China and the West

Bowles, Samuel. Our new West [ID D29338].
The Human Nature Curiosity of California--The Sixty Thousand Chinese--Their Character, Habits and Occupations--The Pacific Railroad built by Them--How they are treated by the People--The Indian and the Chinaman--The Limitations of the Chinese Mind--Stony Soil for Missionary Labor--The True Elements of Influence over Them--The Bath-House and the Restaurant the Real Missionaries of Civilization and Christianity--The Morals, Religion and Vices of the Chinese--Picture of an Opium-Eater--A Grand Chinese Banquet to Mr. Colfax--A Specimen of "Pigeon English"--Description of the Dinner and how we Ate it,--and then went out to get Something to Eat--Summing up of the Chinaman in America.
But Human Nature, too, has its curiosities in California. The presence of the Chinese in such large numbers in all the Pacific States, but especially in California, and the share they have taken already in the industry and growth of the country, will be a surprise to most strangers. They are freely scattered everywhere west of the Rocky Mountains and Utah; every considerable town has its Chinese quarter; they fairly line the Pacific Railroad; they swarm in the old mining gulches of the mountains; and in every village of California, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and even of British Columbia, we shall find them in more or less of the kitchens, or gardening in the outskirts,
REPRESENTATIVE PORTRAITS.
or "taking in" washing and ironing, which, by a sort of prescription, has fallen almost exclusively into their hands in all the Pacific Coast States. They began to come in 1852, when there was an immigration of about twenty thousand; in all, over one hundred thousand have emigrated to California, but full forty thousand have returned, and the present number in all the States is about sixty thousand. They do not come to stay or become citizens, but simply to make their fortunes and go back home and enjoy them. Neither their families nor their priests follow them; they show no desire to domesticate themselves here; they dread nothing more than to die and be buried here, and nearly every China-bound steamer or ship carries back home the bodies of Chinamen, overtaken, as death overtakes us all, in the struggles of their labor and ambition.
There are a few men of great intelligence and wealth and ability among them. These are of longer stature and finer presence than the rest, who although not the poorest and most debased classes of the Chinese,--not the Coolies proper,--are yet of a low type, mentally and physically, and show little capacity for improvement. Most of them can read and write, but all their education lies in a simple, narrow range, and here, as in their work, they all show a certain sure and uniform attainment, beyond which it seems impossible for them to go. They can beat a raw Irishman in a hundred ways; but while he is constantly improving and advancing, they stand still in the old ruts. It is this power as well as disposition for illimitable growth, that distinguishes the
European races in contrast with the Asiatic, who seem to have been cast in an iron mould ages old. The superior men of the Chinese have somewhat the same limitation, though their type is broader and higher than the rest. They are mostly merchants, supplying their countrymen, and also dealing heavily in teas and silks with the Americans and Europeans here. They are generally men of personal and business honor, with aristocratic manners and impressive presence, and are much respected by the American citizens. Grouped around these as leaders or managers are gathered all the Chinese on the Coast. They are divided into six different companies, representing the different sections or localities in China from which they came; each company has head-quarters in San Francisco, to which all its followers resort for assistance and protection; and the managers send out for new immigrants, or return those who wish to go back to their homes, and engage to transmit the bodies of those who die for burial in China. They act, indeed, as jobbers in Chinese labor, and guardians of the interests of their countrymen in America.
The occupations of these people are various. There is hardly anything in the way of manual labor that they cannot turn their hands to,--the work of women as well as men. They do the washing and ironing for the whole population; and sprinkle the clothes as they iron them, by squirting water over them in a fine spray from their mouths. Everywhere, in village and town, you see rude signs informing you that See Hop, or Ah Thing, or Sam Sing, or Wee Lung, or Cum Sing, wash and iron; How Tie is a doctor, and Hop Chang and Chi Lung keep stores. They are good house servants; cooks, table-waiters, and nurses; better, on the whole, than Irish girls, and as cheap--fifteen to twenty-five dollars a month and board. One element of their usefulness as cooks is their genius for imitation; show them once how to do a thing, and their education is perfected; no repetition of the lesson is needed. But they seem to be more in use as house servants in the country than the city; they do not share the passion of the Irish girls for herding together, and appear to be content to be alone in a house, in a neighborhood, or a town.
Good farm hands are the Chinese, also; in the simpler and routine mechanic arts they have proven adepts; in fact, there is hardly any branch of plain labor in which, under proper tuition, they do not or cannot succeed most admirably. The great success of the woolen manufacture here is due to the admirable adaptation and comparative cheapness of Chinese labor for the details. They are quick to learn, quiet, cleanly and faithful, and have no "off days," no sprees to get over. As factory operatives they receive twenty and twenty-five dollars a month, and board themselves, though quarters are provided for them on the mill grounds. Fish, vegetables, rice and pork are the main food, which is prepared and eaten with such economy that they live for about one-third what Yankee laborers can. Four or five hundred of the Chinamen are employed in the San Francisco woolen mills; there are two thousand of them making cigars in the same city; and seven hundred and fifty are enrolled washermen. Indeed, they are participating in all the various big and little manufactures that are so rapidly springing up in San Francisco; and their cheap and reliable labor lies at the bottom of the diversified manufacturing wealth of California.
Many are vegetable gardeners, too. In this even climate and with this productive soil, their painstaking culture, much hoeing and constant watering, make little ground very fruitful, and they gather in three, four and five crops a year. Their garden patches, in the neighborhood of cities and villages, are always distinguishable from the rougher and more carelessly cultured grounds of their Saxon rivals. But the greater number, as many as thirty thousand it is estimated, are gleaners in the gold fields of the interior. They follow in crowds after the white miners, working and washing over their deserted or neglected sands, and thriving on results that their predecessors would despise. A Chinese gold washer is content with one to two dollars a day; while the white man starves or moves on disgusted with twice that. A very considerable portion of the present gold production of California must now be the work of Chinese painstaking and moderate ambition. The traveler meets these Chinese miners everywhere on his road through the State; at work in the deserted ditches, or moving from one to another, on foot with their packs, or often in the stage, sharing the seats and paying the price of their aristocratic Saxon rivals.
But for the Chinese, too, the Pacific Railroad must have been delayed some years, and cost a third more money. Substantially, the grading of the whole road, through California and Nevada, was done by them; and as many as twelve thousand were employed upon the work at once during the last year. Their wages were about one dollar a day and board, which was half the cost of ordinary white labor. This is the usual proportion between the wages of the Chinese and other laborers; and though the former are not so strong as the Americans and Europeans, lack the force and flexibility of the latter, and fail in executive or superintending duties, yet they are so deft in details, so patient and plodding in their industry, so reliable and prompt always, that their work is, on the whole, worth about as much as that of the whites with whom they compete.Labor, cheap labor, being the one great palpable need of the Pacific States,--far more, indeed, than capital the want and necessity of their prosperity,--we should all say that these Chinese would be welcomed on every hand, their emigration encouraged, and themselves protected by law. Instead of which, we see them the victims of all sorts of prejudice and injustice. Ever since they began to come here, even now, it is a disputed question with the public, whether they should not be forbidden our shores. They do not ask or wish for citizenship; they show no ambition to become voters; but they are even denied protection in persons and property by the law. Their testimony is inadmissible against the white man; and, as miners, they have long been subject to a tax of four dollars a month, or nearly fifty dollars a year, each, for the benefit of the County and State treasuries. Thus ostracised and burdened by the State, they, of course, have been the victims of much meanness and cruelty from individuals. To abuse and cheat a Chinaman; to rob him; to kick and cuff him; even to kill him, have been things not only done with impunity by mean and wicked men, but even with vain glory. Terrible are some of the cases of robbery and wanton maiming and murder reported from the mining districts. Had "John,"--here and in China alike the English and Americans nickname every Chinaman "John,"--a good claim, original or improved, he was ordered to "move on,"--it belonged to somebody else. Had he hoarded a pile, he was ordered to disgorge; and, if he resisted, he was killed. Worse crimes even are known against them; they have been wantonly assaulted and shot down or stabbed by bad men, as sportsmen would surprise and shoot their game in the woods. There was no risk in such barbarity; if "John" survived to tell the tale, the law would not hear him or believe him. Nobody was so low, so miserable, that he did not despise the Chinaman, and could not outrage him. Ross Browne has an illustration of the status of poor "John," that is quite to the point. A vagabond Indian comes upon a solitary Chinaman, working over the sands of a deserted gulch for gold. "Dish is my land,"--says he,--"you pay me fifty dollar." The poor Celestial turns, deprecatingly, saying; "Melican man (American) been here, and took all,--no bit left." Indian, irate and fierce,--"D--Melican man,--you pay me fifty dollar, or I killee you."
There is now a steadily growing improvement in public opinion on this question, however. It is less popular to curse and persecute the Chinese than it was; and the benefits conferred by their labor are more and more, realized and confessed. In some branches of work they unquestionably come in competition with white labor, both male and female, and tend to degrade its character and cheapen its price; but it is so clear that, except for them, many interests, now prosperous, never could have been developed; much wealth, now secure, never could have been harvested; many public improvements, now complete or in progress, would hardly be thought of, except as unattainable, that their value and their necessity stand vindicated and acknowledged. The clamor against them is mainly based upon the prejudices and jealousy of ignorant white laborers,--the Irish particularly,--who regard the Chinese as rivals in their field, and clothes itself in the plausible conceit about this being a "white man's country," and no place for Africans or Asiatics. But without regarding fealty to our national democratic principle of welcoming hither the people of every country and clime, the white man of America needs the negro and the Chinaman quite as much as they need him; the pocket appeal will override the prejudices of his soul,--and we shall do a sort of rough justice to both classes, because it will pay.
There is no ready assimilation of the Chinese with our habits and modes of thought and action. Their simple, narrow, though not dull minds, have run too long in the old grooves to be easily turned off. They look down even with contempt upon our newer and rougher civilization, regarding us barbaric in fact, and calling us in their hearts, if not in speech, "the foreign devils." And our conduct towards them has inevitably intensified these feelings,--it has driven them back upon their naturally self-contained natures and habits. So they bring here and retain all their home ways of living and dressing, their old associations and religion. Their streets and quarters in town and city are China reproduced, unalleviated. Missionaries have found it hard, slow work to make progress among them with our education and our religion. But latterly an entering wedge has been made with Sunday schools and evening schools for teaching the English language. The latter appeal especially to a necessity of their success among us, and several hundreds are now gathered in attendance upon these schools. It is also proposed to found in San Francisco a high school or college for thoroughly educating such of the Chinese as wish, in our language and science.
But as laborers in our manufactories and as servants in our houses, besides their constant contact with our life and industry otherwise, these emigrants from the East cannot fail to get enlargement of ideas, freedom and novelty of action, and familiarity with and then preference for our higher civilization. Slowly and hardly, but still surely this work must go on; and their constant going back and forth between here and China must also transplant new elements of thought and action into the home circles. Thus it is that we may hope and expect to reach this great people with the influences of our better and higher life. It is through modification and revolution in materialities, in manner of living, in manner of doing, that we shall pave the way for our thought and our religion. Our missionaries to the Five Points have learned to attack first with soap and water and clean clothes. The Chinese that come here are unconsciously besieged with better food and more of it than they have at home. The bath-house and the restaurant are the avant couriers of Christian civilization.
The morals and the religion of these Chinese are as much an anomaly to the American mind as the singular contrast of their mental attainment and mental limitation. Their literature overflows with a sentimental moralism. The "be good and you will be happy" philosophy they know by heart. The wisdom of Confucius is on all their lips. But they are mean and nasty in their vices; cunning, revengeful and wicked in their differences with each other. Assassination is not uncommon among them. Leaving their wives at home, they import Chinese prostitutes, like merchandise, and fight among each other for the possession of them. In many cases these base women are taken as a sort of temporary wives, and children are reared by them. But as a rule there are no Chinese homes here. They live in close quarters, not coarsely filthy like ignorant and besotted Irish, but bearing a savor of inherent and refined uncleanliness that is almost more disgusting. Their whole civilization impresses me as a low, disciplined, perfected, sensuous sensualism. Everything in their life and their habits seems cut and dried like their food. There is no sign of that abandonment to an emotion, to a passion, good or bad, that marks the western races. Their great vice is gambling; that is going on constantly in their houses and shops; and commercial women and barbaric music minister to its indulgence. Cheap lotteries are a common form of this passion. Opium-smoking ranks next; and this is believed to be indulged in more extensively among them here than at home, since there is less restraint from relatives and authorities, and the means of procuring the article are greater. The wildly brilliant eye, the thin, haggard face, and the broken nervous system, betray the victim to opium-smoking; and all tense, all excited, staring in eye and expression, he was almost a frightful object, as we peered in through the smoke of his half-lighted little room, and saw him lying on his mat in the midst of his fatal enjoyment.
The Chinese have no Sunday; they are ready to work seven days in the week, if it is desired, and they are paid for it. Their religion is the Buddhistic idolatry of India; and on their holidays, or occasions of death or departure of friends, they worship, in a cheap, sentimental way, various graven images in their little "Josh" Houses, that are, in style and ornament, an exaggeration of the ruder chapels among an ignorant Romish peasantry. These "Josh" Houses are not numerous, but seem to be run on commercial principles for whoever can own or control them. There are no public gatherings in them,--no forms of public worship,--only individual offerings of gifts to the gods,--or their owners,--with the burning of candles, and similar childish rites. The whole matter of the Chinese religion seems very negative and inconclusive; and apparently it has very little hold upon them. There is no fanaticism in it,--no appreciable degree of earnestness about it.
The impressions these people make upon the American mind, after close observation of their habits, are very mixed and contradictory. They unite to many of the attainments and knowledge of the highest civilization, in some of which they are models for ourselves, many of the incidents and most of the ignorance of a simple barbarism. It may yet prove that we have as much to learn from them as they from us. Certainly here in this great field, this western half of our Continental Nation, their diversified labor is a blessing and a necessity. It is all, perhaps more even, than the Irish and the Africans have been and are to our Eastern wealth and progress. At the first, at least, they have greater adaptability and perfection than either of these classes of laborers, to whom we are so intimately and sometimes painfully accustomed.
The managers of the six Chinese companies and the leading Chinese merchants of San Francisco all hold friendly relations with the leading citizens and public men of California. Occasionally, when distinguished people are visiting here, they extend to them the courtesy of a grand Chinese dinner. Such honor was proffered to Mr. Colfax and his companions. The preliminary formalities were stately and extensive,--they would have sufficed for a banquet of the royal sovereigns of Europe, or the pacification of the ambitions and jealousies of the first families of Virginia; but when these were finally adjusted, questions of precedence among the Chinese settled, and a proper choice made among the many Americans who were eager to be bidden to the feast, all went as smooth as a town school examination that the teacher has been drilling for a month previous.
The party numbered from fifty to sixty, half Chinese, half white citizens. The dinner was given in the second story of a Chinese restaurant, in a leading street of the city. Our hosts were fine-looking men, with impressive manners. While their race generally seem not more than two-thirds the size of our American men, these were nearly if not quite as tall and stout as their guests. Their eyes and their faces beamed with intelligence; they were quick to perceive everything, and alert and au fait in all courtesies and politeness. An interpreter was present for the heavy talking; but most of our Chinese entertainers spoke a little English, and we got on well enough so far as that was concerned; though hand-shaking and bowing and scraping and a general flexibility of countenance, bodies and limbs had a very large share of the conversation to perform. Neither here nor in China is it common for the English and Americans to learn the Chinese language. The Chinese can and do more readily acquire ours, sufficiently at least for all business intercourse. Their broken or "pigeon" English, as it is called, is often very grotesque, and always very simple. Here is a specimen,--a "pigeon-English" rendering of "My name is Norval," etc.:--
My namee being Norval topside that Glampian Hillee,
My father you sabee my father, makee pay chow-chow he sheep,
He smallo heartee man, too muchee take care that dolla, gallo?
So fashion he wantchee keep my, counta one piece chilo stope he own side,
My no wantchee long that largee mandoli, go knockee alla man;
Littee turn Joss pay my what thing my father no like pay
That mourn last nightee get up loune, alla same my hat,
No go full up, no got square; that plenty piece
That lobbie man, too muchee qui-si, alla same that tiger,
Chop-chop come down that hillee, catchie that sheep long that cow,
That man, custom take care, too muchie quick lun away.
My one piecie owne spee eye, look see that ladlone man what side he
walkee,
Hi-yah! No good chancie, findie he, lun catchie my flew:
Too piecie loon choon lun catchie that lobbie man! he
No can walkee welly quick, he pocket too much full up.
So fashion knockee he largee.
He head man no got shutte far
My knockie he head, Hi-yah! my No. 1 strong man,
Catchie he jacket, long he toousa, galo! You likee look see?
My no likee takee care that sheep, so fashion my hear you got fightee
this side.
My takee one servant, come your country, come helpie you,
He heart all same cow, too muchie fear lun away.
Masquie, Joss take care pay my come your house.
We were seated for the dinner about little round tables, six to nine at each table, and hosts and guests evenly distributed. There was a profusion of elegant China ware on each table; every guest had two or three plates and saucers, all delicate and small. Choice sauces, pickles, sweetmeats and nuts were also plentifully scattered about. Each guest had a saucer of flowers, a China spoon or bowl with a handle, and a pair of chop-sticks, little round and smooth ivory sticks about six inches long. Chi Sing-Tong, President of the San Yup Company, presided at Mr. Colfax's table.
Now the meal began. It consisted of three different courses, or dinners rather, between which was a recess of half an hour, when we retired to an ante-room, smoked and talked, and listened to the simple rough, barbaric music of a coarse guitar, viol drum and violin, and meanwhile the tables were reset and new food provided.
Each course or dinner comprised a dozen to twenty different dishes, served generally one at a time, though sometimes two were brought on at once. There were no joints, nothing to be carved. Every article of food was brought on in quart bowls, in a sort of hash form. We dove into it with our chop-sticks, which, well handled, took up about a mouthful, and, transferring this to our plates, worked the chop-sticks again to get it or parts of it to our mouths. No one seemed to take more than a single taste or mouthful of each dish; so that, even if one relished the food, it would need something like a hundred different dishes to satisfy an ordinary appetite. Some of us took very readily to the chop-sticks; others did not,--perhaps were glad they could not; and for these a Yankee fork was provided, and our Chinese neighbors at the table were also prompt to offer their own chop-sticks to place a bit of each dish upon our plates. But as these same chop-sticks were also used to convey food into the mouths of the Chinese, the service did not always add to the relish of the food.
These were the principal dishes served for the first course, and in the order named: Fried shark's fins and grated ham, stewed pigeon with bamboo soup, fish sinews with ham, stewed chicken with water-cress, sea-weed, stewed ducks and bamboo soup, sponge cake, omelet cake, flower cake and banana fritters, bird-nest soup, tea. The meats seemed all alike; they had been dried or preserved in some way; were cut up into mouthfuls, and depended for all savoriness upon their accompaniments. The sea-weed, shark's fins and the like had a glutinous sort of taste; not repulsive, nor very seductive. The sweets were very delicate, but like everything else had a positively artificial flavor; every articles, indeed, seemed to have had its original and real taste and strength dried or cooked out of it, and a common Chinese flavor put into it. The bird-nest soup looked and tasted somewhat as a very delicate vermicelli soup does. The tea was delicious,--it was served without milk or sugar, did not need any such amelioration, and was very refreshing. Evidently it was made from the most delicate leaves or flowers of the tea plant, and had escape all vulgar steeping or boiling.
During the first recess, the presidents of the companies,--the chief entertainers,--took their leave, and the prominent Chinese merchants assumed the post of leading hosts; such being the fashion of the people. The second dinner opened with cold tea, and a white, rose-scented liquor, very strong, and served in tiny cups, and went on with lichens and a fungus-like moss, more shark's fins, stewed chestnuts and chickens, Chinese oysters, yellow and resurrected from the dried stage, more fungus stewed, a stew of flour and white nuts, stewed mutton, roast ducks, rice soup, rice and ducks' eggs and pickled cucumbers, ham and chicken soup. Between the second and third parts, there was an exchange of complimentary speeches by the head Chinaman and Mr. Colfax, at which the interpreter had to officiate. The third and last course consisted of a great variety of fresh fruits; and the unique entertainment ended about eleven o'clock, after a sitting of full five hours. The American resident guests furnished champagne and claret, and our Chinese hosts, invariably at the entrance and departure of each dish, invited us, with a gracious bow, to a sip of the former, in which they all faithfully and with evident relish joined themselves.
The dinner was unquestionably a most magnificent one after the Chinese standard; the dishes were many of them rare and expensive; and everything was served in elegance and taste. It was a curious and interesting experience, and one of the rarest of the many courtesies extended to Mr. Colfax on this coast. But as to any real gastronomic satisfaction to be derived from it, I certainly "did not see it." Governor Bross's fidelity to the great principle of "when you are among the Romans to do as the Romans do," led him to take the meal seriatim, and eat of everything; but my own personal experience is perhaps the best commentary to be made upon the meal, as a meal. I went to the table weak and hungry; but I found the one universal odor and flavor soon destroyed all appetite; and I fell back resignedly on a constitutional incapacity to use the chopsticks, and was sitting with a grim politeness through dinner number two, when there came an angel in disguise to my relief. The urbane chief of police of the city appeared and touched my shoulder: "There is a gentleman at the door who wishes to see you, and would have you bring your hat and coat." There were visions of violated City ordinances and "assisting" at the police court next morning. I thought, too, what a polite way this man has of arresting a stranger to the city. But, bowing my excuses to my pig-tail neighbor, I went joyfully to the unknown tribunal. A friend, a leading banker, who had sat opposite to me during the evening, and had been called out a few moments before, welcomed me at the street door with: "B--, I knew you were suffering, and were hungry,-- let us go and get something to eat,--a good square meal!" So we crossed to an American restaurant; the lost appetite came back; and mutton-chops, squabs, fried potatoes and a bottle of champagne soon restored us. My friend insisted that the second course of the Chinese dinner was only the first warmed over, and that that was the object of the recess. However that might be,--this is how I went to the grand Chinese dinner, and went out, when it was two-thirds over, and "got something to eat."
Every visitor to San Francisco will be piqued with the presence of these Orientals and the problems they suggest. He will be tempted to peep into their quarters, attend one of their theaters, look in at the brazen altars and idols of their "Josh" Houses,--certainly be seduced into their attractive stores, where genuine Chinese silks and Chinese wares are set out by first hands, and sold by Chinese grandees for the highest prices they will fetch. He will see that, though our American and European laborers quarrel with and abuse these strange people; though the law gives them no rights, but that of suffering punishment; though they bring no families, and seek no citizenship; though all the Chinese women here are not only commercial, but expressly imported as such; though they are mean and contemptible in their vices as in their manners; though they are despised and kicked about on every hand; still they come and thrive, slowly improve their physical and moral and mental conditions, and supply this country with the greatest necessity for its growth and prosperity,--cheap labor. What we shall do with them is not quite clear yet; how they are to rank, socially, civilly and politically, among us is one of the nuts for our social science students to crack,--if they can; but now that we have depopulated Ireland, and Germany is holding on to its own, and so the old sources of our labor supply are drying up, all America needs them, and, obeying the great natural law of demand and supply, Asia seems almost certain to pour upon and over us countless thousands of her superfluous, cheap-keeping, slow-changing, unassimilating, but very useful laborers. And we shall welcome, and then quarrel over and with them, as we have done with their Irish predecessors