Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1879 — CHINESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS. [ARTICLE]

CHINESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS.

CvlmUlm of Trade aad Bellfloa la lk« Cel sot la 1 Empire. A Chinaman will learn to make himself understood in almost any European tongue in less than one-thinl the time it requires the average European or American to make himself understood in Chinese. A Chinese coolie servant will learn to speak “ pigeon English" before his English or American master can ask for a glass of water in the native dialect. They readily acquire a smattering of onr language, but it is with the greatest difficulty that we learn anything of theirs. This disparity in the relative use of the two idioms has produced many curious anomalies. Even in the open ports, trade is still carried on by means of middlemen or agents. These middlemen are called compradors, a term borrowed from the Portuguese. If a foreign merchant wishes to buy tea or silk or porcelain or other native product he must do so through the comprador. If he wishes to sell any given article of foreign manufacture he must reach the. customer through the same channel. The comprador employs all the servants about the house; he fixes their salaries and is responsible for their honesty. He even keeps the bank account and superintends the shipping. Practically, though a mere servant, he is the head of tne house. He is invariably a clear-headed shrewd fellow, who watches his master’s interests (and his own) with careful eye. His own interests, one may be well assured, never suffer for want of attention. He has certain legitimate •* squeezes,” so called in local parlance, on nearly everything bought and sold. He has a commission on the servants lie employs, on the provisions ho buys, and on the other general expenses of the house. You can therefore sec at a glance his great vantage-ground in transactions with merchants. A thousand chests of tea or as many packages of silk or crates of porcelain could pay him ever so small a “ squeeze” and the aggregate would be considerable. In this way, by strict attention Id business and those frugal habits for which he is famous, lie can manage to save five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars a year out of a salary of one thousand dollars.

Nobody seems to care if lie does. Nobody could help it if he did care. “John Comprador” is a necessity. Ho is the old man of the sea whom foreign merchants can not shake off. Let us suppose, for instance, that a member of an old-established American or Enflish hong has acquired a sufficient nowledge of the language to converse with the natives on ordinary business topics; or, what is always more probable, that in every Chinese hong there is one member of the firm who can speak English. It occurs to the foreign merchant that his business is too much in the hands of natives. He dismisses the comprador, and goes in person to a native merchant and asks for tea samples. He is shown them, and then asks the price of a thousand chests. “Not have got,” is the reply; “no can catchce.” The merchant goes to another and another, with the same result. Not one has a pound of tea to sell him. The guild has ordered it, and until the foreigner deals through a comprador he can do nothing in tea or silk or jiorcelain or wax or other Chinese product. Let him send his comprador and lie gets the market quotations at once. So it is with all that foreigners buy or sell; so it is with all dealings between foreign and native merchants. These Chinese guilds and trade combinations surpass * any of Europeaq of American origin. Those of Holland and Finland in the sixteenth century were trivial affairs compared with these. They are the most comprehensive and effective in their operations of all 1 have ever seen or heard of in any part of the .world.

Thus it is that even commerce, the great missionary of civilization, has failed to break down the barrier between the Celestials and the “outside barbarians.” The Chinese are a people to themselves—self-sufficient, bigoted, supercilious, jealous—and seem likely so to remain for some time to come. A merchant may live a full decade in any one of their treaty ports, and still know very little of the country. A “bookmaker,” as Wendell Phillips would say, might visit these ports a dozen times, anil yet know almost nothing of the interior of tho empire, or of the social ami domestic habits of its people. No people, it has been said, has ever been found which did not profess some kind of religion. The most savage and the most cultivated are alike found searching out the sam6 essential facts connected with their origin and destiny. The Chinese have their deities also; but it would be more difficult than most people imagine to say in just what their religion cousists. The teachings of Confucius form the basis of their National jurisprudence; but it can hardly be called a religion, sinco it does not inculcate tho worship of any God. Their Taouist faith is essentially an undeveloped species of rationalism. Buddhism is evidently the religion of the; masses in the interior provinces; but the generally low character of its priesthood, and the dilapidated condition of its temples, tell an impressive story of the growing indifference of the educated and influential masses. The Mohammedans are much less numerous in this section of the Empire, but possibly a more intelligent and better class of men. The mandarin, or governing class, especially those in actual commission, are Confucians, pf course.

In a qualified sense, most Chinamen are Spiritualists. A belief in the supernatural is entertained by all classes, front the eoolic to the District Magistrate. A few evenings since I observed that the Yangtze River was lighted up for miles by means of small iloating tapers, and was informed thatit was for the benefit of those who had been drowned; the water was inhabited by myriads of unfortunate spirits unable to escape, and these lights were for their especial benefit. In the dry, hot month of July last, a local Magistrate, high in authority, remarked tiiat such weather, though by no means unusual, would probably not long continue, as they had begun to pray for rain; that is, “to chin chin JossI*’ 1 *’ for a change of temperature. Most persons who have traveled in in China or know anything of the country are aware of the importance attached by the natives to the doctrine of Fung-Shui, or the spiritual influence of wind and water. In traversing this portion of the Empire, one sees pagoaas, octagonal in shape and of enormous bright, and on inquiry as to their originmnd title, is told that the first is unknown, and that the second has reference to Fnng-Shui. To the inquiry, “ What is Fung-Shui?” no very clear or satisfactory answer is likely to be given, possibly from the fact that most Chi-

nese themselves appear to have rather hazy notions on the subject The term, literally translated, is “wind” (and) “ water;” but as an expression conveying an idea from the mind of one person to that of another, it seems to have lust entirely its literal signification, and is expressive only of an abstract idea. There is something about this so-called science—for it is practiced in China as a science—nearly related to geomancy; but neither geomancy nor terrestrial magnetism (if I may coin a term) will quite convey the idea intended by the term Fung-Shui. Its real basis seems to be about this: Heaven and earth are counterparts of each other, and hence heavenly favor often depends on the conformation of the earth’s surface. The outline of a hill, for instance, is fancied to resemble a dragon or a tortoise, and, therefore, the immediate neighborhood is lucky, good or ill luck often arising from some supernatural cause, through the medium of some conspicuous objects. Two exactly opposite doors or straight walls are supposed to induce baleful influences. A tall house, a steeple, a railway, may be supposed to interrupt the transition of spirit influences; hence, all in that vicinity is unlucky. That preference which persons sometimes have for a given locality, position, person, or thing, without the consciousness of any reason for such preference other than it is their pleasure to entertain it, is an illustration of what a Chinaman would call Fung-Shui. Most people, even in more civilized countries, have their Fung-Shuis; they smile at them, but act as though they believed in them, provided no expenditure of money is thereby called for. Some of the Chinese servants smile at theirs, but always attend to them even at the’cost of money. Instances have come within my knowledge of judicial decisions having been rendered bv Chinese magistrates so as not to conflict with the popular belief in Fung-Shui. It is, in fact, a part of the unwritten law of the Empire, and cannot be very well disregarded by the civil magistrate. —Nanking (China) Cor. N. Y. Tribune.