The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1877-02-15
LIFE IN CHINA.
From Lendon Society. /

Seven years is the traditional period
OF probation, apprenticeship, and trials
OF patience. If in seven years a man
can not learn a language, acquire q
trade, win a wife, or know a foreign
country, the probability is that he will
never succeed in doing so. M. Jules
Arene has performed the latter feat, as
tar as stay-at-home traveller can
Judge. He spent seven years in China,
spoke Chinese, and thereby became ui-
timately acquainted with the land Of
long pigtails and cramped ladies' feet,
OF the bamboo rod and the portable
pillory. He grew familiar with the
country of tea without sugar, of ivory
sticks which, held 'twixt forefnger ard
thumb, serve instead of fork and spoon; !;
where you treat every stranger you
meet as your elder brother, and where
to ask your shoemaker's address you
must say, "In what noble palace do
you dwellp" where creditor can ex-
ercise Shylock's right to pay himself
with bit of his debtors fesh-a capi-
tai lesson for fraudulent bankrupts /;
and where the debtor Cutting off his
own nose to be revenged of his face)
will be even with his creditor by hang
ing himself at said creditors door.
He found, moreover, that this distant
land was not so wonderfully strange
after all that husbands are in the habit
of loving their wives, and mammas of
thinking their lemon-hued, oblique-
eyed babies pretty; that son will
spend his last tael to buy his fathers
coffin, and will follow the sumptuous
funeral, walking backwards in sack
cloth; that young ladies are not indif-
ferent to handsome young men, and
that young men make great point of
their future brides moral qualities /;
that life there is struggle at least as
much as elsewhere, only they earn their
rice instead of earning their bread and
that the country is made neither of
lacquer nor porcelain, but of ordinary
vulgar clay.
Strangers everywhere 60 to the play
as naturally as rills run into rivers. M.
Arene is conducted by his mandarin
language master, the lettered Ii, to an
afternoons amusement at a Pekin thea
ter. They reach a lane resounding with
the cries of actors, the din of gongs, the
wailing of fiddles, the bleating of glass
trumpets and bamboo flutes, with
castanets and tambourines attempting
to mark a sort of measure. They
take their seats at a little table in front
of the stage, in a wooden gallery which
runs round large quadrangular
room. Politeness prevents the for
eigner from showing distaste for the
deafening hubbub. No female is there,
either in gallery or pit. At Pekin they
don't go to the theater; it would SHOCK
morality, although in the provinces the
thing is common. At Canton and
Shanghai fashionable ladies arrive
dressed, according to the season, in
light stuffs or in furs, with natural flow.
ers stuck in their hair, languidly lean.
ing on couple of servant-maids, who
carry their water-pipe or their fan.
Young apprentice actors go from Ia
BILE to table Offering water-pipe tt
honorable merchants, or drinking with
them cup of Chao Chin negus. II
elegant theatrical costumes, with am
pie red trousers, wide hanging sleeves
and two long peacock's feathers stuck
like antenn9, on each side of theil
golden head-dress, they resemble bright
and shining beetles. Through habit
of the stage, they maintain in theil
gait, attitudes, and gestures something
measured and affected, but nevertheless
graceful.
"Those young gentlemen" says Lii
with the hearty Chinese laugh, which i.
nothing but long and noisy inhalation
of the breath, "must have received ,
particularly distinguished literary edu
cation"
The music ceases. They buy pro
gramme written with. a hair pencil
The performance is drama sung b,
historical personages-" Ia. tchir
tche," (The Golden Branch Beaten, i. e
The Emperor's daughter well drubbed)
Enter the male domestics of the palace
uttering little shrill feminine cries
Then comes the Emperor, with Ions
white beard, and covered with a rob-
embroidered with jewels, softly sing
ing, "The golden crow appears in tn,
east, the greensboro rabbit has sunk il
the west, the bell of the brilliant SUI
has sounded thrice" in common par
lance, "The sun has risen, the mool
has set, and the Emperor has come ou
of his apartments. Formerly a bel
sounded three times when the Empero
left his private rooms.
The Empress arrives, 81 have lef
the blazing sun, and reach the COLDER
palace to find the ten thousand years .
that is, '' am come from my chambe
to the throne-room to have talk will
the Emperor
"What request have you to make?'
''Your rapid courser," (read "son
in-law'O, 'sfor | know not what motive
has dared to strike our daughter bru