational enterprises.
Page 220 Whatever may be thought of the rank and file of China's mandarins, her viceroys are nearly always men of exceptional ability. They are never novices, but as a rule old in years and veterans in experience. ”